50 Film Classics in a Box: Truffaut, Kurosawa and more

Janus Films has spent the last 50 years bringing classic foreign films to American audiences, exposing them to the works of Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Akira Kurosawa, and François Truffaut, among others. To celebrate its half-century anniversary, the film distribution company has done something pretty remarkable. It has released on DVD a collection of 50 classic films, which include Black Orpheus (Camus), M (Fritz Lang), The 400 Blows (Truffaut), Grand Illusion (Renoir), Seven Samurai (Kurosawa), The Seventh Seal (Bergman), La Strada (Fellini), and The 39 Steps (Hitchcock). You’ll love the Essential Art House: 50 Years of Janus Films if you’re a diehard film buff, but not if you’re light in the wallet. Even when bought at a discount of $650, the collection still runs a hefty hunk of change. But it’s nothing that a home equity loan can’t fix.