Best of Warner Bros. 20 Film Collection: Thrillers The Public Enemy (1931), The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Big Sleep (1946), Strangers on a Train (1951), North by Northwest (1959), Dirty Harry (1971), Dog Day Afternoon (1975), Lethal Weapon (1987), Batman (1989), Goodfellas (1990), The Fugitive (1993), Natural Born Killers (1994), The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Seven (1995), Heat (1995), L.A. Confidential (1997), American History X (1998), The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), The Town (2010) Films' Running Time: 2,523 Minutes (42 Hours, 3 Minutes) Release Date: September 3, 2013 (All discs previously released) / Suggested Retail Price: $98.92 Twenty single-sided discs (19 DVD-9s & 1 DVD-5) / Two Thick Clear Keepcases in Cardboard Box Subtitles: English; Some French and Spanish; Some DVDs Closed Captioned; Some Extras Subtitled See Below for Casts, Directors and Other Film & Disc Details 1.33:1 Fullscreen, 1.78:1-2.40:1 Anamorphic Widescreen (All in Original Aspect Ratios) Dolby Digital 5.1 (English), Dolby Mono (English), DTS 5.1 (English)

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VIDEO and AUDIO All twenty films are presented in their original theatrical aspect ratios (or a very close approximation) and the sixteen made in widescreen are enhanced for 16:9 displays. Like all of the major studios, Warner Home Video has a reputation for delivering strong transfers. These titles are important and popular enough to ensure sufficient effort, if necessary, has gone into their restorations. Still, the results naturally vary from one disc to another, each having been produced over a twelve-year period. For example, The Maltese Falcon, the second oldest movie in this set, features stunning picture quality, while the other Bogart movie, The Big Sleep, is not as spectacular-looking, being one of the oldest discs in this collection (authored in the 1900s!). One of the most recently-remastered, Hitchcock's North by Northwest moves us to both color and widescreen looking terrific (no need to adjust your settings; Cary Grant should be a burnt sienna). Nearly thirty years younger, Lethal Weapon looks considerably worse, the product of a 2000 DVD. Still, the presentations don't always reflect release dates in the way you'd think. L.A. Confidential sports very poor picture quality you might expect of an overcompressed early DVD release, but in fact it's the first disc of a two-disc Special Edition released in 2008, the time DVD quality began to suffer as a product secondary to Blu-ray. From the same year, The Dark Knight also suffers from compression artifacts, although it at least is the second longest film in this set. It's worth noting that Dark Knight's DVD forgoes the IMAX aspect ratio changes that its Blu-ray uses. In general, although most of these transfers will be passable for the majority of viewers, those accustomed to high definition will sometimes be frustrated by the DVDs' visual limitations. BONUS FEATURES The DVDs included in this 20 Film Collection are the same movie discs sold separately. As a number of these movies have been given Two-Disc Special Edition DVDs, bonus disc features obviously do not make the cut here. That leaves a number of the films with an audio commentary, generally recorded by historians on the older movies and by the filmmakers themselves on many of those from North by Northwest (screenwriter Ernest Lehman) onward, and maybe a trailer. The Public Enemy and The Maltese Falcon are fitted with "Night at the Movies" presentations, an awesome feature that recreates the original theatrical experience, with appropriate trailers, newsreels, live-action and cartoon shorts preceding playback of the film, like they would have way back when. Probably the most loaded disc here, Dirty Harry includes a half-hour retrospective hosted by the late Robert Urich, extended interviews, trailers for all five films in the series, and a vintage featurette to a commentary by historian Richard Schickel. The director's cut of Lethal Weapon is light, holding just some of the text features in vogue in the late 20th century and a trailer. The Fugitive, which gets a new 20th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray the same day this is released, boasts a 23-minute retrospective, the featurette "Anatomy of a Train Wreck", and an introduction that finds director Andrew Davis and the film's Oscar-winning Tommy Lee Jones synching playback of the film for their long distance joint commentary, in addition to the standard for 2011 trailer, cast bios, and list of awards. Natural Born Killers includes an introduction by writer/director Oliver Stone, who also records a solo commentary. The Shawshank Redemption's bios, trailer and stills-toting original DVD and not Disc 1 of its subsequent two-disc edition is included, making it the set's second-oldest disc behind New Line's American History X (which has three color deleted scenes, cast & crew bios, and a trailer). Seven, the only other New Line release, is likewise represented not by the first disc of its deluxe Platinum Series edition, but by its vanilla single disc, one of just two completely barebones platters in this set (the other being The Dark Knight). Heat adds three trailers to its Michael Mann commentary. L.A. Confidential has a music-only track and a group of trailers, TV spots, and a soundtrack promo complementing its central supplement, a commentary patching together remarks from virtually everyone involved with the film except director Curtis Hanson (like Spielberg, he's evidently not a fan of the format). Reflecting the pittance that DVD viewers have come to expect from Warner of late, Inception is joined only by four shorts from the Blu-ray's Extraction Mode, while The Town includes a 3-minute short on the casting of local Massachusetts residents and a 7-minute piece on Ben Affleck's directing/acting. In a promising development, the studio seems to be bringing DVD bonus features back this fall, with Two-Disc Special Editions of summer movies supplying all the same extras as Blu-ray that they can. MENUS Like everything else, the menus vary, though most are the scored, static screens that Warner has adopted as the standard for most of their recent discs.

CLOSING THOUGHTS With standard discounting, Warner's 20-thriller DVD collection works out to less than $3.50 per movie, a very reasonable price for this largely sterling lot of movies, at least three-quarters of which is worth owning. All that stands in the way of a no-brainer recommendation are the facts that A) this is a DVD collection and many of those buying a bunch of movies nowadays have moved on to Blu-ray and B) this is a DVD collection and most of those who would consider buying such a big box set are likely to already have a number of these movies and even these discs in their current collection. Personally, I already had twelve of them on DVD or Blu-ray (and only one of them from reviewing it) and would be surprised to encounter a collector with significantly fewer than that. If you're willing to miss out on extras, pawn or gift your duplicate copies, and remain content with plain old standard definition, then this is a pretty terrific purchase that is rich with sharp, exciting, engaging, and historic cinema.