There is no through-line to Arrow Video’s September, and that is the whole point. In one month the label swings from a 1956 studio cornerstone to a batch of 1960s Japanese genre pictures almost no American has ever legally owned, then over to a glossy late-80s star vehicle and a 1999 indie time capsule. Four titles, four decades, and, if you look at what each one is actually doing, four different arguments for why boutique labels deserve your money. Here is the slate ranked by want, with the usual reminder that want is not the same as quality, just the order I would be smashing the pre-order button.
1. Forbidden Planet (1956): The Crown Jewel
This is the one. On September 29, one of the most important science fiction films ever made gets its global 4K UHD debut, restored from the 35mm negative and presented for the first time anywhere in its full 2.55:1 CinemaScope frame. If you only budget for a single disc this month, budget for this.
Forbidden Planet is not just old and beloved, it is foundational. Director Fred M. Wilcox took Shakespeare’s The Tempest and flung it past the solar system, giving us Walter Pidgeon as the Prospero-like Dr. Morbius, Anne Francis as his sheltered daughter, and Robby the Robot as the most charming piece of hardware in movie history. It also gave us a young Leslie Nielsen playing an actual square-jawed space captain with total sincerity, decades before he learned to land a joke, which is its own quiet pleasure to revisit. The film pioneered the first entirely electronic musical score, courtesy of Bebe and Louis Barron, and its vision of a starship crew exploring strange new worlds laid down a template that a certain other franchise would ride to immortality. When we covered Star Trek’s own leap to 4K, the debt was impossible to miss. This is the movie that taught that movie how to dream.
The Limited Edition arrives loaded, with a commentary from film historians Kim Newman and Barry Forshaw, a new appreciation of the Barrons’ groundbreaking score, vintage documentaries, the bonus feature The Invisible Boy, deleted scenes, lost footage, and a double-sided fold-out poster. A Blu-ray edition is also available for anyone not yet on the 4K train. Arrow’s US store has the 4K up for pre-order around 35 dollars against a 49.99 list price, with the Blu-ray closer to 28. Distributed through MVD Entertainment Group, so it will also turn up at the usual haunts, from Amazon to Diabolik to Orbit DVD.
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2. Wicked Priest Collection (1960s): The Rescue Mission
If Forbidden Planet is the safe pick, the Wicked Priest Collection is the thrilling one, the release that justifies a boutique label’s entire existence. On September 15, five films that have never had a North American Blu-ray release land in one box, newly restored, and for a lot of collectors this is the sort of thing you buy on principle before you have watched a frame, because there may never be another chance.
The hook is irresistible. Tomisaburô Wakayama, the mountainous star of the immortal Lone Wolf and Cub series, plays Mikuni Shinkai, a Buddhist monk with a serious weakness for drinking and gambling who dispenses justice via judo throw rather than sutra. Across five films he takes on corrupt priests in bed with the yakuza, coastal pirates, a childhood friend turned gangster, and a recurring rival monk played by Bunta Sugawara of Battles Without Honor and Humanity fame. It is exactly the kind of rowdy, disreputable, genre-mashing Japanese cinema that rewards a curious collector, and Arrow has treated it with real respect. The extras lean scholarly in the best way, with a video essay on the electronic music pioneer Isao Tomita, whose work scored the series, plus pieces on how the films depict historical Japan and on Wakayama himself. You can pre-order the set directly from Arrow, again via MVD for wider retail. This is the one future-you will thank present-you for grabbing.
3. Go (1999): The Time Capsule
Also on September 29, Doug Liman’s Go makes its own global 4K UHD debut, and this one is pure nostalgic adrenaline. Before Liman was launching the Bourne franchise, he made this whip-fast triptych, three interlocking stories that spin out of a single botched drug deal and slam back together on a rave-soaked Christmas Eve. It is the most gleefully post-Pulp Fiction movie of its post-Pulp Fiction moment, and unlike a lot of that era’s ensemble crime capers, it genuinely holds up.
The cast is a time capsule all its own. Sarah Polley anchors it, Timothy Olyphant oozes menace as a dealer years before Justified, and the supporting bench includes Katie Holmes, William Fichtner, Jay Mohr, Taye Diggs, Breckin Meyer, James Duval, and a very early Melissa McCarthy. Screenwriter John August built a screenplay that ticks like a bomb, and Arrow has honored it accordingly, packing in new and archival commentaries, fresh interviews with August and actor Desmond Askew, fourteen deleted scenes, and, as a lovely deep-cut bonus, August’s short film God with McCarthy, in HD for the first time. If you spent any part of the late 90s where you probably should not have been, this is your madeleine. It is a US and Canada release, up for pre-order at Arrow’s store and out through MVD in the usual spots.
4. Tequila Sunrise (1988): The Rediscovery
Ranked last only because it is the least essential on paper, Tequila Sunrise may be the release most likely to surprise you. Arriving September 15 in its own global 4K UHD debut, it is Robert Towne’s sleek, sun-baked neo-noir, the rare film the Chinatown screenwriter also directed himself. The plot is a love triangle wrapped around a drug deal: childhood friends Mel Gibson, a retired smuggler, and Kurt Russell, the narcotics cop investigating him, both circling restaurateur Michelle Pfeiffer at the absolute peak of her wattage, with Raul Julia and J.T. Walsh sharpening the edges.
Here is the case for bumping it up your list. Tequila Sunrise was shot by the legendary Conrad Hall, who earned an Academy Award nomination for its burnished, amber-and-neon images, and a film this gorgeous is precisely the kind of thing a 4K restoration was invented to rescue. Time has been unkind to the movie’s reputation, filing it under handsome-but-slight 80s star product, but a proper transfer from the original negative is a genuine argument for reconsideration. Towne fans and Pfeiffer devotees have been waiting for this. The Limited Edition includes a producer commentary, a new Towne appreciation, fresh interviews, and a collector’s booklet, with a Blu-ray option alongside the 4K. Pre-order the 4K from Arrow, where preorder pricing has been running well under list, and expect it at MVD-fed retailers too.
The Verdict
Add it up and September is Arrow doing everything a great boutique label is supposed to do at once: canonizing a masterpiece, rescuing the obscure, upgrading a generational favorite, and mounting a defense of the overlooked. Whether you are a purist chasing the definitive Forbidden Planet or an adventurer betting on a boozing monk, there is a disc here worth clearing shelf space for. Arrow has been on a genuine tear lately, from these monthly slates to its definitive complete-series box sets, and September keeps the streak alive. Set a calendar reminder for the 15th and the 29th.
