Why So Blu?

Tim Burton, Spike Lee, Howard Hawks, and More Coming to The Criterion Collection December 2025

Coming in December: Return to Reason, four swirling surrealist dreams from Man Ray, set to an ethereal score by SQÜRL; Salaam Bombay!, Mira Nair’s kaleidoscopic portrait of Bombay’s teeming street life; Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, an eccentric 1980s pop-culture comedy touchstone directed by Tim Burton; and David Byrne’s American Utopia, Spike Lee’s ecstatic documentary capturing the transcendent power of song. Plus: His Girl Friday, directed by Howard Hawks, one of the fastest, funniest, and most quotable films ever made; and I Know Where I’m Going!, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s windswept enchantment in the Scottish Hebrides—now on 4K UHD.

–

HIS GIRL FRIDAY

 

1940 • 92 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • 1.37:1 aspect ratio 

 

One of the fastest, funniest, and most quotable films ever made, His Girl Friday stars Rosalind Russell as reporter Hildy Johnson, a standout among cinema’s powerful women. Hildy is matched in force only by her conniving but charismatic editor and ex-husband, Walter Burns (played by the peerless Cary Grant), who dangles the chance for her to scoop her fellow news writers with the story of an impending execution in order to keep her from hopping the train that’s supposed to take her to Albany and a new life as a housewife. When adapting Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur’s smash-hit play The Front Page, director Howard Hawks had the inspired idea of turning star reporter Hildy Johnson into a woman, and the result is an immortal mix of hard-boiled newsroom setting with ebullient remarriage comedy. Also presented here is a restoration of the 1931 film The Front Page, Lewis Milestone’s famous pre-Code adaptation of the same material.

 

4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration of His Girl Friday, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack 
• One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and two Blu-rays with the film, The Front Page, and the special features 
• 4K digital restoration of The Front Page, made from a recently discovered print of director Lewis Milestone’s preferred version, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Interview with film scholar David Bordwell 
• Archival interviews with His Girl Friday director Howard Hawks 
• Featurettes from 1999 and 2006 about Hawks and actor Rosalind Russell 
• Radio adaptation of His Girl Friday from 1940 
• Program about the restoration of The Front Page
• Program about playwright and screenwriter Ben Hecht 
• Radio adaptations of the play The Front Page from 1937 and 1946 
• Trailers 
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing 
• Plus: Essays on His Girl Friday and The Front Page by film critics Farran Smith Nehme and Michael Sragow

 

Available December 2, 2025

 

RETURN TO REASON: FOUR FILMS BY MAN RAY

 

1923–1929/2023 • 70 minutes • Black & White/Color • French intertitles with optional English subtitles • 1.33:1 aspect ratio 

 

The swirling surrealist dreams of Man Ray are high-water marks of 1920s avant-garde cinema, a nexus of cryptic themes, dark eroticism, and playful abstraction. Seemingly plucked from an unconscious realm, these four shorts—Le retour à la raison, Emak bakia, L’étoile de mer, and Les mystères du château du dé—find the visionary artist experimenting with the limitless possibilities of montage, superimposition, distortion, and even the application of objects directly onto celluloid. Set here to an ethereal score by the Jim Jarmusch–Carter Logan collaboration SQÜRL, these cine-poems are optical carnival rides that surprise, delight, and unsettle with each tantalizing frame.

 

BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restorations of all four films, featuring a score by SQÜRL presented in 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio 
• Interview with Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan, who form the avant-rock band SQÜRL 
• Concert from 2023 featuring SQÜRL performing its semi-improvised score to Man Ray’s films
• Trailer
• PLUS: An essay by author Mark Polizzotti

 

Available December 2, 2025

 

I KNOW WHERE I’M GOING!

 

1945 • 92 minutes • Black & White • Monaural • 1.37:1 aspect ratio 

 

Love flourishes in the Scottish Hebrides in this windswept enchantment from British cinema’s most passionate visionaries, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. “I know where I’m going!” declares headstrong, upwardly mobile Joan Webster (Wendy Hiller) en route to her marriage to a wealthy industrialist—until her carefully laid plans are blown away by a raging storm that leaves her stranded on an island off the Scottish coast with a dashing naval officer (Roger Livesey). Shot in ethereal black and white that enhances the almost mystical air of its setting—a folkloric world where legends and curses still hold sway—this beloved romance is one of cinema’s most stirring expressions of the eternal conflict between the head and the heart.

 

SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration by the BFI National Archive and The Film Foundation, supervised by filmmaker Martin Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker Powell, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Audio commentary featuring film historian Ian Christie
• Restoration demonstration with an introduction by Scorsese and commentary by Schoonmaker Powell
• Behind-the-scenes stills narrated by Schoonmaker Powell
• “I Know Where I’m Going!” Revisited, a 1994 documentary by Mark Cousins
• Photo-essay by writer Nancy Franklin exploring the locations used in the film
• Home movies from one of director Michael Powell’s Scottish expeditions, narrated by Schoonmaker Powell
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by critic Imogen Sara Smith

 

Available December 9, 2025

 

SALAAM BOMBAY!

 

1988 • 114 minutes • Color • Monaural • In Hindi with English subtitles • 1.85:1 aspect ratio

 

A kaleidoscopic portrait of Bombay’s teeming street life, Mira Nair’s first narrative feature, Salaam Bombay!, combines a documentary-like sense of place with a poignant exploration of everyday resilience. After the young Krishna (Shafiq Syed) is cast out by his family, he makes his way to the city, where he encounters love, friendship, and tragedy in the face of extreme poverty. Drawing compellingly naturalistic performances from a cast consisting largely of children she met on the streets, Nair creates an intimate human drama that is by turns heartbreaking and life-affirming, an ode to childhood that overflows with colorful urban chaos and a deep compassion for those who live on society’s margins.

 

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Mira Nair, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film
• and special features
• Audio commentaries featuring Nair and director of photography Sandi Sissel
• New conversation between Nair and composer L. Subramaniam
• Archival interviews with screenwriter Sooni Taraporevala and actors Aneeta Kanwar, Bernard Sissel, Shafiq Syed, and Hansa Vithal
• Program about the Salaam Baalak Trust and its mission to support the street children of Mumbai
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by film critic Devika Girish

 

Available December 9, 2025

 

PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE

 

1985 • 91 minutes • Color • 2.0 surround • 1.85:1 aspect ratio 

 

One of the most eccentric comedies of the 1980s, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure is a pop-culture touchstone that helped make a manic oddball named Pee-wee Herman—the creation and alter ego of actor-comedian Paul Reubens—into an icon for outsiders of all ages. It also established the distinctive style of director Tim Burton, whose eye-popping visual sense is already on full display in this, his first feature film. Following the gleefully irreverent Pee-wee as he embarks on a road trip to recover his beloved stolen bicycle, the movie unfolds with the antic invention of a live-action cartoon, combining a gallery of memorably wacky characters, colorful, kitschy Americana, and surreal flights of fancy into a joyously uninhibited paean to creativity and the spirit of childhood.

 

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Tim Burton, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• Alternate 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• Audio commentary by Burton and actor-cowriter Paul Reubens
• Audio commentary by composer Danny Elfman (over a music-only soundtrack to the film)
• New interview with Burton and actor-filmmaker Richard Ayoade
• New interviews with cowriter Michael Varhol, editor Billy Weber, production designer David L. Snyder, and producer Richard Abramson, conducted by critic Mark Olsen
• Interview from 2005 with Reubens
• Excerpts from the fortieth anniversary screening of the film presented by Nostalgic Nebula and hosted by comedian Dana Gould
• Deleted scenes
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• PLUS: An essay by radio and podcast host Jesse Thorn

 

Available December 16, 2025

 

DAVID BYRNE’S AMERICAN UTOPIA

 

2020 • 106 minutes • Color • 5.1 surround • 1.85:1 aspect ratio 

 

David Byrne meets America’s fractious political moment with the transcendent power of song in this ecstatic documentary of the Broadway adaptation of his acclaimed American Utopia tour. Captured with immersive immediacy by director Spike Lee, this uplifting spectacle interweaves twenty-one songs, both new and classic, with Byrne’s singular observations on the state of the nation—its perils, promises, and possibility for transformation. Choreographed by Annie-B Parson with the inventive minimalism that has become a signature of Byrne’s live performances, David Byrne’s American Utopia moves between moments of communal exuberance and hymnlike grace, making the case for music as an agent of protest, change, and above all, unity.

 

PRODUCER- AND DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• 4K digital master, supervised by director of photography Ellen Kuras, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
• In the 4K UHD edition: One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
• New documentary featuring Kuras, musician-producer David Byrne, dancer-vocalist Tendayi Kuumba, director Spike Lee, choreographer and musical stager Annie-B Parson, lighting designer Rob Sinclair, and bassist Bobby Wooten III
• Trailer
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing and English descriptive audio
• PLUS: An essay by critic K. Austin Collins and an appreciation by critic Jia Tolentino

 

Available December 16, 2025