How this works

The Radar lives at radar.mikesmoviereviews.com: everything coming to Blu-ray and 4K, sorted by street date and nothing else. It is not about Mike’s shelf — it is about what has not come out yet, and what you might still buy.

It holds three catalogs, and the control at the left of the filter row switches between them. On a wide screen it is a row of buttons; on a phone it is the same control collapsed to one — tap it and the catalogs come up as a list to pick from.

• Boutique — the specialist labels, three months ahead. Arrow, Criterion, Kino, Vinegar Syndrome and the rest. The control carries the live count, which is the number to trust: this sentence used to name one and it was two builds out of date within a fortnight.
• Out of Theaters — recent cinema releases on their way to disc, with the date each one opened in theaters. Studio releases, no label relationship.
• Catalog 4K — older films arriving on 4K, whoever is pressing them. A title has to be at least ten years old to count as catalog rather than a new release, which is why you will find Mrs. Doubtfire and Beverly Hills Cop here and not this autumn’s blockbusters. Where a boutique label is doing the pressing the title stays on the Boutique list instead, because that row knows more about the disc.
• All shows every one at once, which is how the page opens.

Catalog 4K says a film’s year and leaves it there. It does not claim to be a film’s first time on 4K — the release calendar does not publish that, and a badge saying so would be wrong often enough to be worth nothing.

All three catalogs show one line per film on any given street date. Where a title comes in more than one edition — a 4K and a Blu-ray, a standard and a SteelBook — they share a row, the badges name every format it comes in, and the edition selector inside the detail sheet lets you switch between them. The cover, the edition wording, how limited it is, and the buy button with its seller and price all follow whichever one you pick. Editions released on different days stay on their own days, because this page is a calendar.

Out of Theaters has a chip per studio in Filters — A24, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. and the rest — the same control the boutique catalog has for its labels, and searchable the same way: type a studio name in the search box and it is offered under Studio. They carry no color dot, unlike the label chips: the dot means Mike deals with that label, and there is no relationship with a studio to claim.

A listed disc is not always an announced one. Where a release calendar lists an edition that has no cover art and no seller anywhere — the calendar is still collecting “tell me when this is available” signups — the Radar leaves that edition off rather than printing a 4K badge with the same weight as a real one. It appears on its own the night art or a shop turns up. Missing art alone is never enough: a disc out in a fortnight whose scan has not been photographed stays exactly where it is.

They live in one page on purpose, so the search box and every filter reach both. There is also a page of its own at Out of Theaters for anyone who arrives there from a search engine.

The Radar’s search box takes a filter as well as a title. Type steelbook, limited edition, just added, my list, on Mike’s list, on sale, 4K, this week or the name of either catalog, and the drop-down offers it marked Filter. Enter switches on the real chip — it appears in the bar, counts towards Filters and comes off again exactly like one you tapped, because it is the one you would have tapped. Label names still switch on a label, everything else is searched as a title, and a filter that is already on is not offered a second time.

The same box also looks for discs that are already out. Type three letters or more and, above the upcoming releases it matched, an Already out panel shows what GRUV and the label stores sell by that name tonight, with its price. Want it puts one on your price watch, which checks it every night; if there are more than five, See all opens the whole list in My list.

The Radar lives at its own address, radar.mikesmoviereviews.com, and its bar at the bottom of a phone is its own: Radar, This week (the Tuesday digest), My list (which filters the page to the discs you have belled, and shows the count), Sold out and Your shelf, where your collection lives, with Mike’s shelf one tap away. Add it to your home screen and it installs as “The Radar”. It keeps the same light or dark setting as the rest of the site, because it is the same site.

This week on one page

Under the count on the Radar there is a link reading This week on one page. It goes to the Tuesday digest: one page per week, at its own permanent address, listing what came out that Tuesday, which labels are on sale, and what is dated for the Tuesday after. Discs street on Tuesdays, so the page is built around the day rather than around whenever you happen to visit.

It writes itself. The site rebuilds the current week’s page every night as prices move and sales open and close, and the moment the next Tuesday arrives that page stops changing for good — so a link you sent someone in March still shows what March said. Every week lists them newest first.

Where Mike has reviewed one of that week’s films, or made a video about a sale that is running, the line carries a link to it.

At the foot of each week there are two ready-made story cards — 1080×1920, one for Instagram and one for TikTok — carrying that Tuesday’s five biggest releases. They are drawn fresh every night with the page, so Tuesday morning’s is ready by five o’clock Eastern. A story image cannot hold a tappable link, which is why the address is printed on it large enough to read and type.

Tapping the cover in a film’s details opens the full-size scan.

The first time you open it, a short tour points out the three things worth knowing — the search box (and the three catalogs it reaches), the bell, and the labels you collect. It is three steps and you can skip it; Skip on the labels question skips just that question. The labels you tap on the third one become the labels you follow: the page then tells you when one of them has a new disc, and Radar Plus uses the same list for its sale alerts. Change it any time: Change labels, under Your calendars. If you arrive at one particular release, or on a link that already has a filter on it, the tour waits until you are looking at the whole list rather than talking over the thing you came for. Show me around, at the bottom of the page, plays it again whenever you like.

When something is on sale

A bar appears above the list when a label or a studio has a sale running — Barnes & Noble runs both, and the studio ones tend to rotate every couple of weeks. Open it and each sale is a line: how much off, whether it covers everything or only selected titles, and since when.

Tapping one filters this page to that label or studio rather than sending you straight to the shop — the same discs, sorted by street date, with the price beside each one. Where a sale covers a label with nothing upcoming here, there is nothing to filter to, so that one opens the shop instead.

A percentage only ever appears on an individual disc for a label sale, and only when the sale covers the whole label and the measured prices agree with the banner. A studio sale is announced and never priced — nothing here has checked what an individual studio disc costs, and a number we have not checked is worse than no number.

Filtering it

The pills across the top are the whole control: which catalog, a time window, the formats, and Filters for the labels and the packaging. Whatever you turn on shows as a pill up there, so there is never a filter working on you that you cannot see. Filters is pinned to the right-hand end of that row so it does not scroll away, and the catalog control is pinned to the left for the same reason.

Inside Filters, beside On Mike’s list, is On sale: only the discs the Radar can show are on sale right now — a label-wide sale, or a lower price it has measured at another seller. A “selected titles” banner on its own does not put a disc in there, because that would not be true of the disc. On a desktop the bar has narrowed so all of it fits on one row; in a narrower window the five destinations on the right show as icons.

On a phone the catalog control is a single picker, and the format chips drop their counts. Both are for the same reason: two pinned ends and four catalog buttons came to more than the width of the line, and everything between them — which is 4K UHD and Blu-ray — scrolled underneath them where it could not be reached at all. One picker gives the row back. The counts are still on the wide screen, and in Filters.

Everything counts what is actually in front of you. Switch to Out of Theaters and the format and packaging numbers are that catalog’s, not the boutique’s.

Labels are a boutique idea, so the label list disappears when you are looking at Out of Theaters — a studio release has no label relationship to filter by. Turning a label on while you are looking at everything narrows you to that label, which means the studio titles step aside: you asked for Arrow, and a Universal release is not one.

Steelbook and Limited edition work on both. On a boutique release, limited means a published run size; on a studio one it means the disc is sold as a limited or collector’s edition, because nobody publishes a run size for those.

What you have filtered to is written into the address bar. So a refresh keeps it, a bookmark keeps it, and a filtered view is something you can paste into a video description — “every Arrow 4K coming this quarter” has its own link.

Your list

The bell on a release saves it. That list lives in this browser — no account, no signup. It is a separate list from Want to watch on your Shelf, because one is a film you mean to watch and the other is a disc you mean to buy.

Nothing about that list is sent anywhere unless you choose a self-updating calendar (below) or sign in. If you don’t, it never leaves your browser.

Signing in (optional)

Want the same list on your phone, your laptop and the Radar app? Tap Sign in at the bottom of the page (or under My list) and type your email. There is no password: you get an email with a link, and whichever phone or computer opens it is signed in. The link works once and stops working after thirty minutes. Do the same on each device you want, and they all share one list — bell something on one and it is on the others.

It carries your saved releases, the labels you follow, your preorder marks, your Wanted list, your shelf, and your movies: your scores, Watched, Want to watch, Not for me and your diary. If you have Radar Plus, sign in with the email you subscribed with and Plus comes along too.

Signed in, the Radar also stays quiet about discs you own: anything on your Shelf (including what you marked I own this) gets no alerts, on any device. Turn that off in the sign-in sheet (Only alert me about discs I don’t own) if you want them anyway.

Sign out of this device keeps the list in that browser. Delete my account removes your email and the saved copy from the site for every device. Nothing on the site needs you to sign in; everything works the way it always has without it. The details are on the privacy page.

Signed in, your list already follows you; You → Data and Privacy → Download my data gives you a file of it.

Ten at a time. The free Radar watches up to ten discs at once. A bell frees itself when its disc ships or sells out, so the ten are the ones you are still waiting on. The eleventh bell does not fail: it opens a sheet where you can drop one. Radar Plus, which takes the cap off, is coming soon.

The Shelf: what you own, and Spin

Your shelf, in the Radar’s Menu, is your collection: your discs, DVDs and digital movies. Spin picks one for tonight (with Any length, ≤ 90 min and ≤ 2 hrs), the search box takes plain words like “80s horror under two hours”, and the filters narrow it by format, genre, decade, length and score. Mike’s shelf is one tap away: it is his whole collection.

Three ways to fill it: press I own this on any disc on the Radar or film on Mike’s shelf; Add a movie by title (you pick the right film, then the format, then the edition if the Radar knows it, or “I’m not sure”); or bring your list (below). The Radar for iPhone adds discs by scanning the barcode, and it is the same shelf.

A film added by title with no edition says Edition details coming. Choose one later from the film, or leave it. A barcode nobody here knows says Not on the Radar yet, with its number, and stays that way until a disc on the Radar or a shop the Radar reads lists that barcode; then it is named. Nothing is ever filled in by a guess.

Did it arrive? A disc on your list three days past its street date, and not on your shelf, gets asked about once. It’s here puts it on your shelf; Not yet asks once more two weeks later; I didn’t buy it is the last word.

The Shelf also keeps Want to own (a film you’d buy, in the formats you pick and under a price if you give one), Upgrades (a film you own on DVD or Blu-ray that now has a higher format out or coming) and Complete the set (series and box sets you’ve started). The lists are free; being told when one of them changes is part of Radar Plus.

Bring your list

Already keep your collection somewhere? Bring your list reads a Blu-ray.com collection export, CLZ’s export, or any CSV or text file of barcodes or titles. The columns are found by their headings (barcode, UPC or EAN; title; year; format). Before anything is added you see all of it:

• Found: barcodes the Radar can name. They are ready to add.
• Barcodes nobody here knows yet: added only if you say so, as Not on the Radar yet with the barcode, until a disc on the Radar or a shop the Radar reads lists it.
• Titles: a title is never added on its own, even when there is only one film it could be. You pick the film, and the format.
• Couldn’t read: a barcode with a wrong check digit, or a line with no title, listed back with its line number.

The file is read and then forgotten; only what you add is kept.

Pick together

Choosing with someone? Pick together (on the Shelf, under Spin) makes a room from your shelf or Mike’s, with the filters you have on. Send the link or the six-character code. Everyone gets the same films and says yes or no to each, and the first film you all say yes to is the match. Nobody sees anybody else’s answers, only how far along they are. No account is needed to join, up to eight people can, and a room ends a day after it was made.

You

You, the last door in the bar, is your account and your settings in one place: signing in, your three numbers, Diary and Stats, Rate Films, Want to Watch, Lent Out, Radar Plus, alerts, B&N Premium, your calendar, appearance, the Tuesday email, and Data and Privacy, where you can download what you’ve saved or remove your shelf or your ratings and diary.

“Watched by 6”, and what it counts

A release carries Watched by 6 when six saved lists on this server hold it, and the home page shows the five with the most new saves in the last seven days. Three is the floor: below that, nothing is printed at all.

Read it as at least six. A list only reaches the server if its reader turned on a self-updating calendar, bought Radar Plus, or accepted notifications — everyone else’s bells stay in their own browser, exactly as the section above says, and are not counted here or anywhere. So the real number is always higher than the one on the page, and the page would rather understate it than ask your browser to report what you saved.

The count is a total and nothing else. It is never broken down, never joined to a name, an address or a browser code, and it never decides what order the list is in — releases are ordered by street date, the way they always have been.

Wanted: discs that are already out

A preorder is almost never on sale — the label sets the price and the disc does not exist yet. Sales happen to discs that are already out, and that is what the second list under My list is for. Wanted takes any disc gruv.com or one of the label stores sells: search it there, tap Want it, and type the price you would pay. Every night the Radar reads those shops again and prices it, so the row always shows tonight’s price beside the price it was saved at, a green tag when the shop has struck it by fifteen percent or more, and a button to the shop.

The list and tonight’s prices are free for everyone — ten discs on the free Radar, and no cap with Radar Plus, which is coming soon. The alert is the Plus part: the night a wanted disc goes on sale, or lands at or under your price, you get a push (or the email edition) naming it, the price and the seller. A price is announced once; a further drop is announced again. Wanted is saved under the same random code as your calendars and alerts, so it follows you to any device you put Plus on and to nowhere else.

Radar Plus

Radar Plus is coming soon. It isn’t on sale yet, and everything free on the Radar stays free. If you already have it, nothing changes: it keeps working, it renews as before, and Manage or cancel is on the Plus page.

Radar Plus is the paid tier of the alerts. It changes when you hear and how much you can watch, never what is on the page: you hear first, before the free round goes out, your list has no cap, you are told when a disc on your list is running low wherever a shop publishes its count, you hear the morning an announced title you belled gets its street date (which is the morning preorders open), you hear when a label you follow lists something new, you hear the night a disc on your Wanted list goes on sale or under your price, the film sheet shows that label’s sell-out record from the out-of-print ledger, you get a push when a disc on your list drops in price (a real cut at the label, or a cheaper seller appearing), and you get a push when a label you follow opens a sale. The Radar, your calendars and the free alerts stay free for everyone.

You don’t need an account for Plus. It attaches to the same random code your browser uses for its calendar and alerts; to put it on another device, sign in with the email you subscribed with, and whichever phone or computer opens the link gets Plus and your list. One subscription is good for up to four devices at a time; a fifth takes the place of the oldest, and the Plus page shows how many devices are on yours with a button to sign the others out. On the Radar, the Radar Plus chip beside My list reads Plus · on when this browser has it, and the film sheet shows the label’s sell-out record and the disc’s price history (lowest we have seen, first listed at) under the price — for everyone else those lines are blurred, with a note that Radar Plus is coming soon. Today’s price is always free.

After it ships. A disc you belled does not vanish from your list on street date. Under My list it moves to an Already out section, and the Radar keeps reading its price for ninety days, so the sheet’s history keeps going and a Plus reader still hears when it drops or goes on sale. Take the bell off and it leaves.

Since you were here. Come back after a day or more and a strip under the sale bar says what changed — how many titles are new since your last visit, price drops, anything on your list on sale or sold out. Each one is a tap into the list it counts.

Alerts by email. Never allowed notifications, or want a copy that survives a swiped-away lock screen? On the Plus page, once Plus is on, type an address under Alerts by email too and every alert also arrives as one email a day. Clear the box to stop; the address goes with it.

Alerts are best effort. The Radar reads the shops with the tools and methods it has and sends every alert as soon as it can, but a label can sell out between two readings and a phone that is offline gets its push late. Plus buys the earliest word the site can give, not a guarantee.

Your calendars

The calendar button (a calendar with a plus in it, beside the date at the top of the list) opens Your calendars: three calendars, each one tap into Apple, Google or Outlook.

• My pre-orders — only the discs you’ve marked pre-ordered, each edition on its own release date, with a reminder the day before.
• My alerts — every disc you’ve set an alert on (the bell), on its street date.
• My labels — every new release from the labels you follow, and the days those labels go on sale. Change your labels and the calendar follows.

Each is a subscription, not a download: your calendar checks back on its own, so when a label moves a date, the entry moves with it, and a disc you add or remove later appears or disappears without subscribing again. A calendar with nothing in it yet is not offered; the sheet says what to do instead.

Subscribing keeps your list on the site under a random code, so the calendar can read it each time it checks. That code and the release numbers are all that is stored — no name, no email, nothing about you — and anyone you give one of these links to can see what is in it. Apple refreshes about twice a day; Google and Outlook refresh on their own schedule, usually within a day.

A calendar you subscribed to before October 2026 — everything on the Radar, a label filter, or a list frozen into the link — keeps working exactly as it did.

Combo packs

A 4K and a Blu-ray sold in one box are one row, badged 4K UHD + Blu-ray. Blu-ray.com lists them as two records because it catalogs discs; this page lists things you can buy, and that is one thing you can buy. It sits under the 4K filter, on the reasoning that anyone filtering for Blu-ray wants a Blu-ray-only disc.

What the markers mean

Everything on a row is a fact about the release — the label, the format, the run size where a label has published one, how many a shop says are left, and on an Out of Theaters row the date the film opened in cinemas.

Two things are not facts about the disc, and both of them are Mike speaking in the first person:

• a Mike · N badge, which appears only where the film is on Mike’s shelf and is his own score; tapping it opens that film here.
• On Mike’s list, which means he has preordered it, is upgrading to it, or has turned on his own notification for it. On a phone it is a red star in the corner of the cover rather than words, because the row has no line to spare for them; the words are still there for a screen reader, and the release’s own page spells it out. The On Mike’s list filter shows just these. Mike’s pick of the week is something else: one disc, chosen each Tuesday.

Nothing on the Radar is a claim about you. That distinction is the whole rule: this page will tell you what Mike thinks of a disc, and it will never measure you against his shelf.

New on the Radar

New on the Radar is everything the Radar has added in the last 30 days — boutique labels, studio releases and older films new to 4K — newest first, grouped by the week it appeared. The strip under the heading on the Radar is the door to it. A new edition of a film that was already listed (a 4K, a SteelBook) gets its own line, marked New edition.

The date is the day the Radar first listed a disc, not the day the label announced it: labels announce on their own schedule, and some shops are only read once a week. And the night the Radar starts watching a new label or shop, everything that label already had shows up at once — none of it was new that night, so none of it is on the list.

Announced, but with no date yet

A disc is sometimes announced — sometimes with preorders already open, in several editions — before anyone has set a street date. Blu-ray.com itself calls these “No Release Date”, and because every release calendar is organized by date, they appear in none of them.

The Radar lists them anyway, in two groups of their own: a recent one sits at the top of the list under Dated soon, and one still waiting after that moves to Announced — no date yet at the bottom. They filter, search and bell exactly like any other release, and the sheet carries everything the dated ones do — the edition and packaging, the synopsis and credits, the film’s own trailer, and Mike’s review where he has covered it. The one thing they cannot do is go in a calendar, because an event with no date is not a thing that exists.

The moment a date is announced, the release simply joins the list in its real month and leaves the undated group behind. If you have belled it, that is when you hear about it — which is usually when preorders and limited runs actually open.

Where the prices come from

Most buy buttons here are an Amazon search, marked ad because they carry an affiliate link. Some name a store and a price instead — Criterion, Shout Factory, Diabolik and the other labels’ own shops — and those are the ones where a real product page with a real price exists. Those pay nothing; they are shown because they are the better answer, not the better deal for this site. Every disc pays the same, so nothing on this page is ever ordered or recommended by what it earns.

Releases that have been announced but not dated, and films on their way out of cinemas, always link to Amazon. There is no single product page to point at when one film is coming in three editions, so the button says search and means it — and picking an edition in the sheet changes what it searches for.

A price is only ever shown for the exact edition it belongs to. Where the match is not certain, no price is shown — a wrong price is worse than none, because it is a number you would act on.

Mike’s review, where he has one

Open a release and, under the trailer, you will sometimes find Mike’s review of that film from the channel — a thumbnail that becomes the player where it sits, so you are not thrown out to YouTube in the middle of a list. It only appears where he has actually covered the film, which is a minority of them and mostly on the Out of Theaters side, since those are the new releases the channel reviews. Nothing is guessed: a video shows against a film because he said it belongs there.

The buy links

Where a release links is decided in one order: the label’s own store first, then Amazon, then a specialist retailer, and a real product page always beats a search. Amazon links carry an AD marker and there is a plain-English disclosure at the foot of the page. Prices and stock come from the shops’ own feeds. The order of the page is street date and never anything commercial.

Some labels sell only from their own shop. Lionsgate Limited presses its titles exclusively for lionsgatelimited.com — they reach no other retailer — so those rows carry one button, to them, and no Amazon alternative, because there would be nothing at the other end of it. They are in the boutique list with their own chip like any other label.

And some distributors sell first. A24 press their new releases for their own shop months before the discs reach Barnes & Noble or Amazon, so those rows on Out of Theaters open A24’s store rather than a search that would find nothing. Their shop does not publish a street date — only a “ships by” line — so the date shown is the Tuesday closest to it, which is the day new discs come out. The moment the release turns up on a real release calendar, that date replaces it.

Those rows carry everything the label publishes about the disc, the same as every other release here: the bonus features in their own words, what else is in the box, and the picture and sound formats — taken off the 4K disc where a title comes in both, because that is the one a collector is checking. A calendar entry has none of this to give, so a row that shows nothing is a row whose distributor has published nothing, never a row we did not ask.

Sales

When a label genuinely drops its prices, a strip appears at the top of the Radar saying so. Tapping it filters the Radar to that label rather than sending you off to the shop — the releases it covers, in street-date order, with the price this page measured beside each one. A retailer’s own sale page is a wall of everything they carry and knows nothing about what is new or what is on your list. The exception is a label with a sale on and nothing upcoming here; there is nothing to filter to, so that strip still links out.

“Genuinely” is doing real work in that sentence: several of these labels list a manufacturer’s price against their own price all year round, which is not a sale, so the page compares a shop against its own normal rather than against a list price. If nothing is on sale, there is no strip.

Your shelf, in the Radar’s Menu, is your collection: discs, DVDs and digital movies. It answers a different question from the Radar: what should I watch tonight? At the top, Your shelf and Mike’s shelf switch between yours and his. Mike’s is his whole collection, every film he actually owns, and anyone can browse it and spin it.

Spin

Let the shelf pick chooses one film at random. Tell it how much time you have (Any length, Under 90 min, Under 2 hrs) and, on your own shelf, Unwatched to skip what you have seen. Spin obeys whatever you have narrowed the shelf to, and it never picks a preorder or anything you marked Not for me.

Search and filters

The search box on the Shelf searches the shelf. It takes plain words as well as titles: “80s horror”, “horror under two hours”, “comedies rated 7 or higher”.

The chips above the covers are the formats on that shelf, with how many of each; on your own shelf also Unwatched and Lent out. More filters adds a genre, a decade, a length, IMDb 7+, Mike 8+, Not watched, Want to watch and Box sets. Clear all switches every filter off. Sort sits beside them: Shuffle, Recently added, Title, Newest film, IMDb score or Your rating.

Box sets, and owning one film twice

A box you bought as a box shows as one case with the number of films in it. Open it to see the films inside.

A film you own more than once (the Blu-ray and the 4K, say) is one film with its copies listed inside. Each copy says what it is, and each can be removed on its own.

Filling your shelf

I own this, Add a movie, the iPhone app’s barcode scan, Did it arrive?, Want to own, Upgrades and Complete the set are in The Shelf: what you own, and bringing a list from Blu-ray.com, CLZ or a file is in Bring your list, both above.

Rating films

Open a film and give it a score out of ten. Scoring a film marks it watched. Watched, Want to watch and Not for me are separate marks; any combination is allowed. Rate films on the Shelf is the fast way to do a lot at once, from Mike’s library, your shelf, or what is new on the Radar. After enough ratings the Shelf starts suggesting films For you.

Diary and stats

Log a watch on a film records a viewing with its date and, if you like, a score. The diary lists viewings, newest first, so a film watched twice appears twice. Delete removes a viewing you logged by mistake.

The flame is your streak: how many days in a row you have logged a film, your best ever, and how many days have a film. Stats counts your films, hours, average and the ones you loved (8 or more), by genre and decade, and sums up your year.

Your shelf, scores, Watched, Want to watch, Not for me, diary, streak days and the names you lent discs to are kept on the site as one record, so they are the same on the website and in the Radar app. It is stored against your account if you signed in, or against the random code your browser or phone made up if you did not, with nothing about you beyond what you typed. You → Data and Privacy downloads all of it as a file, removes your shelf, or removes your ratings and diary. The full detail is on the privacy page. The Shelf’s film details come from OMDb and TMDB.