New on DVD: Elle Fanning reigns in ‘The Great’

“The Great: Season One”: For those who loved 2018’s critically acclaimed raunchy satirical period piece “The Favourite,” co-writer Tony McNamara is back as creator of Hulu’s “The Great,” also a critically acclaimed raunchy satirical period piece, this time a barely true retelling of Russian Empress Catherine the Great’s beginnings.

New to Russia, Catherine (Elle Fanning) is an idealist, eager to please her husband, Emperor Peter III (Nicholas Hoult). She discovers he’s not only a dolt but a sadistic one, and the two begin to plot against each other.

The jokes are acerbic and profanities abundant, but as the season progresses, so grows the series’ heart. Fanning’s performance in particular carries “The Great,” wrote Los Angeles Times critic Robert Lloyd in his review.

“The dialogue is crisp and a little eccentric, the performances impeccable, the production first-rate, Nathan Barr’s score subtly arresting,” wrote Lloyd. “Above all there is Fanning, a porcelain figurine come to complicated life, who grounds the series even as she seems to float through it.”

Also out Tuesday

“Alone”: A killer (Marc Menchaca) hunts a woman (Jules Willcox) who escaped from his clutches in the Pacific Northwest wilderness.

“Cut Throat City”: A group of friends plan a heist in post-Katrina New Orleans. Stars Shameik Moore, T.I., Wesley Snipes, Terrence Howard and Ethan Hawke.

“House of Shadows”: A woman (Harriet Madeley) inherits a cursed house following her family’s deaths.