Cast
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Al Pacino

Al Pacino

21 films on Best Blurays11 in 4K9 in HD1 with no official release

Al Pacino photo

Alfredo James Pacino (born April 25, 1940) is an American actor and filmmaker. In a career spanning over five decades, he has received many awards and nominations, including an Academy Award, two Tony Awards, and two Primetime Emmy Awards. He is one of the few performers to have received the Triple Crown of Acting. He has also been honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and the National Medal of Arts. A method actor and former student of the HB Studio and the Actors Studio, where he was taught by Charlie Laughton and Lee Strasberg, Pacino's film debut came at the age of 29 with a minor role in Me, Natalie (1969). He gained favorable notice for his first lead role as a heroin addict in The Panic in Needle Park (1971). Wide acclaim and recognition came with his breakthrough role as Michael Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), for which he received his first Oscar nomination, and he would reprise the role in the sequels The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Godfather Part III (1990). His portrayal of Michael Corleone is regarded as one of the greatest in film history. Pacino received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Serpico (1973), The Godfather Part II, Dog Day Afternoon (1975), and ...And Justice for All (1979), ultimately winning it for playing a blind military veteran in Scent of a Woman (1992). For his performances in The Godfather, Dick Tracy (1990), Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), and The Irishman (2019), he earned Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominations. Other notable portrayals include Tony Montana in Scarface (1983), Carlito Brigante in Carlito's Way (1993), Benjamin Ruggiero in Donnie Brasco (1997), and Lowell Bergman in The Insider (1999). He has also starred in the thrillers Heat (1995), The Devil's Advocate (1997), Insomnia (2002), and appeared in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019). On television, Pacino has acted in several productions for HBO, including Angels in America (2003) and the Jack Kevorkian biopic You Don't Know Jack (2010), winning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for each. Pacino currently stars in the Amazon Video web television series Hunters (2020–present). He has also had an extensive career on stage. He is a two-time Tony Award winner, in 1969 and 1977, for his performances in Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie? and The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel. Pacino made his filmmaking debut with Looking for Richard (1996), directing and starring in this documentary about Richard III; Pacino had played the lead role on stage in 1977. He has also acted as Shylock in a 2004 feature film adaptation and 2010 stage production of The Merchant of Venice. Pacino directed and starred in Chinese Coffee (2000), Wilde Salomé (2011), and Salomé (2013). Since 1994, he has been the joint president of the Actors Studio.​ From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Biography from Wikipedia via TMDB

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TV series

Leading role

Video format: Only Unofficial Sources

Best English-Friendly & Video:

Bootleg China Blu-ray on the high seas

Additional Info:

The original 1977 censored cut has never been officially released on home video. The 1981 cut and the 1990 EU cut are available on VHS. The 1992 Trilogy cut was released on LaserDisc and VHS. The 2012 and 2016 HD versions were broadcast on AMC and streaming HBO respectively but neither are available on either platform anymore currently. The Chinese 1080p blu-ray on the high seas is probably the most accessible and affordable way to watch it, (albeit with terrible compression) and appears to be a Webrip of the 2012 AMC HD tv broadcast. It’s on two BD-25 discs with lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 audio and with subtitles for Sicilian dialogue.

Leading role · Director: Christopher Nolan

Best English-Friendly & Video:

Italy Medusa Blu-ray

Video Notes:

Italy Medusa Blu-ray > US WB Blu-ray

Best Audio:

WB Blu-ray

Audio Notes:

WB Blu-ray has 24 bit DTS-HD MA

Leading role · Director: Francis Ford Coppola

4K · Worse Than BD
Best English-Friendly, Video & Audio:

Paramount 2008 Blu-ray Coppola Restoration

Sources: YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Additional Info:

The Paramount 4K "restoration" is a desecration. It has completely revisionist color timing, harsh HDR, treatment of stock footage, bad encoding, selective DNR and grain management so bad that the entire screen frequently freezes up with only characters moving around in grain soup. It is so bad that the film's restorer Robert Harris publicly washed his hands of it saying essentially the 2007 restoration (with Willis and Coppola supervising) is how the film was intended and made. This is Paramount's modern version done their way. The new 1080p SDR Blu-rays in print are the crap 4K desecration master with the same problems still there just harder to spot and with crap encodes. Part II overall fares better than the first film but it has all the same problems. Randomly some shots are the worst in the trilogy looks mushy and manipulated to death.
The mono option is an unnecessarily processed version of the lossy mono from the 2008 Blu-ray. The 2008 Blu-ray of the 2007 Coppola Restoration while an imperfect outdated disc is LIGHT YEARS better than this 4K desecration. The only truly major issue is that it is very slightly redder than the 2007 finished master as seen on DCPs. The lossy mono on the 2008 Blu-ray is the best version of the original mix known to exist as it is better than the late 80's mastering for VHS and LaserDisc.
DFIC review of the hideous crap 4K Blu-rays: https://youtu.be/0uw6-Kcy_UA?si=ob1nDg0wTCvemjH0

Leading role · Director: Brian De Palma

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Arrow 4K Blu-ray

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)

Best Audio:

1993 Universal LaserDisc

Additional Info:

Carlito’s Way was released theatrically in both Dolby Stereo and DTS. The 2.0 on the Arrow UHD is the original stereo mix, unknown if the 5.1 mix on the  Arrow disc is the original DTS mix.

Leading role · Director: Sidney Lumet

Best English-Friendly & Video:

WB Blu-ray

Leading role · Director: Francis Ford Coppola

4K · Worse Than BD
Best English-Friendly & Video:

1991 Home Video Cut: Paramount 2008 Blu-ray

Theatrical Cut: Paramount 4K Blu-ray, but it has problems described below in the additional info section, and worse encoding than the Coda cut.

Coda Cut: Paramount 4K Blu-ray, but it has problems described below in the additional info section, and also has slightly better encoding than the Theatrical/1991 Home Video cuts on 4K.

Sources: YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Best Audio:

LaserDisc for original mix

Additional Info:

The Paramount 4K "restoration" is a desecration. It has completely revisionist color timing, harsh HDR, treatment of stock footage, bad encoding, selective DNR and grain management so bad that the entire screen frequently freezes up with only characters moving around in grain soup. It is so bad that the film's restorer Robert Harris publicly washed his hands of it saying essentially the 2007 restoration (with Willis and Coppola supervising) is how the film was intended and made. This is Paramount's modern version done their way. The new 1080p SDR Blu-rays in print are the crap 4K desecration master with the same problems still there just harder to spot and with crap encodes. Part III fares best of the three and these issues are at their most minimal-but they're still there. The new Coda version is given prominence with lesser encodes for the other two versions. The original mix was remixed into 5.1 decades ago and we have yet another version of this instead of the original Dolby Stereo SR as heard on the LaserDisc release.
The 2008 Blu-ray of the 2007 restoration, while an imperfect outdated disc, is LIGHT YEARS better than this 4K desecration. The only truly major issue is that it is very slightly redder than the 2007 finished master as seen on DCPs.
DFIC review of the hideous crap 4K Blu-rays: https://youtu.be/0uw6-Kcy_UA?si=ob1nDg0wTCvemjH0

Despite being restored alongside the Coppola Restorations of The Godfather: Parts I and II, the Part III restoration is not officially labelled a Coppola Restoration.

Leading role · Director: Martin Brest

4K · Excellent

Leading role · Director: Michael Mann

4K · Disappointing
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Theatrical Cut: Old Warner Bros DVD or fan restoration

Revised Cut: 2012 Japan Blu-ray

Sources: fanrestore.com (opens in a new tab)

Video Notes:

Theatrical Cut: Old Warner Bros DVD or fan restoration

Revised Cut: 2012 Japan Blu-ray for less revisionist colors, 2022 Disney 4K Blu-ray is controversially regraded and too dark overall.

Best Audio:

LaserDisc 2.0 (restores censored dialog). Comparison of 5.1 mixes
For the 5.1: LaserDisc AC3 vs US DVD AC3 vs Japan DVD DTS

Leading role · Director: Jerry Schatzberg

Best English-Friendly & Video:

Signal One UK Blu-ray

Additional Info:

Gorgeously filmic 2K remaster supervised and approved by Jerry Schatzberg from Fox and flawlessly encoded by FiM.

Leading role · Director: Sidney Lumet

4K · Disappointing
Best English-Friendly:

Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray

Best Video:

StudioCanal EU

Video Notes:

StudioCanal EU has elevated blacks and inaccurate colors, Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has poor encode.

Best Audio:

Eureka Blu-ray

Leading role · Director: Michael Mann

Best English-Friendly:

Disney Blu-ray

Best Video:

Leading role · Director: Brian De Palma

4K · Solid
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Universal 4K Blu-ray

Best Audio:

R2/R4 DVD DD 4.0

Leading role · Director: William Friedkin

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Arrow 4K Blu-ray

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab)

Additional Info:

Plaion have also released a BD sourced from Arrow's recent 4K remaster, holds up strongly in comparison https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=19341&d2=19005&c=5415

Leading role · Director: Jerry Schatzberg

Best English-Friendly & Video:

Warner Archive Blu-ray

Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)

Leading role · Director: Francis Ford Coppola

4K · Worse Than BD
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Paramount 2008 Blu-ray Coppola Restoration

Sources: YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Best Audio:

2008 Blu-ray lossy mono

Audio Notes:

(Britain release only has 5.1)

Additional Info:

The Paramount 4K "restoration" is a desecration. It has completely revisionist color timing, harsh HDR, treatment of stock footage, bad encoding, selective DNR and grain management so bad that the entire screen frequently freezes up with only characters moving around in grain soup. It is so bad that the film's restorer Robert Harris publicly washed his hands of it saying essentially the 2007 restoration (with Willis and Coppola supervising) is how the film was intended and made. This is Paramount's modern version done their way. The new 1080p SDR Blu-rays in print are the crap 4K desecration master with the same problems still there just harder to spot and with crap encodes.
The mono option is an unnecessarily processed version of the lossy mono from the 2008 Blu-ray. The 2008 Blu-ray of the 2007 Coppola Restoration while an imperfect outdated disc is LIGHT YEARS better than this 4K desecration. The only truly major issue is that it is very slightly redder than the 2007 finished master as seen on DCPs. The lossy mono on the 2008 Blu-ray is the best version of the original mix known to exist as it is better than the late 80's mastering for VHS and LaserDisc.
DFIC review of the hideous crap 4K Blu-rays: https://youtu.be/0uw6-Kcy_UA?si=ob1nDg0wTCvemjH0

Leading role · Director: Martin Scorsese

Video format: 4K Streaming

Best English-Friendly & Video:

Criterion Blu-ray

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)

Video Notes:

Netflix has 4K Streaming

Leading role · Director: Taylor Hackford

4K · Solid
Best English-Friendly:

Theatrical Cut with unaltered sculpture: Initial DVD

Altered Cut: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · +3 more

Best Video:

Theatrical Cut with unaltered sculpture: Initial DVD with this red message: "The large white sculpture of human forms on the wall of John Milton's penthouse in "The Devil's Advocate" is not connected in any way and was not endorsed by the sculptor Frederick Hart or the Washington National Cathedral, joint copyright owners of the Cathedral sculpture "Ex Nihilo" in Washington D.C.".

Altered Cut: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray see caps

Best Audio:

Warner Bros Blu-ray

Audio Notes:

Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray is more filtered than Warner Bros Blu-ray, although differences may not be audible.
(While the LaserDisc 2.0 is reportedly better clarity in dialogue?)

Additional Info:

DV Plot. For those curious, the sculpture is still the altered one found on the re-issued DVDs, and previous Blu-ray.

5.1 audio on the Shout (either be 1080p or 2160p) was 16-bit, with more roll-off than the Warners one, the Warners was very similar to the NTSC and in terms of balance of the mix, while the Shout seems to be tinkered with, with the score at the beginning and at the end sounding worse on Shout.

Audio Comparisons: Slow.pics

For the regular commentary found on the NTSC DVD "Original Version" (there's no difference including the other NTSC DVD), Shout or Warners; the Shout commentary was just a bloated lossy transcode with some EQ. The best one was from either of the two DVDs.

Commentary Comparisons: Slow.pics

Now there's another commentary; it's basically the same commentary but has some parts different than the others, it can be found on EUR PAL DVD with subs for said commentary. The subs for it doesn't sync for the commentary #1 and vice-versa. Samples

Leading role · Director: Warren Beatty

Best English-Friendly, Video & Audio:

Disney Blu-ray

Audio Notes:

Disney Blu-ray has the original 5.1 CDS mix

Leading role · Director: Ridley Scott

Best English-Friendly & Video:

US Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray

Audio Notes:

UK/Germany Warner Bros Blu-ray has the Atmos mix

Leading role · Director: Steven Soderbergh

4K · Disappointing
Best English-Friendly & Video:

WB 4K Blu-ray

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