Pain and Glory is Pedro Almodovar’s third film to be nominated for an Oscar for Best International Film (previously known as Best Foreign Language Film) following 1988’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown and 1999’s All About My Mother. Almodovar was himself nominated for his direction and screenplay of 2002’s Talk to Her for which he won in the latter category. Those films, as well as 2004’s Bad Education, 2006’s Volver, 2011’s The Skin I Live In, and 2016’s Julietta and others have received recognition from the Golden Globes, BAFTA, and other awards organizations. Almodovar is Spain’s best-known director since Luis Bunuel (Belle de Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie).

Pain and Glory may well be Almodovar’s best film. This semiautobiographical film compares favorably to Federico Fellini’s equally semiautobiographical 8 1/2, which it emulates.

Antonio Banderas, receiving his first Oscar nomination, is superb as a famous Spanish writer-director who loses the will to make another movie due to ill health. Instead of going to the doctor, he self-medicates with heroin until a chance encounter with a former lover gives him the impetus to quit his addiction and seek medical help.

In addition to Banderas, there are outstanding performances by Asier Etxeandia as his actor friend, Leonardo Sbaraglia as his former lover, Asier Flores as Banderas’ character as a boy, Cesar Vicente as the older boy he teaches to write, and Penelope Cruz and Julietta Serano who share the role of his mother at different ages.

Pain and Glory is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD. Blu-ray extras include a Q&A session with Almodovar, Banderas, and composer Alberto Iglesias (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy).

Robert Eggers’ The Lighthouse, an Oscar nominee for Best Cinematography, is an unusual fantasy film about two lighthouse keepers off the coast of Maine in 1890. One of them is obviously insane, but is it the older one, played by Willem Dafoe, or the younger one, played by Robert Pattinson? Maybe it’s both, the screenplay by Eggers and his brother Max keeps you guessing. Both actors received awards recognition from various critics’ groups, but both were overlooked by Oscar voters in a very competitive year.

The Lighthouse is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD. Blu-ray extras include audio commentary by the director and deleted scenes.

Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco is one of the most exciting debut features to come out of Hollywood in years. Writer-director Talbot’s ode to San Francisco and its inhabitants focuses on a young black man (co-writer Jimmie Fails) whose character’s name is the same as actor’s suggesting that this might be a biographical film. It’s not, but it plays like one as young Fails and his struggling playwright friend (Jonathan Majors) tell his story. Although set in the present, the film evokes the feel of a film set in the 1960s when “San Francisco (Where Flowers in Your Hair),” sung in the film by a street singer, was a huge hit.

The Last Black Man in San Francisco is available on Blu-ray and DVD. Blu-ray extras include commentary by DGA First-Time Feature Film Director nominee Talbot and the documentary Ode to the City: Finding the Last Black Man in San Francisco.

Kino Lorber has released a three-disc Blu-ray of Oliver Stone’s 1995 film Nixon, which includes the 212-minute director’s cut, the 191-minute theatrical cut, and a making-of featurette.

I watched the director’s cut, the first time I had seen the film in nearly a quarter century. It’s timely considering the impeachment and trial of the current U.S. president who has much in common with former president Richard M. Nixon.

The film was nominated for four Oscars including Best Actor (Anthony Hopkins), Supporting Actress (Joan Allen), Screenplay (by Stephen J. Rivelle, Christopher Wilkinson, and Stone) and Score (by John Williams), but I found it problematic at the time. Released the same year as Nixon’s death, I had difficulty accepting Hopkins’ portrayal, which despite widespread praise to the contrary, I found gimmicky and sporadically unconvincing despite the film’s strong writing. I had no such reservations about Allen’s portrayal of Pat Nixon despite her underwritten role.

Watching it again, I felt the same about Hopkins and Allen but found other performances to like, particularly Paul Sorvino as a spot-on Henry Kissinger and Mary Steenburgen as Nixon’s Quaker mother. Also excellent is Sam Waterston as CIA chief Richard Helms, whose scenes had to be cut for the film’s theatrical release because Helms, who was still alive at the time, was upset with the way he was portrayed.

It may not be a great film, but it’s a great time to revisit it.

Kino Lorber’s latest Blu-ray upgrades includes three films from the era covered in Nixon, 1965’s The War Lord, 1967’s Tobruk, and 1972’s Ulzana’s Raid

Franklin J. Schaffner’s The War Lord puts Charlton Heston and Maurice Evans in 11th Century Normandy three years before he reunited them in the distant future in Planet of the Apes. Arthur Hiller’s Tobruk puts Rock Hudson and George Peppard in World War II Libya three years before he went in a completely different direction with Ryan O’Neal and Ali MacGraw in Love Story. Robert Aldrich’s Ulzana’s Raid puts Burt Lancaster in a brutal western setting five years after he put Lee Marvin in a brutal war setting in The Dirty Dozen. All three films come with commentaries by noted film historians. Ulzana’s Raid includes an on-screen interview with co-star Bruce Davison.

Four years after Warner Bros. had enormous success with the film version of Edna Ferber’s Giant, MGM decided to remake the Pulitzer Prize-winning author’s Cimarron.

The 1960 remake of RKO’s 1931 Oscar winner, now out on Blu-ray from Warner Archive, is an expanded version of the earlier film with Glenn Ford and Maria Schell in the roles originally played by Oscar nominees Richard Dix and Irene Dunne. Anne Baxter, Arthur O’Connell, Russ Tamblyn, Aline MacMahon, David Opatoshu, Harry Morgan, and Mercedes McCambridge have featured roles. As is typical of Warner’s Blu-rays, it’s a stunning transfer.

This week’s new releases include Parasite and Terminator: Dark Fate.