Travis Knight is making his directorial debut with the brilliantly conceived Kubo and the Two Strings, but he is no stranger to the world of animated films. He was the lead animator on Coraline, ParaNorman, and The Boxtrolls, all of which were among the finest animated films of recent years.

Although Kubo and the Two Strings seems steeped in Japanese myth, it is in fact an original story written by Shannon Tindle and Marc Haimes, with a screenplay by Haimes and Chris Butler. Like many recent animated films, this one features an all-star cast of voice actors, but unlike many such films, the actors here are all put to good use. Charlize Theron gets top billing as the widowed mother trying to keep her son hidden from the forces of evil that have taken one eye and want to take his other one. Art Parkinson is the voice of her son, Kubo, who ventures out in the day, but must return home by nightfall to avoid being found by his fearsome maternal grandfather (voiced by Ralph Fiennes) and wicked aunts (two Rooney Maras for the price of one). Matthew McConaughey voices the spirit of Kubo’s late father while the always marvelous Brenda Vaccaro offers some delightful bon mots as Kubo’s elderly friend. The stop-motion animation employed is the best I’ve seen, particularly in the film’s stunning climax. This one is a must-see.

Kubo and the Two Strings is available on Blu-ray 3D, 2D, and standard DVD.

There are enough plot holes in David Mackenzie’s Hell or High Water to drive half a dozen trucks through. Fortunately, however, the mechanics of the plot are secondary to the character development of the bank-robbing brothers and the Texas Rangers who pursue them. The British director of Starred Up, working from a script by Taylor Sheridan (Sicario) gives us a film about the recent economic crisis that can stand proudly alongside such works of the Great Depression of the 1930s as I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang and The Grapes of Wrath.

Chris Pine is a revelation as a middle-aged father who, with the help of his older, hardened ex-con bother (Ben Foster), robs branches of the bank that holds his mother’s now due reverse mortgage to make the payments on her ranch that will keep it from being foreclosed on after her recent death. The ranch, which contains recently discovered oil deposits, had been willed to the divorced Pine’s two sons. While it is something of a shock to see the still baby-faced actor play a middle-aged character, he is, at 35, the right age to play him and pulls him off brilliantly, as does Foster, also 35, as his older brother (39 in the film). Jeff Bridges has his best role in years as the Texas ranger on the brink of retirement whose last hurrah the pursuit of the bank robbers must be. Gil Birmingham is his partner. The film’s Oscar-worthy cinematography is by Giles Nuttgens (The Deep End).

Hell or High Water is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Bank robbers of a different era are the subject of Marlon Brando’s One-Eyed Jacks, given a 4K digital restoration by the Film Foundation and released on Blu-ray by Criterion after a brief theatrical showing. This one also boasts fine performances by Brando, Karl Malden, Katy Jurado, Pina Pellicer, Ben Johnson, and Slim Pickins among others. The last film to be lensed in VistaVision also benefits from the world-class cinematography that earned Charles Lang (A Farewell to Arms, Some Like It Hot) the 15th of his 18 Oscar nominations.

The film’s first screenplay was written by Sam Peckinpah who was fired by original director Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick was eventually fired by Brando who took over the direction himself, his only film as director. Kubrick was then hired by Kirk Douglas to direct Spartacus which was released a full year before One-Eyed Jacks. One-Eyed Jacks having had a notoriously long shooting time due to Brando’s meticulousness. Malden called his Los Angeles home “the house that One-Eyed Jacks built,? because of all the overtime money he made from the delays.

Originally released in 1961, the film was a financial bust for Paramount and eventually fell into public domain when the studio failed to renew the copyright. Seen in its original pristine beauty in this new restoration, this is a film that could well be considered the missing link between the old Hollywood and the new. As Martin Scorsese says in his newly recorded introduction, it has the production values of Old Hollywood and the emotional values of New Hollywood.

As with the typical Criterion release, tons of extras are included.

Criterion has also released a director-approved Blu-ray of Noah Baumbach’s 2005 film, The Squid and the Whale. Still the director’s best film, this one features four extraordinary performances by Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, and Owen Kline as members of a dysfunctional pseudo-intellectual Brooklyn family in the 1980s.

Daniels and Linney get top billing as the parents, but Baumbach’s semi-autobiographical film is mostly seen through the eyes of the children, teenager Eisenberg and adolescent Kline. Eisenberg in one of his earliest films, and non-actor Kline, the son of Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates, hold their own remarkably well.

Extras include new on-screen interviews with Baumbach and all four of his stars.

Shout! Factory has released a brand new 4K digitally transferred Blu-ray of William Friedkin’s 1985 thriller, To Live and Die in L.A. with new interviews from star William Petersen and others. Friedkin’s commentary from an earlier release is included, as are a deleted scene and an alternate ending. Willem Dafoe, John Pankow, John Turturro, and Dean Stockwell co-star in this non-stop actioner about a secret service agent out to get the counterfeiter who killed his partner.

Originally conceived as a sequel to 1949’s On the Town, 1955’s It’s Always Fair Weather, newly released by Warner Archive on Blu-ray, emerged as a separate entity when MGM balked at hiring the then difficult Frank Sinatra and the no longer popular Jules Munchin. Instead of being about three sailors reuniting ten years after the end of World War II, it became about three G.I.s with Gene Kelly the only star from the original participating, along with Dan Dailey and Michael Kidd. The film’s best and best-known sequences are those poking fun at the new medium of television, just as co-directors Kelly and Stanley Donen’s Singin’ in the Rain had poked fun at the transition from silent films to talkies.

All extras are imported from the previous DVD release.

This week’s new releases include The BFG and Pete’s Dragon.