The DVD business is not dying. Sales have slowed due to the rotten economy, but rentals are strong and booming year-end sales of HDTVs and Blu-ray players bode well for the near future. The day when streaming videos become our only source of old movies is not yet upon us.

The various distributers continue to release almost every new film within months of their theatrical release, and that’s nice, but the real joy of collecting, or simply renting, movies is in discovering or re-discovering the classics in all their glory. Here, then, are my picks of the year’s best classic releases on Blu-ray and standard DVDs.

On Blu-ray:

1. The Sound of Music
2. America Lost and Found: The BBS Story
3. The African Queen
4. Beauty and the Beast
5. Black Narcissus and The Red Shoes
6. The Bridge on the River Kwai
7. The Exorcist
8. Psycho
9. The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and Mutiny on the Bounty
10. True Grit

On Standard DVD:

1. Make Way for Tomorrow
2. The Elia Kazan Collection
3. Roberto Rossellini’s War Trilogy
4. Three Silent Classics by Josef von Sternberg
5. Douglas Sirk: Filmmaker Collection
6. Deanna Durbin: The Music and Romance Collection
7. Five Star Final, Black Fury and Night Must Fall
8. Ladies in Retirement, Over 21 and 40 Carats
9. The Chalk Garden, The Whisperers and Resurrection
10. The Bing Crosby Collection

The Blue-rays:

Whether you buy the limited edition collector’s set or the stand alone re-mastered Blu-ray, or simply rent it, you are in for a treat with Fox’s pristine presentation of The Sound of Music. If you first experienced the film in its initial theater run, on TV, or in previous home video releases, you have never seen or heard a purer, more brilliant version than this. Conventional wisdom has it that the film was such a blockbuster in 1965 because there was nothing else around that was really worth seeing. That doesn’t explain the hold the film has had on those who’ve discovered it since. It always was, and always will be, a glorious experience.

Fox’s collector’s set includes two books, lobby cards, a music box and two discs of extras.

BBS was a production company in existence from the late 1960s through the early 1970s. They were considered the avant-garde of a new generation of Hollywood film-makers. Included in the set are three of the most important films of those years: Easy Rider; Five Easy Pieces and The Last Picture Show, an under-rated gem, The King of Marvin Gardens and three love ‘em or hate ‘em fillers, Head; Drive, He Said and A Safe Place. The boxed set includes a booklet synopsis of each film and many DVD extras. It was a time worth remembering and celebrating with this set, the best of many releases this year from Criterion.

Long one of the most requested films unavailable on DVD in the U.S., Paramount, that stingiest of the major studios, finally gave us a print of 1951’s The African Queen that was worth the wait. The commemorative boxed set includes lobby cards, an extra disc and a reprint of Katharine Hepburn’s memoir, “The Making of The African Queen or How I Went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind.”

Disney’s practice of releasing their classics for “a limited time”, roughly every seven years, and then re-releasing them in an improved version to bring in more revenue is a strategy that must still be working or they wouldn’t be continuing to pursue it. This year’s re-release of 1991’s Beauty and the Beast was long overdue. Next to The Sound of Music, it was the year’s most stunning musical Blu ray release, both aurally and visually. The three disc set includes tons of extras.

Criterion gets its second spot on the list with the release of the two Powell-Pressburger masterpieces from the late forties.

Justly lauded as the most realistic film ever made in a studio, 1947’s Black Narcissus seems as fresh today as it did then, and 1948’s The Red Shoes remains the definitive film about dance. Both were photographed by Jack Cardiff, who was also responsible for the cinematography of The African Queen, making him the artist connected with the most films on either list. Both releases include booklets among the many extras.

Columbia only owns the rights to three of David Lean’s films, so naturally they are taking their time releasing them on Blu-ray. Last year they gave us 1984’s A Passage to India and have 1962’s Lawrence of Arabia on tap for next year. This year they gifted us with 1957’s The Bridge on the River Kwai. The gorgeous transfer was well worth the wait. Archival interviews, lobby cards and a 35 page booklet are included among the extras.

Still heralded by Warner Bros. as “the scariest film of all time”, 1973’s The Exorcist has never been scarier than in the Extended Director’s Cut of the film, included along with the Original Theatrical Version on Blu-ray. The commentaries from the previous DVD releases are carried over and there is a 38 page booklet on the history of the film included as well. Watch either version with the lights out!

Another scary film, this one a rare black-and-white Blu-ray release from Universal, 1960’s Psycho includes a new 5.1 audio mix to bring more chills to Hitchcock’s already chilling film, which set a new standard for horror films fifty years ago.

Speaking of black-and-white films on Blu-ray, it was Warner Bros. that whet the public’s appetite for them with the release last year of 1942’s Casablanca. They followed up this year with splendid releases of two more Humphrey Bogart classics, 1941’s The Maltese Falcon and 1948’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, as well as 1935’s Oscar winning Mutiny on the Bounty with Charles Laughton and Clark Gable.

You can bet if it weren’t for the Coen Brothers remake, Paramount wouldn’t have done anything to release Henry Hathaway’s original 1969 version of True Grit on Blu-ray, but here it is in all its glory. It’s not the greatest film ever made, it’s not even John Wayne’s best film, but it’s the one he won his only Oscar for. The new release provides commentary from no less than three historians, as well as the usual extras.

The Standard DVDs:

Criterion’s release of Leo McCarey’s 1937 masterpiece, Make Way for Tomorrow, means that this special film will no longer be the secret joy of the few, but the happy discovery of the many.

Extras include new video interviews with Peter Bogdanovich and Gary Giddens, and booklet essays by Tag Gallagher and Bertrand Tavernier. Any self-proclaimed cinephile who doesn’t see this film now has no more excuses, and had better give up the name!

With The Elia Kazan Collection, Fox has given us three box sets in four years devoted to the works of the great Fox directors. They’re previously given us the works of John Ford in the first set and F.W. Murnau and Frank Borrage in the second. As with the Ford set, many of the films included in this one have been previously released. This, however, is the only place in the U.S. to find 1945’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn; 1952’s Viva Zapta!; 1960’s Wild Riverand 1963’s America America. It’s also the only place anywhere to find 1953’s Man on a Tightrope.

Roberto Rossellini has long been regarded as one of the most influential filmmakers in cinema history. Most of his films have been released to home video in shameful looking transfers. Finally, Criterion has re-mastered his three groundbreaking neorealist masterpieces, 1945’s Rome Open City; 1946’s Paisan and 1948’s Germany Year Zero. Extras galore include commentaries, interviews and a booklet.

Some of the best films of the silent era were made in its waning days. One of the best directors of the era was Vienna born Josef von Sternberg, later known as the man who discovered Marlene Dietrich. Before he did that, he gave us such masterpieces as 1927’s Underworld and 1928’s The Last Command and The Docks of New York. Released on commercial DVD for the first time, Criterion not only gives us digitally restored transfers of the films, but provides two scores for each, visual essays and a 96 page booklet covering all three films.

Released as a TCM/Movies Unlimited exclusive, Douglas Sirk: Filmmaker Collection gave us the long overdue U.S. DVD release of one of Sirk’s masterpieces, 1958’s The Tarnished Angels,as well as three less known, but enjoyable works, 1951’s Thunder on the Hill; 1954’s Taza, Son of Cochise and 1955’s Captain Lightfoot.

Also released as a TCM/Movies Unlimited exclusive, Deanna Durbin: The Music and Romance Collection makes available in the U.S. several of the beloved actress/singer’s films long available in other regions. They include 1938’s Mad About Music and That Certain Age; 1939’s Three Smart Girls Grow Up; 1946’s Because of Him and 1948’s For the Love of Mary.

1931’s Five Star Final, 1935’s Black Fury and 1937’s Night Must Fall are just three in a long line of wonderful films made available this year by the Warner Archive. With new releases coming practically every week now, Warner Bros. continues to be head and shoulders above the competition in recognizing the importance of its film libarary.

The success of the Warner Archive has led other studios to dip their toes in the pool of limited releases of their old films. Late in the year, Columbia started releasing its films directly, as well as through Movies Unlimited and Deep Discount. Among the initial releases were 1941’s Ladies in Retirement; 1945’s Over 21 and 1973’s 40 Carats.

Universal and United Artists both briefly released films exclusively through Amazon, but both deals were short-lived. Nevertheless, it did give the opportunity to get our hands on such gems as 1964’s The Chalk Garden; 1967’s The Whisperers and 1980’s Resurrection.

Universal reached into its vaults to give us a rare general release of several mostly forgotten films in The Bing Crosby Collection. Included are 1933’s College Humor; 1934’s We’re Not Dressing and Here Is My Heart; 1935’s Mississippi; 1938’s Sing You Sinners and one that holds nostalgic value for me, 1947’s Welcome Stranger, which is the first movie I ever saw.

This week’s new releases include the George Clooney starrer, The American, and the Australian film, Samson & Delilah.