Scream VI, The Last Of Us, and Sisu lead July's best Blu-ray and 4K UHD releases

Available July 4

Just in time for Discovery Channel’s annual Shark Week is the 4K UHD debut of Jaws 2, the first and, to date, best sequel to Jaws. Jaws 2 features returning actors Roy Scheider, Lorraine Gary, and Murray Hamilton as their characters deal with a new great white terrorizing Amity Island. The 45th anniversary edition of Jaws 2 features a previously restored 4K version now with HDR. There is also a limited edition SteelBook edition available exclusively at Best Buy. Legacy bonus features include deleted scenes, a making-of featurette, “Jaws 2: A Portrait By Actor Keith Gordon,” “John Williams: The Music Of Jaws 2,” and more.

Available July 11

Director Martin Scorsese’s After Hours is a black-comedy thriller about a Manhattan office worker (Griffin Dunne) who heads downtown and hooks up with a mysterious woman (Rosanna Arquette) for the wildest night of his life. Criterion Collection is putting out a new 4K restoration of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR. Bonus features include a new interview of Scorsese by writer Fran Lebowitz, a legacy documentary about the making of the movie, a new featurette with costume designer Rita Ryack and production designer Jeffrey Townsend, deleted scenes, and an essay by critic Sheila O’Malley.

Available July 11

Sisu is an action-thriller set in Finland toward the end of World War II and follows a gold prospector and legendary ex-soldier (Jorma Tommila) who is being hunted by a Nazi death squad. Sisu is what happens when you put Rambo, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Inglourious Basterds in a blender ... and that’s a wonderful thing. This hyperviolent revenge fantasy is being released by Lionsgate on both Blu-ray and 4K UHD. Bonus features include “Indestructible: Making Sisu” and “Pushing The Boundaries Of Reality: The Visual Effects Of Sisu.”

Available July 11

Scream VI is the first installment in the long-running slasher franchise to not star Neve Campbell as final girl Sidney Prescott, who sat this film out due to a pay dispute. It’s a surprisingly solid entry despite her absence. In the sixth chapter, the survivors of 2022’s Scream—including sisters Sam (Melissa Barrer) and Tara (Jenna Ortega)—move to New York City and are terrorized by a new Ghostface killer. This leaves Courteney Cox as the only actor who has appeared in every Scream movie since 1996. Scream VI has been available on digital and streaming for some time now, but Paramount is stepping things up with a 4K UHD SteelBook release in addition to the standard 4K UHD and Blu-ray. The discs are loaded with killer bonus features, including the audio commentaries “Death Comes To The City,” “The Faces Of Death” (about the movie’s “core four”), “More Meta Than Meta,” “Bloodbath At A Bodega,” “An Apartment To Die For,” “The Night Train To Terror,” a retrospective on the previous Scream movies, and a gag reel.

Available July 11

Hereditary director Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid stars Joaquin Phoenix as the titular paranoid man who confronts some of his deepest fears as he journeys home to attend his mother’s funeral. The surrealist horror-comedy also features Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, and Patti LuPone. Lionsgate is releasing the movie on Blu-ray and DVD with at least one bonus feature: an in-depth feature documentary titled “Finally Home: Making Beau Is Afraid.”

Available July 11

Tis the season for slasher movies set at summer camps, which makes it the perfect time for Shout Factory to release a 4K UHD Collector’s Edition of The Burning. This cult film about a horribly burned camp caretaker named Cropsey who seeks revenge for his disfigurement after a prank gone awry features the movie debuts of Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter, and Fisher Stevens. The legacy bonus features are ported over from the previous Blu-ray release, including audio commentaries, a look at the film’s makeup effects by Tom Savini, an interview with Cropsey actor Lou David, behind-the-scenes footage, and several more interviews with cast and crew.

Available July 11

Richard A. Colla’s Battlestar Galactica starring Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch, and Dirk Benedict inspired the subsequent 1970s TV series as well as the popular 2004 reboot series. The plot involves a lone battlestar that is humanity’s last hope against the Cylons, who are trying to exterminate all humans in the Twelve Colonies. Universal is releasing the fan-favorite sci-fi flick on regular 4K UHD as well as a Best Buy SteelBook exclusive. Aside from a digital code, there don’t seem to be any bonus features, so superfans will want to splurge on the SteelBook to at least get some superior packaging.

Available July 18

Hugo, starring Asa Butterfield, was Martin Scorsese’s first film shot in 3D and it’s a love letter to the art of moviemaking. The film about an orphan living in a Paris train station in the 1930s is getting a limited edition 4K UHD debut from Arrow. The combo pack features the movie on 4K UHD, a Blu-ray with both the 2D and 3D versions, and a third bonus disc with extras such as new interviews with filmmakers and film historians, a featurette on Georges Melies and his impact on cinema, a visual essay titled “Melies At The Time Of Hugo,” and five legacy featurettes on the making of Hugo. The limited edition set also comes packaged with a double-sided fold-out poster and a collectible booklet.

Available July 18

Making its 4K UHD debut from Warner Bros. is the classic period drama East Of Eden starring James Dean in one of his only three film roles. Directed by Elia Kazan and based on the novel of the same name by John Steinbeck, East Of Eden was named one of the 400 best films of all time by the American Film Institute. The movie has been restored by Warner Bros. and presented in HDR for its 4K UHD debut. The only extra besides a digital copy is an audio commentary by late film scholar Richard Schickel.

Available July 18

If you don’t have HBO or Max and somehow missed the phenomenon that is the post-apocalyptic drama The Last Of Us, the first season starring Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey is coming to 4K UHD and Blu-ray. The release is packed with bonus features, including “The Last Of Us: Stranger Than Fiction,” a featurette on adapting the TV series from the video game, “From Levels To Live Action,” several making-of featurettes, and nine “Inside The Episode” featurettes. All the extras will help distract you from the fact that we still have a bit of a wait until season two.

Available July 25

Brad Pitt plays a U.N. investigator trying to find the source of a zombie apocalypse in Marc Forster’s World War Z, based upon the novel by Max Brooks. For the film’s 10th anniversary, Shout Factory is releasing a three-disc combo pack, including the 4K UHD debut of the theatrical cut on disc one. Disc two is a Blu-ray with the theatrical cut and all of the bonus features, including a four-part documentary on the making of the film as well as several behind-the-scenes legacy featurettes. Disc three is a Blu-ray of the extended, unrated cut of the movie, which we wish would have been on 4K UHD as well.

Available July 25

When people think of director Wes Craven, the first films that come to mind are usually A Nightmare On Elm Street and Scream. The late horror master also wrote and directed Swamp Thing, a sci-fi dark comedy starring Ray Wise and Adrienne Barbeau that became a cult classic and spawned a 1989 sequel. For the 4K UHD debut of Swamp Thing, MVD has included a 4K restoration of both the theatrical PG version and the coveted unrated international version. Extras include audio commentaries, “Tales From The Swamp” with Barbeau, “That Swamp Thing” featuring Swamp Thing creator Len Wein, several extensive photo galleries, and some making-of and behind-the-scenes legacy featurettes.