Peeping Tom (1960) [The Criterion Collection]

Director: Michael Powell
Writer: Leo Marks
Stars: Karlheinz Böhm, Anna Massey, Moira Shearer

Having brought British cinema into exalted realms of fantasy and imagination, Michael Powell took a dark detour into obsession, voyeurism, and violence with this groundbreaking metacinematic investigation into the mechanics of fear. Armed with his killer camera, photographer and filmmaker Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) unleashes the traumas of his childhood by murdering women and recording their deaths—until he falls for his downstairs neighbor, and finds himself struggling against his dark compulsions. Received with revulsion upon its release only to be reclaimed as a masterpiece, the endlessly analyzed, still-shocking Peeping Tom dares viewers to confront their own relationship to the violence on-screen.

Extras:
- New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
- Two audio commentaries, one featuring film historian Ian Christie and one featuring film scholar Laura Mulvey
- Introduction by filmmaker Martin Scorsese
- Interview with editor Thelma Schoonmaker
- Documentary about the film’s history, featuring interviews with Schoonmaker, Scorsese, and actor Carl Boehm
- Documentary about screenwriter Leo Marks
- Program on the film’s restoration
- Trailer