The crown jewel of their 2018 line of releases is Deutsche Kinemathek’s digital restoration of The Ancient Law, which offers stunning new evidence of Ewald André Dupont’s talents as a filmmaker. While works of silent cinema continue to receive top-notch restorations from a number of distribution labels, it’s Flicker Alley that often produces some of the finest and most complete releases in terms of image and sound quality and supplemental materials. The 25 Blu-ray and DVD releases chosen as our best of the year highlight the different hungers-for classic art-house films, for ’70s horror, for silent cinema-that these labels continue to satiate. The will to view films of the past is alive and well. And almost weekly, Twilight Time announces on their Facebook page which of their limited-edition releases have sold out. Kino Lorber continues to distribute solid HD transfers of films from across film history at a rate so quick that it’s hard to even keep pace. Vinegar Syndrome made and sold over 3,000 copies of their limited-edition release of 1983’s Mausoleum during a Black Friday sale alone-a title that’s now fetching over $100 on eBay. What is certain, though, is the increasing popularity of boutique home-video labels. Whether or not physical media remains the best and most enduring means of accessing high-quality transfers of classic and niche films remains to be seen. As always, cinephiles could still count on Criterion, like Arrow Video and others, to announce their upcoming Blu-ray and DVD releases, thus reminding us of their devotion to keeping physical media alive. While numerous think pieces have debated FilmStruck’s worth and legacy in the last month and a half, one thing remained constant: the endurance of physical media. It’s a tale as old as film’s origins, of corporate interests dictating production and distribution, giving the ax to anything not designated a cash cow. When AT&T decided to drop FilmStruck from its future streaming initiative, cinephiles let out a howl of rage against the machine in the form of a petition hoping to save FilmStruck that garnered over 93,000 signatures.
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