The 9 best Blu-rays and 4K UHD releases of March 2023

March is overflowing with underrated movies lovingly ported to Blu-ray and 4K UHD. One of my top 10 movies – a pop-rock musical set in an alternate reality New York – comes out mid-month and is bookended by fantastic retro horror, a rarely-printed John Woo movie, a time capsule from the s 90s, and a 2000s Hitchcockian cult classic.

In an effort to help you find your next favorite discs, we’re compiling a list of our highly anticipated releases each month. We haven’t had the opportunity to try these discs yet, but if you want the formal thumbs up, don’t worry – in the coming months we’ll be starting our ongoing list of the best Blu-rays and 4K UHD discs of the year . But each of these releases has potential and comes from a label we’ve enjoyed in the past.

Our most anticipated March 2023 tranche

Streets of fire (4K UHD + Blu-ray) – March 14, 2023

Walter Hill’s lost masterpiece Streets of fire doesn’t feel so lost nowadays. Thanks to a few limited Blu-ray releases, more regular appearances in repertory cinemas, and a skyrocketing reputation on Letterboxd, the 1980s pop-rock musical has achieved the full cult-classic status it long deserved.

The movie has Diane Lane singing rock anthems and Willem Dafoe having an attack I can only describe as rockabilly leather kink. But the reason to watch this movie over and over is the first 10 minutes of guitar destruction – and the last. Hill shoots concerts as well as the best music documentaries, transforming your living room into the best place in the house.

This disc, from Shout Select, contains two feature length documentaries and a bunch of other retro featurettes like music videos and on-air promos.

The major Blu-ray and 4K UHD releases for March 2023

Image: Lion Gate

John Wick 1-3 Stash Book Collection – February 28, 2023

The John Wick movies are great and I can’t wait for the fourth one later in March. Until then, we’ve got this awesome new steelbook set to help us out, in a “stash book” box that’s a replica of Wick’s own from John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. The book looks like a huge Russian tome, with religious iconography on the cover and a few pages of text inside. Once you’ve flipped through enough, you’ll find three steelbooks hidden inside, along with a few photos of John’s lost loved ones.

The set includes all three films, behind-the-scenes footage, deleted scenes, and audio commentary from Keanu Reeves and director Chad Stahelski. —Pete Volk

The house that screamed (Blu-ray) – March 7, 2023

I had never heard of this movie before I popped it into my Blu-ray player; now i am a convert. What appears to be a tacky schoolgirl-in-distress thriller is actually a surprisingly understated mix of Hitchcockian psychosexual mystery and gothic horror.

Director Narciso Ibáñez Serrador creates a 19th-century French boarding school that feels like the most beautiful and coziest prison. Doors and windows are always locked. Girls close to the headmistress serve as spies and enforcers. And the few men who occasionally have a reason to visit the grounds all have questionable motives, which is a problem when girls start disappearing.

Phenomena (4K UHD + Blu-ray) – March 14, 2023

Dario Argento’s proto-slasher has a surprising amount in common with The house that screamed: the European boarding school for girls, the unnerving local men and the new girl who seems all too aware that things are going very, very wrong. Despite all the similarities, the differences are just as great: Jennifer Connelly plays the daughter of an internationally famous actor, she befriends a hyper-intelligent chimpanzee and she communicates telepathically with a swarm of flies the size of a cloud.

This special edition contains three parts of the film. I recommend starting with the longest cut, the Italian version. The shortest cut, the Creepers version, removes so much from the film that you ironically have to see other versions to understand it.

Image: DreamWorks images

The Prince of Egypt (4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital Copy) – March 14, 2023

In 2018, we spoke with director Brenda Chapman for The Prince of Egypt‘s 20th anniversary. “We tried to make movies that didn’t feel like they were just for kids,” said Chapman. “We wanted to make films that everyone would see. We wanted to say that we can do a drama in animation and it’s not just where parents drop their kids off at the theater like they used to, or just use them as babysitters. We wanted to do something that reached more adults.”

The result, DreamWorks Animation’s musical adaptation of the Book of Exodus, is a beautiful and daring epic condensed into a blisteringly fast 99 minutes. Hopefully this 4K release will give it the visual and audio fidelity attention it deserves.

The set includes a making-of, a few featurettes, and director’s commentary with Chapman.

Image: Criterion Collection

Last hurray for chivalry (Blu-ray) – March 14, 2023

John Woo finally returns to the Criterion Collection, albeit not with the movies fans would expect. Criterion DVDs of Woo’s iconic combination, Hard boiled And The murderer, have been sold out for years. Rather than moving them to modern formats, Criterion has produced a surprise 2K digital restoration of Woo’s landmark film Last hurray for chivalry. The drama precedes Woo’s gun-heavy action films, eschewing them for swords, and was hard to watch in the US – let alone in high definition.

The Criterion Edition includes an audio interview with Woo and a brand new localization of English subtitles.

Image: DreamWorks images

Red eye (4K UHD + Blu-ray + Digital Copy) – March 21, 2023

After launching the Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream series, director Wes Craven made a short detour to thrillers with the delightfully watchable Red eye. While on a cross-country flight, Cillian Murphy kidnaps Rachel McAdams by threatening to kill her father, Brian Cox. The only way out: political assassination!

The two-disc set features new commentary from the film’s editor, Patrick Lussier; a few new featurettes; a making of; a gag reel; and an old commentary by the late Wes Craven himself.

Party girl (Blu-ray) – March 28, 2023

My first job after college was as a PA on a canceled sitcom. Every day I took the subway to the Queens office, packed the writers’ snack room, and cleaned up after Parker Posey’s small but digestively active dog. At first I hated it. How inhuman. But over time I realized something very important about this performance. A privilege, if you will. I got to see Parker Posey at work, both behind the scenes and in front of the camera. And dear reader, she is just as amazing and confusing as any of her characters. Years later I lived in a small apartment in her neighborhood. We often ate brunch at the same place. She left her purse there three times and I gave it back to her, and each time she said, “Oh, thank you! How did I forget That?”

Why did I run into Parker Posey so often? Lower Manhattan operates according to its own cosmic laws! That is, in part, the point of this film.

Anyway, Party girl is the ultimate Parker Posey movie and a contender for the most ’90s movie about celluloid. It’s like Girls through the lens of Gen X. I love it and am so glad it’s getting a promising limited edition Blu-ray. Finally I can watch the awesome costume design in HD.

Violent Streets: The Umberto Lenzi/Tomas Milian Collection (Blu-ray) – March 28, 2023

I’ve never seen a crime movie as unashamedly brutal and nasty as Umberto Lenzi’s Almost human. While most genre entries focus on the detective, Lenzi plays most of this pitch-black film in the shadow of sociopath Giulio Sacchi (played by Tomas Milian). Sacchi stinks like a petty thief, so he makes the bold decision to go straight to the crime boss instead. Turns out that’s not too hard for a soulless, shameless killer. Milian’s take on Sacchi is terrifying, echoing Pinkie in Graham Greene’s Brighton Rockand seemingly laid the groundwork visually and stylistically for De Niro’s Travis Bickle Cab driverwhich would debut two years after this film.

contain violent streets Almost human, along with four additional collaborations between the director and actor, a few commentaries, more than a dozen interviews, a few soundtrack CDs, and more. It is an excellent access to the Poliziotteschi/Euro crime subgenre. Just be prepared to be shocked.