DVD/Blu-ray Release Calendar: February 2020

▣ Doctor Sleep Trailers

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Adapted from the 2013 Stephen King novel of the same name, this 2019 feature from Mike Flanagan (who previously tackled King's Gerald's Game) serves as a sequel to both King's 1977 novel The Shining and Stanley Kubrick's classic 1980 film adaptation of the same. The new film picks up over 30 years later and stars Ewan McGregor as a now-adult Dan (formerly Danny) Torrance.

▣ Everybody's Everything Trailers

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Lil Peep’s career was just getting started when he died of a drug overdose at 21. Mixing genres like punk, emo, and trap, the rapper/model born Gustav Ahr touched many young lives with his unique, open-hearted style. With Peep’s mom, Liza Womack, and Terrence Malick among its producers, this documentary from director Sebastian Jones and Ramez Silyan includes passages of Peep’s grandfather reading letters he wrote to his grandson as well as standard talking-head interviews. It may not be a complete portrait, but it’s a compelling one, according to reviewers.

▣ The Good Liar Trailers

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"Good" may be a bit of a stretch. For this so-so adaptation of Nicholas Searle’s novel, director Bill Condon and actor Ian McKellen join forces for a fourth time, following 1998’s Gods and Monsters, 2015’s Mr. Holmes, and 2017’s Beauty and the Beast. They are joined by Helen Mirren, who plays wealthy widow Betty McLeish. She becomes the target of McKellen’s con artist Roy Courtnay, but his swindle goes awry when he develops feelings for her—or maybe he’s just met his match.

▣ Last Christmas Trailers

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You are probably better off reading this recap than actually watching Last Christmas, which takes a surprisingly literal approach as it turns the classic Wham! holiday tune of the same name into a feature film. Emilia Clarke and Henry Golding head the cast of this supernatural Yuletide rom-com from director Paul Feig, joined by Michelle Yeoh and Emma Thompson (who co-wrote the script). Releasing the DVD in February makes about as much sense as anything you'll find in the film, which was a box office hit despite very mixed reviews.

▣ The Nightingale Trailers

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Jennifer Kent’s follow-up to her hit debut The Babadook is a bloody and brutal revenge tale set in early 19th century Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen’s Land). Kent took home the Special Jury Prize in Venice, and Baykali Ganambarr won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor for his portrayal of Billy, an aboriginal tracker who helps Clare (Aisling Franciosi), a young convict, find the man who ruined her life. Sam Claflin, Ewen Leslie, and Damon Herriman also star.

▣ Ray & Liz Trailers

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Award-winning photographer Richard Billingham makes his feature directing debut with this story based on his family and the unflinching photographs he took of them (collected in the book Ray’s Laugh). A memoir in the form of a British kitchen-sink drama, Billingham's film uses three vignettes from different time periods to look at his parents’ marriage and their relationship to him and his younger brother. It’s tough but rewarding viewing.

▣ Waves Trailers

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The latest acclaimed release from director Trey Edward Shults (It Comes at Night, Krisha) is a bifurcated narrative about a family in crisis. The first half focuses on Tyler (Kelvin Harrison, Jr. from this year’s Luce), a senior in high school in love with his girlfriend (Alexa Demie) but also a star wrestler pushed to achieve by his father (Sterling K. Brown). The second half shifts to Tyler’s sister Emily (Taylor Russell), and her romance with Tyler’s teammate, Luke (Lucas Hedges). This structure troubled some critics, with most favoring the first half, but overall Shults’ ambitious gamble pays off.

▣ First Love Trailers

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This well-received 2019 Cannes entry is a zippy, Tarantino-esque bit of pulp fiction from prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike. This time, he's made a darkly comedic mob drama set in Tokyo that traces one day in the life of a troubled young boxer who meets the love of his life—though she happens to be caught up in a drug-smuggling scheme that involves a corrupt cop and various organized crime groups, resulting in what amounts to a night-long chase. One of the director's more accessible films, First Love is lively, violent, and funny, according to critics.

▣ Ford v Ferrari Trailers

In this best picture nominee from director James Mangold (Logan, Walk the Line), Matt Damon plays car designer Carroll Shelby, and Christian Bale is race car driver Ken Miles. Together, with the backing of the Ford Motor Company, they take on the dominant Ferrari team at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans. Reviews have been better for Bale and Damon (though both were shut out at the Oscars) than for the film overall, which critics found entertaining but by-the-book.

▣ Greener Grass Trailers

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Looking for something different? Written, directed by, and starring Upright Citizens Brigade alumni Jocelyn DeBoer and Dawn Luebbe, this debut feature takes viewers to a bizarre suburbia where adults wear braces on their perfectly straight teeth, kids turn into golden retrievers, and soccer moms birth soccer balls. Not everyone will fall for the film’s odd brand of comedic satire, and you’ll definitely want to click that trailer link above to find out which group you’re in. (Trust us—it’s worth it.)

▣ In Fabric Trailers

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The most recent film from director Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio, The Duke of Burgundy) is another clever riff on giallo horror. The tale begins when a recently divorced woman (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) buys a red dress from a strange department store in London, unleashing a malevolent curse and an evil that threatens everyone who comes into contact with the dress. Strickland, no stranger to fetishes, leans into the stylistic flourishes the genre allows while also embracing the comedy inherent to the story.

▣ Roma (2018) Trailers

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After becoming Netflix's first best picture nominee and first Venice Golden Lion winner—as well as the first foreign-language film to score 10 Oscar nominations—Alfonso Cuarón's 2018 black-and-white masterpiece is now the very first Netflix film to be added to the Criterion Collection. (There are more on the way, including Marriage Story and The Irishman.) Extras included in this Criterion release (which marks the film's first appearance on disc) include the just-released Netflix companion documentary Road to Roma as well as several other making-of documentaries.

▣ Wild Nights with Emily Trailers

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Molly Shannon plays poet Emily Dickinson in a comedy that debunks the popular vision of Dickinson as a reclusive spinster. Written and directed by Madeleine Olnek (The Foxy Merkins, Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same), the film may take a few liberties with actual history (and literally borrows its wild tone from TV's Drunk History) as it traces a surprisingly lively Dickinson's writing career and her long affair with her brother's wife (Susan Ziegler). But Wild Nights certainly had a lot of fans when it debuted at SXSW back in 2018, with critics especially enjoying the performances of the entire cast (which also includes Amy Seimetz and Brett Gelman).

▣ A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood Trailers

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Director Marielle Heller's 2019 film marked her third straight critical success, following The Diary of a Teenage Girl and Can You Ever Forgive Me?. Based on journalist Tom Junod’s Esquire article about Fred Rogers, this feel-good film stars Matthew Rhys as Lloyd Vogel, an emotionally stunted writer assigned to profile the beloved children’s television host. The latter is played by Tom Hanks in top form, earning him a best supporting actor Oscar nomination.

▣ Jojo Rabbit Trailers

Nominated for six Academy Awards including best picture and winner of the People's Choice Award at last fall's Toronto International Film Festival, Jojo Rabbit is certainly one of the most (but perhaps not the most) divisive "prestige" films of 2019. Of course, that's to be expected when you set a whimsical, Wes Anderson-esque comedy in Nazi Germany and make Adolph Hitler a character. Taika Waititi’s extremely loose adaptation of the Christine Leunens novel Caging Skies tells the story of a 10-year-old German boy named Jojo (newcomer Roman Griffin Davis, who picked up a Golden Globe nomination) whose relationship with his imaginary friend Adolf Hitler (Waititi) is complicated when he meets Elsa (Leave No Trace’s Thomasin McKenzie), a Jewish girl whom his mother (Scarlett Johansson) is hiding in their home.

▣ Color Out of Space Trailers

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One of the few things rarer than a good Nicolas Cage film is a film directed by Richard Stanley. But Color Out of Space is both of those things. Stanley's first completed narrative film since 1992 is a loose adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story of the same name. Cage plays the patriarch of the Gardner clan, whose bucolic life is upset when a meteorite lands on their family farm, infecting the land with a strange color. Soon, this alien force is mutating any life form (including, sadly, the farm’s alpacas) it comes in contact with, resulting in a hilarious (if you get on its wavelength) and psychedelic horror film.

▣ Frozen II Trailers

Disney's follow-up its 2013 mega-hit Frozen reassembles the team that made the first film so successful. Director Chris Buck and writer-director Jennifer Lee return, as do Idina Menzel as Elsa, Kristen Bell as Anna, Jonathan Groff as Kristoff, and Josh Gad as Olaf. This time, their adventure leads them north to an enchanted forest where no one can get in or out (except Elsa, who gets in because, you know, magic). Expect seven new songs as well as new voices from Evan Rachel Wood, Sterling K. Brown, Martha Plimpton, Alfred Molina, Jason Ritter, and Rachel Matthews. The resulting film was less impressive to critics—and surprisingly absent from the Academy Awards' animated feature category—but that certainly didn't stop it from quickly surpassing the original at the box office and becoming the highest-grossing animated film in history.

▣ Knives Out Trailers

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Rian Johnson’s intermezzo between Star Wars projects is an often humorous, Agatha Christie-like whodunit starring Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, a Southern detective enlisted to solve the mysterious death of wealthy crime novelist Harlan Thrombrey (Christopher Plummer). With a cast that includes Toni Collette, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ana de Armas, Chris Evans, Don Johnson, Michael Shannon, and LaKeith Stanfield, Johnson has another critical hit on his hands. The result earned Johnson an Oscar nomination for his screenplay (but nothing more, to the surprise of some), and he is contemplating a sequel centering on Craig's character.

▣ Synonyms Trailers

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The latest from Nadav Lapid (The Kindergarten Teacher, Policeman) won the Golden Bear as the best film at last year’s Berlinale. Based on his own experiences as a young man in Paris, Lapid's latest finds newcomer Tom Mercier delivering an electrifying performance as Yoav, an obstinate young Israeli who refuses to speak Hebrew as he works at the Israeli embassy, studies for his naturalization test, and tries to find his footing in a foreign land. Like the performance at its center, if you can get on the film’s wavelength, it can be a rewarding experience.