Cliffhanger (1993)
Action, Adventure, Thriller • 1h 52m
Director: Renny Harlin
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow, Michael Rooker, Janine Turner, Rex Linn, Caroline Goodall, Leon, Craig Fairbrass, Gregory Scott Cummins, Denis Forest, Michelle Joyner, Max Perlich, Paul Winfield, Ralph Waite, Trey Brownell, Zach Grenier, Vyto Ruginis, Don S. Davis, Scott Hoxby, John Finn, Bruce McGill, Rosemary Dunsmore, Kim Robillard, Jeff McCarthy, Mike Weis, Duncan Prentice, Kevin Donald, Jeff Blynn, Billy D. Lucas, Thor
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 5 months ago
Italy Eagle Pictures 4K Blu-ray has better compression than StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray, green-ish SC master that restores some blown-out highlights compared to the Sony master, but bad HDR10 compression (details). The 2023 Sony 4K Blu-ray steelbook has different grading and Dolby Vision that some may prefer, good encoding, but heavy DNR for about 15% of the runtime.
Pick your poison between Eagle Pictures or Sony.
UHD tiers
Italian import
better compression than SC and no DNR unlike Sony's UHD
Overview
A year after losing his friend in a tragic 4,000-foot fall, former ranger Gabe Walker and his partner, Hal, are called to return to the same peak to rescue a group of stranded climbers, only to learn the climbers are actually thieving hijackers who are looking for boxes full of money.
Director: Renny Harlin
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray caps by cinemaniac. Gorgeous upgrade
Atmos track on Arrow cuts off the end credits music 1 minute before the credits end. 5.1 doesn't have this issue.
Digital 4K appears to be fixed. Could the International WB 4K Blu-ray also be fixed?
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
WB 4K Blu-Ray
Director: Renny Harlin
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray poor compression, grading looks very off
Director: Sian Heder
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Apple TV 4K Blu-ray with Atmos
(Eagle Pictures is 5.1)
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
251 min cut (Extended): Fox Blu-ray. Eagle Pictures has forced Italian subs in some parts
229 min cut (Theatrical): WB Blu-ray
139 min cut (US theatrical): VHS
Eagle Pictures 4K Blu-ray, caps
The 4K includes both theatrical and extended cuts. It's overall a solid upgrade over previous discs, but some will strongly dislike the color grading.
There are some issues with encoding and grain management.
Nic's review:
Some definitely messed with it as there’s grain management going on that resulted in magnetic, squishy grain movement. Both cuts (4K discs) are affected and it doesn’t look like an encoding issue to me as the bitrates don’t drop down to single digits á la Paramount or StudioCanal. During opticals, the lowest I’ve noted on the Extended 4K was around 30 MB/s vs. ~5 MB/s more for the theatrical cut.
Darker scenes are mostly (but not always) better but when it gets brighter, particularly in exteriors or scenes like the Jennifer Connelly dance scene at minute 38, I can’t unsee the digital tinkering as it does some damage texturally.
I compared it with the Eagle Pictures and Warner Bros Fox Blu-ray of the extended cut and they all look fine without grain management like that. Eagle Pictures’s Blu-ray is an older one if anyone’s curious and credited to another authoring house than 64Biz, which did the 4K.
Other than that, except for some encoding-related chroma noise that peeks through in the DV layer, Eagle Pictures did everything right. They corrected the framing to 1.85, kept the original English titles, the English restoration note, subtitles, HDR/DV is gentle and respectful of the source black levels are better than on the Warner Bros/Fox Blu-ray. Without that grain management, this would’ve been the all-timer release we all longed for.
229 min cut: Warner Bros LaserDisc
251 min cut: Fox Blu-ray (24-bit, Eagle Pictures is 16-bit, not audible)
229 min cut: Warner Bros LaserDisc (missing 2 minutes, but original mono mix was never released on DVD/Blu-ray)
Extended edition adds scenes cut from the theatrical, but from a much lower quality source. It's intended to approximate the original cut, but to what extent that is true is debatable.
US theatrical cut is infamously bad, was panned at release and never re-released on home video.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
>StudioCanal UK (slightly better encoding on Eagle?)
The US Criterion DVD has some unique supplements with 2.0 surround audio - this release contains Japan end titles.
The Japan 4K Restoration Blu-ray has some exclusive features with 4.0 audio (though the release is not English-friendly)- this release contains Japan end titles.
The StudioCanal releases contain France end titles - while their 4K Blu-ray releases contain identical features.
Director: Peter MacDonald
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
A new Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray with DV upcoming including with the rest of the films.
> StudioCanal UK, better compression than StudioCanal but no forced subs on non-English dialogue
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
A new Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray with DV upcoming including with the rest of the films.
> StudioCanal UK, better compression than StudioCanal
Director: Damien Chazelle
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Italy Eagle Pictures has DV, better encode, and no brightness shifts compared to Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray for the original Dolby Atmos mix
Hong Kong Panorama 4K Blu-ray has two interviews available in HD that are SD everywhere else
Video format: 4K Streaming
France/Germany StudioCanal Blu-ray has more extras
More Action on Blu-ray
Director: Tony Scott
The 70mm 6-track mix has a higher bitrate on the Paramount 1998 DVD, but is more limited than on the THX LaserDisc The Paramount 1998 DVD also has open matte versions in fullscreen 1.33:1 and widescreen 2.00:1 instead of the theatrical aspect ratio of 2.39:1, but the 2.00:1 widescreen presentation is non-anamorphic. The THX LaserDisc is available in both fullscreen 1.33:1 and widescreen 2.00:1 variants.
Director: John Ford
Sources: ibb.co (opens in a new tab)
Warner Archive Blu-ray is 4K restoration from nitrate projection elements
Germany Filmjuwelen Blu-ray is AI upscaled https://ibb.co/album/mCJ7RQ
Director: Michael B. Jordan
Caveat: No IMAX expanded aspect ratio
Director: James Gunn
Commentary is only on Streaming
Director: Anthony Mann
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Olive Blu-ray
Barebones Olive BD of a Paramount HD master. Visually it's solid overall with some moments of great clarity, primarily in the big outdoor and aviation sequences. Otherwise it shows its age.
Director: John Woo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
review: Disk Kino
better encoding, some shots are better on Shout! Factory, others on Arrow
Shout! Factory/Arrow 4K Blu-ray has the original mono
Director: Michael Mann
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