Hairspray, Desperate Living & Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore from Criterion UK in July
Spirit Entertainment has announced The Criterion Collection UK UHD and Blu-ray releases for July 2026, which will consist of Hairspray and Desperate Living from cult director John Waters, and Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed ‘woman’s picture’, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. Full details below.
HAIRSPRAY (USA 1988)
Dual Format 4K UHD + Blu-ray | 20 July 2026
After decades of pushing the boundaries of bad taste with his underground provocations, John Waters found surprising mainstream success with this infectiously irreverent rock-and-soul comedy.
It’s 1962, and the only things bigger than the bouffant hairdos are the popular dance crazes sweeping the nation. When Baltimore teen Tracy Turnblad (Ricki Lake) shoots to stardom on a local TV dance party, her radical self-confidence and support for racial integration launch a movement that takes the city by storm.
Costarring the inimitable Divine in a fiercely funny double role, Hairspray finds Waters marrying his wildly subversive sensibility with a newfound bubblegum sweetness for what may be his most irresistible film.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director John Waters, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- Alternate 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Audio commentary featuring Waters and actor Ricki Lake
- New conversation between Waters and WFMU DJs Dave “the Spazz” Abramson and Gaylord Fields
- New interview with Lake and actor Colleen Fitzpatrick
- Reflections from actors Debbie Harry, Jo Ann Havrilla, Leslie Ann Powers, Clayton Prince, Shawn Thompson, and Pia Zadora
- Deleted scenes
- Behind-the-scenes documentary
- Get to Know John Waters (1987)
- Interview with production designer Vincent Peranio
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Jessica Kiang
DESPERATE LIVING (USA 1977)
Dual Format 4K UHD + Blu-ray | 20 July 2026
Following the unrepentant outrageousness of Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble, director John Waters brought his notorious trash trilogy to a fittingly twisted close with this antifascist fairy tale.
After hysterical housewife Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) murders her husband with the help of her fed-up housekeeper (Jean Hill), the newfound “sisters in crime” escape to the bizarro shantytown of Mortville, a depraved penal colony presided over by a despotic queen (Edith Massey) whose tyranny pushes her subjects to shocking revolt.
Deviant cops, death by dog food, DIY surgery—Waters unleashes all this and more in an at once relentlessly warped and oddly moral vision of queer rebellion.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director John Waters, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Audio commentary featuring Waters and actor Liz Renay
- Optional Italian dub track
- New conversation between Waters and film programmer Cristina Cacioppo
- Back to Mortville, a tour of the film’s main Baltimore location, led by Waters
- New interview with actors Susan Lowe, Mary Vivian Pearce, and Mink Stole
- Interview with production designer Vincent Peranio
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by critic Grace Byron
ALICE DOESN’T LIVE HERE ANY MORE (USA 1974)
Dual Format 4K UHD + Blu-ray | 27 July 2026
Martin Scorsese infuses the classic maternal melodrama with the brash spirit of the New Hollywood in this zeitgeist-capturing feminist tale of a woman finding her footing in a patriarchal world.
An Academy Award–winning Ellen Burstyn shines as Alice Hyatt, a newly widowed mother who, with her precocious son, Tommy, takes off across the Southwest to pursue her dream of becoming a singer, along the way learning to live on her own terms, even as a new romance with a rugged rancher (Kris Kristofferson) tests her growing independence.
Boasting vivid supporting turns by Diane Ladd, Harvey Keitel, and Jodie Foster, this irrepressible look at starting anew overflows with warmth and humanity from each bustling frame.
DIRECTOR-APPROVED 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
- New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Martin Scorsese, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in Dolby Vision HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- Audio commentary featuring Scorsese and actors Ellen Burstyn, Jodie Foster, Kris Kristofferson, Diane Ladd, and Alfred Lutter
- New conversation between Burstyn and film critic Farran Smith Nehme
- New interview with editor Marcia Lucas
- Making-of documentary featuring Burstyn and Kristofferson
- Trailer
- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
- PLUS: An essay by film critic Stephanie Zacharek