Blu-ray and DVD Awards 2025 | The winners
On Thursday, June 26th in Piazzetta Pier Paolo Pasolini the winners of Il Cinema Ritrovato Blu-ray and DVD Awards 2025 were announced. The competition was open to DVDs and Blu-rays released between February 2024 and March 2025 of critically acclaimed films made before 1995.
The jury, composed by Lorenzo Codelli, Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, Philippe Garnier, Pamela Hutchinson, Miguel Marías and Paolo Mereghetti (president) assigned the following awards.
Before starting the award ceremony, the Jury wished to highlight the extraordinary work of two DVD and Blu-ray publishers over the years. They have become obligatory points of reference for every “rediscovered” cinema enthusiast: defying market fluctuations and the repercussions of the pandemic. The French company Carlotta and the American company Criterion have never failed in their commitment to defending quality cinema, which they have been able to offer in exemplary editions, in terms of philological correctness, precision of restoration work and wealth of documentation. Once again this year, two of their boxes have been awarded by the Jury, but here we would first like to pay tribute to their commitment and perseverance.
Best Box Set
HITCHCOCK: THE BEGINNING (StudioCanal UK)
— Blu-ray Box Set
For enthusiasts of British cinema, and fans of the master of suspense, this set has been a real cause for celebration. This is not just a collection of 10 early Hitchcock films, including such triumphs as Blackmail in both sound and silent versions, as well as lesser known gems. This 11-disc set offers the films in new, beautiful restorations, with an exceptional suite of extra material including commentaries and interviews featuring experts such as Charles Barr. And not least, new scores for the silent film by leading silent cinema accompanists, many of whom perform here at Il Cinema Ritrovato such as Neil Brand and Antonio Coppola. In particular we would like to mention Stephen Horne’s exceptional orchestral score for The Manxman. Hitchcock: The Beginning offers an exemplary approach to early curating the work of a key director in the history of cinema. (Pamela Hutchinson)
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Best Special Features
COFFRET JEAN EUSTACHE (Carlotta) — Blu-ray + DVD
The Carlotta Box Set finally brings together the complete works of Jean Eustache, including his shorts and medium-length films, in a new and extraordinary restoration in 2 and especially 4K, but accompanies it with more than two and a half hours of archive material (cut scenes, afterwords, trailers) along with a comprehensive 160-page book featuring interviews with the director, critical essays, and film projects. A truly landmark edition. (Paolo Mereghetti)
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Best Rediscovery of a Forgotten Film
OUSMANE SEMBÈNE: THREE REVOLUTIONARY FILMS (The Criterion Collection) — Blu-ray Box Set
I was fortunate to be able to watch Ousmane Sembene films at the Il Cinema Ritrovata festival in Bologna. It would have been very difficult for me to have seen them otherwise. In my opinion the Ousmane Sembene box set has great significance as it beautifully presents and gives access to three important works of one of Africa’s most influential cultural figures who made films in Africa for an African audience. These films, rooted in African tradition and culture, were powerful critiques of colonialism and postcolonial African society and had difficulty being screened even when they were released and were in real danger of being forgotten. This box set is an important step in making sure these films stay alive and will be a great discovery of the work of a great artist for generations to come. (Shivendra Singh Dungarpur)
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Best Single Film Release
A BRIDGE TOO FAR di Richard Attemborough (Imprint Films) — Blu-ray
With this Box Set, the Australian company Imprint has built a veritable monument to the celebrated American producer, distributor and “showman” Joseph E. Levine. In his successful international career, Levine was involved in approximately 500 films: classics of Italian neorealism, works by ambitious auteurs and millionaire blockbusters. Alongside the three hours of the war epic A Bridge Too Far, presented in 4K/Ultra HD and with commentary by the great screenwriter William Goldman, the countless extras offered on the Blu-ray disc allow us to delve into all the meanderings of this mega-production. (Lorenzo Codelli)
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Best Film (The Peter von Bagh Award)
ALL THE HAUNTS BE OURS: A COMPENDIUM OF FOLK HORROR, VOL.2 (Severin Films) — Blu-ray Box Set
Whatever one feels about horror, ghost, or zombie flicks, one can only admire the gang at Severin for curating this ambitious anthology with the same care and seriousness as Criterion or Studio Canal applies to classic cinema, but with a good measure of nuttiness added. Peter Von Bagh would have loved this adventurous collection which runs the gamut from Japanese ghost film to lycanthropy in Lapland to British Seventies biker schlock (complete with stone circles and a ghostly George Sanders, three months from suicide). There is a great black and white Estonian horror film (Rainer Sarnet’s 2017 November), lame Sixties folk-singing ghost flicks, and films from many countries not often mentioned here or anywhere. All this was wonderfully packaged and curated under the supervision of Kier-la Janisse, author of the unforgettable book House of Psychotic Women. (Philippe Garnier)
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PERSONAL CHOICES
Lorenzo Codelli
MICHAEL POWELL: EARLY WORKS (BFI) — Blu-ray
Back in 1978 I was lucky enough to attend the BFI’s National Film Theatre’s historic retrospective devoted to Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. I remember them always sitting next to each other in the back row. It seems to me that only a couple of the 23 “quota quickies” directed as a young man by Powell alone between 1931 and 1936 were screened then. This precious Blu-ray published by the BFI now collects five of them, out of the thirteen found so far. Eminent British historians such as Ian Christie, who coordinated the 1978 event, and our own Pamela Hutchinson, analyse in the booklet Powell’s premonitions and obsessions concealed in low-budget melos and thrillers. Powell can also be seen as a 22-year-old comic actor in the two hilarious shorts Riviera Revels, filmed in 1927 by Harry Lachman on the French Riviera. (Lorenzo Codelli)
Pamela Hutchinson & Philippe Garnier:
THE SMALL BACK ROOM di Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger (StudioCanal UK) — Blu-ray
Can there be such a thing as an underrated Powell and Pressburger film? This tense, terrifically photographed film contains sharp sexual chemistry from Kathleen Byron and David Farrar, tragedy and impeccable suspense during the famous bomb detonation sequence. This beautiful release from Studiocanal presents the film in a gleaming restoration with a loving selection of extra features contributed by experts, including Kevin Macdonald’s documentary The Making of an Englishman, tracing the life of his grandfather Emeric Pressburger. (Pamela Hutchinson)
Miguel Marías
ÉL di Luis Buñuel (Films du Camélia) — Blu-ray
Luis Buñuel’s early Mexican masterpiece of mad jealousy, which is still, long after his death, one of the tops of his work, and probably the most classical, and a probable influence on Alfred Hitchcock. (Miguel Marías)
Shivendra Singh Dungarpur
SHICHININ NO SAMURAI di Akira Kurosawa (The Criterion Collection) — UHD + Blu-ray
Seven Samurai is a film that has a deep influence on me. It was great to see a new 4K digital restoration now available on Blu-ray of this Akira Kurosawa masterpiece beautifully produced by The Criterion Collection that includes such fantastic special features, especially the two-hour long conversation between Kurosawa and Oshima and an interview with Toshiro Mifune. This would be my personal choice.
Paolo Mereghetti
VERMISAT di Mario Brenta (Penny Video) — DVD
Italian cinema often conceals small great treasures that would risk being forgotten if it were not for the commendable work of a few passionate labels, such as Penny Video, which today presents Mario Brenta’s first work, Vermisat, a truly “non-standard” work that, by telling the parable of an outcast, also knows how to speak of society’s violence against the last ones and offer the example of a rigorous and highly personal cinema. (Paolo Mereghetti)