Each month The A.V. Club does our part to keep you up to date on the best of what’s coming out on Blu-ray and 4K UHD, which is especially important as streaming services become less and less reliable homes for films worth watching. Despite plenty of regular versions of previously released special editions hitting the shelves in January, the only boutique really welcoming the new year in style is Criterion. January 2026’s Blu-ray and 4K releases include plenty of new additions from the Collection, as well as a few underappreciated updates and a hell of a new release. Read on and find films from Paul Thomas Anderson, Edward Yang, Michael Curtiz, Jonathan Glazer, and more.
The Mirror Crack’d 4K
Available January 6, 2026
One of the most underrated Agatha Christie adaptations ever made, 1980’s The Mirror Crack’d saw Bond helmsman Guy Hamilton follow the ’70s Christie mysteries Murder On The Orient Express and Death On The Nile with Angela Lansbury’s Miss Marple and a killer cast. The clash of Hollywood and small-town England is getting a new master from Kino Lorber, so aficionados don’t have to seek out the international version put out by Studio Canal.
Yi Yi 4K
Available January 13, 2026
Edward Yang’s sweeping multigenerational family drama is everything you’d hope for from a crown jewel of a movement. New Taiwan Cinema has countless great films, but Yi Yi (and this new restoration) so breathlessly captures the modern quirks and timeless relationships of life—for nearly three hours, all of which feel essential—that you can’t help but stand in awe of it as the credits roll. Yi Yi understands all the factors that make up a globalized life: weddings, funerals, McDonald’s. It’s Yang’s masterful final film, and probably the best it will ever look.
One Battle After Another 4K
Available January 20, 2026
One of the best movies of last year, Paul Thomas Anderson’s revolutionary comedy One Battle After Another comes home in 4K (though aspect ratio purists still won’t be able to replicate the experience of seeing this thing in IMAX, let alone in VistaVision). But let’s leave those arguments to the forums; Anderson’s raucous Thomas Pynchon adaptation looks as good as anything he’s made, and it’s one of his funniest films to boot. Warner Bros. is also being a little cagey about what specific special features will be included on the disc, but the standalone feature is good enough—any PTA bonus content is simply that, a bonus.
Captain Blood 4K
Available January 20, 2026
Want a quintessential, hit-all-the-high-points pirate-to-the-core pirate movie? Captain Blood has it all: Casablanca director Michael Curtiz before he had fully established himself in America; Errol Flynn in his first starring role; Olivia de Havilland before she was a screen legend. The vitality and heat between the leads is palpable, egged on by performers looking to break out and a majestic, Oscar-nominated score from Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Some of its battle footage was taken from the long, silent pirate epic The Sea Hawk, but the highlights are the human moments: The unfair punishment of Blood’s soon-to-be-mateys on the plantation; the ambush of unsuspecting Spaniards below deck; the blackmailing of ineffectual colony doctors; the joy that spreads across an Irishman’s face when he learns that King James II has been deposed. Captain Blood has swordfights, ship raids, and peg-legged ne’er-do-wells. But it also has the makings of two of Hollywood’s brightest stars, beaming in a drama filled with cheer and humor without ever leaving danger behind.
Birth 4K
Available January 27, 2026
Director Jonathan Glazer’s frigid second feature gets a facelift, isolating Nicole Kidman’s mourning widow in a sharp, cruel, odd New York filled with magic and death. That she’s joined by the 10-year-old reincarnation of her dead husband doesn’t make her any less lonely. It’s a very funny, very affecting, utterly sincere fairy tale, encased in ice by cinematographer Harris Savides. A new making-of doc and featurette on the film’s look will only make audiences appreciate the clean aesthetic of this unsettling curl of the monkey’s paw.
Ordinary People 4K
Available January 27, 2026
The Oscar-winning feature debut from the late Robert Redford, Ordinary People proved the movie star to be a clear-eyed dramatist with an actor’s touch—there’s a reason Timothy Hutton became the youngest Best Supporting Actor in Academy history. Hutton reflects on his experience making the movie in this edition’s new featurette, which also includes an interview with novelist Judith Guest among its special features. A personal film for Redford, whose own firstborn died from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, the grief-stricken Ordinary People was a redefining moment for both Redford as a filmmaker and Mary Tyler Moore as an actor.
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