while i love my Criterion Collection movies, it's the Arrow collections/sets that really are done well with great extras and gorgeous looking sets packed with good stuff. plus, horror is my favorite genre and they put out great ones...

No Indicator love? Criterion is a breed apart, but Indicator has been getting me excited as of late.

5 Shout Factory
4 Synapse
3 Indicator
2 Arrow
1 Criterion

I love Criterion and Shout! Factory, but feel that Kino Lorber is underrated - they release a lot of fun B-movies (and some A movies) with solid transfers (albeit almost all of those transfers are studio-provided).

Whoever releases The Thing in 4K will be...

I chose Criterion, but I'd be tossed between Twilight Time and Kino Lorber for second.

Eventually most of them will.

As for BD, no one touches Criterion.

Arrow is in second because they actually have good sales, unlike Scream/Shout. If we are talking just content, those two are neck and neck.

Vinegar Syndrome's releases are usually real solid. I wouldn't complain if they moved toward more popular titles. Solid props for going after more obscure stuff though.

Severin, well, I just got my BLACK FRIDAY order, last week!

I'd be much happier with Shout if they invested in new transfers and best practices all the time like Arrow attempts. Generally, Shout's special features are usually interesting and well-produced.

Mill Creek

This is a really difficult question to answer because it really depends on what you're looking for. It's hard to argue against Criterion. So many great titles in the collection, many with a wealth of extras.

But if your tastes lean more toward low budget, exploitation and often the obscure, Arrow and Vinegar Syndrome are in a league of their own. I'm frequently shocked at how good their releases look. It really shows just how poor many companies' quality control must be.

But if someone were to force me to make a choice, I'd probably opt for Arrow if for no other reason than the sheer variety of titles. Yes, you get plenty of horror, action and exploitation, but they also release Hollywood productions, classics and more artistic films. And while their releases might initially come with a larger price tag, there sales are tough to beat.

It's Indicator for me.

Quality and value are both extremely high. While there is some overlap in the titles they've licensed with Shout and TwilIght Time in RA, I can generally import the Indicator version for under $20 and be assured that the encode will be high quality (and usually edge out both the other labels).
In contrast, I have to wait six-twlelve months for the TT release to go on sale, and then the first sale it's usually still more expensive than the import.
While Shout, with it's new MAP strategy, is just a complete wallet buster.
My SF purchases have gone waaaay down- despite having several titles right now I'd love as much as anything else to pick up.

For domestic labels I'm extremely impressed with all the Vinegar Syndrome titles I've purchased. They would probably edge out Indicator for me if they only released more stuff I was actually interested in. The 80's to present and Slasher fare leaves me cold, so my purchases tend to be few and far between.

They're like childrens. I love them all! Vestron is easily my least favorite on that list, though.

MVD has come out of nowhere the past couple of years and put out a fair number of niche/genre releases I don't think were ever going to hit BD. They mostly distribute for other smaller labels and one-offs. A/V quality is a tad erratic but they have certainly been trying.

Arrow: 38 total


vs.

Criterion: 107 total

This is tough because there are two components to this:

1. What titles are available?

and

2. How good are the releases from a technical standpoint?

I'll say that right now I think Indicator puts out the best product with what they have to work with, but they don't do new restorations themselves. In that sense Arrow has them beat, but horror's for weirdos and I don't care for much of their output. Criterion has the best catalog overall, but technically they've been jumped by the various UK labels.

​​​​​I also have to throw a bone to Eureka and 88 Films purely on the basis of their recent Hong Kong releases. Eureka does a fantastic job otherwise as well, but there's a lot of crossover with Criterion.

Finally, I know they're a major label, but it's still a niche subsidiary so I'll mention Warner Archive. I wish the big studios would treat their classic catalog as well as those guys do.
​​​

I like Arrow better than Criterion but both are great. Arrow gets the edge for giving us the reversible cover art.

Sometimes these go hand in had. Sometimes they don’t. So what’s your preference if have? Regular keepase, Steelies, digi, big sets, little sets, any other type as well…

for me: Arrow. They have consistently risen to where stuff is packed, gorgeous and magnificent sets. Some are collectibles, I’m sure (is there a site of Arrow collectibles/OOP list) They have gone way passed Criterion

I don’t have a lot of their releases, but I would say Arrow Video as well. Their releases always feel premium. Plus they have nice artwork, and include booklets.

Criterion and Kino. I also have a soft spot for Synapse.

I don't have a particular favorite distributor.

I go by the specific release. There have been good ones by the major studios.

Purely from a packaging perspective, it's Vinegar Syndrome for me. They do nice, high quality slip covers, and reversible sleeves for their standard releases(if you buy them before they switch to standard releases), which are great, but their two VSU titles (Beastmaster and Six String Samurai) are top-tier.

​​​​​​

the Blue Underground 4K releases of Final Countdown and Dead and Buried, have solid, trippy, lenticulars that I think is pretty cool in this day of age. That they still do solid sets all around. The ones I gotten from over seas, like In Bruges, The Cooler, Irreversible, which I guess most are Second Sight, who I believe is only international. They put out nice sets wit nice extras of movie that should gryphon more attention here in states.

Indicator in the UK does some nice stuff.

In terms of who puts out the most movies that I'm interested in, the answer is easily KL Studio Classics. No matter what you're into -- screwball comedies, Eurowesterns, film noir, Billy Wilder, '50s sci-fi, or basically anything else you could think to name -- they release a metric ton of it. I feel much the same about Warner Archive, although they operate on a very different scale. But a more limited output means it feels better curated, and pretty much everything Warner Archive puts out is worth considering. I never have to fret if the presentations will be up to snuff either.

Arrow is the label whose announcements I get more excited about than anyone else's, striking the most ideal balance between movies that are up my alley, the quality of their presentations, and the quality of their extras. I'd have a hard time choosing between Vinegar Syndrome and Shout/Scream Factory as a runner-up. Scream puts out many, many more movies that are more my speed, but there's a wild card factor about VinSyn that I can't resist, and I find myself watching more of their extras than any other label's (since there's more of a "how does a movie like this even happen?!" element).

Kind of funny to think that I don't have Criterion in that list when for years and years, I owned literally every single BD that they put out. (I had complete Synapse and Blue Underground BD collections too!) I still love all of them, along with plenty of other labels I haven't mentioned (Grindhouse, Mondo Macabro, Severin, Second Sight, Indicator, etc.). And for one of the few labels not listed in the poll, I'll throw out Mill Creek as an honorable mention. Even though compression isn't their strong suit, their commitment to TV-on-BD is second to none, and I love that the higher-ups are clearly such tokusatsu fans. And there's not a label in the U.S. who could deliver all these Ultraman sets at this steady a clip or at anything remotely near this price point.

If we're talking strictly in terms of packaging, I'd go with Arrow or Vinegar Syndrome.

Yep, this for me too. According to my Blu-ray collection tracker, I own the most Kino titles.
Here are my top 3 most Bds owned from said studios...

1. Kino w/ 221 titles
2. Warner Bros. w/ 214 titles
3. Criterion w/ 188 titles