Several new 4K Ultra HD releases have been made available in time for Christmas gift giving including Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, Adaptation., The Usual Suspects, The Company of Wolves, WALL-E, and Sony Pictures Classics 30th Anniversary Collection.

Quentin Tarantino made his film debut with 1987’s My Best Friend’s Birthday, a long-forgotten comedy that went nowhere. It was his second and third films, 1992’s Reservoir Dogs and 1994’s Pulp Fiction, that established his career. Both those films were released by the now defunct Miramax, which no longer owns the rights to them.

The rights to Pulp Fiction are now held by Paramount. Paramount’s 4K UHD release is a reference quality disc. Whether you’re a Tarantino fanatic or just a fan of his 1994 Oscar-winning screenplay for this film, you will appreciate this superlative rendition.

Nominated for seven Oscars, Pulp Fiction’s only win was for its screenplay co-written by Tarantino and Roger Avary. The action-packed crime thriller lost Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Film Editing to Forrest Gump, with Tom Hanks winning Best Actor and Robert Zemeckis winning Best Director over John Travolta and Tarantino, respectively. It also lost Supporting Actor to Martin Landau for Ed Wood and Supporting Actress to Dianne Wiest for Bullets Over Broadway over Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman.

In addition to Travolta and Jackson’s low-rent hitmen, Thurman’s gangster’s wife, and Bruce Willis’ desperate prizefighter, the starry cast includes Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Ving Rhames, and Christopher Walken.

Lionsgate holds the rights to Reservoir Dogs, which has been released on 4K UHD with the same fidelity to quality that Paramount has taken with Pulp Fiction.

Film Independent’s Spirit Awards nominated the film for Best First Feature and Director and gave its Supporting Actor award to Steve Buscemi as one of the thugs involved in a robbery that goes terribly wrong. Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, Chris Penn, Lawrence Tierney, and Michael Madsen co-star along with Buscemi.

Sony has released the 4K UHD version of Spike Jonze’s Adaptation. The 2002 Oscar winner for Chris Cooper as the year’s Best Supporting Actor, had also been nominated for Best Actor (Nicolas Cage), Supporting Actress (Meryl Streep), and Screenplay by Charlie Kaufman and his fictitious brother Donald, the only time that the Academy has consciously allowed a nomination to go to a fictitious person.

The wildly inventive comedy is not for everyone. I wondered what all the fuss was about the first time I saw it, but it has grown on me. It is one of only three films directed by the highly prolific Jonze, whose credits to date exceed 100, that can be called a genuine classic. The others are 1999’s Being John Malkovich and 2013’s Her.

The plot concerns a screenwriter (Cage) who is having trouble adapting a book for the screen, but that’s just the mere starting point of a film that is constantly surprising. Streep is the author and Oscar winner Jones is the orchid thief who figures heavily into the plot. Tilda Swinton co-stars. Don’t ask, just see it.

Kino Lorber has released the 4K UHD of Bryan Singer’s 1995 sensation The Usual Suspects.

The highly influential thriller was nominated for Oscars in just two categories, Best Supporting Actor for Kevin Spacey and Best Original Screenplay for Christopher McQuarrie, winning both.

The crime caper also starred Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollak, Pete Postlethwaite, Suzy Amis, Benicio Del Toro, and Giancarlo Esposito. Its original DVD release was the first film I ever listened to the director’s commentary the first time I saw it. Don’t you make the same mistake if you’ve never seen it. Singer spoils it out of the gate by telling you who the villain is in this intricately plotted mystery.

As with all of Kino Lorber’s releases, this one is excellent.

Neil Jordan’s second film, 1984’s The Company of Wolves (1985 in the U.S.), is the film that put the future director of Mona Lisa, The Crying Game, and The End of the Affair on the map.

Nominated for four BAFTA awards, the story is a loose adaptation of Little Red Riding Hood, a very loose adaptation. Top billed Angela Lansbury, then riding high as the star of Murder, She Wrote, which began its record 12-year run on U.S. television in 1984, doesn’t have all that much to do but certainly helped boost sales of the film which also stars David Warner, Stephen Rea, and an unbilled Terence Stamp as the Devil. Sarah Patterson plays the not so little girl who wanders into the woods. Jordan’s love of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes is said to have heavily influenced the film’s impressive production design.

Shout! Factory’s combined 4K UHD/Blu-ray release is the first U.S. release of the film on Blu-ray.

Criterion’s 4K UHD release of Andrew Stanton’s 2008 Pixar film WALL-E breathes new life into the already impressive Oscar winner.

Nominated for six Oscars including Original Screenplay, the instant classic won only for Best Animated Feature. The new release includes a ton of extras including the 2007 documentary The Pixar Story.

The film itself centers on a small waste-collecting robot who inadvertently embarks on a space journey that will ultimately decide the fate of mankind. It’s a gem.

Sony Pictures Classics 30th Anniversary Collection is a mammoth 11-film collection and the only way to get ten of the films on 4k UHD. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had been previously released in 4K UHD but the new release features improved sound. Available in the format for the first time are Orlando, The City of Lost Children, The Celluloid Closet, Run Lola Run, SLC Punk, The Devil’s Backone, Volver, Synecdoche New York, Still Alice, and Call Me by Your Name.