Direct-to-video or straight-to-video refers to the release of a film, television series, short or special to the public immediately on home video formats rather than an initial theatrical release or television premiere. This distribution strategy was prevalent before streaming platforms came to dominate the TV and movie distribution markets.
Limelight is a 1952 American comedy-drama film written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin, based on a novella by Chaplin titled Footlights. The score was composed by Chaplin and arranged by Ray Rasch.
StudioCanal S.A.S. is a French film production and distribution company. The company is a subsdiary of the Canal+ Group, owned by Vivendi. As of May 2024 the company has 14 production companies in Europe and the US, and holds around 9,000 titles in its extensive film library.
The Criterion Collection, Inc. is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". Criterion serves film and media scholars, cinephiles and public and academic libraries. Criterion has helped to standardize certain aspects of home-video releases such as film restoration, the letterboxing format for widescreen films and the inclusion of bonus features such as scholarly essays and documentary content about the films and filmmakers. Criterion most notably pioneered the use of commentary tracks. Criterion has produced and distributed more than 1,000 special editions of its films in VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc, DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray formats and box sets. These films and their special features are also available via The Criterion Channel, an online streaming service that the company operates.
Kino Lorber is an international film distribution company based in New York City. Founded in 1977, it was originally known as Kino International until it was acquired by and merged into Lorber HT Digital in 2009. It specializes in art house films, such as documentary films, classic and rarely seen films from earlier periods in the history of cinema, and world cinema. In addition to theatrical distribution, Kino Lorber releases films in the home entertainment market and has its own streaming services for its digital library.
Multiple Maniacs is a 1970 independent American black comedy horror film composed, shot, edited, written, produced, and directed by John Waters, as his second feature film and first "talkie". It features several actors who were part of the Dreamland acting troupe for Waters' films, including Divine, Mary Vivian Pearce, David Lochary, Mink Stole, Edith Massey, George Figgs, and Cookie Mueller. The plot follows a traveling troupe of sideshow freaks who rob their unsuspecting audience members.
IFC Films LLC is an American film production and distribution company based in New York. It is an offshoot of IFC owned by AMC Networks. It distributes mainly independent films under its own name, select foreign films and documentaries under its Sundance Selects label and genre films under its IFC Midnight label. It operates the IFC Center.
The Voyager Company was a pioneer in CD-ROM production in the 1980s and early 1990s. It was founded in 1984 by four partners: Jon Turell, Bill Becker, Aleen Stein, and Robert Stein in Santa Monica, California, and later moved to New York City. The firm took its name from the Voyager space craft. In partnership with Janus Films, the company published The Criterion Collection, a pioneering home video collection of classic and important contemporary films on LaserDisc. Voyager introduced the release of special editions on LaserDisc.
MGM Home Entertainment LLC is the home video division arm of the American media company Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). It is owned by the Amazon MGM Studios subsidiary of Amazon.
Shout! Factory, LLC, trading as Shout! Studios is an American home video and music distributor founded in 2002 as Retropolis Entertainment. Its video releases, issued in DVD or Blu-ray format, include previously released feature films, classic and contemporary television series, animation, live music, and comedy specials. Considered a boutique Blu-ray label, Shout! Studios, in addition to its mainline home video releases, also releases films under the sublabels Scream Factory, Shout! Select, and Shout! Kids.
The Brattle Theatre is a repertory movie theater located in Brattle Hall at 40 Brattle Street near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The theatre is a small movie house with one screen. It is one of the few remaining movie theaters, if not the only one, to use a rear-projection system; the projector is located behind the screen rather than behind the audience.
Bryant Haliday was an American actor, as well as producer, of film and stage, who was instrumental in providing a showcase for international film titles in the United States by co-founding Janus Films with his partner Cyrus Harvey, Jr.
Overlord is a 1975 black-and-white British war film written and directed by Stuart Cooper. Set during the Second World War, around the D-Day invasion, the film is about a young British soldier's experiences and his meditations on being part of the war machinery, including his premonitions of death. The film won the Silver Bear - Special Jury Prize at the 25th Berlin International Film Festival. “Overlord is not about military heroics; on the contrary, it is about the bleakness of sacrifice”, Cooper said.
Steven M. Rales is an American businessman and film producer. He founded Danaher Corporation in 1984 with his brother Mitchell Rales and is chairman of the board. Rales also founded the film production company Indian Paintbrush in 2006, which works closely with filmmaker Wes Anderson. His work with Anderson has earned him three Academy Award nominations, winning Best Live Action Short Film for The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023). Rales also owns the media distribution companies Janus Films and The Criterion Collection and holds a 20% stake in the Indiana Pacers, a National Basketball Association (NBA) team.
Rialto Pictures is a film distributor founded in 1997 by Bruce Goldstein and based in New York City. A year later, Adrienne Halpern joined him as partner. In 2002, Eric Di Bernardo became the company’s National Sales Director. It was described as “the gold standard of reissue distributors” by Los Angeles Times/NPR film critic Kenneth Turan. In 1999, Rialto received a special Heritage Award from the National Society of Film Critics, and in 2000 received a special award from the New York Film Critic’s Circle, presented to Goldstein and Halpern by Jeanne Moreau. The two co-presidents have each received the French Order of Chevalier of Arts and Letters.
Bruce Goldstein is a New York City based film programmer, distributor, documentarian, writer, producer, and publicist. He is best known for his work as the repertory programmer for Film Forum in New York. The magazine Time Out New York named him “one of the 101 essential people or places of New York,” citing him “for keeping showmanship alive.”
Indian Paintbrush Productions LLC is an American film production company founded by businessman Steven Rales in 2006. It is based in Santa Monica, California, and specializes in the production and distribution of comedy-drama and romantic films. Rales and Indian Paintbrush have financed and produced several releases by filmmaker Wes Anderson, such as The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), Isle of Dogs (2018), and The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023). Other notable credits include Like Crazy (2011) and Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015).
The Cohen Film Collection is a film archive currently held by Cohen Media Group. Containing several hundreds of rare and classic movies spanning from the silent film era to the present day, it was previously referred to as the Rohauer Library prior to Cohen Media Group's ownership in 2011.
