August is one of those months where the release calendar quietly gets away from you. More than seventy new 4K discs are landing, including a Spielberg science fiction debut, a Star Wars movie in three separate editions, Arrow going all in on Troy, and a Battlestar Galactica box set that finally fixes the thing fans have complained about for years. Here is what is actually worth the shelf space.
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The Big Ones
Project Hail Mary (2026)
Street date: August 11 | Formats: 4K UHD, Blu-ray | Label: Alliance Entertainment
Check out our review of Project Hail Mary
Phil Lord and Christopher Miller took the Andy Weir novel and handed it to Ryan Gosling, and the result was one of the few genuinely big science fiction swings of the spring. It hit theaters in March and it is the kind of movie where the sound design does half the storytelling, which is exactly the argument for owning it on disc instead of letting a streaming compressor flatten it.
Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026)
Street date: August 25 | Formats: 4K UHD, Blu-ray, Digital | Label: Sony Pictures
Check out our review of The Mandalorian and Grogu
The first Star Wars movie to hit theaters in five years, and the first one built around characters that started on television. If you are buying one of the three editions, decide now rather than in October, because the Beskar set is the one that will be gone first and back on eBay at double.
Disclosure Day (2026)
Street date: August 25 | Formats: 4K UHD, Blu-ray, Digital | Label: Universal
Check out our review of Disclosure Day
Spielberg going back to the sky after all these years is not a small thing, and the fact that Universal is putting it out in a SteelBook this early tells you they know collectors are paying attention. If you skipped it in theaters, this is the version to catch up on.
4K UHD Debuts
Troy (2004)
Street date: August 18 | Formats: 4K UHD, Blu-ray | Label: Arrow Video
Wolfgang Petersen’s swords and sandals epic has spent two decades on a mediocre transfer, and Arrow does not put two 4K discs in a box unless they have something to show off. This is the upgrade, not a repackage.
Mars Attacks! (1996)
Street date: August 11 | Formats: 4K UHD, Digital
Tim Burton’s flying saucer comedy has aged into something close to beloved, and it is a film built entirely out of color. Those Martian greens and that Vegas neon are the whole point, which makes an HDR grade more meaningful here than on almost anything else releasing this month.
Practical Magic (1998)
Street date: August 25 | Formats: 4K UHD, Digital
A movie that flopped, then spent twenty five years becoming a September ritual for an entire generation. The timing on this release is not an accident. Every autumn rewatch list in the world is about to be written, and this is the first time the Owens sisters have looked like anything other than a soft 2003 DVD master.
The Fast and the Furious (2001)
Street date: August 25 | Formats: 4K UHD, Blu-ray, Digital | Label: Universal
Twenty five years since a small movie about street racing turned into a franchise that eventually put a car in space. Worth owning for the same reason people keep going back to it, which is that it is the only one where the stakes are a truck full of DVD players.
Boutique Corner
Night of the Comet (1984) — Shout! Factory
Street date: August 4 | Formats: 4K UHD, Blu-ray | Edition: SteelBook
Valley girls, a comet, cannibal zombies, and an empty Los Angeles shot on real deserted streets. It is the platonic ideal of a midnight movie and it has been criminally hard to find in a decent edition. Shout putting it in a SteelBook is a small act of justice.
Creepshow 2 (1987) — Arrow Video
Street date: August 4 | Formats: 4K UHD | Edition: Special Edition
The lesser Creepshow, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. But “The Raft” is still one of the most effective horror shorts ever put on film, and Arrow does not do half measures on a restoration.
Ju-On: The Grudge (2002) — Arrow Video
Street date: August 11 | Formats: 4K UHD | Edition: Limited Edition
The original Takashi Shimizu film, not the remake, not the remake of the remake. A generation of American horror fans met this movie through a fifth generation import DVD with burned in subtitles. Seeing it properly restored is going to be an experience.
Safe (1995) — The Criterion Collection
Street date: August 4 | Formats: 4K UHD, Blu-ray
Todd Haynes and Julianne Moore made a horror movie that never once admits it is a horror movie. Thirty years on it plays less like a period piece about the nineties and more like a documentary about the present. Safe was voted the best film of the 1990s in a Village Voice poll of more than fifty critics. Definitely the prestige pick of the month.
A Bay of Blood (1971) — Severin Films
Street date: August 11 | Formats: 4K UHD, Blu-ray | Edition: Four disc collection
Mario Bava basically invented the slasher here, and then Friday the 13th Part 2 lifted two kills from it almost shot for shot. Four discs from Severin is not a reissue, it is an archive.
TV and Anime
The single biggest television release of the month is down in Pick of the Month, so start there and come back.
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe: The Complete Original Series
Street date: August 25 | Formats: Blu-ray
The whole thing, in one box, with the movie and the Christmas special that half of you have only ever seen on a taped over VHS. Filmation animation is not going to look good no matter what you do to it, and that is entirely beside the point.
Dragon Ball Daima: The Complete Season
Street date: August 11 | Formats: Blu-ray | Edition: Standard and Limited Edition
Akira Toriyama’s last direct contribution to the franchise he built, which gives this one a weight nobody planned for. The Limited Edition is the one to grab if you are a Dragon Ball household.
Your Name (2016) — Shout! Factory
Street date: August 25 | Formats: 4K UHD, Blu-ray | Edition: SteelBook
Makoto Shinkai’s breakout, and the film that convinced a lot of people outside the anime world that they should be paying attention. It is a movie about light. Put it in 4K and it becomes something else entirely.
Speed Racer: The Complete Series
Street date: August 25 | Formats: Blu-ray
The 1967 series, in full, on Blu-ray. If your entry point to anime was an after school block on a UHF channel, this is your nostalgia purchase for the month.
Pick of the Month
Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series (2026 Edition)
Street date: August 11 | Formats: Blu-ray | Label: Universal
Here is why this is the pick and not the Star Wars movie. Universal has been putting out Battlestar Galactica box sets for fifteen years and every single one of them has had something missing, usually the unrated Razor, which is the version that actually matters. This edition finally puts everything in one place. Four seasons, both TV films in their proper cuts, the extended episodes, and a bonus feature package so deep it outruns the show itself. Seventy hours of extras on a series that runs about seventy hours is an absurd ratio and it is exactly what a complete series release is supposed to be.
It is also a show that has only gotten better with distance. A story about a fleet of survivors arguing about elections and due process while being hunted by something that looks exactly like them was pointed in 2004 and it is pointed now. If you have never watched it, this is the set to start with. If you have watched it four times, this is the one that finally replaces the three mismatched box sets on your shelf.
Also Landing This Month
August 4
- Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby 20th Anniversary SteelBook (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- The People vs. Larry Flynt Limited Edition, Arrow Video (4K UHD)
- American Pie 2 SteelBook and standard, Universal (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- School on Fire, Shout! Factory (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- Little Fockers, Universal (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- Rooster Fighter: Season One Limited Edition SteelBook (Blu-ray)
August 11
- Barbarian Limited Edition SteelBook (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- Beverly Hills Cop SteelBook, Paramount (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- Clear and Present Danger SteelBook, Paramount (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- JFK Theatrical Cut (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- New York, New York, MVD (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- Made in Abyss: Season 1 Collection (Blu-ray)
- Naruto Shippuden: Set 11, episodes 277 to 304 (Blu-ray)
- Rent-A-Girlfriend: Season 4 (Blu-ray)
August 18
- Nightcrawler Collector’s Edition, Shout! Factory (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- Popeye, Paramount (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- The Good, the Bad, the Weird, two cuts, Arrow Video (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- The Hot Spot, Radiance, limited to 5,000 copies (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- The Swan Princess, Sony (4K UHD)
- One Piece: Season 14 Voyage 10, episodes 1001 to 1012 (Blu-ray, DVD)
August 25
- Harlan County USA, The Criterion Collection (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- Little Odessa, The Criterion Collection (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- Identity Limited Edition, Arrow Video (4K UHD)
- Enemy at the Gates 25th Anniversary SteelBook, Paramount (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- The Saint SteelBook, Paramount (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- United 93, Universal (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- The Stunt Man, Shout! Factory (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- Auntie Mame, Warner Archive (4K UHD, Blu-ray)
- Reacher: Season Three (Blu-ray)
- Monster: Collection 1, episodes 1 to 37 (Blu-ray)
What are you making room for on the shelf this month? Tell us in the comments.
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