La La Land (2016)
Comedy, Drama, Romance, Music • 2h 9m
Director: Damien Chazelle
Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, John Legend, Rosemarie DeWitt, J.K. Simmons, Amiée Conn, Terry Walters, Thom Shelton, Cinda Adams, Callie Hernandez, Jessica Rothe, Sonoya Mizuno, Claudine Claudio, Jason Fuchs, D.A. Wallach, Trevor Lissauer, Olivia Hamilton, Anna Chazelle, Marius de Vries, Finn Wittrock, Josh Pence, Nicole Coulon, Damon Gupton, Christopher Michael Stevens, Keith Harris, Kaveh Rastegar, David Douglas, Miles Anderson, Bobo Chang, Meagen Fay, John Hindman, Valarie Rae Miller, Nicole Wolf, Corrin Evans, Kiff VandenHeuvel, Tom Everett Scott, Hemky Madera, Zoë Hall, Dempsey Pappion, Clifton 'Fou Fou' Eddie, Cal Bennett, Nedra Wheeler, Javier Gonzalez, Khirye Tyler, Briana Lee, Shaylah J. Stevens, Natalie Imani, Camryn Ray Cavaliero, Sandra Rosko, Arthur Horowitz, Reshma Gajjar, Candice Coke, Hunter Hamilton, Damian Gomez, Amanda Balen, Lou Becker, Dominic Chaiduang, Cindera Che, Chris Moss, Marissa Labog, Tiffany Daniels, Melinda Sullivan, Stephanie Landwehr, Britt Stewart, Clarice Ordaz, Nathan Prevost, Mecca Vazie Andrews, Scott Hislop, KC Monnie, Krystal Ellsworth, Sarah Mitchell, Khasan Brailsford, Morgan Larson, Becca Sweitzer, Gakenia Muigai, Michael Stein, Mario Diaz, Julie Schmid, Samantha Abrantes, Lexie Contursi, Eartha Robinson, Sybil Azur, Tara Nicole Hughes, Kayla Kalbfleisch, Martha Nichols, Anthony Marciona, Bill Prudich, Robert Roldan, Ryan Novak, Demian Boergadine, Gustavo Vargas, Robert Haynes, Doran Butler, Matt Cady, Carol Connors, Patrick Cook, Aaron 'Deuce' Cooke, Bubba Dean Rambo, Nick Drago, Shaun Evaristo, Dana Fukagawa, Daniel Gaymon, Liz Imperio, Casey Johansen, Cris Judd, Yoori Kim, Bradley M. Rapier, Dana Wilson, Terrance Yates, Tracy Shibata, Dominique Domingo, Asiel Hardison, Corey Anderson, Nick Baga, Leah Adler, Noel Bajandas, Denzel Chisolm, Montana Efaw, Natalie Gilmore, Shannon Holtzapffel, Galen Hooks, Jeremy Hudson, George Lawrence Jr., Scott Myrick, Cassidy Noblett, Brittany Parks, Víctor Rojas, Tony Bellissimo, Ryan Ramirez, Catalina Cat Rendic, Bryan Tanaka, Ava Bernstine-Mitchell, Quinn Lipton, Monie Adamson, Matthew Aylward, McKenzie Anderson, Pamela Chu, Mallauri Esquibel, Michael Higgins, Chris Jarosz, Matthew Kazmierczak, Paul Kirkland, Megan Lawson, Michael Munday, Brandon O'Neal, Chelsea Thedinga, Danny Valle, Emily Williams, Tommy Cooley, Kristin Slaysman, Ana Flavia Gavlak, Noah James, Ottavio Taddei, Destinee Handly, Steffen Dziczek, Vince Donvito, Patty Tobin, Crystal Nichol, Kaye L. Morris, Trent Kerpsack, Holly Houk, Andrea Lareo, April Martucci, Heather Turman, Jenna Curtis, Jordan Ray Fox, Anna Lunberry, Christopher Aber, Margaret Newborn, C.J. Stussi, Cameron Brinkman, Kristin Elliott, Lynn Moore, Nilla Elizabeth Watkins, Andres Perez-Molina, Shannon Leann, Milica Govich, Frederick Keeve, Amanda Fields, Hunter Clowdus, Jessica Rotter, Bruce Davison, Bunny Levine
Best video release
Italy Eagle Pictures has DV, better encode, and no brightness shifts compared to Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray
Updated 15 days ago
Upcoming
US Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray re-release announced with Dolby Vision, a new exclusive bonus, and the previously retailer pre-order bonus-exclusive/Hong Kong-exclusive bonus interviews in HD
Best audio release
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray for the original Dolby Atmos mix
Additional info
Hong Kong Panorama 4K Blu-ray has two interviews available in HD that are SD everywhere else and only included as retailer-exclusive pre-order bonus DVDs with the US Blu-ray
UHD tiers
Italian import
better compression than Lionsgate & brightness levels fixed
About the film
Mia, an aspiring actress, serves lattes to movie stars in between auditions and Sebastian, a jazz musician, scrapes by playing cocktail party gigs in dingy bars, but as success mounts they are faced with decisions that begin to fray the fragile fabric of their love affair, and the dreams they worked so hard to maintain in each other threaten to rip them apart.
Director: Damien Chazelle
IMAX scenes are reference quality, everything else is solid
Director: Jamie Babbit
Australia All Interactive Distribution 4K Blu-ray
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
> Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray is a disaster. The compression on the base layer is horrid, and the oversized 18 Mbps FEL barely helps.
Australia All Interactive Distribution better encode than the US disc
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray includes original matrixed Dolby Stereo mix, albeit lossy, and a 5.1 surround upmix. The stereo track on previous BD and DVD releases is also lossy and sounds about the same.
Theatrical Cut: Italy Eagle Pictures 4K Blu-ray
Redux Cut: Lionsgate vs Eagle Pictures?
Final Cut: Lionsgate or Eagle Pictures, both are not great (visible chroma noise)
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Theatrical: Germany 4K Blu-ray/US Blu-ray DD 5.1 (1979 mix)
In the Lionsgate US/UK 6-disc set, there are 4 discs of the main feature. For whatever reason, the 4K discs lack the *original track. The Germany 4K Blu-ray release is different on this matter.
UBD: Final Cut: Atmos, DD2.0
UBD: Redux/Theatrical: Atmos
BD: Final Cut: Atmos, DD2.0
BD: Redux/Theatrical: Dtru5.1 (Redux mix?), DD5.1 (?), DD5.1 (Theatrical only), DD2.0 (downmix??)
As a result the Theatrical Cut has 4 tracks, The Redux has 3. Differences are unclear.
BD: Hearts of Darkness
BD: Special Features
Director: Barry Jenkins
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Lionsgate 4k
Criterion 4K Blu-ray announced by director Barry Jenkins
Director: Werner Herzog
Director: Paul King
StudioCanal UK 4K Blu-ray minimal picture upgrade (2K upscale)
StudioCanal UK 4K Blu-ray has good new Atmos mix
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Both come from a 4K scan of a 35mm film out which was made from the original 2K DI but the Lionsgate release has visible dust and damage marks while the Universal release is cleaned up more thoroughly. Both releases suffer from DNR which seems to have been baked into the DI. The colour grade is basically the same for both releases but the Lionsgate has Dolby Vision whereas the Universal is HDR10 only. The compression on the Lionsgate UHD base layer is apparently fine so the FEL doesn't make much of a difference.
The Lionsgate UHD has Dolby Atmos whereas the Universal UHD has DTS:X. Kick-ass was originally released with a 5.1 track which may be on the Universal Blu-ray.
The Lionsgate UHD is on a BD-100, the Universal UHD is on a BD-66.
The Universal UHD has no extras.
Director: Alexandre Aja
Theatrical Cut: Austria NSM Blu-ray
Director's Cut: France Metropolitan Blu-ray
Metropolitan got better picture (higher bitrate + better grain + more detail) than Lionsgate
Director: Roman Polanski
Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray see caps. Much better contrast and grain exposure but the grade is a bit questionable as it skews heavily towards magenta in some caps and the encode looks low-pass filtered.
Atmos Remix: Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray
Original 5.1: Imprint Australia Blu-ray or StudioCanal Germany/France Blu-ray
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray encoded the "Original 5.1" as lossy Dolby Digital, which is very different from the AC3 on the original DVD. This new "Original 5.1" may in fact be a downmix of the Atmos track. FWIW, the original DVD AC3 still sounds very good.
Sources: fanrestore.com (opens in a new tab) · originaltrilogy.com (opens in a new tab)
2017 StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray and subsequent 4K Blu-rays are notorius for being heavily denoised and smoothened. Alternatively, 35mm scans for the theatrical cut is also available.
For the Ultimate Edition with the T-1000 searching John's room and the happy future ending, the 2009 Skynet Blu-ray, which is the older pre-2017 transfer, but has DNR.
More Comedy on Blu-ray
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Jack Conway
4K restoration from safety preservation elements
4K restoration from safety preservation elements
Director: Jack Conway
4K restoration from safety preservation elements
Director: William Dieterle
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
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