Director Steven Soderbergh updates the '60s "Rat Pack" classic Ocean's 11 into a modern day star-studded caper. Warner has done an excellent job on this 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Sporting sharp colors, detailed black levels, and solid fleshtones, this picture looks very clean without nary an imperfection to be found. The audio is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround in English and French and is a very solid mix. This soundtrack features many instances of directional sound usage in both the front and rear speakers. All aspects of the dialogue, effects, and music are free of any excessive distortion or hiss. Also included on this disc are subtitles in English, French, and Spanish. Ocean's 11 features a nice load of special features, even if they are a tad meager by today's blockbuster DVD standards. First up there are two commentary tracks, the first by director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Ted Griffin and a second by actors Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Andy Garcia. Both of these tracks are fun and engaging with the second track by the actors leaning more towards entertaining while the first track tends to be much more on the technical side. "The Making of Ocean's 11" is a 15-minute featurette that includes interviews with many of the cast and crew members who worked on the film. This is a typically bland promotional short that doesn't give much insight into the making of the film. "The Look of the Con" is a ten-minute featurette that includes interviews with costume designer Jeffrey Kurland and a few sketches of the wardrobes and costumes. Finally there are a few short resumes on the cast and crew, a theatrical trailer, and two teaser trailers for the film.

This 1998 Academy Award winner comes to DVD digitally remastered (THX) in a widescreen 16 X 9 transfer, dual layered. The sound is in both English 5.1 (Channel AC-3), and English 2.0 Dolby Pro Logic. English closed-captions are available. The first menu gives the user a graphically charming choice: click the upper sphere for heaven or the lower sphere for hell. Both lead into the same menu options, with one background bright and mystical and the other dark and fiery. Features of this special edition include notes on the visual effects, plus clips by the effect creators, a photo gallery, brief bios of the cast and filmmakers, a collection of Windows/Mac wallpaper images, two theatrical trailers, and a somewhat jerky behind-the-scenes featurette with comments by the actors and filmmakers. French and Spanish subtitles are included. The plastic package comes with a four-page booklet that includes some production notes, some small screen shots from this visually stunning film, and a list of chapters.

This two-disc, widescreen anamorphic DVD (1.35:1 theatrical aspect ratio) comes with only a few audio options -- English (DTS) and English (Dolby Digital 5.1) -- but plenty of bonus features on disk two (called "The Vault"), including: a video interview with the producer; an analysis of the special effects by Dream Quest Images; an amusing do's and don'ts of Hollywood gunplay; excerpts from a documentary called Secrets of Alcatraz; storyboards and design drawings; theatrical trailer and television spots; various outtakes carefully selected by the director; production stills; and a glossy booklet containing notes on the making of the film, a cast/crew section, and a chapter index. Picture quality is clean, and sound quality is nothing short of phenomenal across the entire audio range.

The special edition of The Usual Suspects has much going for it, on both sides of the disc. Naturally there is a commentary track with director Bryan Singer and Oscar-winning writer Christopher McQuarrie. Naturally, it is very interesting and detail heavy. There is also another commentary track featuring composer John Ottman, who offers insights the other two do not. With such a dialogue-intensive script as this, the soundtrack has to be up to snuff, and the Dolby Digital 5.1 surround here has been designed to highlight the words without muting the ambient noise. This DVD makes the best case yet in the argument for widescreen vs. pan-and-scan because it gives you the option. Choose the 2.35:1 anamorphic letterboxed version and you'll see a digitized movie the way it was supposed to be seen, in sharp colors and remarkable clarity; choose the TV-style full-frame version and you'll see scenes where the person talking isn't on the screen, and the visual image is slightly dreary. New supplements include "Pursuing the Suspects," a documentary about the casting choices, and "Doin' Time With The Usual Suspects," which collects interviews with the cast members as they talk about the movie and their lives after. "Heisting Cannes with The Usual Suspects" goes to France with the cast and feels like an elaborate home movie. "Keyser Soze: Lie or Legend" continues the parlor game of Who Was Soze? that fans of the movie love to play. Speaking of games, an easter egg is solved if you can piece together the order the clues to Soze's identity appear in the film, with your reward being even more documentary material, one having to do with the film's composer. Less interesting is an elaborate, indulgent gag reel of outtakes introduced by Singer that is nearly a short movie in itself. It's not very interesting, but the rest of the disc is fascinating.