Criterion has released Dee Rees’Mudbound on Blu-ray, making the 2017 Netflix film finally available to home video collectors.

Nominated for four Oscars including Best Adapted Screenplay (Rees and Virgil Williams), Cinematography (Rachel Morrison), Supporting Actress (Mary J. Blige), and Original Song (“Mighty River” co-written by Blige), the film won numerous awards for its ensemble cast consisting of Carey Mulligan, Jason Clarke, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Mitchell, Rob Morgan, Jonathan Banks, and Blige.

Based on the novel by Hillary Jordan, the film is a morality tale in the vein of To Kill a Mockingbird and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, which were also written by women. Their film versions, however, were adapted and directed by men. Rees is the first Black woman nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Narrated by the film’s various characters with differing viewpoints, it’s difficult to know at first what the film’s focus will eventually become and which of the seven major characters will triumph at the end, but triumph he does despite the many obstacles that have been thrown in his way.

The film opens with two white men (Clarke, Hedlund) in the deep South circa 1945 carrying a coffin, followed by a visibly distraught woman (Mulligan) walking with two little girls behind them. The man the men are burying is their father (Banks). The Black man Clarke asks for help in laying the coffin in the grave is a local sharecropper (Morgan) riding in a wagon with his wife (Blige) and their two young sons.

After the burial, the scene shifts back in time to 1939 where Mulligan first meets Clarke, then Hedlund. Eventually they will relocate to the Mississippi delta along with Banks. Morgan will work the fields of his farm for Clarke while Blige will work for Mulligan in her house. After Pearl Harbor, both Hedlund and Mitchell (Morgan and Blige’s eldest son) will enlist in the service. Hedlund will become a bomber pilot and Mitchell a decorated tank sergeant. They will both return to the delta after the war, where neither will be content.

It’s the latter part of the film that brings everything into focus with Hedlund and Mitchell taking center stage as they struggle to cope with life after the war, Hedlund turning to drink, Mitchell refusing to accept the blatant racism that his parents have become too accustomed to. Just when all seems hopeless, there’s an ending right in the vein of King Vidor’s 1925 epic, The Big Parade, that makes everything, if not all right, at least hopeful.

One of the best films of its year, its lack of major awards recognition was more likely due to the prejudice against Netflix disrupting the flow of film distribution than anything else. In addition to the awards mentioned above, both Mitchell and Mulligan received a smattering of awards but aside from their ensemble designation, there were none for Hedlund or Morgan who were as deserving as they were.

Blige was likely helped by the lack of strong female roles in her category where Laurie Metcalf in Lady Bird and Allison Janney in I, Tonya captured everything in sight. Still, she is memorable in a non-showy way, easily evoking memories of John Ford’s mothers, Margaret Mann in Four Sons, Jane Darwell in The Grapes of Wrath, and Sara Allgood in How Green Was My Valley as well as such legendary Black character actresses as Louise Beavers in Imitation of Life, Hattie McDaniel in Gone with the Wind, and Ethel Waters in Pinky.

The Criterion Edition features numerous extras including audio commentary from Dee Rees.

Newly available from Classic Flix is a beautifully restored version of Sam Wood’s 1940 film of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town with an excellent audio commentary from Ray Faiola.

Martha Scott received an Oscar nomination for her film debut in the film opposite William Holden, but the entire cast, including Fay Bainter, Beulah Bondi, Thomas Mitchell, Guy Kibbee, Stuart Erwin, and Frank Craven, is wonderful.

Eschewing the stage version’s non-use of scenery, the film’s small-town atmosphere is exquisitely rendered. Wilder approved of the change in the story’s ending with Scott’s character surviving the birth of her second child.

Kino Lorber has reissued Robert Wise’s 1958 film Run Silent, Run Deep on Blu-ray with new audio commentary from Steve Mitchell and Steven Jay Rubin.

Screen legends Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster star in the World War II drama that was the first to show the claustrophobic living quarters in a submarine which has now become standard in such films. The film is justly remembered for its riveting special effects.

Warner Archive has released William Keighley’s 1937 film of Mark Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper on Blu-ray.

One of the great swashbucklers of the 1930s, the film is unusual in that top billed Errol Flynn at the height of his popularity is not the real star of the film. That distinction belongs to the Mauch Twins, Billy and Bobby, who should have become superstars after the film was released but sadly didn’t. They made two more films together, Penrod’s Twin Brother and Penrod’s Double Trouble , then slowly drifted into obscurity.

Billy plays the pauper who switches places with Bobby as the prince who is about to become Edward VI upon the death of Henry VIII (Montagu Love). Flynn plays Bobby’s rescuer as he races to proclaim the crown. Claude Rains, Henry Stephenson, Barton MacLane, and Alan Hale are also prominent in support. Highly recommended.

Also from Warner Archive, but not recommended except to Marx Bros. completists is 1937’s A Day at the Raees, which MGM raced into production on the heels of the success of 1936’s A Night at the Opera, one of the brothers’ best.

The problem with this film is that it outwears its welcome pretty fast with scenes that drag and drag and then drag some more. Groucho doesn’t do too badly, but Chico and Harpo are poorly utilized. Allan Jones sings nicely, but Maureen O’Sullivan is totally wasted as the film’s leading lady as is the usually incomparable Margaret Dumont as Groucho’s foil.

Happy viewing.