New releases: Patrick Stewart’s ‘Green Room’ and Starz’s ‘The Dresser’ hit DVD and Blu-ray

New on Blu-ray

“Green Room” (Lionsgate DVD 19.98; Blu-ray, $24.99)

Writer-director Jeremy Saulnier follows up his excellent 2013 crime thriller “Blue Ruin” with another twisty, violent original. In “Green Room,” Alia Shawkat and the late Anton Yelchin play members of a struggling hardcore band who take a gig at a white supremacist compound, and then find it difficult to leave after they see something they shouldn’t have. It’s best not to know much in advance about the movie’s plot, which subverts expectations at every turn. But it won’t be spoiling anything to say that “Green Room” gets a boost from Imogen Poots as a troublesome punker and Patrick Stewart as the eerily calm ringleader of the neo-Nazis. As the pieces for a standoff between armed thugs and scrappy artists move into place, Saulnier explores the particulars of two fringe subcultures, via characters who are alternately entertaining and terrifying.

[Special features: A Saulnier commentary track and a featurette]

VOD

“Lucha Mexico” (available 7/15)

The image of the masked Mexican wrestler — or “luchadore” — has become increasingly prevalent in American popular culture, although the actual history and traditions have remained something that only pro wrestling connoisseurs know much about. Alex Hammond’s and Ian Markiewicz’s impressionistic documentary, “Lucha Mexico,” explains a lot about what goes into each night’s performances, following these bulky athletes as they punish themselves in the gym and fend off the rabid fans who treat their favorites like superheroes. This film is more a collection of scenes and images from in and around the ring than it is a comprehensive look at a phenomenon. But the images are spectacular and the characters sympathetic. It makes a good introduction to “lucha libre” for non-fans.

TV set of the week

“The Dresser” (Starz/Anchor Bay DVD, $24.98; $29.99)

Ronald Harwood’s play “The Dresser” has already inspired one Oscar-winning 1983 film, and there’s a good chance that the new TV-movie version will net an Emmy or two for its magnificent performances. Anthony Hopkins is as good as he’s been on screen in two decades, playing an aging, ailing WW II-era Shakespearean actor trying to keep it together long enough to play “King Lear” in a rural community during an air raid. Ian McKellen plays his longtime assistant, who’s spent decades managing his boss’ moods and mental illness well enough to get him to the stage. This version of “The Dresser” is more intimate and stage-bound than the previous one, but it has the same timeless virtues: a strong evocation of the pains and pleasures of a life spent in the theater, and two lead roles that allow great actors to spar with and support each other for two hours.

[Special features: A pair of featurettes]

From the archives

“Belladonna of Sadness” (Cineliciois Blu-ray, $39.99)

One or the most groundbreaking and mind-bending animated features of the 1970s, the Japanese “animerama” film “Belladonna of Sadness” is the sexy, trippy saga of a woman who takes supernatural revenge on the powerful men who’ve ruined her life. Director Eiichi Yamamoto employs an unusual style, mostly panning across elaborate erotic drawings while letting narration and dialogue — and the occasional fully animated psychedelic interlude — tell the story. The tale of cruel barons and angry sorceresses has the quality of a folktale, with pastel colors and a prog-rock soundtrack adding to a hallucinogenic atmosphere. The graphic violence and multiple scenes of sexual assault may be too much for some viewers to take, but fans of adventurous cinema should find this 1973 cult film imaginative and stunning.