Watership Down (Criterion Collection) (1978) On Blu-Ray

With this passion project, screenwriter-producer-director Martin Rosen brilliantly achieved what was thought difficult, if not impossible: a faithful big-screen adaptation of Richard Adams’s classic British dystopian novel about a community of rabbits seeking safety and happiness after their warren comes under terrible threat. With its naturalistic hand-drawn animation, dreamily expressionistic touches, gorgeously bucolic background design, and elegant voice work from such superb English actors as John Hurt (The Elephant Man), Ralph Richardson (The Fallen Idol), Richard Briers (Much Ado About Nothing), and Denholm Elliott (Raiders of the Lost Ark), Watership Down is an emotionally arresting, dark-toned allegory about freedom amid political turmoil.