The Crimson Rivers (2000)
Les Rivières pourpres
Crime, Mystery, Thriller • 1h 46m
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
Cast: Jean Reno, Vincent Cassel, Nadia Farès, Dominique Sanda, Karim Belkhadra, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Didier Flamand, Philippe Nahon, François Levantal, Laurent Lafitte, Francine Bergé, Robert Gendreu, Christophe Bernard, Nicky Naudé, Vincent Tulli, Tonio Descanvelle, Olivier Rousset, Françoise Loreau, Nicolas Koretzky, Dominique Bettenfeld, Laurent Avare
Best English-friendly & video release
Curzon 4K Blu-ray is superior to Gaumont 4K Blu-ray
Updated 11 months ago
Best audio release
All other sources have much worse dynamic range and clipping, waveforms
UHD tiers
French import review
About the film
Two French policemen, one investigating a grisly murder at a remote mountain college, the other working on the desecration of a young girl's grave by skinheads, are brought together by the clues from their respective cases. Soon after they start working together, more murders are committed, and the pair begin to discover just what dark secrets are behind the killings.
- Alternative Titles
- Crimson rivers
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
International Sony Blu-ray > US Warner Bros Blu-ray
US Warner Bros Blu-ray has more extras
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
Director: Béla Tarr
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Curzon 4K Blu-ray scheduled for October 2026 release
Supposed to have better translation than Criterion.
Director: Michael Haneke
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
2025 Curzon UK Blu-ray or 2013 TF1 FR Blu-ray (caps)
Curzon has a slightly better encode and preserves all the noise of the digital source, but ends up obscuring actual detail in some shots. Both are quite good, only caveat being that the TF1 disc is slightly cropped and has a black bar on top.
2008 Artificial Eye UK and 2025 Umbrella AU discs have incorrect pitch. TF1 FR disc is missing 7 minutes of audio in the left channel. See spectrograms.
Director: Walter Salles
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Original matrixed Dolby Stereo: Curzon 4K Blu-ray
Surround mix: Vision Film Polish PAL DVD (2000)
The surround mix is fully discrete, not a mere decode or upmix of the Dolby Stereo LCRS track. This mix has never appeared on any other releases.
Director: Jean Vigo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Director: Jean Vigo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Jean Vigo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Directors: Jean Vigo & Boris Kaufman
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
More Crime on Blu-ray
Director: Robert Altman
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Cinematrographe's HDR grading is overcooked, which is a known VinSyn tendency. Additionally, their booklet mis-credits the encode to FiM.
YMMV, but for some, the included BD encoded by Marcus Johnson—ironically may make for a more pleasing experience.
4K restoration of the original 3D left eye and right eye camera negatives
Director: John Woo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Arrow has a different grade and a better encode than the Shout! Factory, though the difference in either is not major. Imprint release, which leaves Shout! Factory's master and subtitles as is, is encoded by FiM. https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24473097&postcount=56
Original mix: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray
Alternate mix: Scanbox Nordic PAL DVD
Surround remix: HK Video France 4K Blu-ray (5.0)
Original mix: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray (similar to Criterion LaserDisc, but less distorted)
Alternate mix: Scanbox Nordic PAL DVD
Surround remix: HK Video France 4K Blu-ray (5.0)
Arrow used the alternate mix, but with extra filtering and lowered dynamic range. The alternate mix has much better fidelity.
Imprint presumably used the Shout! Factory original mix and left it as is, though no official confirmation.
Director: Richard Brooks
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray > Criterion 4K Blu-ray > Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray
1991 Orion LaserDisc vs 2024 Arrow 4K Blu-ray
Director: William Dieterle
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
The 4K discs in both Criterion and Imprint sets are FiM encodes, but low-passed, Imprint minimally less so. Unfortunately, unlike with The Killing, Kino does not hold up at all, the grain is much rougher and the compression visibly struggles making for a much less pleasant watch, even if select stills look better.
All discs use the same source transfer. Criterion cleaned up some hums and hiss, but lost a little bit of high-end detail. Unlike The Killing, the difference's relatively mino.
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
The 4K discs in both Criterion and Imprint sets are FiM encodes, but low-passed. The compression is better, but some of the grain is lost. Difference is pronounced in screen caps, but not likely to be noticed during playback, without a reference to compare it to. Comparisons
All discs use the same source transfer. It's not of the highest quality, and it includes some slight distortion, looping, clicks, pops, and hum. Criterion cleaned it up for their release, but unfortunately also lost a lot of fidelity in the process.
MGM NTSC DVD doesn't seem to have some of the more prominent distortion and has slightly different EQ but is otherwise the same.
Director: Karel Reisz
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Cinematographe is mis-credited to be an FiM encode. It isn't. Neither the encode nor the color grading are entirely satisfactory.
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