Withnail and I (4K remaster)

Withnail and I has had a deep enough impact that nearly 40 years later it still stands as a cultural milestone for multiple generations. In fact, when every 10 years or so another cohort enters adulthood, who were certain they would save the world, hits the same wall, this film is waiting for them like a wake for their misspent youth. The closest parallel in the U.S. is Dazed and Confused. 

Obsession with this minimum budget odyssey through shattered expectations and drug-induced frenzy has sparked endless written discussions and revistations of the themes in Withnail that won’t all fit here, nor should they. That is required reading left to the viewer. 

Richard Griffiths as Uncle Monty shares a wine-soaked meal with Paul McGann’s Marwood in Withnail and I (1987), directed by Bruce Robinson.

“…40 years later it still stands as a cultural milestone for multiple generations…”

The film can be enjoyed on many levels, including getting just interplanetary on your favorite substance and waiting for the plethora of quotable lines. Enjoy a Monty Python level of clever banter and observations, which all come fast and very British in their delivery. Somewhere around your third viewing, the idioms and phrasing will all begin to gel, and you will laugh even harder. 

A 2025 remastered 4K version of the film is now available from Criterion, and this new life for the stone-cold classic means that yet another generation can go dancing in the ruins with Withnail and his hapless roommate. The images and colors are sharper, and the sound is marvelous. Whether you can get to one of the rare theatrical showings or can watch it on the best home theater system you can find, there are new delights to be had from this release. The updated UHD DVD package includes a first-rate set of commentaries and a documentary, among other extras. 

Danny’s drug-addled wisdom makes up the philosophical heart of the film, and it is he who delivers the Coup de Gras, declaring the end of the radical counter-culture optimism of the 60s: “They’re selling hippie wigs in Woolworths, man. The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over. And as Presuming Ed here has so consistently pointed out, we have failed to paint it black.”