Bigger Than Life (Criterion Collection) (Blu-ray)

Though ignored at the time of it's release, Nicholas Ray's Bigger Than Life is now recognized as one of the great American films of the 1950s. When a friendly, successful suburban teacher and father (James Mason, in one of his most indelible roles) is prescribed cortisone for a painful, possibly fatal affliction, he grows dangerously addicted to the experimental drug, resulting in his transformation into a psychotic and ultimately violent household despot. This Eisenhower-era throat-grabber, shot in expressive CinemaScope, is an excoriating take on the nuclear family; that it came in the day of Father Knows Best makes it all the more shocking... and wildly entertaining.

Starring: James Mason, Christopher Olsen, Walter Matthau, Barbara Rush, Robert Simon, Betty Caulfield, Billy Jones, Jerry Mathers, Kipp Hamilton, Lee Aaker, Lewis Charles, Natalie Masters, Portland Mason, Renny McEvoy, Richard Collier, Roland Winters, Virginia Carroll, William Schallert, Rachel Stephens, Rusty Lane

Director: James Mason, Shawn McCorkindale, Shelley Dvi-Vardhana