Nostalgia Kinky

Arrow Home Video has released the classic American Science Fiction film Soylent Green on 4K and Blu-ray. Featuring a healthy-looking new 4K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative and a pantry full of extras, this release will surely satisfy fans of this Richard Fleischer-directed dystopian thriller. The limited edition 4K can be ordered directly from Arrow or MVD.

Before I say a few words about Soylent Green, I wanted to mention I’d actually never seen this very well-known film before. It is just one of those classics that I managed to miss through a variety of formats over the years for whatever reason. You can’t watch everything, or so they say. Even though I had never seen Soylent Green, I was completely aware of it and its dark conclusion. Like Planet of the Apes, it is just one of those films that’s permeated the culture enough to the point where even if you haven’t seen Soylent Green, it will still most likely feel strangely familiar.

So what did I think about Soylent Green after so many years of not seeing it but ‘knowing it’?
I thought it was pretty good.
Haha, I know that might not be the most perceptive critical opinion you’ll read today, but still, it’s pretty good. I consistently find that not a small amount of classic films only feel classic due to nostalgia. I was pleased to see Soylent Green is a very good film, with strong direction, a mostly good cast and, yeah, that great conclusion.

Soylent Green was timely when it came out in 1973. It was timely when it hit VHS in the early eighties and still so when it landed on DVD in the next decade. Needless to say, Soylent Green is still a terrifyingly timely film. The fact that we are a few years past the future 1973 predicted is of no matter. There is today in Soylent Green and it is frightening.

Richard Fleischer was an interesting director. He’d been around since the forties, and his directorial career eventually included everything from forties noir classics to big-budget big-balled eighties action flicks. It is a wild six-decade filmography filled with classics like The Boston Strangler (1969) to absolute duds like Amityville 3D. Soylent Green never reached classic status for me like his 1969 true-crime thriller or his earlier The Narrow Margin from 1952. Still, I enjoyed this film and appreciated its message warning us of corporate greed and lack of morality.

Fleischer has a big old-school Hollywood cast on hand, including star Charlton Heston and Edward G Robinson. The golden greats seen throughout the film are good, some like Robinson even great, but for my money, Soylent Green’s scene-stealer is the delicate Leigh Taylor-Young. She’s fantastic in what would be one of her final major roles until Looker in 1980.

Arrow has loaded up Soylent Green with some fascinating extras. We have two great commentaries, an archival one with director Richard Fleischer and star Leigh Taylor-Young, and a brand new audio commentary with my man Michael Brooke and author Johnny Mains. Great stuff. We also get essentially a third commentary track via a ninety-minute-plus conversation with Heston at the BFI. We also have an hour-plus talk with Fleischer, the film’s original promotional featurette, and a vintage tribute to Robinson. More promotional material and a booklet are also available on this sweet limited edition.

-Jeremy Richey, July 2026-