Guard your wallets: Barnes & Noble has announced that all Criterion DVDs and Blu-rays are on sale this month, the longest sale the company has done. With over a thousand titles available, the bookseller has announced that their entire line of Criterion Collection releases is fifty-percent off this month as part of their summer sale. Along with standard releases, the sale also includes new editions of films like Bringing Up Baby, Deep Cover, La piscine, Working Girls, Memories of Murder, and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Also included in the sale is Criterion’s new World of Wong Kar Wai collector’s set, which gathers together the films of the prolific Hong Kong filmmaker.
Many Criterion edition films have been slashed from over forty dollars to a cool $19.99, with the prices of special, over two hundred dollar box sets being brought down to a more affordable price range. This is exciting news for film buffs and Criterion collectors, who can now look to add more of their favorite films to their collections for a significantly cheaper price.
The Criterion Collection was founded in 1984 by Robert Stein, Aleen Stein, and Joe Medjuck, with the express focus of licensing and reprinting classic and contemporary films that have had a significant impact on film history. The company serves the public as well as academic libraries, and has been responsible for standardizing the practice of film restoration, as well as normalizing commentary tracks and bonus features to help audiences better understand the significance of classic film. They are also responsible for introducing the letterbox format, which preserves older films’ original aspect ratios, while also formatting them for modern televisions.
Criterion has produced and distributed over a thousand special editions of classic films in every format from VHS and Betamax to DVD and Blu-ray. They also offer an online streaming service, where interested viewers can watch all of the films currently included in the collection.
You can view all the films available in their summer sale, which runs through August 1, on Barnes & Noble’s website.