Santa Sangre (1989)
Thriller, Drama, Horror • 2h 2m
Director: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Cast: Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra, Guy Stockwell, Thelma Tixou, Sabrina Dennison, Adan Jodorowsky, Faviola Elenka Tapia, Teo Jodorowsky, Jesús Juárez, Gloria Contreras, Mary Aranza, Sergio Bustamante, S. Rodriguez, Zonia Rangel Mora, Joaquín García Vargas, Teo Tapia, Edgar E. Jiménez Nava, Jacobo Lieberman, Héctor Ortega, Brontis Jodorowsky, Valérie Crouzet, Óscar Serafín Álvarez, Billy Motton, Hilario 'Popitekus' Vargas, Guadalupe 'TNT' Aguilar, Arturo 'Rinoceronte' Contreras, Gustavo Aguilar Tejada, Roger Fayard Arroyo
Best available format
Upcoming
Umbrella 4K Blu-ray, part of Alejandro Jodorowsky Collector’s Edition, scheduled for November 2026 release
UHD tiers
bad encode
Overview
A former circus artist escapes from a mental hospital to rejoin his mother – the leader of a strange religious cult – and is forced to enact brutal murders in her name.
Best format: 1080p Blu-ray
Arrow/US remastered abkco Blu-ray or Germany Bildstörung Blu-ray depending on preference
Sources: caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab)
Umbrella 4K Blu-ray, part of Alejandro Jodorowsky Collector’s Edition, scheduled for November 2026 release
Directors: Banjong Pisanthanakun & Parkpoom Wongpoom
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
Australia Umbrella 4K Blu-ray encoded by FiM
Director: Mamoru Oshii
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
US GKIDS 4K Blu-ray authored by FiM
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
US GKIDS/Australia Umbrella 4K Blu-ray authored by FiM with identical encodes
UHD vs BD comparisons
4K restoration includes a high-fidelity Dolby Atmos remix sourced from new transfers of original magnetic elements, with inconsequential content differences from the original mono mix. Umbrella 4K Blu-ray only includes a 5.1 mixdown of the remix, other discs have it in Dolby Atmos.
Umbrella/GKIDS 4K Blu-ray's 2.0 track is a stereo downmix. Older BDs and LDs have the original mono mix in varying quality, but are all inferior in fidelity to the new Dolby Atmos remix. The digital track on the Bandai/Emotion Japan LaserDisc BELL-942 is the best of the bunch.
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=23714400&postcount=159
Only the GKIDS 4K Blu-ray has the English dub.
Director: Hal Needham
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
2026 Vinegar Syndrome 4K Blu-ray, 2025 Umbrella 4K Blu-ray
Director: Andrzej Żuławski
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Second Sight 4K Blu-ray > Le Chat Qui Fume 4K Blu-ray > Umbrella 4K Blu-ray see caps
Second Sight uses the same Le Chat Qui Fume master, but encoded by FiM and applied Dolby Vision. Umbrella's encoding is visibly worse than Le Chat Qui Fume.
Mondo Vision Blu-ray and Anchor Bay DVD have an alternate audio track with an unauthorized soundtrack.
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Maybe Umbrella Australia 4K Blu-ray (FiM encode), Plaion Germany 4K Blu-ray, or Pony Canyon Japan 4K Blu-ray. All other existing 4K Blu-rays have terrible compression: https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=21423337&postcount=173
The master is heavily DNR'd.
Director: Richard Stanley
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
Umbrella AU 4K Blu-ray, encoded by Fidelity in Motion
Director: Michael Haneke
Best format: 1080p Blu-ray
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
2025 Curzon UK Blu-ray or 2013 TF1 FR Blu-ray (caps)
Curzon has a slightly better encode and preserves all the noise of the digital source, but ends up obscuring actual detail in some shots. Both are quite good, only caveat being that the TF1 disc is slightly cropped and has a black bar on top.
2025 Curzon UK Blu-ray
2008 Artificial Eye UK and 2025 Umbrella AU discs have incorrect pitch. TF1 FR disc is missing 7 minutes of audio in the left channel. See spectrograms.
Director: Christopher Nolan
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
Spain Selecta Vision 4K Blu-ray
Sources: linkedin.com (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · dvdcompare.net (opens in a new tab)
Collector's edition of a new restoration from Umbrella
Spain Selecta Vision 4K Blu-ray > other releases and old 2006 release - impressions of Selecta Vision release
Comparison of extras between different releases:
https://dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=999
https://dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=9670
Director: Ted Kotcheff
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Umbrella/Arrow 4K Blu-ray (FiM encode but the mastering shows signs of DNR albeit only momentarily); all other BDs pretty bad.
Umbrella/Arrow 4K Blu-ray, but whether in the correct speed/pitch is TBC.
Director: Rolf de Heer
Best format: 1080p Blu-ray
More Thriller on Blu-ray
Director: James Cameron
Best format: 1080p Blu-ray
2013 MGM Blu-ray, or 4K Blu-ray if you MUST have the mono mix, 1997 Image DVD/2001 MGM DVD for a purist version with original colors and the international mono mix
Sources: facebook.com (opens in a new tab) · vimeo.com (opens in a new tab)
2013 MGM Blu-ray for non AI transfer, 1997 Image DVD/2001 MGM DVD for a purist version with original colors and the international mono mix
1991 Image Entertainment LaserDisc for the US mono mix, 2001 MGM DVD for the International mono mix
Comparison between the US and International mixes: https://vimeo.com/246332731
The 4K Blu-Ray and the 2001 MGM DVD have exclusive extras.
Directors: Benny Safdie & Josh Safdie
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
4K encode is low-pass filtered and noticeably so, which was unfortunately par for the course with Criterion 4Ks until sometime in 2024. Still better than the Criterion and Lionsgate Blu-Ray discs for the Dolby Vision grading alone.
Director: Josh Safdie
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
Sources: testsbluray.com (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Entertainment in Video UK 4K Blu-ray or French Metropolitan 4K Blu-ray
The UK 4K Blu-ray and Canada 4K Blu-ray both do not have the low-pass that the US 4K Blu-ray has. The UK 4K Blu-ray has some general blockiness and chroma artifacting issues, but the Canada 4K Blu-ray has at least a handful of scenes where the encode completely falls apart and massive macroblocks are visible. The Canada 4K Blu-ray also does not have hardcoded forced subtitles for the newsreel scene like the US and UK 4K Blu-rays. The grade is the same between all three discs.
See tenia's review of the French 4K Blu-ray but no comparison available
The Atmos mix is the same between the US 4K Blu-ray and the UK 4K Blu-ray save for the amount of dynamic objects: the UK 4K Blu-ray has 15 to the USA's 11.
The UK 4K Blu-ray also has a DD-EX compatibility track and a lossless version of the commentary track that is in Dolby Digital on the US and Canada 4K Blu-rays.
UK 4K plays fine in motion https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24007274&postcount=181
Director: Brian De Palma
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
Arrow 4K Blu-ray has a better encode than the Kino Lorber and Capelight 4K Blu-rays. Capelight 4K Blu-ray looks low-passed in comparison to the Arrow but is slightly closer to the Arrow in PQ than the Kino Lorber.
Director: Bob Clark
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
Scream Factory 4K Blu-ray
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray in December
Scream Factory 4K Blu-ray
Director: David Lynch
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray in December
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: John Woo
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray > US Shout! Factory, better encoding by Engine House and redone opening credits, errors present in Shout! Factory fixed
Arrow 4K Blu-ray, mono is from an alternate higher fidelity source than Shout! Factory.
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
UK Shameless 4K Blu-ray or US Arrow 4K Blu-ray
Both the US Arrow 4K Blu-ray and UK Shameless 4K Blu-ray are better than the horrible grade of the France Le Chat Qui Fume which has blacks looking greenish and milky with some yellow push. However, comparing these two, there's significant tradeoffs; Arrow has less black crush and some shots seems to be better graded but it's worse in some shots with a slight magenta grade; the UK Shameless 4K Blu-ray has a better color grading.
UK Shameless 4K Blu-ray and US Arrow 4K Blu-ray have exclusive extras
Director: Carol Reed
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray or Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray/Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray (shared encode); slight improvement over the 2015 StudioCanal Blu-ray
StudioCanal/LG UHDs port the 1999 Criterion DVD, considered the best source
StudioCanal has a remastered Blu-ray, Lionsgate only a 4K Blu-ray
Director: Rob Reiner
Best format: UHD Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · instagram.com (opens in a new tab)
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray > US Kino Lorber/Germany Capelight - caps and audio comparison on this page. Discussion is still ongoing about the 2.0 but as none of the three 4Ks seem to have the true original mix, I think it's fair to leave them all in the blue tier for now and only note that Kino Lorber has the worst PQ.
The initial release of the Capelight 4K mediabook had some playback issues with Dolby Vision on Panasonic devices due to an encoding error, the HDR10 apparently works fine, see Capelight’s official response here.
Edit History
Every recommendation follows the same method — how these calls are made.