It's the holiday season, which is traditionally a time of optimism, where we hope all our dreams will come true… and they usually don't. But let's not be too much of a Debbie Downer here, for maybe we're just wishing for the wrong things. Gisele probably isn't going to wind up under the Christmas tree no matter how much you beg and plead with Santa, but a couple of Blu-ray discs… well, maybe those would pass muster.

But what happens when there are movies you're dying to see in the high-def format that just aren't available yet? Well, that's where we come in. For if we make a big enough stink about it, maybe the studios will take notice and add some of our collective favorites to their roster of upcoming Blu-ray releases. And no, there is no Blu-ray version of Gisele.

So read on for a list of 25 films that we're dying to see come to the Blu-ray format. We've cast our net wide with this list, going for amazing genre pics as well as classics from years gone by that need to be remembered in our increasingly digital age. And this is just the tip of the HD iceberg… There are many, many more greats that will need to make the jump to high-def too, so be sure to comment at the bottom of the page and let us know what movies you want to see on Blu-ray too!

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Akira
Director: Katsuhiro Otomo
Would-Be Publisher: Universal (we think?)
High-Def Hotspot: It would have to be the fate of Neo-Tokyo at film's end, wouldn't it?

The ultimate gateway film for Americans looking to get into anime, Akira comes from Katsuhiro Otomo, based on his epic manga of the same name. Set in the not-too-distant future of 2019, in a town called Neo-Tokyo, members of a motorcycle street gang realize that one of their own has become the subject of a top-secret genetics experiment. As a result, he is developing amazing powers that are rapidly growing out of control.

The film mixes many elements from a variety of genres into a scary and thrilling creation all its own. Tetsuo is the recently power-endowed motorcyclist who finds himself under fire from the authorities, and even his own gang, including the "good guy" Kaneda who -- powers or no powers -- follows his friend to his grisly fate. And then there's the title character, a small boy who has been granted the greatest power of them all -- or the worst power, depending on how you look at it. Capable of reality-altering acts of near-godhood, Akira is also the result of a government experiment in ESP. When that "test" didn't pan out, the original Tokyo went the way of the Dodo bird. Will Neo-Tokyo be next?



A live-action version of the saga, long discussed, will reportedly be released in 2010 as potentially two separate films. Leonardo DiCaprio's production company Appian Way is behind the project, though the question of whether or not Leo will appear in the film remains to be answered. (If he does, one hopes it will not be as young Akira.) That should guarantee a Blu-ray release of the original anime eventually, though one hopes it comes much sooner than that…

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