Isle of Dogs (2018)
Adventure, Comedy, Animation • 1h 41m
Director: Wes Anderson
Cast: Bryan Cranston, Koyu Rankin, Bob Balaban, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Kunichi Nomura, Fisher Stevens, Akira Takayama, Greta Gerwig, Ken Watanabe, Frances McDormand, Nijiro Murakami, Harvey Keitel, Liev Schreiber, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Akira Ito, F. Murray Abraham, Courtney B. Vance, Yoko Ono, Mari Natsuki, Yojiro Noda, Frank Wood, Roman Coppola, Anjelica Huston, Kara Hayward, Satoshi Yamazaki, Gen Ueda, Ryuhei Matsuda, Jun Takahashi, Edward Bursch, Luli Shioi, Erica Dorn, Chinami Narikawa, Chris Benz, Alex Orman, J. Wurster, Jake Ryan, Takayuki Yamada, Kozue Akimoto, Shota Matsuda, Kiyotaka Mizukoshi, Elaiza Ikeda, Ryuhei Nakadai, Shin Mononobe, Ikunosuke, Taichi Kodama, Karin Okoso
Best English-friendly release · updated 1 year ago
UHD tiers
Overview
In the future, an outbreak of canine flu leads the mayor of a Japanese city to banish all dogs to an island used as a garbage dump. The outcasts must soon embark on an epic journey when a 12-year-old boy arrives on the island to find his beloved pet.
Director: Wes Anderson
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Criterion 4K Blu-ray see caps and Chris's review
Director: Wes Anderson
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Universal 4K Blu-ray caps. The Blu-ray was clearly low-pass filtered. Luckily, the 4K looks excellent.
Director: Wes Anderson
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Criterion 4K Blu-ray see Chris's review
It's a conservative regrade over previous Blu-ray https://slow.pics/c/CyqhRf9W
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Criterion 4K Blu-ray was an upgrade over previous Blu-ray, removed the orientalist yellow tint, but not much besides that https://slow.pics/c/4b9tem5K
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
2K DI Upscale, see caps. SDR grade in HDR container
Director: Wes Anderson
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
2K DI Upscale, see caps
4K Blu-ray is slightly cropped on all sides compared to Blu-ray, but "that appears to be a conscious choice as the compositions don’t seem to suffer. They also slightly expanded the black bars in order to hide the ringing on the borders."
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Criterion 4K Blu-ray is best, but has surrounds 3 dB too loud
Director: Wes Anderson
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Wes Anderson
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Wes Anderson
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Criterion 4K Blu-ray is 2K DI upscale but better encoded than the previous Blu-ray see caps
Director: Steve James
Director: Joel Coen
Director's Cut: Disappointing UK StudioCanal/US Criterion 4K Blu-ray
Theatrical Cut: LaserDisc or 2001 UK Universal DVD
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?p=21782879#post21782879 - comparison. StudioCanal is a massive improvement to the Criterion but still flawed in some areas (chroma noise)
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Director: Nicolas Roeg
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Criterion 4K Blu-ray poor compression, otherwise Second Sight has best Blu-ray
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
> BFI 4K Blu-ray. caps Criterion presents the master as originally graded in SDR whereas FiM added HDR / Dolby Vision for the BFI.
Criterion 4K Blu-ray's audio mix has more detail than BFI’s and same applies to the subtitles, covering both English and France spoken word
Director: Jean-Luc Godard
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.
More Adventure on Blu-ray
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · DVDBeaver (opens in a new tab)
> Germany Wicked Vision Blu-ray > US Flicker Alley Blu-ray see DVDBeaver caps
Director: Simon Wincer
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
4K is defective with color space issues and poor encoding, UHD replacement disc is also defective with worse encode. The UHD has visible artifacts from the bad encoding. The HDR is overdone and the Paramount 4K master has grain management.
The new Kino Blu-ray has none of the UHD's problems and is superior to the UHD in every way though it still uses the same Paramount master.
DVD 5.1 or LaserDisc 5.1 AC3, LD PCM 2.0 for the matrix stereo version. The LD and DVD seem to be the theatrical audio mix untouched with plenty of low end. This low end like a number of 90's Paramount titles was mixed out or tamed on subsequent releases.
The Lionsgate BD and Paramount BD share the same lackluster HD master with DNR and image distortion. The Lionsgate is much better encoded but has a 7.1 remix which messed up the original mix design by lessening all the great Foley work in favor of the score. The Paramount BD had a 5.1 lossless version of the original mix but it's a new version where the bass has been tamed so the track has lost its punch. The Kino Lorber UHD and Blu-ray recycle this same lesser 5.1 mastering. The original mix can still be heard on LD and DVD. The 2.0 stereo on the Kino is matrixed but also does not sound as good as the 2.0 matrix audio on DVD or LD.
Kino has a replacement program for the defective UHD to fix the color space issue. The new disc is not marked, has a worse encode AND DOES NOT FIX THE COLOR SPACE! Thus it is a worse defective disc version of the original defective disc.
The Billy Zane interview on the Kino BD has technical issues in the editing and clip quality used.
Director: Victor Fleming
3D: Warner Bros 3D Blu-ray or Apple Vision Pro
Director: Luc Besson
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · fanrestore.com (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
2020 StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray vs 2017 Sony 4K Blu-ray (20th annivesary) vs 2025 Sony 4K Blu-ray (Luc Besson Box Set). The first two have totally different texture.
StudioCanal: More natural looking. Better defined grain. The white balance is rather yellow/orange. Some say it is closer to the original theatrical release.
2017 Sony: More vibrant and impactful. The white balance is rather neutral. While color noise and grain can look busy because it had been sharpened and had micro-contrast boosted.
2025 Sony: Supposedly an improved version of the 2017 release? Shows around 20mbps-higher overall video bitrate. caps
2007 Sony Blu-ray or LaserDisc AC3? (TBC) https://fanrestore.com/thread-7303.html
The Atmos on the Sony release is reportedly better than StudioCanal's.
Disc info of the box set discs. This film have recieved multiple encode/versions in different regions over the years. The 2017 Germany4K Blu-ray is encoded differently than the 2017 Sony but not better. Also, the same can be said to 2024 France Gaumont 4K Blu-ray while comparing to the 2020 StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray. The StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray omits all the extras from previous releases, being barebones.
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Director: Martin Rosen
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
2026 Japan Studio Ghibli (remastered) Blu-ray
Only included as a pack-in with the 4K Blu-ray. Includes English subtitles and a dub, which the 4K Blu-ray does not.
Japan Studio Ghibli 4K Blu-ray
UK StudioCanal Blu-ray for the English dub
4K Blu-ray includes the original 5.1 mix in its unaltered form, all other releases after the LaserDisc had its dynamic range lowered.
For the English dub, the UK StudioCanal Blu-ray is the least limited mix.
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