Films
/
Tenebre (1982)
Tenebre (1982) poster

Tenebre (1982)

Thriller, Horror, Mystery • 1h 41m

Director: Dario Argento

Arrow/Synapse 4K Blu-ray

Best English-friendly & video release · updated 1 year ago

UHD tiers

Excellent
Arrow/Synapse

Overview

A razor-wielding serial killer is on the loose, murdering those around Peter Neal, an American mystery author in Italy to promote his newest novel.

Release details

Featured Lists
Length
101 mins
Type
Movie
Alternative Titles
Unsane, Dario Argento's Tenebrae

Part of Is this Perfect?

See more →

Director: Jean Vigo

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Curzon 4K Blu-ray

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)

Video Notes:

Curzon 4K Blu-ray with much better encoding than the Gaumont Blu-ray with the same 4K restoration see caps

Criterion Blu-ray uses an older restoration

Directors: Alberto Cavalcanti & Charles Crichton & Basil Dearden & Robert Hamer

Video format: UHD Blu-ray

Director: Robert Bresson

Video format: UHD Blu-ray

Director: Basil Dearden

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Indicator 4K Blu-ray

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

Best Audio:

(Indicator 4K Blu-ray, based on review)

Director: Otakar Vávra

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly:

Deaf Crocodile 4K Blu-ray

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

Best Video:

Deaf Crocodile 4K Blu-ray see nic review

Best Audio:

Restored: Deaf Crocodile 4K Blu-ray
Unrestored: Czech PAL DVD

Audio Notes:

Preferences will vary, the restored track sounds good, but not necessarily faithful to the original elements.

Director: Robert Rossen

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Sony 4K Blu-ray

Director: Anthony Mann

4K · Solid
Best English-Friendly:

Criterion 4K Blu-ray, Universal 2008 DVD

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)

Best Audio:

2008 Universal DVD mono

Audio Notes:

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. 

Additional Info:

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: Charles Crichton

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly & Video:

StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray

Directors: Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly, Video & Audio:

Imprint 4K Blu-ray

Additional Info:

Imprint AU 4K is world UHD debut and encoded by FiM. Part of the The Cinema Of Powell & Pressburger - Collection Two set.

Director: Basil Dearden

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Indicator 4K Blu-ray

Video Notes:

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

More from Dario Argento

See more →

Director: Dario Argento

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly & Video:

US Synapse 4K Blu-ray or UK Shameless 4K Blu-ray

Video Notes:

(some may prefer Synapse's grading, while some prefer Shameless's grading)

Best Audio:

4.0 track on the Synapse 4K Blu-ray

Director: Dario Argento

Best English-Friendly & Audio:

Plaion GER 4K Blu-ray

Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)

Best Video:

Plaion GER 4K Blu-ray caps

Additional Info:

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

Best English-Friendly & Video:

US Blue Underground Blu-ray

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)

Additional Info:

UK Arrow Blu-ray and Germany Koch Media Blu-ray have exclusive extras

Director: Dario Argento

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Arrow/Synapse 4K Blu-ray

Director: Dario Argento

4K · Solid
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Arrow 4K Blu-ray

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)

Director: Dario Argento

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Arrow 4K Blu-ray

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)

Director: Dario Argento

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Plaion Germany 4K Blu-ray

Director: Dario Argento

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly:

Carlotta France 4K Blu-ray

Director: Dario Argento

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Arrow 4K Blu-ray

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)

More from Arrow

See more →

Director: George Pavlou

Best English-Friendly & Video:

Germany Wicked Vision 4K Blu-ray

Upcoming Release:

Arrow 4K Blu-ray teased

Video Notes:

Germany Wicked Vision 4K Blu-ray better than US Kino Lorber?

Director: Bruce Robinson

4K · Solid
Best English-Friendly & Video:

Arrow 4K Blu-ray

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)

Video Notes:

Arrow 4K Blu-ray has stronger encode than Criterion

Director: Olivier Assayas

Best English-Friendly & Video:

Arrow UK Blu-ray

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)

Video Notes:

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: John Woo

Best English-Friendly & Video:

US Shout! Factory or UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray?

Director: Tsui Hark

Best English-Friendly & Video:

US Shout! Factory or UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray?

Director: John Woo

4K · Excellent
Best English-Friendly, Video & Audio:

US Shout! Factory or UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray

Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)

Video Notes:

> Disk Kino/WCL China import

review: Disk Kino

Both have better encoding than Disk Kino, some shots are better on Shout! Factory, others on Arrow

Shout Factory still has the best video while Arrow did a questionable regrade. Arrow definitely has less grain in most shots, has a worse encode and is cm v2.9 compared to Shout’s cm v4.0.

Audio Notes:

Shout! Factory/Arrow 4K Blu-ray has the original mono

Director: Federico Fellini

Best English-Friendly & Video:

Arrow Blu-ray

Video Notes:

Fellini's segment on Spirits of the Dead

The Toby Dammit segment is also available in Criterion boxset but seems to be SD, so Arrow Blu-ray > Plaion Blu-ray > Criterion boxset Blu-ray

Director: Lewis Teague

Video format: UHD Blu-ray

4K · Disappointing
Upcoming Release:

UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray

Best Video:

Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray disappointing

Best Audio:

R1 DVD

Audio Notes:

R1 DVD sounds best and has the original mono and a Dolby Stereo remix

Director: Ron Shelton

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

UK Arrow Blu-ray

Video Notes:

Australia Imprint 4K Blu-ray disappointing, nice new master, but poor encode, grain completely crippled in some scenes, artifacts abound, etc, makes Kino Lorber look like FiM.

Director: Claude Chabrol

Best English-Friendly & Video:

UK Arrow DVD

Edit history

1 edit

Researched and maintained by

vanshady

· last reviewed 1 year ago

Every recommendation follows the same method — how these calls are made.