Red River (1948)
Western • 2h 13m
Director: Howard Hawks
Cast: John Wayne, Montgomery Clift, Joanne Dru, Walter Brennan, Coleen Gray, Harry Carey, John Ireland, Noah Beery Jr., Harry Carey, Jr., Chief Yowlachie, Paul Fix, Hank Worden, Mickey Kuhn, Ray Hyke, Hal Taliaferro, John Bose, Buck Bucko, Roy Bucko, Lane Chandler, Davison Clark, Tex Cooper, Harry Cording, Victor Cox, Richard Farnsworth, Paul Fierro, Carol Henry, George Lloyd, Pierce Lyden, Frank Meredith, John Merton, Jack Montgomery, Ivan Parry, Lee Phelps, Harry 'Snub' Pollard, Danny Sands, William Self, Carl Sepulveda, Ray Spiker, Glenn Strange, Tom Tyler, Dan White, Guy Wilkerson, Shelley Winters
About the film
Following the Civil War, headstrong rancher Thomas Dunson decides to lead a perilous cattle drive from Texas to Missouri. During the exhausting journey, his persistence becomes tyrannical in the eyes of Matthew Garth, his adopted son and protégé.
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- National Film Registry
Year of Induction: 1990
- TSPDT
- 2026: #2712025: #2652024: #2582023: #2532022: #253
Director: Richard Brooks
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray > Criterion 4K Blu-ray > Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray
1991 Orion LaserDisc vs 2024 Arrow 4K Blu-ray
4K restoration from safety preservation elements
Director: Elaine May
Cinématographe 4K Blu-ray > MoC > Olive Films. From nicolas:
The master is good but it’s not that big an upgrade from the Olive Films disc and Vinegar Syndrome’ encode has some blocky highlights. A shame that they didn’t hire David Mackenzie here.
Cinématographe has unnecessary noise gating not present on the previous releases.
Director: Sidney Lumet
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
1.85:1: Kino Lorber 4K / Capelight 4K
1.66:1: Criterion 4K but low pass filtered
Comparison between the 4Ks, Criterion on the AR choice
Other discs have unnecessary filtering and sound worse, the difference isn't substantial but audible
Director: Dennis Hopper
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Flicker Alley 4K confirmed for 2027 https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24404584&postcount=1
MoC audio is better https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=225532&page=3
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Included in the Complete Kubrick box set with FiM encode of the same master from the Universal release without the filtering.
DTS:X mix on Universal 4K Blu-ray most closely approximates original surround mix
Criterion DVD and Universal 4K Blu-ray has additional features not found on the Criterion 4K Blu-ray
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
WB 4K
Sources: YouTube (opens in a new tab)
An undeniably significant improvement from the BD yet still severely flawed. See DFIC's review.
Director: Howard Hawks
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Criterion, 4k transfer
Director: Howard Hawks
Director: Howard Hawks
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Criterion 4K Blu-ray (not by much, caps)
Closest to original: 1995 Columbia LaserDisc
But Sony 4K Blu-ray is the best available one.
From cbc:
I much prefer the 4K Blu-ray track. LaserDisc has several nasty constant hums, and even after you remove that, the detail level is on-par with the 4K Blu-ray and has a lot of crackling. The 4K Blu-ray has some variable noise reduction, but it's done well and non-intrusive IMO, I watched it with that track and was happy.
Directors: Henry Hathaway & Howard Hawks & Henry King & Henry Koster & Jean Negulesco
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
The 4K discs in both Criterion and Imprint sets are FiM encodes, but low-passed. The compression is better, but some of the grain is lost. Difference is pronounced in screen caps, but not likely to be noticed during playback, without a reference to compare it to. Comparisons
All discs use the same source transfer. It's not of the highest quality, and it includes some slight distortion, looping, clicks, pops, and hum. Criterion cleaned it up for their release, but unfortunately also lost a lot of fidelity in the process.
MGM NTSC DVD doesn't seem to have some of the more prominent distortion and has slightly different EQ but is otherwise the same.
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Janus and thus Criterion likely to release 4K Blu-ray in 2027
Director: Hal Ashby
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
See caps https://slow.pics/c/lVdZaG0W
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal's 4K release is similar in encode quality, but has significant glitches in multiple frames. See comparisons 9-16 here: https://slow.pics/c/YkSVb3Ey
The pitch of the StudioCanal 4K's English audio is too high
Criterion has more extras than StudioCanal.
Director: Jacques Tati
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray (part of Jacques Tati boxset releasing December 2026)
Director: Jacques Tati
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray (part of Jacques Tati boxset releasing December 2026)
Director: Jacques Tati
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray (part of Jacques Tati boxset releasing December 2026)
Criterion/StudioCanal Blu-ray > BFI. New restoration unreleased.
Old R2 DVD 1.0
Director: Jacques Tati
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray (part of Jacques Tati boxset releasing December 2026)
2014 StudioCanal Blu-ray
The UHD is slightly cropped in.
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