Billy Wilder’s The Lost Weekend (1945) is being released on Blu-ray in the UK on 25 June 2012.

Directed and co-written by two-time Academy Award winner Wilder (Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot), The Lost Weekend is being released as part of Eureka’s Masters of Cinema Series.

Available in standard and steelBook editions, it’s the first time the film has been available anywhere in the world on Blu-ray.

Ray Milland stars as Don Birnam, a New York author struggling with years of alcoholism and writer’s block. Trying to keep him on the path to rehabilitation are his straight-laced brother Wick (Philip Terry) and devoted long-time girlfriend Helen (Jane Wyman).

When Don absconds from a country excursion, he embarks on a four-day binge, spiralling towards rock bottom.

This gut-wrenching adaptation of Charles Jackson’s The Lost Weekend horrified its studio, was rejected by test audiences and was lobbied by temperance groups, yet went on to huge success and became the awards sensation of its year.

Winner of the Grand Prix at the first ever Cannes Film Festival, as well as Oscars for Best Picture, Director, Actor, and Screenplay, this brutal noir provided one of cinema’s first in-depth studies of addiction.

Not only is it crackling with rapier dialogue, vivid performances and Wilder’s superlative direction, but the Blu-ray also comes with a host of features.

Naturally, it’s been given a polish to create a new high-definition master, officially licensed from Universal Pictures. It also comes with an exclusive new video introduction by cult director Alex Cox

Other features include:

• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hearing impaired

• The three-part 1992 BBC Arena programme Billy, How Did You Do It? directed by Gisela Grischow and Volker Schlöndorff, featuring Schlöndorff in conversation with Billy Wilder.

• The 1946 Screen Guild Theater radio adaptation of The Lost Weekend – starring Ray Milland, Jane Wyman, and Frankie Faylen.

• The original theatrical trailer

• A 36-page booklet featuring rare archival imagery.

The Lost Weekend is released on Blu-ray in the UK on 25 June 2012.