Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22169 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-11-19
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Formats: Box set, PAL
• Number of discs: 28
• Running time: 4675 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
A flat-out treasure trove of television, The Sopranos Complete HBO Seasons 1-6 box set brings together every episode of a genuinely extraordinary series. Those that call it quite possibly the best show America has produced in the last decade aren’t far wide of the mark (although fans of The Wire could have an argument there).

To think The Sopranos all started from a simple sell: that a New Jersey mob boss falls into depression, and seeks out counselling to help him cope. And while early episodes followed Tony Soprano’s balancing act as he sought to keep this from his mobster friends, The Sopranos took this foundation and built upon it a collection of layered, intriguing characters from both Tony’s ‘work’ and ‘home’ families.

That’s only part of the reason for The Sopranos’ extraordinary success, though. Because the writers then seeded many delightfully intricate plotlines, that seemed to seamlessly weave between one another. The end result was that every character was important, and--crucially--there was a real sense of unease, as fans began to realise that The Sopranos could have a quiet run of episodes, and then suddenly take out a character you’ve spent hours engaged with.

It’s a fascinating cocktail. Ruthless yet emotional, violent yet intimate, brash yet insecure, the characters of The Sopranos are as three dimensional as television drama gets. It’s a tragedy it’s finished, but the six series in this box offer a stunning legacy, and a masterclass to anyone else in the planet looking to make a character-driven drama. --Simon Brew

DVD Description
This is the first time that all episodes of writer-producer-director David Chase's extraordinary US television series The Sopranos have been brought together in one box set, which is a seminal event for any fan of the series. The Sopranos is nominally an urban gangster drama, but its true impact strikes closer to home, chronicling a dysfunctional, suburban family in bold relief. And for protagonist Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), there's the added complexity posed by heading twin families, his collegial mob clan and his own, nouveau riche brood.

The series' first season was built around what Tony learns when, whipsawed between those two worlds, he finds himself plunged into depression and seeks psychotherapy--a gesture at odds with his midlevel machismo, yet instantly recognizable as a modern emotional test. With analysis built into the very spine of the show's elaborate episodic structure, creator Chase and his formidable team of directors, writers and actors weave an unpredictable series of parallel and intersecting plot arcs that twist from tragedy to farce to social realism throughout six spellbinding series. While created for a smaller screen, they enjoy a far larger canvas than a single movie would afford, and the results, like the very best episodic television, attain a richness and scope far closer to a novel than movies normally get. Alternately seductive, exasperated, fearful, and murderous, James Gandolfini's Tony is utterly convincing, even when executing brutal shifts between domestic comedy and dramatic violence.

Synopsis
Emmy Award-winning drama THE SOPRANOS follows the personal and professional exploits of mafia boss Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini) as he tries to balance his home life with heading up a criminal organisation. This box set contains all 86 episodes from series 1 through 6.

Customer Reviews

First The Godfather. Then Goodfellas. Now The Sopranos.
New Jersey mafia drama, The Sopranos, has been deluged with praise. Anyone approaching this for the first time might be expecting to have their expectations unrealistically raised - The New York Times called it possibly the finest piece of American television "in the last twenty years." However, this modern classic fully deserves every plaudit that has been laid at its door. The Sopranos is in the same rich vein of epic Italian-American storytelling as both The Godfather and Goodfellas, two classics of cinema; The Sopranos is easily a modern contemporary that can proudly take its place in the same pantheon.

The initial conceit of The Sopranos, as envisaged by creator David Chase, is that Tony Soprano, family man and Family man, is indulging in that quintessential middle class American crutch - psychotherapy. This calculating, cynical, mid-level mafia boss, is plagued by feelings of doubt and lack of self-esteem, `issues' that were inculcated in childhood and that have now blossomed in to full blown neuroses; these psychological problems are now starting to diffuse into both his personal relations with his family and his `business' decisions within organised crime.

The second conceit, one that is mostly played for laughs, is that the mobsters in The Sopranos are not only aware of films like The Godfather, they positively revel in their cinematic ancestry: mobster Silvio Dante repeatedly does terrible impressions of Al Pacino (from The Godfather Part III), other mobsters misquote or discuss various films and their similarities to the events that are happening around them; other scenes are based on sequences from Goodfellas et al but given an ironic twist. This could easily become so much post-modern rubbish in lesser hands, a one-joke routine spun out to encompass several series but this is most definitely not the case. A modern mob drama could not ignore those films previously mentioned, to do so would have been simply unrealistic; similarly, in recent FBI wiretaps, real life Mafioso have been recorded discussing The Sopranos and asking each other if it's based on them..

The writing of The Sopranos straddles that most difficult of genres, the comedy-drama. The series is frequently laugh-out-loud funny and yet at the same time we believe in the seriousness of the characters and the gravity of the dilemmas they face. Like certain other classic mob dramas, The Sopranos sucks the audience in: we cheer when Tony gets the better of his enemies, even though that means that innocent families get broken and others on the sidelines get killed. This brings us to the very essence of the entire series, articulated during a conversation betwixt Tony Sopranos' psychotherapist and her divorced husband: "Eventually, you're going to get past your psychotherapy with all its cheesy moral relativism and finally get down to good and evil. And he's evil."

As somebody who watched The Sopranos from its initial broadcast to its abrupt finale, all superlatives are fully justified. The whole six series establishes a high water mark for television. A landmark programme that redefines the medium's possibilities, each series stands alone as an epic movie. I have not singled out any particular member of cast or crew for special praise, as the entire ensemble is uniformly outstanding and all involved will probably never hit such heights again. If The Godfather and Goodfellas represent pinnacles of cinematic artistry, The Sopranos, it can now finally be written with certainty, can be added to such a rostrum. If expectations have been raised, they will be fully satisified.

Never be beaten
Perhaps one day, many moons from now, somebody will pen a script, mould a story, acquire a magnificent cast and somehow create a television show that will better The Sopranos. Perhaps. I doubt it. This boxset is of course the entire set of Sopranos episodes and its utterly fantastic. Its as close to perfection as I could ever imagine television getting. Its sure to be more to somes taste than others but I just find it compelling to watch. Hilarious one moment, almost shocking the next. Utter genius. For those not yet aware of this masterpiece Tony Soprano is the main protaganist in this show. He is the boss of the New Jersey 'Family' and we view him plot his way through incident after incident. Fight after fight. Woman after woman and death after death. The best way to appreciate this television programme is to purchase the boxset and watch it. I have no doubt that it will be the best £100 quid or so you ever spend. If you like television and you like a story that will grip you then look no further. Within the red and black cardboard box is the finest piece of television ever made. Simply magnificent. Get it now so you don't have to regret not owning it anymore!

TV Drama. Redefined.
Despite being a fan of mob movies, I never managed to catch The Sopranos when it was broadcast on TV (I'm always too busy to properly follow a TV station's schedule). Nonetheless, I heard it was a good show, so I took the plunge and purchased the complete box set.

Boy, am I glad I did!

The Sopranos is compulsive viewing. I watched all six seasons over the course of one month. Each episode is crammed with interesting characters, cutting dialogue and fantastic acting. And although classified as a TV drama, there is a lot of humour injected into each episode, so its not all downbeat and grim - you'll be laughing during scenes as well!

For fans of mob movies, The Sopranos is essential viewing. For casual fans, it still makes a great TV show. I know because my wife could care less for mob movies but even she would sit there watching episodes with me... Because its not just about the Mafia. Its about family and relationships as well.

Highly recommended.