Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971)
4 mosche di velluto grigio
Thriller, Mystery, Horror • 1h 44m
Director: Dario Argento
Cast: Michael Brandon, Mimsy Farmer, Jean-Pierre Marielle, Aldo Bufi Landi, Calisto Calisti, Marisa Fabbri, Oreste Lionello, Fabrizio Moroni, Corrado Olmi, Stefano Satta Flores, Laura Troschel, Francine Racette, Bud Spencer, Dante Cleri, Guerrino Crivello, Gildo Di Marco, Tom Felleghy, Leopoldo Migliori, Fulvio Mingozzi, Stefano Oppedisano, Pino Patti, Ada Pometti, Jacques Stany, Fortunato Cecilia, Franz Colangeli, Shirley Corrigan, Luigi Cozzi, Giovanni Di Benedetto, Sandro Dori, Renzo Marignano, Quinto Marziali, Diego Morreale, Anna Maria Perego, Pupita Lea Scuderoni, Maurizio Streccioni
Best English-friendly release · updated 1 year ago
UHD tiers
caveat: German import not English-friendly in the Italian only scenes
better compression and more saturated colors than the Severin 4k
Overview
Roberto, a drummer in a rock band, keeps receiving weird phone calls and being followed by a mysterious man. One night he manages to catch up with his persecutor and tries to get him to talk but in the ensuing struggle he accidentally stabs him. He runs away, but he understands his troubles have just begun when the following day he receives an envelope with photos of him killing the man. Someone is killing all his friends and trying to frame him for the murders.
Director: Jean Vigo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Directors: Alberto Cavalcanti & Charles Crichton & Basil Dearden & Robert Hamer
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
France Rimini 4K Blu-ray see caps vs Artificial Eye Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
(Indicator 4K Blu-ray, based on review)
Director: Otakar Vávra
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Deaf Crocodile 4K Blu-ray see nic review
Restored: Deaf Crocodile 4K Blu-ray
Unrestored: Czech PAL DVD
Preferences will vary, the restored track sounds good, but not necessarily faithful to the original elements.
Director: Anthony Mann
Criterion 4K Blu-ray, Universal 2008 DVD
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
2008 Universal DVD mono
The mono on the Criterion is severely filtered resulting in it sounding incredibly muffled. It is nearly as filtered as the 2003 original Universal DVD which had extreme filtering and sounds horribly thin. The 2008 DVD remaster and original Laserdisc analog mastering are mostly left alone. The original LD master is from a worn element but otherwise sounds very natural. The 2008 DVD is the highest quality version we have without the heavy filtering and the defects of the LD master. It isn't perfect but easily the best of the main four sources by a dramatic margin.
The existing 4K SDR restoration looks excellent, but the Criterion extras are limited and disappointing. The classic Stewart interview commentary from the LD is ported over but given a new mastering. Compared to past releases it has been very slightly noise reduced.
Director: Basil Dearden
Excellent 4K master and encode, except for opticals grain is very fine, grading is beautifully silvery and luminous, nice HDR re-grade by Fidelity in Motion
Director: Dario Argento
4.0 track on the Synapse 4K Blu-ray
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
German release from Plaion has better grading and encode than the US Vinegar Syndrome releases.
Both UHDs come with Italian and English audio, as well as English subtitles.
Director: Dario Argento
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Gus Van Sant
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Shout! Factory and Carlotta use the same scan https://slow.pics/c/Wcn5YFlw, the Carlotta has two extra bonus features
Director: Roman Polanski
> Vinegar Syndrome 4K Blu-ray (better encode on Carlotta without any low-pass filtering, more extras and English subtitles on Vinegar Syndrome)
Director: John Carpenter
Sony 4K Blu-ray or Carlotta 4K Blu-ray (FiM encode)
Sony 4K Blu-ray and France Carlotta 4K Blu-ray (FiM encode) are similar
Director: S. S. Rajamouli
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Zee5 Streaming
France Carlotta 4K Blu-ray coming in December
Japan Twin Co. 4K Blu-ray
Zee5 Streaming has the original Telugu audio and English subtitles (albeit with English portions also overdubbed in Telugu)
Netflix Streaming only has the Hindi dub but better video quality
Japan Twin Co. 4K Blu-ray has original Telugu Atmos audio
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Criterion boxset
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Director: Otar Iosseliani
2K restoration of 4K scan. This 2K restoration’s detail level is quite good, although its highlights are somewhat blown out. On the other hand, the newer 4K restoration (on DCP only as of Aug 2026) exhibits severe black crush.
TBD. Carlotta sounds muffled.
Carlotta’s English subtitles omit quite a bit of dialog. This was improved upon in the subs accompanying the newer 4K restoration DCP.
2K restoration of 4K scan. This 2K restoration’s detail level is quite good, although its highlights are somewhat blown out. On the other hand, the newer 4K restoration (on DCP only as of Aug 2026) exhibits severe black crush.
TBD. Carlotta sounds muffled.
Carlotta’s English subtitles omit quite a bit of dialog. This was improved upon in the subs accompanying the newer 4K restoration DCP.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Director: Bert Stern
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
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