Happiness (1998)
Comedy, Drama • 2h 19m
Director: Todd Solondz
Cast: Jane Adams, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Dylan Baker, Lara Flynn Boyle, Cynthia Stevenson, Louise Lasser, Ben Gazzara, Camryn Manheim, Rufus Read, Jon Lovitz, Jared Harris, Gerry Becker, Elizabeth Ashley, Justin Elvin, Lila Glantzman-Leib, Arthur J. Nascarella, Molly Shannon, Ann Harada, Douglas McGrath, Eric Marcus, Eytan Mirsky, Lisa Louise Langford, Anne Bobby, Socorro Santiago, Allison Furman, Wai Ching Ho, Bina Sharif, Tsepo Mokone, Dan Moran, Evan Silverberg, Marla Maples, Hope Pomerance, Matt Malloy, Dan Tedlie, Marina Gayzidorskaya, Johann Carlo, Joe Lisi, José Rabelo, Diane Tyler, Olga Stepanova, Todd Solondz
Best English-friendly release · updated 9 months ago
UHD tiers
Overview
The lives of several individuals intertwine as they go about their lives in their own unique ways, engaging in acts which society as a whole might find disturbing in a desperate search for human connection.
Director: Todd Solondz
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Solid upgrade and the increase in resolution works well with the 16mm source in making it appear a bit more film-like than the Blu-ray, which is obviously very good as well
Director: Steve James
Director: Joel Coen
Director's Cut: Disappointing UK StudioCanal/US Criterion 4K Blu-ray
Theatrical Cut: LaserDisc or 2001 UK Universal DVD
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?p=21782879#post21782879 - comparison. StudioCanal is a massive improvement to the Criterion but still flawed in some areas (chroma noise)
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Director: Nicolas Roeg
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Criterion 4K Blu-ray poor compression, otherwise Second Sight has best Blu-ray
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
> BFI 4K Blu-ray. caps Criterion presents the master as originally graded in SDR whereas FiM added HDR / Dolby Vision for the BFI.
Criterion 4K Blu-ray's audio mix has more detail than BFI’s and same applies to the subtitles, covering both English and France spoken word
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
Director: Terrence Malick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Lovely underlying remaster by Criterion and Resillion but encode is sadly low-pass filtered by Pixelogic, and even then, the encode is still less than ideal. Still easily obliterates any prior disc release, but certainly wouldn't hurt to have a UK or German label take a crack at this same master.
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.
More Comedy on Blu-ray
Director: Bruce Robinson
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray has stronger encode than Criterion
Director: Olivier Assayas
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Encoding is clunky on both Arrow and Criterion BDs but Arrow at least included the original stereo mix in addition to the 5.1 remix, while Criterion only included the 5.1 remix.
Director: Morton DaCosta
Warner Archive 4K Blu-ray Nov 24th
TV series
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative for all episodes
Director: Norman Taurog
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Delbert Mann
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Garson Kanin
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Only Streaming has 1080p
Edit history
Every recommendation follows the same method — how these calls are made.