Nominated for best film of 2000, Steven Soderbergh’s harsh and controversial Traffic forged new ground in storytelling, both in content and presentation. USA has licensed the film to Criterion for a special edition due in May.

A high-ranking judge with a vendetta against drugs learns his own daughter is a cocaine addict – a San Diego housewife must suddenly take over her husband’s drug dealing business when he is arrested – a Mexican police officer struggles to do the right thing in the midst of corruption. Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Benicio Del Toro star in Steven Soderbergh’s amazing intertwined stories of the failing war on drugs.

The new version of “Traffic” will come as a two disc set. The first disc contains the film contains the film in anamorphic widescreen and audio in Dolby Digital 5.1 plus three separate audio commentaries. Disc two will contain several deleted scenes with commentary, three featurettes on achieving the varied film colorizations throughout the film, the quick-paced editing of the film, and the dialog editing process. Outtakes will also be included for two scenes.

Criterion is scheduled to release the new two-disc set on May 28th. A suggested retail price of $39.95 will be attatched to the package.