Inspired by this thread.
I am not a deep DVD aficionado, so I am curious: what are among the most renowned and eagerly-awaited movies that have yet to be released on DVD?
I’d have though virtually any major studio release of the last 30-40 years would be available on DVD, but I learned in the thread linked above that Yentl was not available on DVD. I was kind of surprised by that.
For reasons I can’t fathom: Hamlet, Kenneth Branagh version.
It’s been ten years, but it still isn’t out on DVD nor does there seem to be any soild plan to release it in the near future (a post at IMDB claims that the studio said it might not be released until 2008 now).
The African Queen
Song of the South
Does Star Wars count?
El Cid (1961)
The Interns (1962)
The V.I.P.s (1963)
Move Over, Darling (1963)
The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964)
The Sandpiper (1965)
Grand Prix (1966)
Willard (1971)
All among the top ten grossing films of their year.
The following are not available on DVD in North America:
• The Big Parade (1925), one of the top-grossing movies of the silent era
• Wings (1927), winner of the first Academy Award for Best Picture
• The Wedding March (1928), directed by Eric von Stroheim
• Mädchen in Uniform (1931), early lesbian classic
• She Done Him Wrong (1933), starring Mae West and Cary Grant
• Zero for Conduct (1933), French classic about rebellious school boys
• Naughty Marietta (1935), Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy
• The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936), directed by Jean Renoir
• Dancing Pirate (1936), the second full-color feature
• Partie de campagne (A Day in the Country) (1936), directed by Jean Renoir
• Show Boat (1936), directed by James Whale
• Angel (1937), starring Marlene Dietrich, directed by Ernst Lubitsch
• Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), directed by Leo McCarey
• The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), starring Ronald Colman
• Tevya (1939), Yiddish-American production, based on same stories as Fiddler on the Roof
• Knute Rockne All American (1940), “Win one for the Gipper”
• Swiss Family Robinson (1940), Disney bought it and suppressed it when they did their own version in 1960
• They Knew What They Wanted (1940), starring Carole Lombard and Charles Laughton, from Sidney Howard’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
• Hellzapoppin (1941), movie version of famously anarchic Broadway show
• Tobacco Road (1941), directed by John Ford, from Erskine Caldwell’s best seller
• A Canterbury Tale (1944), directed by Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger
• Winged Victory (1944), directed by George Cukor, written by Moss Hart
• Song of the South (1946), Disney
• The Fallen Idol (1948), directed by Carol Reed, written by Graham Greene
• Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), directed by Max Ophüls
• Jour de fête (1949), starring Jacques Tati
• Los Olvidados (1950), directed by Luis Buñuel
• La Ronde (1950), directed by Max Ophüls
• Ace in the Hole (1951), starring Kirk Douglas, directed by Billy Wilder
• Death of a Salesman (1951), playwright Arthur Miller didn’t like Fredric March’s performance, and he controlled the non-theatrical rights
• Miracle in Milan (1951), magic realism in an urban slum; one of my personal favorites, directed by Vittorio De Sica
• El (1953), directed by Luis Buñuel
• The Living Desert (1953), Oscar-winning documentary
• The Earrings of Madame de . . . (1953), directed by Max Ophüls
• The Naked Spur (1953), starring James Stewart, directed by Anthony Mann
• Voyage in Italy (1954), directed by Roberto Rossellini
• Princess Yang Kwei-fei (1955), directed by Kenji Mizoguchi
• Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), starring Jayne Mansfield and Tony Randall
• The Lovers (1958), starring Jeanne Moreau, directed by Louis Malle
• Brink of Life (1958), directed by Ingmar Bergman
• Porgy and Bess (1959), the Gershwin estate now controls the rights, and they don’t like the movie version
• House of Usher (1960), starring Vincent Price, directed by Roger Corman
• Wild River (1960), starring Montgomery Clift, directed by Elia Kazan
• General della Rovere (1959), directed by Roberto Rossellini
• When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960), directed by Mikio Naruse
• Shoot the Piano Player (1960), directed by François Truffaut
• Last Year at Marienbad (1961), directed by Alain Resnais
• El Cid (1961), starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren, directed by Anthony Mann
• Whistle Down the Wind (1961), children find a vagrant in a barn and think he is Jesus; directed by Bryan Forbes
• La Jetée (1962)*, avant-garde, post-apocalyptic science fiction
• Dog Star Man (1962-1963), avant-garde classic, directed by Stan Brakhage
• Autumn Afternoon (1962), directed by Yasujiro Ozu
• America, America (1963), directed by Elia Kazan
• Charulata (1964), directed by Satyajit Ray
• The Red Desert (1964), directed by Michelangelo Antonioni
• Goldfinger (1964), the third James Bond movie
• Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964), directed by Sergei Parajanov
• Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), cult classic, and John Waters’ favorite movie
• Pierrot le fou (1965), directed by Jean-Luc Godard
• Simon of the Desert (1965), directed by Luis Buñuel
• The War Game (1965), British docudrama about a nuclear war
Hercules Returns isn’t out on DVD as far as I know, nor is Zulu Dawn- at least, not in Australia.
Really? I’m sitting here holding a legitimate, retail DVD of Goldfinger as I type this.
ALL the James Bond movies (including Never Say Never Again are on DVD in Australia… I find it hard to believe that Goldfinger is available in Australia, but not in the US…
None of the first five James Bond movies are available on DVD in the U.S., although they are available in Canada, and can be easily bought online as imports.
A Canterbury Tale (1944) is available on DVD this side of the Pond. Can’t say the same about **The Warlord ** (1965), though.
Some of these were on DVD but went out of print. I’m glad I bought a copy of Last Year at Marienbad - strange that would be deleted.
The Bond films were on American DVDs once. I believe Disney’s Jungle Book (1967) is currently out of print, another top ten blockbuster.
These things go in and out of print. I have several of the Bond DVDs, but just try getting them in the stores now.
taras Bulba is in the same boat – it came out a while back on DVD, but isn’t currently “in print”
All of the James Bond DVDs have been released in the USA, not once, but twice. The first series were bare-bones “flippers”, with (non-anamorphic) widescreen on one side, fullscreen on the other. The second series were Special Editions with commentaries, documentaries, the works.
The Bond DVDs went out of print a long time ago, and are currently out of print due to Sony’s purchase of MGM. This affected many DVD release schedules, including Erik the Viking (I assume) – but, considering the vast profitability of the James Bond series, you can GUARANTEE that they will eventually see the light of day again, probably as 2-disc Mega-Super-Duper Editions, once all the red tape is sorted out.
There might be other legal issues I’m not aware of, but James Bond is way too much of a money-making franchise for any company to let fall by the wayside.
Heh. Disney.
Disney’s got a habit of releasing their A-list animated films on a seven-year schedule. This goes back to the VHS days when they would release a title (Peter Pan, Little Mermaid, Snow White & the Seven Dwarves, etc.) accompanied by a HUGE marketing campaign, and make sure everyone knows that it’s for a “limited time only”. And, that’s no lie. After a year, the VHS/DVD goes on moratorium, returns to the vault, and gathers dust for another 7 years while prices soar on eBay and bootlegs abound.
It’s a crappy way of doing business (or ingenious, depending on your perspective) but, at least, you can rest assured that ANY major Disney film WILL see a Super Duper Golden Piss In Your Pants Edition if you wait long enough. Except Song of the South, of course. But that’s a different story…
Walloon … I appreciate yor effort, but those movies are the kind I’d have expected not to be out on DVD because of their age.
I had put the “past 30-40” years disclaimer in the OP, but didn’t call enough attention to it. Sorry.
The fall of the House of Usher is available on Amazon, and you get Pit & Pendulum with it 
Three years ago I went looking for Scarface for my son. It seems it was releasedin a rather crappy version and is no longer distributed. I thought they were planning an anniversary edition but I haven’t seen it yet.
• Mouchette (1967), directed by Robert Bresson, recently named by Time magazine as one of the Top 100 movies of all time
• The Fixer (1968), starring Alan Bates
• If… (1968), directed by Lindsay Anderson
• Memories of Underdevelopment (1968)
• Rachel, Rachel (1968), starring Joanne Woodward, directed by Paul Newman
• Pretty Poison (1968), one of Gene Siskel’s Top 10 of the year
• Arthur Rubinstein — The Love of Life (1969), Oscar-winning documentary
• Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), nominated for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Actor
• Downhill Racer (1969), starring Robert Redford, directed by Michael Ritchie
• The Learning Tree (1969), autobiographical story written and directed by the late Gordon Parks, the first feature by a black director to be released by a major studio
• Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), another pick by Gene Siskel for the Top 10 of the year
• The Conformist (1970), directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
• Hospital (1970), documentary by Frederick Wiseman, won three Emmys
• King: A Filmed Record (1970), Oscar-nominated documentary
• Husbands (1970), written and directed by John Cassavetes
• Performance (1970), starring James Fox and Mick Jagger, co-directed by Nicholas Roeg
• Tristana (1970), directed by Luis Buñuel
• The Clowns (1970), directed by Federico Fellini
• The Devils (1971), sexual hysteria in a medieval convent, directed by Ken Russell
• Harold and Maude (1971), black comedy, cult classic
• Mary, Queen of Scots (1971), starring Vanessa Redgrave
• The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (1972)
• The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (1972), directed by Phil Kaufman
• Day for Night (1973), directed by François Truffaut, won three Oscars
• O Lucky Man! (1973), directed by Lindsay Anderson
• Thieves Like Us (1974), directed by Robert Altman
• Give 'em Hell, Harry! (1975), one-man show starring James Whitmore as Harry Truman
• 1900 (1976), directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
• Providence (1977), directed by Alain Resnais
• Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980), directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
• Mon oncle d’Amérique (1980), directed by Alain Resnais
• Prince of the City (1981), directed by Sidney Lumet
• Reds (1981), directed by and starring Warren Beatty
• Blade Runner (1982), directed by Ridley Scott
• The Weavers: Wasn’t That a Time (1982), documentary
• El Norte (1983)
• Stranger Than Paradise (1984), directed by Jim Jarmusch
• The Last Emperor (1987), multiple Oscar-winner, including Best Picture
• Throw Momma from the Train (1987)
• Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (1988), directed by Pedro Almodóvar
• The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years (1988)
• Henry V (1989), starring Kenneth Branagh
• Beauty and the Beast (1991), Disney
• The Double Life of Veronique (1991)
• The Player (1992), directed by Robert Altman
• Hard Boiled (1992), cult classic, directed by John Woo
• Schindler’s List (1993), directed by Steven Spielberg
• Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould (1993), which if nothing else inspired an episode of The Simpsons
• Ulysses’ Gaze (1995), recently picked by Time magazine as one of the Top 100 movies of all time
• Lolita (1997), directed by Adrian Lyne from the novel by Vladimir Nabokov
• Topsy-Turvy (1999), directed by Michael Leigh
• Talk to Her (2002)*, directed by Pedro Almodóvar