Isle of Dogs has already won several awards including one for Wes Anderson as Best Director at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. The six-time Oscar nominee might well win his first Oscar for Best Animated Feature if not Best Picture, Director, and/or Screenplay as well at the next Academy Awards, the film is that good.

Set in near-future dystopian Japan in the fictional city of Megasaki and its dump site on the equally fictional Trash Island, the plot deceptively revolves around the exile of dogs suffering from a supposedly incurable canine flu. But don’t be fooled, this cleverly written film is really about a megalomaniacal ruler and his anti-immigrant, anti-poor flunkies who wreak havoc on the downtrodden. Fill in the names of anyone in real life, living or dead, who fit the description.

The narrative follows the search by Atari, the resourceful 11-year-old nephew of the city’s mayor (voiced by Koyu Rankin) for his missing pet/bodyguard dog, Spots (voiced by Liev Schreiber), who has been banished to Trash Island by his uncle, the mayor. The kid is aided in his search by five dogs, voiced by Bryan Cranston, Edward Norton, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray, and Jeff Goldblum, all with distinct personalities. Other canine characters include those voiced by Scarlett Johansson as the prettiest dog, F. Murray Abraham and Tilda Swinton as the smartest dogs, and Harvey Keitel as the leader of the aboriginal dogs.

The most prominent human is an American exchange student voiced by Greta Gerwig, who organizes a television rally to prove the mayor’s corruption. She is the owner of the dog voiced by Johansson. Providing English translations for American television is a Japanese woman voiced by Frances McDormand.

Everything about this film is first-rate. I have never been a fan of anything Bryan Cranston has done post-Breaking Bad, but his acerbic reluctant hero here is lightyears beyond anything he has done on screen including his much-ballyhooed performances in Trumbo and Last Flag Flying. The always good Norton, Balaban, Murray, and Goldblum are equally fine. Johansson and Gerwig are also terrific and McDormand is so good I never realized that was her speaking throughout the film.

As for Anderson, I’ve always liked his films except for his one previous animated feature, Fantastic Mr. Fox, but this film is so far beyond that one that it’s hard to reconcile that the same creative team was responsible for both. Isle of Dogs has more in common with his two most recent live-action films, Moonrise Kingdom and The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Composer Alexandre Desplat who has nine Oscar nominations and two wins for The Grand Budapest Hotel and The Shape of Water, could well find himself on stage accepting another one for his splendid score here.

Isle of Dogs is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Steven Soderbergh burst onto the film scene with 1989’s sex, lies, and videotape for which he and lead actor James Spader won awards at that year’s Cannes Film Festival. Soderbergh and female stars Andie MacDowell (Best Actress-Drama) and Laura San Giacomo (Best Supporting Actress) along with Soderbergh (for his screenplay) were nominated for Golden Globes and Soderbergh alone (again for his screenplay) was nominated for an Oscar. The film, which is about the three subjects in its title, changed the landscape of American film, paving the way for the independent film scene of the 1990s. Criterion’s new 4K Blu-ray restoration imports Soderbergh’s commentary and interview with Spader from the previous release. It also adds a new introduction by the director and new interviews with the film’s other three stars, MacDowell, San Giacomo, and Peter Gallagher.

Eleven years later Soderbergh would receive dual Oscar nominations for Best Director for Erin Brockovich and Traffic, winning for the latter. He has not been nominated since although the renaissance man did win a 2013 Emmy for editing his Behind the Candelabra.

Warner Archive continues its prolific releases of DVD to Blu-ray upgrades with John Huston’s 1972 western The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean. The self-appointed hanging judge of Vinegarroon, Texas was previously embodied by Walter Brennan in his third Oscar-winning role in 1940’s The Westerner and by Edgar Buchanan in the 1955 TV series Judge Roy Bean. This time around, he’s playex by Paul Newman who is excellent in the role.

As good as Newman is, he’s upstaged by Bruno The Bear as Watch Bear, but not by any of the other actors who, good as they may be, aren’t given enough screen time to really build a character. They include Anthony Perkins, Tab Hunter, Roddy McDowall, and Ava Gardner as Bean’s ideal actress Lily Langtry. The Blu-ray, though, captures it all beautifully.

A box-office hit in 1963, but a matter of taste, Billy Wilder’s Irma La Douce has been given a sparkling Blu-ray upgrade by Kino Lorber. The film has never looked better, but still suffers from comparison to the beguiling musical it is adapted from sans songs. Andre Previn won an Oscar for his adapted score, but it only uses themes from two of the songs. Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon are fine as a Parisian prostitute and a Paris cop turned pimp as long you accept them as French and not the American imitations they clearly are. Opera and Broadway star Bruce Yarnell, not Harve Presnell as one of the commentators keeps referring to him, plays Maclaine’s first pimp.

Warner Archive has released a DVD only of Fred Zinnemann’s 1951 film Teresa which was nominated for an Oscar for its original story. Despite its nomination, the story and the screenplay made from it are the film’s problem. It begins with a World War II veteran played by John Ericson, talking to a VA counsellor played by Rod Steiger. It then introduces his family including his controlling mother, played Patricia Collinge, and his sister, played by Peggy Ann Garner. Then it flashes back to the war in Italy with Ralph Meeker as his commanding officer and top-billed Pier Angeli as the Italian girl he meets and falls in love with. Eventually they marry. He is sent home awaiting her arrival which comes as a shock to his mother who has no idea her baby boy was married. From there it just gets worse. Even Zinnemann, who made this between The Men and High Noon, can’t save it.

This was the first film for Ericson, Steiger, Meeker, Bill Maldin, and Edward Binns and the first American film and starring role for lovely Angeli. It was also MGM’s first post-war film that made more abroad than it did in the U.S.

This week’s new releases include Ready Player One and A Matter of Life and Death.