New on DVD

Winter’s Bone

Lionsgate, $27.98; Blu-ray, $29.99

This is a tense, affecting crime saga that treats its Ozark setting like something out of Greek myth. Jennifer Lawrence stars as 17-year-old Ree Dolly, a high school dropout who goes looking for her bail-jumping father when the sheriff threatens to take away her family’s property. As Ree roams up and down, knocking on doors, she angers the local drug lords, including her temperamental Uncle Teardrop, played by the magnificent John Hawkes. “Winter’s Bone” is beautifully shot and acted, and while writer-director Debra Granik goes for an unforced, naturalistic feel, the Daniel Woodrell novel that she and co-writer Anne Rosellini are adapting doesn’t lack for incident or variety. The DVD and Blu-ray adds deleted scenes, featurettes and a commentary track.

The Girl Who Played With Fire

Music Box, $29.95; Blu-ray, $34.95

The Swedish-made adaptations of the late novelist Stieg Larsson’s bestselling “Millennium Trilogy” continue, once again starring Michael Nyqvist as investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist and Noomi Rapace as the psychologically damaged, technologically savvy, tough-as-nails researcher Lisbeth Salander. This time out, Blomkvist and Salander look into a sex-trafficking ring in a case that proves personal — and bloody — for Salander. As with “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” the sequel is a serviceable dramatization of the novel and something fans of the book will want to see before the inevitable English-language remake. The DVD and Blu-ray offer subtitled and dubbed versions.

A Mother’s Courage: Talking Back to Autism

First Run, $27.95

Like most parents whose children have been diagnosed with autism, Margret Dagmar Ericsdottir went looking for information about what she could expect. Unlike most parents, Ericsdottir had the resources to travel the world, talking with renowned experts such as Temple Grandin and Simon Baron-Cohen and encountering all manner of promising therapies. This documentary — directed by Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, narrated by Kate Winslet and featuring music by Sigur Rós and Björk — follows Ericsdottir’s journey, showing the practical realities of dealing with the disorder, while offering signs of hope to parents everywhere.

Sex and the City 2

New Line, $28.98; Blu-ray, $35.99

From the moment Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw snaps at her husband for buying an expensive widescreen TV so they can watch old movies to the moment when she and her gal pals get annoyed that their all-expenses-paid trip to luxurious Abu Dhabi isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, “Sex 2” seems designed to turn audiences against its characters. Granted, the original HBO series occasionally painted its heroines in an unflattering light, but this film is so overstuffed, crass, obnoxious and — worst of all — unfunny that it might have killed off the beloved franchise for good. For those who still want to bid farewell, the DVD and Blu-ray come with a commentary by writer-director Michael Patrick King, plus hours of fashion-focused, behind-the-scenes featurettes.

You Don’t Know Jack

HBO, $26.98

Al Pacino won an Emmy for playing Jack Kevorkian in this HBO biopic, which digs beneath the “Dr. Death” sensationalism and paints Kevorkian as a quietly brilliant pragmatist, helping the terminally ill end their lives partly out of compassion and partly because he has the proper emotional detachment to get the job done. Director Barry Levinson and a strong cast (including John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Danny Huston and Brenda Vaccaro) play the material low-key, which allows them to find the black comedy and to tug heartstrings when necessary. The DVD includes interviews with the stars and Kevorkian.

And...

“Alien Anthology” ( 20th Century Fox Blu-ray, $139.99); “Back to the Future: 25th Anniversary Trilogy” (Universal, $49.98; Blu-ray, $79.98); “Kisses” (Oscilloscope, $29.99); “Law & Order UK: Season One” (Universal, $39.98); “Santa Claus: The Movie” (Lionsgate, $14.98; Blu-ray, $19.99); “Surviving the Holidays With Lewis Black” (A&E, $19.95); “Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)?” (Lorber, $29.95); “Wild Grass” ( Sony, $28.95); “The Wild Wonderful Whites of West Virginia” ( Tribeca, $24.95)