The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)
Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo
Western • 2h 41m
Overview
While the Civil War rages on between the Union and the Confederacy, three men – a quiet loner, a ruthless hitman, and a Mexican bandit – comb the American Southwest in search of a strongbox containing $200,000 in stolen gold.
Director: Sergio Leone
Cast: Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef, Aldo Giuffrè, Luigi Pistilli, Rada Rassimov, Enzo Petito, Claudio Scarchilli, Antonio Casale, Livio Lorenzon, Sandro Scarchilli, Benito Stefanelli, Angelo Novi, Antonio Casas, Aldo Sambrell, Al Mulock, Sergio Mendizábal, Antonio Molino Rojo, Lorenzo Robledo, Mario Brega, Chelo Alonso, Fortunato Arena, Román Ariznavarreta, Silvana Bacci, Joseph Bradley, Frank Braña, Amerigo Castrighella, Saturno Cerra, William Conroy, Axel Darna, Tony Di Mitri, Gianni Di Segni, Alberigo Donadeo, Attilio Dottesio, Luis Fernández de Eribe, Veriano Ginesi, Jesús Guzmán, Víctor Israel, Nazzareno Natale, Ricardo Palacios, Antonio Palombi, Romano Puppo, Antoñito Ruiz, Aysanoa Runachagua, Enrique Santiago, José Terrón, Franco Tocci, Antonio Montoya
Director: Sergio Leone
Arrow's English mono is from the soundtrack negatives, with light noise reduction but still the highest quality anywhere. The main title is restored from the 1985 LaserDisc analog mono.
The 1985 CBS/Fox LaserDisc for untouched English mono despite element defects and an incomplete print used. The main title on this LaserDisc is the highest quality version known to exist.
The Arrow 5.1 is a careful upmix from their mono restoration to create a purist multichannel mix.
The Italy mono exists in lesser quality but Arrow performed additional restoration work to improve what they could.
Director: Sergio Leone
Arrow's English mono is from the soundtrack negatives, with light noise reduction but still the highest quality anywhere. The main title is restored from the 1985 LaserDisc analog mono.
The 1985 CBS/Fox LaserDisc for untouched English mono despite element defects and an incomplete print used. The main title on this LaserDisc is the highest quality version known to exist.
The Arrow 5.1 is a careful upmix from their mono restoration to create a purist multichannel mix.
The Italy mono exists in lesser quality but Arrow performed additional restoration work to improve what they could.
Arrow 4K Blu-ray > Kino Lorber, see caps
1984 Key Video Hi-Fi VHS
Arrow 4K Blu-ray > Kino Lorber, see caps
1984 Key Video Hi-Fi VHS
Director: Jean Renoir
The Criterion 4K Blu-ray has marginally better detail and grain structure than ESC 4K Blu-ray
The ESC France 4K Blu-ray is an SDR grade erroneously presented in HDR, but if your player can force the HDR into SDR it looks very good.
Director: Jean Renoir
The Criterion 4K Blu-ray has marginally better detail and grain structure than ESC 4K Blu-ray
The ESC France 4K Blu-ray is an SDR grade erroneously presented in HDR, but if your player can force the HDR into SDR it looks very good.
Director: David Lynch
Criterion 4K Blu-ray or Germany Plaion 4K Blu-ray - subtle difference in encoding to the Criterion in encoding, trading blows in different shots, with Plaion taking a slight edge with less highlight blocking
1993 MGM LaserDisc/2000 Region 1 MGM DVD
Criterion's 2.0 sounds muffled due to noise reduction and EQ.
Plaion's 2.0 lacks bass and has a very bright EQ, more resembling the 5.1 remix. Plaion’s 2.0 doesn't have any filtering unlike the Criterion, see https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=23831289&postcount=110
Director: David Lynch
Criterion 4K Blu-ray or Germany Plaion 4K Blu-ray - subtle difference in encoding to the Criterion in encoding, trading blows in different shots, with Plaion taking a slight edge with less highlight blocking
1993 MGM LaserDisc/2000 Region 1 MGM DVD
Criterion's 2.0 sounds muffled due to noise reduction and EQ.
Plaion's 2.0 lacks bass and has a very bright EQ, more resembling the 5.1 remix. Plaion’s 2.0 doesn't have any filtering unlike the Criterion, see https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=23831289&postcount=110
Director: David Lynch
Criterion 4K Blu-ray is closer to the original DVDs than the 2015 Criterion release, not sure about whether the StudioCanal 4K is like the Criterion 4K/original DVD
Criterion 4K Blu-ray has FEL Dolby Vision, StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray has MEL
Director: David Lynch
Criterion 4K Blu-ray is closer to the original DVDs than the 2015 Criterion release, not sure about whether the StudioCanal 4K is like the Criterion 4K/original DVD
Criterion 4K Blu-ray has FEL Dolby Vision, StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray has MEL
Director: Jean Vigo
Director: Jean Vigo
Director: Charlie Chaplin
1936 version: Image Entertainment DVD
1954 version: Criterion Blu-ray
Cut info: https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?t=31209
1936 version: Image Entertainment DVD
Director: Charlie Chaplin
1936 version: Image Entertainment DVD
1954 version: Criterion Blu-ray
Cut info: https://www.nitrateville.com/viewtopic.php?t=31209
1936 version: Image Entertainment DVD
Director: Béla Tarr
Curzon 4K Blu-ray August
Director: Béla Tarr
Curzon 4K Blu-ray August
Paramount 4K Blu-ray but poor encode, no alternatives though
Paramount 4K Blu-ray but poor encode, no alternatives though
Director: Robert Bresson
Director: Robert Bresson
Director: Fritz Lang
Director: Fritz Lang
251 min cut (Extended): Fox Blu-ray. Eagle Pictures has forced Italy subs in some parts
Eagle Pictures 4K Blu-ray from nic's review. Will wait for the caps to decide whether it's better than previous Blu-ray
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.
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.
251 min cut (Extended): Fox Blu-ray. Eagle Pictures has forced Italy subs in some parts
Eagle Pictures 4K Blu-ray from nic's review. Will wait for the caps to decide whether it's better than previous Blu-ray
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.
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.
Edit History
5/27/2026
blah-ray
Added
https://blah-ray.blogspot.com/search/label/Good%20the%20Bad%20and%20the%20Ugly%20%5BThe%5D%20%281966%29
Added
https://blah-ray.blogspot.com/search/label/Good%20the%20Bad%20and%20the%20Ugly%20%5BThe%5D%20%281966%29
DVDBeaver
From
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film6/blu-ray_reviews_77/the_good_the_bad_and_the_ugly_blu-ray.htm, http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film9/blu-ray_review_137/the_good_the_bad_and_the_ugly_4K_UHD.htm
To
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film9/blu-ray_review_137/the_good_the_bad_and_the_ugly_4K_UHD.htm, http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film6/blu-ray_reviews_77/the_good_the_bad_and_the_ugly_blu-ray.htm, http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews45/good_bad_and_the_ugly_blu-ray.htm
From
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film6/blu-ray_reviews_77/the_good_the_bad_and_the_ugly_blu-ray.htm, http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film9/blu-ray_review_137/the_good_the_bad_and_the_ugly_4K_UHD.htm
To
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film9/blu-ray_review_137/the_good_the_bad_and_the_ugly_4K_UHD.htm, http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film6/blu-ray_reviews_77/the_good_the_bad_and_the_ugly_blu-ray.htm, http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews45/good_bad_and_the_ugly_blu-ray.htm
12/17/2025
Best Audio Release
From
To
Arrow 4K Blu-ray for English dub, Kino Lorber 2017 Blu-ray for Italy dub
From
To
Arrow 4K Blu-ray for English dub, Kino Lorber 2017 Blu-ray for Italy dub
9/6/2025
Best Video Release
From
Kino UHD. Arrow UHD likely coming soon
To
Arrow 4K Blu-ray > Kino Lorber, see caps https://slow.pics/c/P4E9uTHR
From
Kino UHD. Arrow UHD likely coming soon
To
Arrow 4K Blu-ray > Kino Lorber, see caps https://slow.pics/c/P4E9uTHR
12/15/2024
Best Video Release
From
Kino UHD
To
Kino UHD. Arrow UHD likely coming soon
From
Kino UHD
To
Kino UHD. Arrow UHD likely coming soon
