One of the highlights of many movie-lovers’ month is the announcement of what The Criterion Collection is adding to its DVD and Blu-ray library in the near future. Yesterday, Criterion officially revealed its May slate, which includes films by several powerhouse directors. Here are the pertinent details:

Ace In The Hole / 1951 / Dir. Billy Wilder (out May 6)
Extras:  

• Audio commentary by film scholar Neil Sinyard
• Portrait of a “60% Perfect Man”: Billy Wilder, a 1980 documentary featuring interviews with Wilder by film critic Michel Ciment
• Interview with actor Kirk Douglas from 1984
• Excerpts from a 1986 appearance by Wilder at the American Film Institute
• Excerpts from an audio interview with Wilder’s coscreenwriter Walter Newman
• Video afterword by filmmaker Spike Lee
• A booklet featuring essays by critic Molly Haskell and filmmaker Guy Maddin

Overlord / 1975 / Dir. Stuart Cooper (out May 13)  
Extras:

• Audio commentary featuring Cooper and actor Brian Stirner
• Mining The Archive, a 2007 video piece featuring archivists from London’s Imperial War Museum detailing the footage used in the film
• Capa Influences Cooper, a 2007 photo essay featuring Cooper on photographer Robert Capa
• Cameramen At War, the British Ministry of Information’s 1943 film tribute to newsreel and service film unit cameramen
• A Test Of Violence, Cooper’s 1969 short film about the Spanish artist Juan Genovés
• Germany Calling, a 1941 Ministry of Information propaganda film, clips of which appear in Overlord
• Excerpts from the journals of two D-day soldiers, read by Stirner
• A booklet featuring an essay by critic Kent Jones, a short history of the Imperial War Museum, and excerpts from the Overlord novelization by Cooper and Christopher Hudson

Like Someone In Love / 2013 / Dir. Abbas Kiarostami (out May 20) 
Extras:

• 45-minute documentary on the making of the film
• A booklet featuring an essay by film scholar and critic Nico Baumbach

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou / 2004 / Dir. Wes Anderson (out May 27)                   
Extras:

• Commentary by Anderson and cowriter Noah Baumbach
• New interviews with actors Bill Murray, Willem Dafoe, and Jeff Goldblum
• This Is An Adventure, a documentary by Antonio Ferrera, Albert Maysles, and Matthew Prinzing chronicling the production of the movie
• Mondo Monda, an Italian talk show featuring an interview with Anderson and Baumbach, hosted by Antonio Monda
• Interview with composer and Devo member Mark Mothersbaugh
• 10 performances of David Bowie songs in Portuguese by Brazilian recording artist and actor Seu Jorge
• Intern video journal by actor Matthew Gray Gubler
• Multiple interviews with the cast and crew, featuring behind-the-scenes footage
• Making-of featurette
• Nine deleted scenes
• Behind-the-scenes photos and original artwork from the film
• An insert featuring a cutaway view of The Belafonte, the ship from the film, Eric Anderson’s original illustrations, and a conversation between Wes and Eric conducted in 2005

Red River / 1948 / Dir. Howard Hawks (out May 27)
Extras:

• New interview with filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich about Red River and the two versions
• New interview with critic Molly Haskell about Hawks and Red River 
• New interview with Western scholar Lee Clark Mitchell about Western genre literature
• Audio excerpts of a 1972 conversation between Hawks and Bogdanovich
• Excerpts from a 1970 audio interview with novelist and screenwriter Borden Chase
• A booklet featuring an essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and a 1991 interview with Hawks’s longtime editor Christian Nyby; a new paperback edition of Chase’s original novel, previously out of print

A few notes:

• The Red River set includes both the commonly known version and the original theatrical-release version, which according to the Criterion press release was “the preferred cut of director Howard Hawks.”

• The sleeper in this group is Overlord, which Criterion preciously released on DVD in 2007, but which is still not as well-known as it should be. An experimental WWII movie, Overlord blends archival footage and scenes shot in the early 1970s into a boldly subjective depiction of the D-Day invasion.

• If Criterion would like to release Ace In The Hole a couple of months early, that would be okay by their good friends here at The Dissolve, who are making that film our Movie Of The Week in late March.

• The bosses at Criterion don’t talk much about their selection process, but it’s interesting to see Kiarostami’s Like Someone In Love slip right into the collection after all the controversy over whether or not Kiarostami’s superior Certified Copy was “major” enough to get a Criterion release.

• It was inevitable that Criterion would re-release The Life Aquatic on Blu-ray, but it’s nice to see some newer features in the mix.