Mortal Death Audio

More than a quarter of a century after his death, director Mario Bava remains one of international cinema’s most controversial icons. Today his influence — marked by stunning visuals, daring sexuality and shocking violence — can still be seen in the works of Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, Tim Burton, Dario Argento and countless others in a legacy that extends far beyond the horror genre. This collection brings together 5 landmark movies from the first half of Bava’s career — encompassing the original giallo, a bold Viking epic, and his three gothic horror masterpieces — featuring new transfers, original European versions, and exclusive featurettes to create the definitive celebration of one of the most important filmmakers of all time.

The Moment of Truth (Il momento della verità), from director Francesco Rosi, is a visceral plunge into the life of a famous torero - played by real-life bullfighting legend Miguel Mateo, known as Miguelín. Charting his rise and fall with a single-minded focus on the bloody business at hand, the film is at once gritty and operatic, placing the viewer right in the thick of the ring’s action, as close to death as possible. Like all of the great Italian truth seeker’s films, this is not just an electrifying drama but also a profound and moving inquiry into a violent world—and it’s perhaps the greatest bullfighting movie ever made.

Prince Hector and his young brother Paris negotiate peace between Troy and Sparta. Paris has fallen in love with Helen, the wife of king Menelaus, and smuggles her to Troy. Infuriated, Menelaus vows revenge. Menelaus approaches his brother Agamemnon, a king of Mycenae who has conquered every army of Greece, and now commands them.

Tales of love, sex, power, betrayal, heinous crimes, unbearable separations, atrocious revenge, and metamorphoses - the poetic force of the myths has crossed the centuries. This series sets out to recount these ancient stories using animations created especially for the occasion, and illustrations chosen from the entire history of art.

Shocking, outrageous, and poetic, Jigoku (Hell, a.k.a. The Sinners of Hell) is the most innovative creation from Nobuo Nakagawa, the father of the Japanese horror film. After a young theology student flees a hit-and-run accident, he is plagued by both his own guilt-ridden conscience and a mysterious, diabolical doppelgänger. But all possible escape routes lead straight to hell - literally. In the gloriously gory final third of the film, Nakagawa offers up his vision of the underworld in a tour de force of torture and degradation. A striking departure from traditional Japanese ghost stories, Jigoku, with its truly eye-popping (and -gouging) imagery, created aftershocks that are still reverberating in contemporary world horror cinema.

Tales of love, sex, power, betrayal, heinous crimes, unbearable separations, atrocious revenge, and metamorphoses - the poetic force of the myths has crossed the centuries. This series sets out to recount these ancient stories using animations created especially for the occasion, and illustrations chosen from the entire history of art.

When Love Speaks is a collection of Shakespearean love sonnets as read by famous actors, and songs inspired by Shakespeare’s love sonnets…

On April 14, 1912, just before midnight, the unsinkable Titanic struck an iceberg. In less than three hours, it had plunged to the bottom of the sea, taking with it 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers. A Night to Remember depicts the ship’s final hours in an unforgettable rendering of Walter Lord’s book of the same name. Now, aficionados of this terrific film can compare it to the facts with Criterion’s special edition, which features screen-specific commentary by Titanic experts Don Lynch and Ken Marschall.