The Ten Commandments (1956)
Drama, History • 3h 40m
Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Cast: Charlton Heston, Yul Brynner, Anne Baxter, Edward G. Robinson, Yvonne De Carlo, Debra Paget, John Derek, Cedric Hardwicke, Nina Foch, Martha Scott, Judith Anderson, Vincent Price, John Carradine, Olive Deering, Douglass Dumbrille, Frank De Kova, Henry Wilcoxon, Eduard Franz, Donald Curtis, Lawrence Dobkin, H.B. Warner, Julia Faye, Lisa Mitchell, Noelle Williams, Joanna Merlin, Pat Richard, Joyce van der Veen, Diane Hall, Abbas El Boughdadly, Fraser Clarke Heston, John Miljan, Francis McDonald, Ian Keith, Paul De Rolf, Woody Strode, Tommy Duran, Eugene Mazzola, Ramsay Hill, Joan Woodbury, Esther Brown, Rushdy Abaza, Dorothy Adams, Eric Alden, E.J. André, Babette Bain, Baynes Barron, Kay Bell, Mary Benoit, Henry Brandon, Robert Carson, Bobby Clark, Rus Conklin, Mike Connors, Henry Corden, Edna Mae Cooper, Kem Dibbs, Maude Fealy, Mimi Gibson, Gavin Gordon, Diane Gump, Nancy Hale, June Jocelyn, Richard Kean, Gail Kobe, Fred Kohler Jr., Kenneth MacDonald, Peter Mamakos, Irene Martin, George Melford, John Merton, Amena Mohamed, Paula Morgan, Dorothy Neumann, John Parrish, Rodd Redwing, Addison Richards, Keith Richards, Hal Sherman, Marcoreta Starr, Onslow Stevens, Clint Walker, Amanda Webb, Frank Wilcox, Jeane Wood, Luis Alberni, Lillian Albertson, Barbara Aler, Michael Ansara, William Bagdad, Arthur Batanides, Polly Burson, Lesley-Marie Colburn, Fairy Cunningham, Cecil B. DeMille, Richard Farnsworth, Frank Hagney, Kay Hammond, John Hart, Bob Herron, Madeleine Taylor Holmes, Rex Ingram, Mary Ellen Kay, Charlotte Knight, Norman Leavitt, Emmett Lynn, Herbert Lytton, Nico Minardos, Steve Mitchell, Ron Nyman, Charles Stevens, Carl Switzer, Robert Vaughn, Paul Wexler
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 1 year ago
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Overview
Escaping death, a Hebrew infant is raised in a royal household to become a prince. Upon discovery of his true heritage, Moses embarks on a personal quest to reclaim his destiny as the leader and liberator of the Hebrew people.
Director: Steve James
Director: Victor Fleming
3D: Warner Bros 3D Blu-ray or Apple Vision Pro
Director: Morton DaCosta
Warner Archive 4K Blu-ray Nov 24th
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: 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.
Criterion Box Set coming October 20th with FiM encode, work done to un-Nolan the 4K master, the first ever appearance of the 35mm mono track on physical media and a new restoration/remastering of the 70mm 6-track mix.
(early pressing has errors of a shot, later pressings fixed)
Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Kino Lorber Blu-ray with Photoplay 4K restoration
Kino Lorber Blu-ray with Carl Davis score
Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Sources: DVDBeaver (opens in a new tab)
Flicker Alley Blu-ray (encoded by FiM) has much better encoding than Lobster Films Blu-ray, see DVDBeaver caps
Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Germany Plaion Media Blu-ray is marginally better than Kino Lorber which suffers a little dark crush: https://slow.pics/c/BME05Jlw
Director: Cecil B. DeMille
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Universal Blu-ray better, MoC over-sharpened https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=19993011&postcount=53
Director: Peter Faiman
Australia Cut: Australia Fox DVD
International Cut: Paramount Blu-ray
Encore Cut: Germany Winkler Film 4K Blu-ray, censored but good encoding
Sources: movie-censorship.com (opens in a new tab)
US Paramount 4K Blu-ray, is the International US Cut and not the Encore Cut
Australia Cut: Laserdisc
The film exists in three versions:
- the original Australian cut (~104 minutes at 24fps/~100 minutes at 25fps);
- the American/international version (~98 minutes at 24fps/~94 minutes at 25fps) trimming some exposition in the Outback first half of the film and some shorter extensions of a few seconds in the New York section, altering some of the dialogue – including censoring a "fuck" to "screw" – but featuring one additional dialogue extension not in the Australian version (a comparison of the two cuts can be found at Movie Censorship);
- the Australian Encore Cut (~95 minutes at 24fps/~91 minutes at 25fps) which uses the international version source so it already has those alterations but also removes approximately three minutes consisting of parts of two scenes featuring Mick grabbing the crotch of a cross-dressing prostitute and a later sequence when he does the same thing at a party to a woman with a deep voice (a comparison of the international version and the Encore Cut can be found at Movie Censorship).
3D version: Paramount 3D Blu-ray
Paramount 4K Blu-ray on October 26 2026
Director: Billy Wilder
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Paramount 4K Blu-ray. See caps
HDR/grading: nice, but some blown out
Encoding: inconsistent, smeared motion
DNR: inconsistent, frozen
Old Paramount Blu-ray is arguably a solid alternative choice
Paramount 4K Blu-ray mono
Paramount 4K Blu-ray mono is different version of the Blu-ray mono from the same old 2000 DVD transfer.
The 5.1 remix on the 4K Blu-ray is an appalling remix done by going wild with artificially generated stems from Park Road Post who were given the surviving mono to separate. The experience is jarring and fidelity to original mix in terms of level balance, directionality and impact is nonexistent. Not only does this sound painfully weird, but the Paramount mixers then did whatever they wanted in terms of LFE, sound pans and effect changes.
The original mono mix was not restored and still needs it badly. The 4K master is filled with frozen grain examples coming and going plus some HDR issues in addition to the usual Paramount problems. It is simultaneously better and worse than the Blu-ray master.
Director: Robert Altman
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Criterion 4K Blu-ray scheduled for Dec 2026 release
Director: Richard Linklater
Sources: caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab)
Original AR: Paramount 4K Blu-ray
IMAX AR: Paramount 3D Blu-ray
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