A Brief History of Time (1991) Ponders the Criterion Collection

The Criterion Collection released A Brief History of Time to Blu-ray on April 15, 2014. Errol Morris directed the film starring Stephen Hawking, Isobel Hawking, and Janet Humphrey.

‘A Brief History of Time’ Criterion Summary

Errol Morris turns his camera on one of the most fascinating men in the world: the pioneering astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, afflicted by a debilitating motor neuron disease that has left him without a voice or the use of his limbs. An adroitly crafted tale of personal adversity, professional triumph, and cosmological inquiry, Morris’s documentary examines the way the collapse of Hawking’s body has been accompanied by the untrammeled broadening of his imagination. Telling the man’s incredible story through the voices of his colleagues and loved ones, while making dynamically accessible some of the theories in Hawking’s best-selling book of the same name, A Brief History of Time is at once as small as a single life and as big as the ever-expanding universe.

Listen to our film review.

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

• New, restored 4K digital film transfer, supervised by director of photography John Bailey and approved by director Errol Morris, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interview with Morris
• New interview with Bailey
• PLUS: An essay by critic David Sterritt, a chapter from Stephen Hawking’s 2013 memoir My Brief History (dual-format only), and an excerpt from Hawking’s 1988 book A Brief History of Time (dual-format only)

New cover by Rodrigo Corral