Three box office hits from the 1990s have been newly released in spectacular looking 4K UHD editions, all three of them being successful follow-ups to the even the bigger hits of their stars – Kevin Costner, John Travolta, Nicolas Cage, and Leonardo DiCaprio.

1991’s JFK was the passion project of director Oliver Stone fresh on the heels of his third Oscar for directing 1989’s Born on the Fourth of July. His previous Oscars had been for writing 1978’s Midnight Express and directing 1986’s Platoon. The film starred Costner fresh from his Oscar win for producing and directing 1990’s Dances with Wolves which he also starred in.

Based on two books, On the Trail of the Assassins by New Orleans district Attorney Jim Garrison and Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy by Texas journalist Jim Marrs, it was one of the most highly anticipated films of the year.

The controversial film posits the theory that Lee Harvey Oswald did not act alone in assassinating President Kennedy on November 22, 1972, despite the Warren Commission’s findings that he did. It follows Garrison’s investigations, many of them leading to dead ends, all of them leading to losses in the courts in the end.

Stone cast Costner as Garrison based on his performance in 1987’s The Untouchables. He wanted him to be just as obsessed with solving Kennedy’s assassination in this film as he was with capturing Al Capone in the earlier one. He is the only one of the all-star cast whose name appears above the title.

The supporting cast includes a bevy of well-known actors such as Gary Oldman as Oswald; Donald Sutherland as a government official known only as X; Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Bacon, and Joe Pesci as major conspirators; Sissy Spacek as Garrison’s wife; and Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau in the only film in which they both appeared in which they do not share a scene.

Nominated for 8 Oscars including 3 for Stone as producer, director, and writer, it won 2 for Best Film Editing and Best Cinematography. Tommy Lee Jones was the only cast member to be nominated for his performance.

The 4K UHD release from Shout Select features four discs. The first disc is the 4K UHD version of the director’s cut of the film, which runs 3 hours and 25 minutes. Unlike many films with director’s cuts, this one is done to the advantage of the film nicely fleshing out characters whose performances were given short shrift in the 3-hour-and 9-minute release version. That version is split between two standard Blu-rays. The fourth disc contains numerous extras including a brand-new interview with Stone on the film.

Hong Kong born action director John Woo’s 1997 film, Face/Off, was a thriller starring John Travolta still riding high from his comeback in 1994’s Pulp Fiction and 1995’s Get Shorty and Nicolas Cage still at the top of his game after winning his Best Actor Oscar for 1995’s Leaving Las Vegas.

The film opens with master criminal Cage as a sniper aiming at FBI agent Travolta riding a carousel with his young son and accidentally killing his son instead of him. The action then picks up six years later with one spectacular action sequence after another.

The crux of the action revolves around Travolta’s attempts at foiling a planned terrorist attack by assuming the identity of terrorist Cage who is in a coma. To do so, he undergoes facial transplant surgery. Cage awakens from his coma and eventually ends up with Travolta’s face leading to their final showdown with the two actors having switched roles.

Travolta and Cage spent two weeks together before filming to learn how to play each other. They decided on Specific gestures and vocal cadences for each character that could be mimicked.

The film’s supporting cast is headed by Joan Allen as Travolta’s wife, Alessandro Nivola as Cage’s brother, Dominique Swain as Travolta’s teenage daughter, and Nick Cassavetes and Gina Gershon as an evil brother and sister. Also in the cast are Margaret Cho, Harve Presnell, Colm Feore, John Carroll Lynch, and CCH Pounder.

The film with commentary is presented on the 4K UHD disc from Kino Lorber. A second disc in standard Blu-ray contains numerous extras including a documentary on the making of the film and another on the career of director Woo.

The 1998 version of Alexandre Dumas’ oft filmed The Man in the Iron Mask was the directorial debut of Randall Wallace, the Oscar-nominated writer of Braveheart. More importantly for its box-office potential, it was Leonardo DiCaprio’s first film since the megahit Titanic, which was still in theatres when The Man in the Iron Mask was released ten days before the 1997 Oscars were given out.

Dumas’ follow-up to The Three Musketeers finds D’Artagnan (Gabriel Byrne), Aramis (Jeremy Irons), Athos (John Malkovich), and Porthos (Gerard Depardieu) in the time of France’s evil king Louis XIV and his secret twin brother, both played by DiCaprio.

Previous versions of the classic tale included 1929’s The Iron Mask with Douglas Fairbanks as D’Artagnan and William Bakewell as the twins; 1939’s The Man in the Iron Mask with Louis Hayward as the twins, Joan Bennett as the female lead, and Warren William as D’Artagnan; 1975’s TV version with Richard Chamberlain as the twins, Louis Jourdan as D’Artangnan and Jenny Agutter as the leading lady; and 1979’s The Fifth Musketeer with Beau Bridges as the twins, Cornel Wilde as D’Artagnan, and Olivia de Havilland as the Queen Mother.

The highly entertaining film received no Oscar nominations, but it did win a snarky, undeserved Razzie for DiCaprio for Worst Screen Couple as the twins.

The Shout Select Collector’s Edition features tons of extras and has been praised for its color correction of the film which is something that elicited complaints in all its previous home video releases.

Happy viewing.