Scarface (Blu-ray)

THE CRITERION COLLECTION

Blazing across the screen in a spray of bullets, the gangster-film sensation Scarface helped set the standard for the genre for decades to come. Swaggering, scary, and unexpectedly charming, Paul Muni gives an iconic portrayal of criminal sociopathy as Tony Camonte, the ruthless, machine-gun-toting mobster who rises through the ranks of a bootlegging empire atop an ever-increasing body count, but whose possessive relationship with his wild-child sister (Ann Dvorak) threatens to be his undoing.

With rat-a-tat command of editing and dialogue, and his trademark panache, director Howard Hawks creates an unstoppable sense of dynamism while pushing on-screen violence to new heights of brutality.