The creator of such timeless masterpieces as Rashomon, Ikiru, Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, and High and Low, Akira Kurosawa is one of the most influential and beloved filmmakers who ever lived - and for many the greatest artist the medium has known. Now, on the occasion of the centenary of his birth, the Criterion Collection is proud to present this deluxe box set celebrating his astonishing career. Featuring twenty-five of the films he made over the course of his fifty years in movies - from samurai epics to postwar noirs to Shakespeare adaptations - AK 100 is the most complete set of his works ever released in this country, and includes four rare films that have never been available on DVD.

The year is 1963, the night: Halloween. Police are called to 43 Lampkin Ln. only to discover that 15 year old Judith Myers has been stabbed to death, by her 6 year-old brother, Michael. After being institutionalized for 15 years, Myers breaks out on the night before Halloween. No one knows, nor wants to find out, what will happen on October 31st 1978 besides Myers' psychiatrist, Dr. Loomis. He knows Michael is coming back to Haddonfield, but by the time the town realizes it, it'll be too late for many people.

Young novelist returning home to Salem's Lot after many years is disturbed by the strange behaviour of its people. He begins to believe that the source of the trouble may be the eerie old Marsten House that overlooks the town.

The college town of Bedford is receiving an unwelcome guest this Christmas. As the residents of sorority house Pi Kappa Sig prepare for the festive season, a demonic stranger begins to stalk the house. A series of grisly obscene phone-calls start to plague the residents of the sorority and soon they will each meet their fate at the hands of the psychotic intruder. As the Police try to trace the phone calls, they discover that nothing is as it seems during this BLACK CHRISTMAS.
Bob Clark's Black Christmas predate Halloween by 4 years and is now widely acknowledged as the inventor of the modern slasher film.

Directed by thrill master John Carpenter, this edge-of-your seat adventure stars Kurt Russell as Jack Burton, a tough-talking, wisecracking truck driver whose hum-drum life on the road takes a sudden supernatural tailspin when his best friend's fiancйe is kidnapped. Speeding to the rescue, Jack finds himself deep beneath San Francisco's Chinatown, in a murky, creature-filled world ruled by Lo Pan, a 2000-year-old magician who mercilessly presides over an empire of spirits. Dodging demons and facing baffling terrors, Jack battles his way through Lo Pan's dark domain in a full-throttle, action-riddled ride to rescue the girl.

Something strange has happened to Makoto Konno. Time has suddenly stopped and moved her backwards. With her newly discovered ability to literally leap backwards in time Makoto finds that tests become a piece of cake, embarrassing situations are corrected, and she can have her favorite food anytime she wants. Unfortunately, her carefree time traveling has adverse effects on the people she cares for. With every successful leap Makoto somehow alters the fate of those around her. This wasn't supposed to happen and as she races back in time to fix everything, she notices that her abilities are not limitless but with every successful jump she's one step closer to discovering the most wonderful secret in her young adult life.

An ex-mercenary turned smuggler, A Mende fisherman. Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman’s son, conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed across the alternately beautiful and ravaged countryside.

Based upon Hermann Sudermman’s “The Excursion to Tilsit”, Sunrise tells the story of a man (George O’Brien) and his wife (Janet Gaynor); farmers living in a small village situated by a lakeside, who have had to struggle through poverty whilst raising a young child. For a while the man has been seeing a woman from the city (Margaret Livingston) and life back home has been far from joyful. The seductress asks him to run away with her, and then instructs him to murder his wife and tailor a story around an apparent accident. So the man arranges a pleasant day out for his wife - a trip to the lake which naturally surprises her….

A landmark work in the history of the cinema, Der letzte Mann represents a breakthrough on a number of fronts. Firstly, it introduced a method of purely visual storytelling in which all intertitles and dialogue were jettisoned, setting the stage for a seamless interaction between film-world and viewer. Secondly, it put to use a panoply of technical innovations that continue to point distinct ways forward for cinematic expression nearly a century later. It guides the silent cinema’s melodramatic brio to its lowest abject abyss — before disposing of the tragic arc altogether. The lesson in all this? That a film can be anything it wants to be… but only Der letzte Mann (and a few unforgettable others) were lucky enough to issue forth into the world under the brilliant command of master director F.W. Murnau.

In this first-ever screen adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a simple real-estate transaction leads an intrepid businessman deep into the superstitious heart of Transylvania. There he encounters the otherworldly Count Orlok – portrayed by the legendary Max Schreck, in a performance the very backstory of which has spawned its own mythology – who soon after embarks upon a cross-continental voyage to take up residence in a distant new land… and establish his ambiguous dominion. As to whether the count’s campaign against the plague-wracked populace erupts from satanic decree, erotic compulsion, or the simple impulse of survival – that remains, perhaps, the greatest mystery of all in this film that’s like a blackout…

Before he became a sensation with the twisty revenge story Memento, Christopher Nolan fashioned this low-budget, 16 mm black-and-white neonoir with comparable precision and cunning. Providing irrefutable evidence of Nolan’s directorial bravura, Following is the fragmented tale of an unemployed young writer who trails strangers through London, hoping that they will provide inspiration for his first novel. He gets more than he bargained for when one of his unwitting subjects leads him down a dark criminal path. With gritty aesthetics and a made-on-the-fly vibe (many shots were simply stolen on the streets, unbeknownst to passersby), Following is a mind- bending psychological journey that shows the remarkable beginnings of one of today’s most acclaimed filmmakers.

When a young journalist is framed for the murder of his fiancé and discovers her secret life as a moonlighting prostitute, he finds unlikely assistance in a thrill-seeking female pickpocket intent on helping him clear his name and entertaining herself while doing so. Their investigation reveals a secret organization of criminals and call girls serving the sexual demands of senior executives and other powerful Japanese figures. Shot on city streets amid the bustling crowds of Asakusa and Ginza, Sexy Line is a witty and energetic journey into Tokyo’s licentious underworld.

Considered by many to be the first great American horror film, John S. Robertson's Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde allowed stage legend John Barrymore to deliver his first virtuoso performance on film. Blending historic charm with grim naturalism, this version of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde is one of the more faithful of the many screen adaptations of Stevenson's story, recounting a visionary scientist's ill-fated attempts to unleash the human mysteries that dwell beneath the shell of the civilized self.

This is called the first Soviet science fiction film because of its "futuristic" sets on Mars, although most of it takes place in Moscow. The movie is set at the beginning of the NEP (New Economic Policy) in December, 1921. A mysterious radio message is beamed around the world, and among the engineers who receive it are Los, the hero, and his colleague Spiridonov. Los is an individualist dreamer. Aelita is the daughter of Tuskub, the ruler of a totalitarian state on Mars in which the working classe are put into cold storage when they are not needed. With a telescope, Aelita is able to watch Los. As if by telepathy, Los obsesses about being watched by her. After some hugger-mugger involving the murder of his wife and a pursuing detective, Los takes the identity of Spiridonov and builds a spaceship. With the revolutionary Gusev, he travels to Mars, but the Earthlings and Aelita are thrown into prison by the dictator…

Nankyoku Monogatari is a 1983 Japanese film directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara and starring Ken Takakura. Its plot centers on the 1958 ill-fated Japanese scientific expedition to the South Pole, its dramatic rescue from the impossible weather conditions on the return journey, the relationship between the scientists and their loyal and hard-working Karafuto Dogs, particularly the lead dogs Taro and Jiro, and fates of the 15 dogs left behind to fend for themselves.