Read more than four paragraphs of any biography of Austrian-born American director Billy Wilder and you will almost certainly encounter the word "cynic." Wilder's best films — and there are far more good ones than bad ones — tend to cast an acidic eye on human nature.

Some his protagonists — be it the hardened, jaded screenwriter played by William Holden in "Sunset Boulevard" or Jack Lemmon's office drone in "The Apartment" — ultimately end up doing the right thing, but often it's in the course of digging their way out of self-made holes.

For admirers of Wilder, it's all but impossible to pick a favorite film; this is, after all, the director of perhaps the greatest of all film noirs, "Double Indemnity," and one of the all-time funniest comedies, "Some Like It Hot." But for this fan and many others, 1951's little-seen "Ace in the Hole" is at least in the top three.

While "Ace" is one of the last Wilder films to be released on DVD, the wait is almost worth it, because it received the treatment it deserves in a Criterion Collection edition, beautifully restored in new digital transfer and Dolby-ized soundtrack cleanup, with copious extras.

Inspired by the true story of a reporter who turned a trapped miner into national event, "Ace" stars Kirk Douglas as Chuck Tatum, who claims to have been fired "from 11 different papers." He's killing time at a small New Mexico paper, scheming to get back to the big time when he happens on the story of a man (Richard Benedict) trapped in collapsed mine shaft on ancient Indian burial grounds. He proceeds to milk the ongoing tragedy for all it's worth.

Chuck finds an unexpected co-conspirator in the miner's wife Lorraine (Jan Sterling). She sees Tatum and the story as her way out of town and her sad marriage. As the story gains momentum, Chuck and Lorraine have more incentive to keep the story — if not her husband — alive.

"Ace in the Hole," while nominated for a best-screenplay Oscar, was a major flop in its initial release. But its stature has been restored in the past 25 years, via retrospectives and the very occasional TV airing, and Kirk Douglas rated it one of his favorites of all the films he made.

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"Love" (Koch Lorber) is not a movie version of the Cirque de Soleil Beatles show, but a dark, often fascinating thriller that intertwines the lives and stories of a hit man from Yugoslavia (Sergej Trifunovic); his former wife (Geno Lechner), with whom he is unexpectedly reacquainted at a murder scene in Brooklyn, and a New York City cop (Peter Gevisser), with whom she is now half-heartedly involved. Those with a taste for dissecting intersecting story lines and flawed characters will appreciate a film that was well-received at film festivals.