The Criterion Collection has announced four new titles to join the collection on 4K UHD and Blu-Ray in August: Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams (1990), Dim Sum: A Little Bit Of Heart (1985), Drylongso (1998) and Bo Widerber’s New Swedish Cinema (1963-1969). These represent a visually sumptuous journey through the imagination of a beloved director, a bittersweet family portrait by Wayne Wang, a rediscovered 1990s treasure of dynamic DIY filmmaking and a quartet of poetic, political films by a pivotal Swedish auteur. Details on these films can be found below:

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Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams (4K UHD Blu-Ray)

Street Date: August 8, 2023

Synopsis: Unfolding in a series of eight mythic vignettes, this late work by Akira Kurosawa was inspired by the beloved director’s own nighttime visions, along with stories from Japanese folklore. In a visually sumptuous journey through the master’s imagination, tales of childlike wonder give way to apocalyptic apparitions: a young boy stumbles on a fox wedding in a forest; a soldier confronts the ghosts of the war dead; a power-plant meltdown smothers a seaside landscape in radioactive fumes. Interspersed with reflections on the redemptive power of creation, including a richly textured tribute to Vincent van Gogh (who is played by Martin Scorsese), Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams is both a showcase for its maker’s artistry at its most unbridled and a deeply personal lament for a world at the mercy of human ignorance.

Dim Sum: A Little Bit Of Heart

Street Date: August 15, 2023

Synopsis: Wayne Wang’s follow-up to his watershed indie Chan Is Missing is a family portrait that gracefully combines the director’s signature gentle humanism and eye for poignant detail. Offering another fresh perspective on San Francisco’s Chinese American community, Wang takes a bittersweet look at the generational pas de deux between an aging immigrant widow and her devoted daughter, torn between filial duty and her own desires. Soulfully performed by an ensemble including real-life mother and daughter Kim and Laureen Chew and Victor Wong, the Yasujiro Ozu–inspired Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart is as lovingly made as the home-cooked cuisine it celebrates.

Bo Widerberg’s New Swedish Cinema

Street Date: August 22, 2023

Synopsis: Driven by a desire to forge a socially conscious Swedish cinema—one that broke with the inward-looking psychodrama of Ingmar Bergman to give dynamic expression to the everyday experiences of working-class Swedes—writer Bo Widerberg turned to filmmaking in the early 1960s, realizing his ambition in politically committed yet poetic works that merge social-realist themes with a refined, often breathtakingly beautiful visual sensibility. Dramatizing the struggles of ordinary people fighting to chart their own destiny, these four acclaimed, popular, and pivotal films from Widerberg’s most prolific period live and breathe with a rare vitality—and helped launch a new Swedish cinema.

FOUR-BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New restorations, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks
• New introduction to director Bo Widerberg by filmmaker Ruben Östlund
• New interviews with actor Tommy Berggren and cinematographer Jörgen Persson
• The Boy and the Kite (1962), a short film by Widerberg and Jan Troell, with an introduction by Troell
• Swedish television interviews with Widerberg from the 1960s
• Behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Elvira Madigan
• PLUS: An essay by film historian Peter Cowie and excerpts by Widerberg from his 1962 book Vision in Swedish Film

Drylongso

Street Date: August 29, 2023

Synopsis: A rediscovered treasure of 1990s DIY filmmaking, Cauleen Smith’s Drylongso embeds an incisive look at racial injustice within a lovingly handmade buddy movie/murder mystery/romance. Alarmed by the rate at which the young Black men around her are dying, brash Oakland art student Pica (Toby Smith) attempts to preserve their existence in Polaroid snapshots, along the way forging a friendship with a woman in an abusive relationship (April Barnett) and experiencing love, heartbreak, and the everyday threat of violence. Capturing the vibrant community spirit of Oakland in the nineties, Smith crafts both a rare cinematic celebration of Black female creativity and a moving elegy for a generation of lost African American men.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES