The Film Stage's Holiday Gift Guide for 2025

      The holiday season has arrived, and whether you're searching for film-themed gifts or seeking some of the year's best offerings for yourself, we have a gift guide that caters to your needs. This guide features essential books on filmmaking, top selections from the Criterion Collection and other home-video labels, subscriptions, magazines, music, and more. Explore our recommendations below.

      **4K & Blu-ray Box Sets**

      An epic film collection makes the perfect gift, and 2025 was abundant with excellent box sets. From the Criterion Collection comes The Wes Anderson Archive: Ten Films, Twenty-Five Years, covering everything from Bottle Rocket to The French Dispatch, along with François Truffaut’s ambitious project The Adventures of Antoine Doinel, Edward Yang’s lesser-known but recently restored A Confucian Confusion, and Kurosawa’s samurai double feature Yojimbo and Sanjuro. Additionally, the Eclipse Series returns featuring Abbas Kiarostami’s early shorts and films.

      While Amazon/MGM navigate the future of James Bond, classic entries featuring Sean Connery have been released in a 4K UHD collection. The action genre also sees the release of John Woo and Tsui Hark’s A Better Tomorrow trilogy on 4K UHD. Other recommended box sets of 2025 include Blaxploitation Classics: Volume One and collections featuring Bette Davis and Judy Garland.

      Take a look at our selections of the finest individual film releases from this year below.

      **4K Ultra HD**

      - 28 Years Later

      - Altered States

      - Amadeus

      - Anora

      - Bang the Drum Slowly

      - Barry Lyndon

      - Black Bag

      - The Big Heat

      - Boogie Nights

      - Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia

      - The Brutalist

      - Carnal Knowledge

      - Catch Me If You Can

      - Choose Me

      - City on Fire

      - Crossing Delancey

      - Cruising

      - The Dead Zone

      - Drugstore Cowboy

      - Él

      - Eyes Wide Shut

      - Eyes Without a Face

      - Flow

      - Hard Boiled

      - Hearts of Darkness

      - High and Low

      - His Girl Friday

      - A History of Violence

      - Howards End

      - The Informant!

      - In the Mouth of Madness

      - I Know Where I’m Going!

      - Jean de Florette / Manon of the Spring

      - Killer of Sheep

      - The Killer

      - Minority Report

      - Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

      - The Mother and the Whore

      - Ms. 45

      - The Naked Gun

      - A New Leaf

      - The Nice Guys

      - Night of the Juggler

      - Night Moves

      - Nosferatu the Vampyre

      - One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

      - Panic Room

      - Perfect Blue

      - Performance

      - The Phoenician Scheme

      - Punch Drunk-Love

      - The Quick and the Dead

      - The Sacrifice

      - Salaam Bombay!

      - Shoeshine

      - Shin Godzilla

      - Se7en

      - Sinners

      - Sorcerer

      - Starman

      - Thief

      - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

      - Ugetsu

      - The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

      - The Wages of Fear

      - What Lies Beneath

      - Winchester ’73

      - You Can Count on Me

      **Blu-rays**

      - All We Imagine as Light

      - Compensation

      - Close Your Eyes

      - Dark Victory

      - Eephus

      - Familiar Touch

      - Female Perversions

      - Friendship

      - Hard Truths

      - Here

      - Juror #2

      - King Lear

      - Last Summer

      - Memoir of a Snail

      - Misericordia

      - The Shrouds

      - Splitsville

      - Vive L’Amour

      - Vulcanizadora

      - The Wind Will Carry Us

      - Universal Language

      **Books**

      Christopher Schobert, our resident book expert, has gathered his top filmmaking books from this year. Enjoy reading!

      **The Magic Hours: The Films and Hidden Life of Terrence Malick by John Bleasdale (University Press of Kentucky)**

      John Bleasdale’s *Magic Hours* is notably the first comprehensive biography of Terrence Malick, making it a vital release. This insightful work offers a profound exploration of cinema, highlighted by intriguing details such as the definitive account of the 1995 *Thin Red Line* table read, and insights into Malick's experiences and influences, including his relationship with his father and his love for philosophy and Texas. The book concludes at a time when anticipation surrounds the upcoming *The Way of the Wind,* an ambitious project by Malick.

      **Clint: The Man and His Movies by Shawn Levy (Mariner Books)**

      Clint Eastwood deserves a monumental biography, and Shawn Levy delivers with *The Man and His Movies.* This brisk account spans Eastwood's life