/Film Holiday Gift Guide 2025: The Best Movies & TV Shows Worth Buying On Physical Media

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Movies. TV shows. This is our bread and butter. But streaming services and digital libraries can only take you so far. If you really want to make sure that you always have the movies and TV shows you love available to watch, regardless of digital library licenses and wi-fi availability, then owning them on physical media is the best possible decision.

For our final installment of the /Film 2025 Holiday Gift Guide (check out our guides for Hollywood books, movie and TV soundtracks, pop culture clothes and gear, and toys and collectibles), we're digging into a bunch of movies that you can bring home on physical media. From the biggest and best movies of 2025 to old favorites on 4K, from the Criterion Collection to cult classics and down to TV series box sets, all of these movies are worth owning on disc.

There's never any shortage of sci-fi and fantasy movies, and many of this year's best are among the biggest hits of the year.

Superhero fans can't go wrong with James Gunn's "Superman," kicking off a new DC universe, or if you want to stick with Marvel Studios, "Thunderbolts*" surprised everyone by being the best Marvel Cinematic Universe movie of the year, though "The Fantastic Four: First Steps" wasn't far behind.

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For a darker tinge of sci-fi, you should absolutely check out weirdo Robert Pattinson in multiple roles in "Mickey 17," or see Sophie Thatcher in one of her best performances in the thriller "Companion," which you're better off watching without knowing anything about it.

Dinosaurs and dragons never go out of style, which is why "Jurassic World: Rebirth" raked in the box office dollars and the live-action remake of "How to Train Your Dragon" made big waves.

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On the family friendly side of entertainment, "A Minecraft Movie" and "Lilo & Stitch" bring laughs and adventure for adults and kids alive.

Finally, Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons shine in "Bugonia," which takes a less-is-more approach to a sci-fi thriller with plenty of twists and turns accompanying some dark comedy.

Horror movies have turned out to be quite the savior for the struggling box office, and the genre produced some of the biggest hits of 2025, as well as some hidden gems.

"Sinners" is simply one of the best movies of the year, with bloody action, a killer soundtrack, and two powerhouse performances by Michael B. Jordan as twin brothers, not to mention outstanding turns by Miles Caton, Hailee Steinfeld, and Jack O'Connell.

Horror sequels were all the rage this year, but with very different approaches. "28 Years Later" picked up the zombie-esque franchise decades after the last installment to kick off a new trilogy, while "The Conjuring: Last Rites" brought an end (somewhat) to the blockbuster horror franchise. 

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Meanwhile, "Black Phone 2" (available December 23) leaned into "Nightmare on Elm Street" territory, and "Final Destination: Bloodlines" may have been the most satisfying sequel out of them all, thanks to some wildly inventive death sequences.

Finally, for a surprisingly great thriller, "Drop" takes a "Phone Booth"-style approach to the genre by keeping us mostly locked down in a single location while an unseen threat makes commands remotely, putting a woman in danger unless she does this stranger's bidding.

Comedies may not be as plentiful as they once were, but this year brought some big laughs, even if they were movies that didn't really make a dent in the box office.

For those who know the woes of low income all too well, you can't go wrong with the "Friday"-esque comedy "One of Them Days" with Keke Palmer and SZA. There's also Aziz Ansari's "Good Fortune," which gives Keanu Reeves one of his funniest roles as an angel trying to help Aziz's character while he's down on his luck, and they're both alongside the reliable Seth Rogen, who always brings the funny.

When it comes to the parody side of things, it doesn't get much better than "The Naked Gun" and "Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues." One has Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson pick up the mantle of a classic spoof franchise with flying colors, and the other literally gets the band back together for one more mockumentary concert that is as charming as it is funny.

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Families clash in very different ways with "Freakier Friday" providing a double dose of body-swapping and the return of Lindsey Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis delivering plenty of laughter all over again, while "The Roses" finds Olivia Colman and Benedict Cumberbatch trading sharp barbs as a struggling married couple on the outs.

Finally, for a more peculiar bout of laughter, we have Wes Anderson's signature quirky comedy "The Phoenician Scheme" and Tim Robinson's strange "Friendship" with Paul Rudd, which is perfect for all the fans of Netflix's "I Think You Should Leave."

Animation is a medium, not a genre, and it's not just for kids. Granted, there are a few great animated movies for kids, but there are also animated movies that adults will love just as much.

"The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie" brings back Daffy Duck and Porky Pig for a sci-fi adventure that is packed with silliness, while "Dog Man" adapts the beloved book series with plenty of gags that will make adults laugh along with the kids

Pixar is doing their usual heartstring-pulling thing with the lovely coming-of-age space story "Elio," giving us one of the most adorable new characters in the animation studio's history. Speaking of history, "Ne Zha 2" recently made history by being a box office juggernaut that crossed the $2 billion mark, and it's a visual feast worth watching at home.

Finally, "Flow," a film about a cat lost in a great flood, was such a beautiful animated movie that it won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards earlier this year, and it immediately entered the Criterion Collection.

Even though action thrives on the big screen, home theaters have gotten so sophisticated that watching them at home can be an exhilarating experience too. And you can't go wrong with these action movies on your 4K HD television.

Brad Pitt feels the need for speed in "F1," a movie in which the actor actually did some of his own driving in the high speed Formula 1 race cars at the center of the movie.

Meanwhile, on the sequel side of things, "Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning" brought the franchise to an end, and while it didn't quite stick the landing, there are still some remarkable action sequences worth watching. 

The world of "John Wick" also expanded with "Ballerina" putting Ana de Armas in the lead assassin role, and Ben Affleck returned to lethal action in "The Accountant 2," drumming up some more brotherly camaraderie with Jon Bernthal.

Circling around to more original action fare, "Novocaine" puts Jack Quaid as the unlikely lead of a caper surrounding a man who can't feel any pain (which is actually more dangerous than it sounds).

From prestige dramas to time-hopping romance, this year's best dramas hit hard in a variety of ways.

"One Battle After Another" (releasing January 20, 2026) might be the best movie of the year, with a pulse-pounding chase sending Leonardo DiCaprio on an intense, chaotic journey to save his kidnapped daughter amidst a cultural revolution. Similarly, "Eddington" also draws from today's tense political environment by imagining a small town conflict at the height of racial tensions and the Covid pandemic.

"The Long Walk" is one of the best Stephen King adaptations of all time, with outstanding performance by David Johnsson and Cooper Hoffman, and it's a must-have for your physical media library. Speaking of incredible performances, the double dose of Daniel Day-Lewis and Sean Bean in "Anemone" makes for a compelling drama about two brothers reconnecting in the middle of nowhere.

On the more fantastical and reflective side, we have another Stephen King adaptation in the form of "The Life of Chuck," a movie starring Tom Hiddleston that will make the tears roll. Plus, Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie take a whimsical walk into their past in "A Big, Bold, Beautiful Journey" (releasing December 23).

Plenty of movies fall by the wayside, and if you're looking to send someone on a fruitful cinematic journey, these are worth checking out.

"Sorry, Baby" is one of the most acclaimed movies of the year, following a reclusive college literature professor struggling with depression after a traumatic event. If that sounds a little too intense, you could always lean into an absurdly gory and grotesque sci-fi comedy like "The Toxic Avenger."

For some thrills and chills, "Heart Eyes" does a fantastic job of blending a slasher movie with a straight-up romantic comedy, while "Together" puts a gnarly twist on romance between Dave Franco and Alison Brie. Meanwhile, "Bring Her Back" weaves a twisted tale with a heartbreaking performance from Sally Hawkins.

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Finally, you'll find laughter and charm in "The Ballad of Wallis Island" and "Eephus." The former follows a folk duo who reunite to perform for a wealthy fan (Tim Key) on a remote Welsh island, while the latter focuses on the final game of an amateur New England baseball league before their field is paved over.

So many movies are hitting 4K all the time, and this year's best releases have something for everybody.

"TRON" and "TRON: Legacy" deliver Disney's dazzling visuals, and they've never looked better, with both films being released on 4K for the first time. If you can get ahold of the Steelbooks, that's even better.

For the holidays, you can celebrate in Whoville with the 4K Steelbook release of "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas" with Jim Carrey, or you can go on the run with Leonardo DiCaprio in "Catch Me If You Can," which is an honorary Christmas movie.

Speaking of being on the run, "Minority Report" on 4K gives us Steven Spielberg's precrime caper in the best resolution possible, while the classic "Get Carter" puts Michael Caine in plenty of danger. 

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You can have a family movie night with the beloved "Meet the Parents" hitting 4K before the upcoming "Focker-in-Law" sequel arrives. Or you can spend time with the unconventional found family at the center of Paul Thomas Anderson's "Boogie Nights."

Go back in time with Sam Raimi's thrilling, action-packed western "The Quick and the Dead," or find love all over again with the 20th anniversary edition of Joe Wright's pristine adaptation of "Pride & Prejudice."

Finally, you can hang out with one of the friendliest ghosts around with the 4K release of "Casper," or you can meet a surprising version of God and various angels in Kevin Smith's subversive "Dogma," which had a long road to get a 4K release.

Shout Factory used to have their own online store, but they were recently folded into Gruv, which is still selling all of their signature titles. Here are some of the best 4K releases from 2025 that Shout Factory put out.

First of all, shout out to our own Bill Bria, who contributed a whopping four commentary tracks to Shout Factory's limited edition Mario Bava Blu-ray collection available on Blu-ray, featuring such movies as "The Girl Who Knew Too Much," "Black Sabbath," "Five Dolls for an August Moon," "A Bay of Blood," and more.

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Enjoy a bit of cheese and ham it up with the likes of the HBO fantasy staple "Beastmaster," or go back in time with Jean-Claude Van Damme's sci-fi action favorite "Timecop."

Take a trip back to the late '90s and early 2000s and live the glory days of high school by either fighting an alien invasion in "The Faculty" or dealing with an overbearing cheer-tatorship in "Bring It On."

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Next, learn how to be a real investigative sleuth by watching "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" track down a missing dolphin, or watch a team of journalists expose one of the biggest scandals in history in "Spotlight."

Finally, you can watch Nicolas Cage face the overpowering hurdle of alcoholism in "Leaving Las Vegas," or you can watch Liam Neeson face down a pack of wolves in "The Grey."

The Criterion Collection is always putting out incredible editions of classic films from yesteryear and future classics from contemporary cinema. This year is no exception.

Recent Best Picture winner "Anora" was added to the Criterion Collection immediately, hot on the heels of Guillermo del Toro's outstanding "Nightmare Alley."

If you watched "Wicked" and need more Oz, you can toss on "The Wiz," and then you can go on another whimsical adventure with Paul Reubens in "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" (available December 16).

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Throw it back to the golden age of cinema with Howard Hughes' classic war movie "Hell's Angels" or entrench yourself in a noir crime thriller with "The Big Heat."

Maybe you'd like to watch Viggo Mortensen step back into his messy past with "A History of Violence" or watch Stanley Kubrick's final film, "Eyes Wide Shut."

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Finally, if you've got that Wes Anderson itch, you can stock up on all of his movies so far (minus "The Phoenician Scheme") with the impressive and stylish Wes Anderson Archive, a 20-disc set comprised of 10 films spread across 25 years that's packed with bonus features.

Arrow loves genre movies, and they're always giving fans outstanding special editions of cult favorites. 

This year, one of their most anticipated releases is the live-action "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" trilogy in stunning 4K.

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They also love to play in horror, especially the "Friday the 13th" franchise, with "Jason Goes to Hell" and "Jason X" being their latest releases from the slasher series.

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Reach back into the '90s for some glorious sci-fi action in the form of "Spawn," Jim Carrey's "The Mask," Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson in "The Long Kiss Goodnight," and Sylvester Stallone's "Demolition Man."

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Arrow also dabbles in the movies of today, with "Crumb Catcher" offering an intriguing thriller and a limited edition of "Evil Dead Rise" available in 4K.

Kino Lorber is always digging back into the past to make sure beloved favorites and classics get the proper 4K releases that they deserve. Here are just some of their offerings available.

Adam Sandler's silliest and best comedies get the 4K treatment with new releases of "Happy Gilmore" and "Billy Madison."

Long before he dove into "Pirates of the Caribbean," Gore Verbinski went on a "Mousehunt" with Nathan Lane, Lee Evans, and Christopher Walken. Follow that up with any of Abbott & Costello's classic Universal Monsters adventures, and you've got a great day of comedy for the whole family.

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Get a double dose of John Candy with 4K releases of the John Hughes classic "Uncle Buck" and the comedy "Summer Rental."

Classics get their due too, with Audrey Hepburn's beloved romance "Sabrina" and Alan Ladd's signature western "Shane."

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Though not on 4K, the best physical media version of "Bottoms" is on Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, and while you're at it, you might as well get Nick Frost and Simon Pegg's extra-terrestrial comedy "Paul" on 4K too.

For movies far off the beaten path, Vinegar Syndrome puts out truly obscure and bizarre cult classics out on physical media. We've picked some of the more recognizable titles, but trust me when I say there's plenty of weird in their online shop.

First of all, our own Bill Bria had a hand in the special booklet that comes with "Tromeo and Juliet," a classic Troma film. Plus, he provided a commentary track for "Castle of Evil," described as "a blend of Agatha Christie-style nailbiter, mad professor thrills, and plentiful other mid-1960s B-movie tropes."

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Other movies Vinegar Syndrome has given special editions to include the hilariously bad "E.T" ripoff "Mac and Me" and the miraculously bad "Showgirls." But they also gave an outstanding release to Norm Macdonald's "Dirty Work," and Eddie Murphy's "The Golden Child." 

(If you're reading this before Black Friday, the site will be undergoing maintenance until 12:01am ET on November 28, so check back then.)

Maybe the best at creating collector's editions physical media releases, Australia's Umbrella Entertainment has so many cool niche releases that come with cool bonus features and extra goodies.

For example, the 4K release of Alex Winter's cult favorite "Freaked" comes with a comic, stickers, and a 100-page book about the making of the movie, which also features a commentary track from /Film's own Witney Seibold for good measure.

For more familiar /Film faces, our own BJ Colangelo recorded a commentary track with her wife Harmony for Umbrella's special release of "All of Me," starring Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin.

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Other cool releases include "The Infernal Affairs Trilogy" (which will be of interest to fans of "The Departed"), Gareth Evans' fantastic action flick "The Raid," Ryan Gosling's quirky indie romance "Lars and the Real Girl," and Joaquin Phoenix's chilling turn in "You Were Never Really Here."

However, if you buy any of these releases, beware that you'll need a region-free player in order to watch them in the United States.

We would be remiss if we didn't mention The A24 shop, which has exclusive Blu-ray releses for many of their movies that you can't get anywhere else.

Titles from this year include a collector's edition box set of the "X" trilogy starring Mia Goth, Celine Song's "The Materialists," Alex Scharfman's "Death of a Unicorn," and several other movies that we already highlighted, like "Friendship" and "Bring Her Back."

Classic cartoons may find it hard to have a consistent streaming home, and that's why you should grab "Looney Tunes" and "Tom & Jerry" collections on physical media whenever you can.

The "Looney Tunes Collector's Vault Vol. 1" has a stellar round-up of classic cartoons from Warner Bros. while "Tom & Jerry: The Golden Era Anthology (1940-1958)" assembles 114 theatrical cartoon shorts, the entire series, as originally released to theaters by MGM during the Golden Age of Hollywood.

It's a great year to be a Chow Yun-Fat fan, as several of his best films are being given 4K releases. 

There's the classic "Hard Boiled," and though it seems to be hard to track down due to a shortage in the supply chain, we're letting you know about the Shout Factory release just so you can begin your quest.

We also have the "A Better Tomorrow" trilogy getting a 4K release in the form of a special edition box set also from the fine folks at Shout Factory.

Shout keeps the hits coming with their release of both "The Killer" and "City on Fire" in 4K, with the former getting a special deluxe edition.

The long-running "Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise was given a full 4K release this year, and there's even a Steelbook library case edition.

The collection includes everything from the original "Nightmare on Elm Street" to Wes Craven's meta "New Nightmare," and there are unrated cuts of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child", along with a 3D version of "Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare," complete with retro 3D glasses.

We've lost count of how many editions of "Back to the Future" have been released over the years, but if you're going to buy it again, you might as well get it on 4K with a bunch of extra goodies.

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Universal has this special edition gift set that includes a collectible Flux Capacitor SteelBook, an exclusive Gibson Mini Guitar replica, an OUTATIME metal license plate, a "Back to the Future: A Visual History" booklet, and an assortment of replica items from the Universal archives like a poster for "Jaws 19," Marty's family photo, and more.

Alfred Hitchcock is one of the most legendary filmmakers in the history of cinema, and over a dozen of his movies are being given the 4K treatment in what is being touted as Alfred Hitchcock: The Ultimate Collection. No, it doesn't have all of this movies, but it has these 15 titles:

• The Birds
• Family Plot
• Frenzy
• The Man Who Knew Too Much
• Marnie
• North by Northwest
• Psycho
• Rear Window
• Rope
• Saboteur
• Shadow of a Doubt
• Topaz
• Torn Curtain
• The Trouble with Harry
• Vertigo

Included are nine hours of bonus content, including documentaries, commentaries, interviews, and behind-the-scenes features. It's one of the best Hitchcock collections out there.

"Downton Abbey" spanned six seasons and three feature films, and now you can have all of them in a grand box set thanks to "Downton Abbey: The Ultimate Legacy Collection."

This limited edition Blu-ray release with an edition size of 2,850 is housed within an elegant 52-page book featuring a special foreword by creator, writer, and producer Julian Fellowes, as well as behind-the-scenes photos, costume and set design sketches, and more. That's on top of the plus 24-disc collection for three films, six TV seasons, and over 13 hours of bonus content.

Finally, for all you TV hounds looking to binge as much TV as possible, here's an assembly of box sets that you may want to stock up on, if only so you don't have to worry about them disappearing from streaming:

• Arcane Season 2 (4K) Steelbook Box Set (Ships December 11)
• Bewitched: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
• Chucky: The Complete Series (Blu-ray, Steelbook)
• Creepshow: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
• Curb Your Enthusiasm: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
• Documentary Now!: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
• Fringe: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
• House M.D.: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)

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• Knight Rider: The Complete Series (4K)
• The Legend of Korra: The Complete Series (Blu-ray, Steelbook)
• Little House of the Prairie: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
• Monk: The Complete Series and Movies (Blu-ray)
• The Morning Show Season 1 and 2 (Blu-ray)
• Murder, She Wrote: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)
• Ted Lasso: The Richmond Way (4K)
• Yellowstone: The Complete Series (Blu-ray)