• Feb 02
• A handful of Criterion titles going out of print soon
• Posted by Adgy - 02/02/10 at 08:03 PM

Get 'em while you can! Today, the Criterion Collection announced that a number of their titles will soon be going the way of the dodo. Sort of. At the end of March 2010, the rights to over 20 titles in Criterion's catalog will lapse and will end up, presumably, in Lionsgate's hands. Titles on the list include Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (spine #1!!!), Marcel Carné's Port Of Shadows and Michael Powell's Peeping Tom. You can check out the full list here.

It's expected that Lionsgate will be releasing most, if not all, of these at some point in their own editions as part of their StudioCanal Collection starting up this month with Blu-Ray releases of Kurosawa's Ran (as previously reported here), the original The Lady Killers and Godard's Contempt. Reviews of the European versions of those discs have been mixed and it's rare that anyone tops Criterion's special features, so if you're interested in owning these DVDs, now's the time to get them.