Arrow Films

Overview

Arrow Films is a London-based independent film distribution and home entertainment company founded in 1991. The company distributes cult cinema, horror, genre film, Asian cinema, and arthouse titles in the UK and, through its Arrow Video label, in North America. Arrow is best known for its premium home video releases -- Arrow Video Blu-ray editions are among the most respected collector releases in the market, known for their restorations, packaging quality, and extensive supplementary content.

Arrow occupies a specific niche: the premium cult and genre home entertainment market, combined with theatrical distribution in the UK for selected releases. The company serves a dedicated audience of film enthusiasts who value quality presentation of overlooked, challenging, or historically significant films. In this niche, Arrow competes with Eureka Entertainment (the Masters of Cinema label) and Second Sight Films in the UK, and with Criterion Collection and Kino Lorber in North America.

Arrow Video

Arrow Video is the company's Blu-ray and home entertainment label, producing premium editions of cult and genre films across categories including Italian horror and giallo, Japanese cinema, British genre film, Hong Kong action, exploitation, and international arthouse. Arrow Video releases include films by Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, Park Chan-wook, Seijun Suzuki, and hundreds of other filmmakers whose work sits at the intersection of genre cinema and formal distinction.

Arrow Video editions are typically produced with new 4K restorations from original elements, audio commentaries by critics and filmmakers, video essays, archival interviews, and comprehensive liner notes. This commitment to supplementary material positions Arrow Video releases as definitive editions for collectors -- commanding premium retail prices and generating strong revenue from the dedicated fanbase for each film.

Arrow Player

Arrow operates Arrow Player, a streaming platform available in the UK and North America that provides SVOD and TVOD access to Arrow's catalog. The platform carries Arrow's physical media catalog alongside films acquired specifically for streaming. Arrow Player is available directly through Arrow's website and through Amazon as an add-on channel, providing two distribution pathways for the streaming audience.

What Filmmakers Should Know

Arrow Films is primarily a home entertainment and streaming distributor rather than a theatrical-first company. For contemporary films, Arrow is most relevant for projects in the horror, genre, Asian cinema, or cult categories where Arrow's collector audience is directly aligned with the film's natural audience.

For rights holders of older films -- particularly in the horror, giallo, exploitation, and Asian cinema categories -- Arrow is one of the primary restoration and re-release options in the UK and North American markets. A relationship with Arrow for catalog titles can generate significant revenue from premium home video and streaming placement, particularly for films that have built cult followings over time.

New acquisitions for Arrow Player and for theatrical release in the UK are handled through the company's acquisitions team. Arrow attends genre film festivals including Fantasia, Fantastic Fest, and FrightFest alongside major markets.

Notable Catalog

Arrow's catalog includes restorations and editions of films by Dario Argento (Deep Red, Suspiria, Tenebrae), Mario Bava (Blood and Black Lace, Bay of Blood), Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Lady Vengeance), Seijun Suzuki, Kinji Fukasaku, and many others. The breadth of the catalog -- spanning Italian horror, Japanese genre cinema, British cult film, and Hong Kong action -- reflects Arrow's expertise across the full landscape of global genre and cult cinema.

See Also

For how premium home entertainment and streaming distribution generates revenue from catalog films, see Distribution Deals Explained. To understand how restoration projects create new revenue streams for older films, see Streaming vs Theatrical Revenue.