Selecting just 10 favorite DVDs of the year isn't easy, particularly because the best releases of 2007 include movies from the silent-film era to today, TV series, music compilations and sports videos. A lot of terrific DVDs have been relegated to honorable mentions or failed to make the cut. Here is the cream of the crop, at least according to one critic.

1. "The Wire: The Complete Fourth Season" (four discs, HBO Video, not rated)

David Simon's unforgettable series about life on the mean streets of Baltimore has always been much more than a crime show. Season 4's 13 episodes from fall 2006 took on the failing public-education system, focusing on four middle-school-age boys, but it also explored a mayoral campaign, politics within the police department, turf wars among rival gangs and other topics. Bonus features include a two-part documentary on the series and six audio commentaries.

2. "Army of Shadows" (two discs, Criterion Collection, not rated)

Made in 1969 by French director Jean-Pierre Melville, this taut story about the French Resistance was not released theatrically in the United States until 2006. Starring Lino Ventura and Simone Signoret as the leaders of a Resistance cell working against the occupying German army in Paris, Marseilles and Lyon during 1942 and '43, Melville's film penetrates deeply in the psyche of the freedom fighters their hopes and fears, their unrecognized heroism and the mundane quality of underground warfare. The bonus features are also extraordinary: interviews with actual members of the Resistance, including a joint interview with Signoret and Lucie Aubrac, the woman she portrays; a documentary shot on the streets of Paris in August 1944 as German troops retreated from the city; more.

3. "Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back" (two discs, Docurama, not rated)

Bob Dylan has never sounded better as a solo performer than he does in D.A. Pennebaker's pathbreaking documentary of Dylan's early 1965 tour of England. This influential fly-on-the-wall film, released in 1967, has been digitally remastered and comes with a companion book, two alternate versions of the famous opening scene (where Dylan holds up cardboard cards with his lyrics to "Subterranean Homesick Blues"), a flip book of that scene, an audio commentary by Pennebaker and a new one-hour film, "Bob Dylan 65 Revisited," consisting of the director's outtakes.

4. "Bicycle Thieves" (two discs, Criterion Collection, not rated)

Released in this country in 1949 and the winner of a special Academy Award (Oscars were not yet awarded for best foreign-language film), Vittorio De Sica's neo-realist drama is one of the great movies of all time. Shot on the streets of postwar, bombed-out Rome, it's the powerful story of a man whose bicycle, on which he depends for his new job, gets stolen, leading to a frantic search by him and his young son. New interviews with surviving cast and crew members are among the many extra features.

5. "Seinfeld: Season 9" (four discs, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, not rated) and "Seinfeld: The Complete Series" (32 discs, Sony, not rated)

Despite some naysayers, the final season of "Seinfeld" maintained the sitcom's incredibly high standard for irreverent humor and even gave us some of its all-time best episodes. Like other season sets of "Seinfeld," this has state-of-the-art bonus features. Completists should consider the "Complete Series" box, packaging all 180 episodes.

6. "Killer of Sheep: The Charles Burnett Collection" (two discs, Milestone Film & Video)

Newly restored for a brief theatrical run earlier this year, Charles Burnett's low-budget film was made in 1977 for his UCLA master's thesis but buried for years because Burnett had not secured rights for the music. Available for the first time on DVD, we can see Burnett's fascinating but relatively plotless story about the life of a decent man (Henry Gayle Sanders) who supports his family by working at a slaughterhouse as a response to the "blaxploitation" films of the mid-'70s, which celebrated gangsters, pimps and prostitutes. The DVD includes audio commentary, four of Burnett's short films, and the director's little-seen 1983 feature, "My Brother's Wedding."

7. "The Host" (two discs, Magnolia Home Entertainment, R)

A giant creature rampages along the shores of Seoul, South Korea's Han River in director Bong Joon-Ho's intelligent and scary monster movie, released earlier this year. It's all you'd want in a monster film, with terrific special effects and a decent story about the monster's origins and the members of an estranged family coming together to try to save a girl taken by the monster. The two-disc edition contains four hours of special features.

8. "Ace in the Hole" (two discs, Criterion Collection, not rated)

In a moviemaking career filled with hits like "Double Indemnity," "Sunset Blvd.," "Some Like It Hot" and "The Apartment," Billy Wilder didn't have many flops. This cynical 1951 film was one of them, but from today's vantage point, "Ace in the Hole" looks incredibly prescient and vital in its depiction of a conniving reporter (Kirk Douglas) who turns the story of a man trapped in a cave into what we now call a "media circus." Aiding to a viewer's appreciation of the movie are interviews with Douglas and film director Spike Lee, a 1986 appearance by Wilder at the American Film Institute and more.

9. "Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show" (four discs, Sony, not rated)

A key influence on many a TV show that came after it, Garry Shandling's documentary-style "The Larry Sanders Show" was primarily a send-up of the late-night talk show. The DVD includes 23 of the series' best episodes that ran on HBO from 1992 to 1998, plus deleted scenes, audio commentaries on selected episodes and the documentary "The Making of the Larry Sanders Show." Most touching and revealing are features where Shandling reminisces about the show with co-stars Rip Torn and Jeffrey Tambor, and another in which Shandling conducts recent interviews with guest stars, including David Duchovny, Sharon Stone and Jon Stewart.

10. "Battleship Potemkin" (two discs, Kino International, not rated)

"Treasures III: Social Issues in American Film, 1900-1934" (four discs, Image Entertainment, not rated)

"Reel Baseball, 1899-1926: Baseball Films From the Silent Era" (two discs, Kino, not rated)

OK, this is cheating, but these three excellent DVD sets include some famous and some not-so-famous movies from the silent-film era. "Battleship Potemkin" is Russian director Sergei Eisenstein's epic from 1925, a pioneering film in the use of montage (cutting) to heighten dramatic effect, commemorating the ill-fated 1905 Russian Revolution. "Treasures III" includes some fascinating features and shorts about abortion, trade unions, immigration and women's right to vote. "Reel Baseball" is highlighted by the 1920 silent feature "Headin' Home," starring a lean Babe Ruth as a young man from a small town who makes it big in baseball.

HONORABLE MENTION

"The Sopranos Season 6, Part 2" (HBO); "The Ramones: It's Alive, 1974-1996" (Rhino); "My So-Called Life: The Complete Series" (Shout! Factory); "Paul Robeson: Portraits of the Artist" (Criterion); "All My Babies: A Midwife's Own Story" (Image); "Ford at Fox" (Fox Home Entertainment); "Taxi Driver" (Sony).

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