SpotlightSpotlight (Universal, Blu-ray, DVD, VOD) is the kind of film that takes on the Big Subject with modesty and self-reflection, drawing the viewer into the world of the reporters and culture of Boston in 2001 to better understand the scope of everything that’s at stake.

Spotlight is the story of the Boston Globe reporters who investigated history of abuse perpetrated on children by Catholic priests, a history that had spotty coverage in the paper over the years but was each time quickly forgotten, chalked up as another isolated case. It takes new editor Marty Barron (Liev Schreiber), someone from out of town who hasn’t grown up believing The Church an untouchable institution, to spur a serious look into what turns out to be a systemic issue. He assigns the paper’s investigative “Spotlight” unit—reporters Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), and Matty Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James), and editor Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton)—not all of whom are convinced there’s a story here. Until they see a startling pattern.

I say it’s the story of the reporters but we actually see little of their lives outside of their work. Their job is their life and the focus of the film, the long, thankless slog of interviewing scores of people, following up leads, challenging officials, checking sources, double-checking facts, and pulling together the hundreds of pieces to lock in a story that challenges perhaps the most powerful and beloved institution in their city. In that sense it’s an old-school newspaper drama in the 21st century and director/co-writer Tom McCarthy, who researched and wrote the script with Josh Singer, brings those details to life.

McCarthy, whose earlier films The Station Agent and Win Win are affectionate character pieces, is what you might call an actor’s director. He loves performers and characters and creates space for the personalities to fill the screen and collide, kibbitz, and collaborate with one another. Two members of the cast, Ruffalo and McAdams, received Oscar nominations, but Keaton is equally deserving and the ensemble is so good—it’s a team effort about a team effort—that you wish the Oscars had a category to reward it.

The city is just as much a character in this drama as the people. The Catholic Church looms large in Boston, not just symbolically but literally, as McCarthy reminds us with every city street scene. There’s hardly a shot that doesn’t have a church looking on like a sentinel and McCarthy is astute enough not to hammer the idea home. He simply allows the images linger.

The events are now over a decade old—the first story was published in early 2002—but the aftershocks still reverberate through the country and all over the world. McCarthy and his team show us why the truth was hidden for so long, how it was finally brought into the light, and why journalism—real investigative reporting, which is more rare all the time in a culture of struggling newspapers and click-bait web headlines masquerading as news—matters. Along the way, they tell one hell of a story.

It’s nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Original Screenplay (it’s a favorite in the latter category), and has already won Best Ensemble Cast by the Screen Actors Guild, Best Screenplay by the Writer’s Guild of America, Best Picture by the American Film Institute, and scores of other awards from professional and critics organizations.

This is not a visually dynamic movie—that’s not a criticism, mind you, as the imagery is in service to the quiet, subdued atmosphere—but it is handsome and it looks marvelous on Blu-ray.

Blu-ray and DVD includes the rather brief featurettes “Spotlight: A Look Inside” and “The State of Journalism,” more like promo pieces really, and the six-minute discussion “Uncovering the Truth: A Spotlight Team Roundtable” with the real-life Globe reporters dramatized in the film. Also includes a Digital HD copy of the film (Digital SD on the DVD version).

Also on Cable and Video On Demand.

SteveJobsSteve Jobs (Universal, Blu-ray, DVD, VOD) isn’t the usual big screen biopic. Ostensibly adapted from Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography, Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay discards the familiar birth-to-death sweep to offer a triptych of snapshots of Jobs, the co-founder of Apple who became the face of the company over his stormy stewardship, driving innovation and driving out opposition.

Apart from a couple of flashbacks, the entire film takes place in the minutes leading up to the public unveiling of three defining Steve Jobs-driven product launches: the Mac in 1984, NeXT in 1988 (after he was fired from Apple), and the iMac in 1998 (after he was brought back to save Apple from bankruptcy). It may seem confounding that it ends before the laptop revolution and the iPod, iPhone, and other iDevices that changed the way we interact with technology but Sorkin and director Danny Boyle (who jumped into the project after David Fincher dropped out) are less concerned with the devices than the character of Jobs.

Michael Fassbender plays Jobs as a micromanaging perfectionist who wears his public persona like an exactingly-tailored suit, sharp and smooth and poised, while he fails spectacularly at maintaining personal relationships in private. Arrogant and exasperating, he knows what he wants—he berates on technician for failing to get the computer to speak on cue for the launch and refuses to skip the electronic greeting—and more importantly why. He makes technology not just easy to use but relatable, a defining irony in a film that foregrounds his inability to relate to colleagues. He wants everything on his terms and has a hard time giving credit where it is due, even to his old friend and founding partner Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), the man in the garage who actually built their initial computers. He can’t quite fathom how Jobs became the man driving Apple (“I conduct the orchestra,” is Jobs’s reply). Kate Winslet is his right hand Joanna Hoffman, providing ballast and balance and negotiating his interaction with the world. Both Fassbender and Winslet earned Oscar nominations for their performances.

Anyone familiar with Sorkin’s work (from The West Wing to The Social Network) will recognize his style immediately, from the constant walk-and-talk sequences (Boyle uses the device to give the film a headlong momentum) to the wit and bite of the dialogue stirred through debates over business philosophy and personal responsibility. They provide a psychological Rorschach test of the professional history and personal behavior of Jobs, especially when it comes to his former girlfriend (Katherine Waterston) and the daughter he refuses to recognize as his own even after the courts have ruled otherwise.

And that’s finally what the film is about: the drive, the philosophy, the ruthlessness, the prescience of Jobs, a man who didn’t right computer code, design software, or build machines yet drove the innovations that redefined the way we interact with the world. Boyle latches on to the confounding contradictions reveals the messy soul of Jobs behind a mind that understands the importance of surfaces and interfaces. Boyle and Sorkin make for an unusual pair—Sorkin is all talk and Boyle likes to bring a lot of energy and a little visceral jump to his films—but it works here.

The Blu-ray and DVD editions feature filmmaker commentary, the featurette “Inside Job: The Making of Steve Jobs,” and a Digital HD copy of the film.

Also on Cable and Video On Demand.

trumboTrumbo (Universal, Blu-ray, DVD, VOD) stars Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) as screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, the left-leaning screenwriter who, while blacklisted, won Academy Awards for two screenplays. Cranston is Oscar nominated for his witty, slightly prissy, often acerbic performance and the film features memorable turns by Helen Mirren (as the red-baiting Hedda Hopper) and John Goodman (terrific as B-movie producer Frank King), but it’s a frustrating cartoon of Hollywood during the blacklist. At one point in the film, scripted by John McNamara and directed by Jay Roach, Trumbo schools a fellow (and in this case fictional) writer played by Louis CK in Hollywood screenwriting after reading a script filled with speeches about unions and social justice. The filmmakers weren’t paying attention to their own lessons for Trumbo not only wears its politics on its sleeve, it puts it into dialogue and continually hammers its points home. The real Trumbo would not have approved.

Blu-ray and DVD with the featurettes “Who is Trumbo?” and “Bryan Cranston Becomes Trumbo. The Blu-ray edition also features an UltraViolet Digital HD copy of the film.

BlackMassBlack Mass (Warner, Blu-ray, DVD, VOD) features Johnny Depp delivering a truly cold-blooded performance as James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, the Irish mobster whose reign of murder and terror in Boston was protected by FBI agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), a childhood friend who thought he could make Bulger an informant. As played by Depp, whose blue contact lenses make him that much icier, he’s a criminal sociopath who thrives on violence. He’s chilling but not that interesting and the film fails to adequately explain what Connolly was really up to in his protection of Bulger. You may notice a few nods to GoodFellas, which was clearly a touchstone for director Scott Cooper.

Blu-ray and DVD with the featurette “Johnny Depp: Becoming Whitey Bulger,” a 12-minute piece on Depp’s preparation for the role. Exclusive to the Blu-ray are the hour-long “The Manhunt for Whitey Bulger,” an in-depth documentary on the decades-long search for Bulger, and the featurette “Black Mass: Deepest Cover, Darkest Crime” (23 minutes), with the cast and crew discussing the inspiration for the film, plus bonus DVD and Ultraviolent digital HD copies of the film.

Also new and notable:33

The 33 (Warner, Blu-ray, DVD) tells the true story of the Chilean miners trapped for 69 days 200 stories below the surface in a catastrophic mine collapse in 2010. Directed by Mexican filmmaker Patricia Riggen, it stars Antonio Banderas, Rodrigo Santoro, Juliette Binoche, James Brolin, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Gabriel Byrne. Blu-ray and DVD with the featurettes “The Mine Collapse” and “The 33: The World was Watching” and an alternate Spanish language soundtrack. The Blu-ray also includes an Ultraviolet HD copy of the film.

LabyrinthLiesLabyrinth of Lies (Sony, Blu-ray, DVD), from Germany, follows the odyssey of a young prosecutor in 1958 who uncovers documents about the holocaust that have been suppressed by the government in the years after World War II and fights to have the truth of the evils perpetrated in Germany under Nazi rule brought out into the light. Blu-ray and DVD, in German with English subtitles, with commentary by and an audience Q&A with director Giulio Ricciarelli and actor Alexander Fehling and deleted scenes. The Blu-ray also includes an Ultraviolet HD copy of the film.

Spies (Kino Classics, Blu-ray, DVD) and Woman in the Moon (Kino Classics, Blu-ray, DVD), the final silent films directed by Fritz Lang, will be reviewed in a later feature, along with other cult and classic releases, including the recent released from Twilight Time.

Classics and Cult:SpiesLang

Spies (Kino Classics, Blu-ray, DVD)
Woman in the Moon (Kino Classics, Blu-ray, DVD)
The Kid (Criterion, Blu-ray, DVD)
Death By Hanging (Criterion, Blu-ray, DVD)
I Knew Her Well (Criterion, Blu-ray, DVD)
The Graduate (Criterion, Blu-ray, DVD)
The Vincent Price Collection III: Master of the World / Tower of London / Diary of a Madman / An Evening of Edgar Allan Poe / Cry of the Banshee (Shout! Factory, Blu-ray)VincentPriceIII
American Horror Project Vol. 1: Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood / The Witch Who Came From the Seas / The Premonition (Arrow / MVD, Blu-ray+DVD)
The Serpent and the Rainbow (Shout! Factory, Blu-ray)
The Taviani Brothers Collection: Padre Padrone / The Night of the Shooting Stars / Kaos (Cohen, Blu-ray, DVD)
Pauline at the Beach (Kino Lorber Studio Classics, Blu-ray, DVD)
Amos and Andrew (Olive, Blu-ray)
Beat Street (Olive, Blu-ray, DVD)TavianiBrosCollection
Class (Olive, Blu-ray)
Code 46 (Olive, Blu-ray)
Moonlight and Valentino (Olive, Blu-ray, DVD)
Mystery Date (Olive, Blu-ray)
Pressure Point (Olive, Blu-ray)
Secret Admirer (Olive, Blu-ray)
Sleep With Me (Olive, Blu-ray)
Speechless (Olive, Blu-ray)
The Curse / The Curse II: The Bite (Shout! Factory, Blu-ray)
The Hawaiians (Twilight Time, Blu-ray)AmericanHorrorProj1
Support Your Local Sheriff (1969) / Support Your Local Gunfighter (Twilight Time, Blu-ray)
Cowboy (Twilight Time, Blu-ray)
The Big Heat (Twilight Time, Blu-ray)
Where The Sidewalk Ends (Twilight Time, Blu-ray)
La Bambola Di Satana (Twilight Time, Blu-ray)
McHale’s Navy / McHale’s Navy Joins the Air Force (Shout! Factory, DVD)
The Big Sleep (Warner Archive, Blu-ray)
Key Largo (Warner Archive, Blu-ray)

TV on disc:TogethernessS1

Togetherness: Season 1 (HBO, Blu-ray, DVD)
Fargo: Year Two (Fox, Blu-ray, DVD)
Warehouse 13: The Complete Series (Universal, Blu-ray)
The Trials of Jimmy Rose (Acorn, DVD)
Peaky Blinders: Season Two (BBC, Blu-ray, DVD)
Girls: Season 4 (HBO, Blu-ray, DVD)
Saints & Strangers
(Sony, DVD)
The Irish R.M. (Acorn, DVD)
Jesus of Nazareth: The Complete Collection (Shout! Factory, Blu-ray)

More new releases:GoodDinosaur

The Good Dinosaur (Disney, Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, DVD)
Secret in their Eyes (Universal, Blu-ray, DVD)
My All American (Universal, Blu-ray, DVD)
Moonwalkers (Alchemy, Blu-ray, DVD)
Entertainment
(Magnolia, Blu-ray, DVD)
Frankenstein (2015) (Alchemy, Blu-ray, DVD)
Facing Extinction (Lionsgate, Blu-ray, DVD)
The Black Panthers: Vanguard of a Revolution (PBS, DVD)
Hatched (Cinedigm, DVD, Digital HD)
The Iron Ministry (Icarus, DVD)

Calendar of upcoming releases on Blu-ray, DVD, Digital, and VOD