Giant

A strikingly beautiful transfer makes Giant one of the best-looking classic films available on DVD. Curiously, the picture is letterbox format rather than anamorphic, though the relatively modest 1.66 aspect ratio makes this less of a problem than it could have been. (George Stevens Jr. mentions in the commentary track that his father liked a sense of height in his pictures and said that CinemaScope was only useful for the Last Supper.) The bonus features are as big as Texas. Most significant among various materials are three substantial (over 45 minutes each) documentaries: "George Stevens: The Filmmakers Who Knew Him," in which Warren Beatty, Frank Capra, and others reminisce about Stevens, and two making-of retrospectives, "Memories of Giant" and "Return to Giant," which have surprisingly little overlap considering they were made only two years apart, in 1996 and 1998. Especially poignant are the cast and crew's still-vivid reactions to James Dean's death in a car accident shortly after the completion of shooting. --David Horiuchi

They call it Giant because everything in this picture is big, from the generous running time (more than 200 minutes) to the sprawling ranch location (a horizon-to-horizon plain with a lonely, modest mansion dropped in the middle) to the high-powered stars. Stocky Rock Hudson stars as the confident, stubborn young ranch baron Bick Benedict, who woos and wins the hand of Southern belle Elizabeth Taylor, a seemingly demure young beauty who proves to be Hudson's match after she settles into the family homestead. For many the film is chiefly remembered for James Dean's final performance, as poor former ranch hand Jett Rink, who strikes oil and transforms himself into a flamboyant millionaire playboy. Director George Stevens won his second Oscar for this ambitious, grandly realized (if sometimes slow moving) epic of the changing socioeconomic (and physical) landscape of modern Texas, based on Edna Ferber's bestselling novel. The talented supporting cast includes Mercedes McCambridge as Bick's frustrated sister, put out by the new "woman of the house"; Chill Wills as the Benedicts' garrulous rancher neighbor; Carroll Baker and Dennis Hopper as the Benedicts' rebellious children; and Earl Holliman and Sal Mineo as dedicated ranch hands. --Sean Axmaker

Texan rancher Bick Benedict visits a Maryland farm to buy a prize horse. Whilst there he meets and falls in love with the owner's daughter Leslie, they are married immediately and return to his ranch. The story of their family and its rivalry with cowboy and (later oil tycoon) Jett Rink unfolds across two generations.