Michael Mann’s 1995 film Heat has had an unusual history.

Released between the director’s two most critically acclaimed films, 1992’s The Last of the Mohicans and 1999’s The Insider, the film met with mixed reviews upon its initial release but later became a huge hit with younger critics.

Mann, who honed his skills with the 1980s TV series Miami Vice (1984-1989), had long been the go-to director for high voltage action films of which Heat was considered one of the best from the get-go. Its initial detractors were those who were put off by its cold characters. This was not a film in which the bad guys had cozy, warm home lives like the mafia family in The Godfather. They were as cold and calculating in their personal lives as they were in their business dealings.

The film’s selling point was the star combination of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro in their first film together since The Godfather Part II in which they had no scenes together, De Niro having played Pacino’s father in flashback sequences. In Heat, Pacino is the detective hunting down the criminals of whom former convict De Niro is the leader. The film’s highlight is an improbable scene about halfway through the film in which the two meet in a diner. Critics have compared it to the meeting between England’s Elizabeth I and her cousin Mary in every film about the Scottish queen from John Ford’s Mary of Scotland to Charles Jarrott’s Mary, Queen of Scots to Josie Rourke’s more recent same-titled film. It’s something that never happened nor would ever have happened.

Of the two actors, De Niro’s performance is the superior one. Although his character resorts to frequent bouts of violence, De Niro remains steadily cool throughout. Pacino’s cop, on the other hand, is given to sudden outbursts that make it at times one of his most over-the-top performances. Pacino has claimed that his character was supposed to have been a cocaine addict which would explain the outbursts, but this has never been confirmed by Mann or anyone else.

The impressive supporting cast includes Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Diane Venora, Amy Brenneman, Ashley Judd, Mykelti Williamson, and Natalie Portman.

Originally a Warner Bros. release, the film was initially released on DVD by Warner Bros. but later became the property of 20th Century-Fox, which released a director’s cut of the film on Blu-ray in 2017. The Fox library is now owned by Disney whose management has no idea of the films they are sitting on. This one, however, is one that they’ve actually heard of and had restored in UHD 4K for streaming and now disc. Even so, its release in the higher resolution format was not certain. Originally scheduled for release a year ago, it has finally seen the light of day.

Included in the UHD 4K release is a two-disc copy of the Blu-ray with tons of extras.

Kino Lorber continues its release of classic films from Hollywood’s golden age.

Among their latest releases are Little Man, What Now?, Next Time We Love, The Maria Montez and Jon Hall Collection, and The Trials of Oscar Wilde.

Frank Borzgae’s Little Man, What Now?, like his 7th Heaven, Street Angel, Lucky Star, Bad Girl. A Farewell to Arms, and yet-to-be-made History Is Made at Night, Three Comrades, and The Mortal Storm, was one of the two-time Oscar-winning director’s great romantic dramas.

Released in June 1934, just before the Hollywood Production Code went into full effect, Little Man, What Now? is a showcase for Margaret Sullavan at her most luminous. It predates her more famous roles in Borzage’s Three Comrades and The Mortal Storm in which she gets caught up in Nazi machinations. In this one, that also takes place in depression era Germany, she is the wife of Douglass Montgomery (1933’s Little Women) who must keep their marriage a secret as his boss will only employ single men in the hope of finding a husband for his dimwitted daughter.

Once the marriage is found out, Sullavan and Montgomery are forced to move to Berlin where they face even more hardships as the Nazis are coming to power.

As usual with Kino Lorber, the commentary track is informative, but someone should tell the film historian that he consistently misidentified George Meeker as Paul Fix in several scenes in which the two actors share scenes as Montgomery’s co-workers.

Released in January 1936, Edward H. Griffith’s Next Time We Love is a more conventional romantic drama notable for featuring the first of four on-screen pairings between Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart. The two are magic together as a married couple separated by circumstance until it is too late, hence the title, which implies that in their next lives they will get things right.

The Maria Montez and Jon Hall Collection consists of 1943’s White Savage, 1944’s Gypsy Wildcat, and 1945’s Sudan and is for completists who can’t have enough of the stars of Arabian Nights, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and Cobra Woman.

Next to 1968’s Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, 1960’s The Trials of Oscar Wilde is writer-director Ken Hughes’ best-known film. It is a very well-made film with a strong lead performance by Peter Finch as the famed British author (The Picture of Dorian Gray), playwright (The Importance of Being Earnest), and wit who sued the Marquis of Queensbury for libel in 1895 London with tragic consequences. The outstanding cast includes James Mason as Queensbury’s lawyer, Nigel Patrick as Wilde’s, John Fraser as Bosie (Queensbury’s son and Wilde’s lover), and Lionel Jeffries as Queensbury.

The film opened one week after Gregory Ratoff’s Oscar Wilde with Robert Morley. Ralph Richardson, Alexander Knox, John Neville, and Edward Chapman also impressive in the same roles. In fact, critics of the day found the performances in Ratoff’s version more convincing but the production quality of Hughes’ version superior. Both pale in comparison to Brian Gilbert’s 1997 film Wilde, but remain impressive for what they were able to get away with under the still repressive British and American censorship rules of the day.

This week’s new releases include the Blu-ray releases of What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Coneheads.