A historical epic based on the real-life Agojie woman warriors of the Dahomey Kingdom tops the DVD releases for the week of Dec. 13.
“The Woman King”: Starring Viola Davis, Thuso Mbedu, Lashana Lynch and John Boyega, this action-filled drama follows a brutal battle for freedom from slavery in 19th-century West Africa.
“The violence enacted by these women warriors is delightfully graceful and inventive … but make no mistake, it is bone-crunchingly vicious and devastatingly effective too,” writes Tribune News Service critic Katie Walsh in her review. “This isn’t just the first time we’ve seen Black women do battle on this scale — it’s the first time we’ve seen women, en masse, engaged in the kind of realistic and gritty violence that marks historical action epics.”
Also new on DVD
“Ticket to Paradise”: George Clooney and Julia Roberts reunite onscreen as acrimoniously divorced parents who head to Bali to break up their daughter’s wedding.
“Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile”: A singing crocodile who lives in a Manhattan brownstone befriends a lonely young kid in this movie based on the Bernard Waber children’s book.
“Call Jane”: A fictionalized depiction of the Jane Collective, a real-life network of women who helped other women obtain safe illegal abortions in the late 1960s and early 1970s, before Roe v. Wade. Featuring Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver.
“A Christmas Karen”: Charles Dickens’ holiday classic gets a modern update as a neighborhood Karen is visited by helpful spirits on Christmas Eve.
“American Murderer”: A con man on the most wanted list tries to stay one step ahead of the FBI in this crime thriller.
“And Just Like That: The Complete First Season”: Carrie Bradshaw and co. (minus Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones) return in this HBO Max sequel to “Sex and the City.” Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis.
“Bandit”: Crime drama based on Robert Knuckle’s novel “The Flying Bandit,” which recounts how a thief robbed 59 Canadian banks and jewelry stores in the 1980s before being caught. With Josh Duhamel, Elisha Cuthbert and Mel Gibson.
“Evil: Season Three”: Paramount+ drama about a forensic psychologist and Catholic Church assessor who team up to solve supernatural mysteries.
“Players: Season One”: This comedy series from Paramount+, set in the competitive world of esports, follows a League of Legends gaming team striving to win its first title.
“Reacher: Season One”: The Lee Child character returns to the screen in this Prime Video series starring Alan Ritchson as former military police investigator Jack Reacher.
“Resurrection”: Psychological thriller starring Rebecca Hall as a single mother who’s being stalked by a shockingly evil man from her past, played by Tim Roth.
“Slash/Back”: Inuit girls take center stage — and take on bloodthirsty, shape-shifting aliens — in this horror movie that unfolds in a sleepy Nunavut hamlet.
“The Minute You Wake Up Dead”: Cole Hauser, Jaimie Alexander and Morgan Freeman star in this thriller about a small-town stockbroker who gets mixed up in a deadly scheme.
“The Roundup”: Korean action film about a police officer sent to Vietnam to bring a fugitive back to justice who discovers there is a serial killer at work.
