From Criterion to Arrow: the cult of movie collecting
There was a time when nearly everyone had a sizable collection of movies on DVD or VHS. As kids, nothing was more exciting than getting your hands on a physical copy of a film you’d been dying to see. Owning it meant you could watch it as many times as you wanted, whenever you wanted, without needing an internet connection. Plus, there was often the added thrill of bonus features like bloopers or deleted scenes.
Most people who grew up in the 1990s and 2000s will remember staring at the television screen as piracy adverts and trailers for upcoming movies played out, unable to be skipped, in eager anticipation. During this time, we had services like Blockbuster, LoveFilm, and Netflix DVD, which allowed people to rent DVDs and VHS tapes, too, an idea that would soon lead to the streaming service phenomenon.
Now, of course, most people use Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, NowTV and AppleTV to watch movies, or for those more interested in international and arthouse cinema, BFI Player and MUBI. While people are still buying DVDs, Blu-Rays, and even 4Ks, streaming services seem to be the dominant mode of movie-watching in the modern age. Their accessibility, value for money, and variety of titles allow them to triumph.
Yet, the popularity of boutique Blu-Rays doesn’t seem to be waning, a sign that the interest in physical media is still going strong. The Criterion Collection is easily the biggest specialist company making Blu-Rays, having first released a series of DVDs in 1998. In 2008, they released their first Blu-Ray, Chungking Express, marking the start of several thousand high-quality editions released by the company, which they consider the finest pieces of cinema.
Criterion’s appeal resides in its attention to detail and consideration for dedicated film fans, filling every release with special features that are actually worth watching or reading, like short films, exclusive interviews, essays, and audio commentary. Each film comes with gorgeous artwork and sometimes even a poster inside, making the price tag (a single film is typically between £15 and £23) much more worth it. Additionally, Criterion takes great pride in restoring films to their original glory, with one of the most striking examples being their restoration of Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. The company also offers boxsets for prestigious directors, like Agnes Varda, Ingmar Bergman and Wong Kar-wai, as well as film series, like the Before trilogy and Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales.
Evidently, film fans can trust Criterion to deliver high-quality editions of their favourite pictures, with the company ensuring that beloved classics and newer releases all get special treatment. With frequent sale seasons allowing buyers to bulk buy some of their most-wanted titles for a more reasonable price, it’s rare you’ll meet a self-confessed cinephile who doesn’t own at least a few Criterions.
The company also has a streaming service, too, helping them to expand their business even further, although their physical copies are the main selling point. To attract even more customers, their YouTube channel offers a series where celebrities, typically actors or directors, are allowed to enter the Criterion Closet and pick out any titles they like and discuss their brilliance. Criterion knows its audience, and the combination of their marketing techniques and the genuine care it puts into its releases makes it a champion of the home video market.
They’re not the only company releasing collector’s editions, though. Arrow Films, an independent British distributor, offers some of the greatest cult and horror films, complete with a variety of special features, carefully designed artwork, and high-quality Blu-Ray transfers. BFI also provides an impressive collection, focusing on niches such as kitchen sink dramas, forgotten British gems, documentaries, and other acclaimed classics. Another notable company is Eureka, which specialises in films by directors they consider masters of cinema.
Each of these companies taps into a niche to attract customers, whether that be horror or foreign cinema, or in the case of Shameless Screen Entertainment, “carefully picked vile, evil, gore-soaked, demented, disturbing [and] deranged” movies. While specialist companies have existed for a while, like Tartan, which stopped selling its DVDs in 2008, the landscape is now saturated with streaming services all competing to be the best, which you would think might make it harder for these companies to thrive. Yet, it seems as though film fans are keeping physical media alive for now, with many people still wanting to own copies of their favourite films without worrying about a streaming service removing them.
While the cost of living crisis has made the collection of such editions harder to attain (unless you have a lot of pocket money to spare), there appears to be enough people who see the purchase of Criterion, Arrow Video and BFI titles a worthwhile investment, even if it’s as a payday treat. We’re living in a time where we can’t rely on the internet to hold onto everything – owning physical copies of media ensures that certain movies aren’t just lost to time or the vast expanse of the web.
Collecting Criterions or other special edition Blu-Rays is the kind of hobby that keeps paying for itself – you can resell them for a decent price, watch them endless times, and access content, like shorts and essays, that you most likely can’t find for free anywhere else. We need physical media to survive in the internet age, and thanks to these companies and the passionate cinephiles who buy their Blu-Rays, hope is not yet lost.
