Savages (2012)
Crime, Drama, Thriller • 2h 11m
Director: Oliver Stone
Cast: Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, John Travolta, Salma Hayek Pinault, Benicio del Toro, Emile Hirsch, Demián Bichir, Sandra Echeverría, Diego Cataño, Joaquín Cosío, Jake McLaughlin, Joel David Moore, Leonard Roberts, Shea Whigham, Jana Banker, Candra Docherty, Gary Stretch, Karishma Ahluwalia, Jonathan Carr, Antonio Jaramillo, Alexander Wraith, Anthony Cutolo, Kurt Collins, Amber Brenner, Ali Wong, Sala Baker, Tara Stone, Matthew Saldivar, Sean Stone, Wilfredo Lopez, Lucinda Serrano, Charles Haugk, Sam Medina, Ben Hernandez Bray, Gonzalo Menendez, Maya Merker, Donnabella Mortel, Trevor Donovan, Leana Chavez, Gillian Zinser, Florine Elena Deplazes, Kaj Mollenhauer, Alexandra Gold Jourden, Charles Ingram, Akima, Dennis Garcia, Eddie Follis, Holly Follis, Schae Harrison, Mía Maestro, Bill Blair, Chester the Chihuahua, Paris Dylan, Ron Kari, Nana Ghana
Best video release
UHD tiers
About the film
Pot growers Ben and Chon face off against the Mexican drug cartel who kidnapped their shared girlfriend.
Director: Oliver Stone
Theatrical Cut 4K Blu-ray in August
Director's Cut: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray
Theatrical Cut: Shout! Factory Blu-ray (included with collector's edition)
Theatrical Cut: The Shout UHD DTS-HD 2.0
Theatrical Cut: The Shout UHD DTS-HD 2.0 seems to be the same mix overall as the 1992 laserdisc PCM 2.0 but its not a straight port. Even though there are some minor differences, it does not seem to be a downmix of the 5.1. It could possibly be a new mastering. It has just a tiny bit more dynamic range than the laserdisc, but the laserdisc has a bit more presence in the lower and midrange frequencies.
Director: Oliver Stone
Sources: hometheaterforum.com (opens in a new tab) · x.com (opens in a new tab)
A improved Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray teased by Oliver Stone
Better than 2022 Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray due to poor encode and heavy DNR (review)
Director: Oliver Stone
2025 Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray
Atmos remix: 2025 Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray
Original 5.1 surround mix: 2007 Paramount Blu-ray (lossy AC-3 640k)
The original mix has better dynamics range. The 5.1 tracks on the SF release are downmixes.
Target exclusive 3 disc DVD have extras omitted from the Shout! Factory release
Director: Oliver Stone
Sources: lddb.com (opens in a new tab)
Twilight Time Blu-ray or MGM NTSC DVD for the original mono mix
Shout! Factory 4K only has a stereo downmix (which sounds muffled, as do the surround tracks)
Twilight Time Blu-ray has the mono track with seemingly the best fidelity, but its dynamic range has been heavily compressed
MoC UK Blu-ray has a proper dynamics and good fidelity, but bizzarely, everything is repeated after a few miliseconds, rendering echoey and metallic
MGM NTSC DVD has been denoised and has had a strong EQ applied and sounds muffled as a result, but it retains proper dynamics
Koch Media DE BD had poor dynamics and wrong pitch
Perhaps the digital JP LD would be better.
Director: Oliver Stone
Director's Cut: WB Director's Cut DVD
Final Cut: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray
Director: John Woo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Arrow has a different grade and a better encode than the Shout! Factory, though the difference in either is not major. Imprint release, which leaves Shout! Factory's master and subtitles as is, is encoded by FiM. https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24473097&postcount=56
Original mix: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray
Alternate mix: Scanbox Nordic PAL DVD
Surround remix: HK Video France 4K Blu-ray (5.0)
Original mix: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray (similar to Criterion LaserDisc, but less distorted)
Alternate mix: Scanbox Nordic PAL DVD
Surround remix: HK Video France 4K Blu-ray (5.0)
Arrow used the alternate mix, but with extra filtering and lowered dynamic range. The alternate mix has much better fidelity.
Imprint presumably used the Shout! Factory original mix and left it as is, though no official confirmation.
Director: Michael Cimino
2020 Shout! Factory 4K
2020 Shout! Factory 4K slightly better than StudioCanal in HDR10. Similar in DV
35mm mix: 1991 Universal LaserDisc
70mm mix: StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray
35mm mix: 1991 Universal LaserDisc marginally better than StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray. Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray is downmix.
70mm mix: StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray. Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray is remix.
Director: Rob Reiner
Arrow 4K Blu-ray releasing December 14 2026
Like many of Capelight's other releases, the 4K Blu-ray is low-passed but still looks good.
30th Anniversary Shout! Factory BD has the original stereo mix
Director: Gary Ross
Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray, but a shot was cut from the film
Warner Bros Blu-ray for the uncut version, but it's an older master.
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray, but a shot was cut from the film. See comparison
Warner Bros Blu-ray for the uncut version, but it's an older master.
Director: John Woo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
US Shout! Factory or UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray > Disk Kino/WCL China import
review: Disk Kino
Both have better encoding than Disk Kino, some shots are better on Shout! Factory, others on Arrow
Shout Factory still has the best video while Arrow did a questionable regrade. Arrow definitely has less grain in most shots, has a worse encode and is cm v2.9 compared to Shout’s cm v4.0.
Shout! Factory/Arrow 4K Blu-ray has the original mono
Director: Gus Van Sant
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Shout! Factory and Carlotta use the same scan https://slow.pics/c/Wcn5YFlw, the Carlotta has two extra bonus features
Director: Michael Mann
More Crime on Blu-ray
Director: Robert Altman
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Cinematrographe's HDR grading is overcooked, which is a known VinSyn tendency. Additionally, their booklet mis-credits the encode to FiM.
YMMV, but for some, the included BD encoded by Marcus Johnson—ironically may make for a more pleasing experience.
4K restoration of the original 3D left eye and right eye camera negatives
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
Director: William Dieterle
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
The 4K discs in both Criterion and Imprint sets are FiM encodes, but low-passed, Imprint minimally less so. Unfortunately, unlike with The Killing, Kino does not hold up at all, the grain is much rougher and the compression visibly struggles making for a much less pleasant watch, even if select stills look better.
All discs use the same source transfer. Criterion cleaned up some hums and hiss, but lost a little bit of high-end detail. Unlike The Killing, the difference's relatively mino.
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: Karel Reisz
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Cinematographe is mis-credited to be an FiM encode. It isn't. Neither the encode nor the color grading are entirely satisfactory.
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Arrow UK 4K Blu-ray > Paramount US and Capelight DE, same black crush on all three but the Arrow is encoded by FiM and has very good new supplements, the Capelight looks slightly low-passed, but in motion it probably looks about the same as the Paramount, see caps comparison for all three.
Arrow and Paramount basically sound the same, the Arrow has a slightly higher bitrate. Capelight is probably the same too but for now it's TBA.
Paramount US 4K Blu-ray has FEL Dolby Vision
Arrow UK 4K Blu-ray and Capelight DE 4K Blu-ray have MEL Dolby Vision
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