The Entertainment Factor: New on Blu-ray: THE DAY OF THE OWL / IL GIORNO DELLA CIVETTA (1968) Starring Claudia Cardinale, Franco Nero & Lee J. Cobb

Product Description: The Day of the Owl stars Franco Nero (Django) as a police chief who, while investigating the death of a construction worker, goes up against corrupt officials and a ruthless mafia boss (Lee J. Cobb, On the Waterfront). Adapted from the celebrated novel by Leonardo Sciascia (Illustrious Corpses, Todo Modo), The Day of the Owl was the first book to openly deal with organised crime in Sicily. Director Damiano Damiani followed in the civic-minded cinema of Francesco Rosi and Elio Petri while forging a new path for the action-orientated cinema of the poliziottesco that would follow, creating something uniquely his own. A prestigious production, it was in the running for best film at the Berlin Film Festival and found wins at home in the David di Donatello Awards for stars Nero and Claudia Cardinale, along with Damiani (A Bullet for the General), and Best film.

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MOVIE DETAILS

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Director: Damiano Damiani

Starring: Claudia Cardinale, Franco Nero, Lee J. Cobb, Tano Cimarosa, Nehemiah Persoff, Serge Reggiani

Genre: Thriller, Crime, Drama, Mystery

Runtime: 109 min

Rating: Not Rated

Language: Italian

Studio: Radiance Films

Home Video Release Date: June 23, 2026

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VIDEO

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Blu-ray

Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Resolution: 1080p
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Region: Region A/1

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Dubbed:

Blu-ray: English

Audio Formats:

Blu-ray: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0

SUBTITLES

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Blu-ray: English

SPECIAL FEATURES & EXTRAS

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2K restoration of the film from the original negative presented in the original Italian version (109 mins) and the shorter export cut with English audio (103 mins)
Original uncompressed mono PCM audio
New interview with star Franco Nero, featuring archive footage of Damiano Damiani and Leonardo Sciascia (2022, 17 mins)
Archival interview with Franco Nero, writer Ugo Pirro and production manager Lucio Trentini (2006, 27 mins)
Identity Crime-Sis: filmmaker and Italian crime cinema expert Mike Malloy discusses The Day of the Owl in the context of the formation of the Italian crime film genre (2022, 20 mins)
Casting Cobb: A Tale of Two Contents: A video essay by filmmaker Howard S. Berger looking at actor Lee J. Cobb's career transition from Hollywood to Italy and the archetypes he tended to play (2023, 33 mins)
Archival interview with Claudia Cardinale from Belgian TV in which she discusses her long and storied career (2017, 22 mins)
Trailer
New and improved optional English subtitles for Italian audio and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for English audio