All of Us Strangers, Murder on the Orient Express, and The Ladykillers are among the latest films receiving 4K UHD releases.

All of Us Strangers is receiving its first U.S. home video release from the Criterion Collection in the format. Andrew Haigh’s acclaimed film is a ghost story based on Japanese writer Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel, Strangers.

The story is about a writer in his mid-40s (Andrew Scott) who visits the home he lived in as a child with his parents who were killed in a car crash when he was 12. There he finds his parents (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy) at 33, the age they were when they died. In the novel, the parents are evil souls; in the film, they are kind and loving. Haigh also adds a character not in the novel, a gay man in his twenties (Paul Mescal) who initiates an affair with Scott’s character.

The performances of all four actors are superb. This is a film you need to see more than once to fully comprehend the twists and turns that lead to the unexpected ending.

Extras include interviews with Haigh and all four stars on the accompanying Blu-ray.

Sidney Lumet’s 1974 film, Murder on the Orient Express is the film that turned literary phenomenon Agatha Christie into a movie and TV phenomenon as well.

Prior to Lumet’s film, Christie films were rare with only 1945’s And Then There None, 1957’s Witness for the Prosecution, and a series of early 1960s films with Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple, standing out.

Kino Lorber’s 4k UHD presentation is sheer perfection with Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Wendy Hiller, Rachel Roberts, Vanessa Redgrave, Sean Connery, Jacqueline Bisset, Michael York, John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, Richard Widmark, and the rest of the scintillating cast looking as good as they did when the film first hit theatres fifty years ago.

Extras contained on the accompanying Blu-ray are from the previous Blu-ray-only release.

Alexander Mackendrick’s 1955 film, Ladykillers, also from Kino Lorber, has been given a glorious restoration. The last of the great Ealing comedies which also include Robert Hamer’s Kind Hearts and Coronets, Michael Crichton’s The Lavender Hill Mob, and Mackendrick’s own The Man in the White Suit, The Ladykillers is the only one in color. All five starred Alec Guinness, who meets his match here by 76-year-old character actress Katie Johnson who won a Best British Actress BAFTA for her portrayal of the little old lady that the five bank robbers (Guinness, Cecil Parker, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers, and Danny Green) are unable to kill.

The film features two excellent feature-length commentaries. The accompanying Blu-ray contains numerous extras.

Also new from Kino Lorber are six classic films noir in two collections, Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema Volumes XX and XXI

Contained in Volume XX are Captain Carey U.S.A. , Appointment with Danger, and Make Haste to Live.

1950’s Captain Carey U.S.A. stars Alan Ladd as an OSS operative who returns to Italy three years after the end of World War II to avenge the death of his lover (Wanda Hendrix) only to find that she is still alive. Directed by Mitchell Leisen (To Each His Own, The Mating Season), the atmospheric thriller features fine support from Francis Lederer, Joseph Calleia, Angela Clarke, and Russ Tamblyn among others. It is also remembered as the film that introduced the Oscar-winning song, “Mona Lisa” which is sung in Italian. It was the first Oscar-winning song from a non-musical.

1951’s Appointment with Danger finds Ladd as a U.S. postal inspector investigating the murder of a postal worker while protecting nun Phyllis Calvert, a witness to the murder being pursued by killers Jack Webb, Harry Morgan, and their boss, Paul Stewart. Directed by Lewis Allen (The Uninvited), this was one of just two U.S. films made by British actress Calvert (Oscar Wilde).

1954’s Make Haste to Live is a high-tension film starring Dorothy McGuire as a woman found by her murderous husband (Stephen McNally) eighteen years after she disappeared. The interesting supporting cast includes Mary Murphy (The Wild One) as McGuire’s teenage daughter and John Howard (The Philadelphia Story) as her new-found love. It was the last film directed by William A. Seiter (Belle of the Yukon, One Touch of Venus).

Contained in Volume XXI are Cloak and Dagger, Shack Out on 101, and Short Cut to Hell.

1946’s Cloak and Dagger stars Gary Cooper as an American physicist recruited by the OSS to obtain military secrets in war-torn Europe. Directed by Fritz Lang, whose 1931 film M, is often referred to as the first noir, even though the term wasn’t used until years later. Intended as a cautionary tale against the use of atomic weapons, Warner Bros. cut it by 19 minutes eliminating its intended ending. What remains is a first-rate thriller, albeit one without teeth. Lilli Palmer co-stars with Robert Alda and Vladimir Sokoloff heading the supporting cast.

1955’s Shack Out on 101 is a cult favorite that is also about nuclear secrets, in this case the men who are out to steal them. Taking place in a remote diner on California’s highway 101, it stars Terry Moore as a self-described bimbo hash-slinger, Lee Marvin, in a standout performance as a cook nicknamed “slob,” Keenan Wynn as the owner of the diner, and Frank Lovejoy as a professor at the local university. Whit Bissell heads the supporting cast in what was director Edward Dein’s best-known film. The screenplay is by Dein and his wife, Mildred.

1957’s Short Cut to Hell is historically important as the only film directed by James Cagney. It’s a solid remake of 1942’s This Gun for Hire with Robert Ivers and Georgann Johnson in the roles made famous by Alan Ladd and Vernoica Lake. Ivers, a last-minute replacement for Tom Tryon, later played Tryon’s next-door neighbor in 1958’s I Married a Monster from Outer Space. Johnson is best remembered as the rich lady Jon Voight asks for the way to the statue of liberty in Midnight Cowboy. The cat in the film was also featured in The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Diary of Anne Frank, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, among many others.

All the noirs have feature-length commentaries by various film historians.

Happy viewing.