Yes, it's true: Whenever I think about the holiday season and sitting around a fire with my family, I also think, 'Let's watch a movie about a man getting eaten by a Grizzly bear!'
Despite its title, Werner Herzog's great documentary Grizzly Man is neither grisly nor particular warm and fuzzy, yet it's such a shining spotlight on humanity's foolish yearnings that it's definitely become a holiday-season perennial. The Criterion Collection will be releasing the film on Blu-ray, from a "high-definition digital master of the original theatrical version, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack," which will make it even easier to enjoy Herzog's wonderful narration.
Other, more traditionally-appropriate seasonal titles will also be releasing in December 2026: Anthony Mingella's romance The English Patient, Pietro Germi's Italian satire Divorce Italian Style, and Ernst Lubitsch's classic comedy The Shop Around the Corner.
Atypically, Eclipse Series 50: Sara Gómez's Revolutionary Cuba is also due for release. Unlike the other titles, I'm not familiar with the filmmaker, so I'll quote the official description:
"A true cinematic revolutionary who used the camera as her tool in the fight against oppression in all forms, the Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez brought the stories of ordinary Cubans to the screen with a bracing immediacy and insight.
"Drawing on her background in ethnography, Gómez became her country's first woman director, exploring issues of class, race, labor, women's health, and Afro-Cuban culture in a string of intimate, illuminating shorts that reveal the complex realities of life in a postrevolutionary society rocked by seismic change.
"Though she directed only one feature--the formally innovative landmark of radical feminist cinema One Way or Another--before her death from an asthma attack at age thirty-one, Gómez left behind a vital legacy as a pioneer whose inquisitive work continues to offer lessons in what an engaged anticolonial cinema can be."
The final title I will mention is Robert Altman's Nashville (1975), which will be made available in a 4K digital restoration. You can decide for yourself if it deserves its reputation as one of the all-time greats or as an overrated piece of ... well, whatever.
See all the covers below in our little gallery. Visit the official Criterion site for more information and to place your orders.