Five friends, Michael, Nick, Steven, Stan, and Axel, who are from a small town in middle America, work in the stifling heat and infernal din of a steel mill. They blow off steam after work at a neighborhood tavern. They go deer hunting every fall. One day late in 1968, Michael, Steven, and Nick leave for a tour of duty in Vietnam. Before they go, Steven marries the pregnant Angela; their wedding reception serves as the friend's farewell party. 30 years after it appeared, this film can still generate intense responses and controversy. Perhaps the best description of the subject was offered by film critic Roger Ebert, who said, "'The Deer Hunter' is said to be about many subjects: About male bonding, about mindless patriotism, about the dehumanizing effects of war, about Nixon's "silent majority." It is about any of those things that you choose, if you choose, but more than anything else, it is a heartbreakingly effective fictional machine that evokes the agony of the Vietnam time."

Special features: Production notes [text feature]; Cast and filmmaker's [text feature]; Theatrical trailer (3 min.). DVD release of the 1978 motion picture. Region 1 encoding; Dolby digital surround; widescreen format (2.35:1 aspect ratio). Special features include: production notes; cast and filmmaker biographical information; film highlights; theatrical trailer. Originally produced as a motion picture in 1978. Production notes, cast and filmmaker's biographical information, film highlights, theatrical trailer.

Main titles/Clairton, PA -- Welsh's Lounge -- Wedding -- Deer hunter -- Last round -- Vietnam -- Captured -- Russian roulette -- Escape -- Life left behind -- Coming home -- Veterans -- Fall of Saigon -- Playing the American -- Last rites -- God Bless America/End titles.