Battle of Britain (1969)
War, History, Action • 2h 12m
Director: Guy Hamilton
Cast: Harry Andrews, Michael Caine, Trevor Howard, Curd Jürgens, Ian McShane, Kenneth More, Laurence Olivier, Nigel Patrick, Christopher Plummer, Michael Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Robert Shaw, Patrick Wymark, Susannah York, Michael Bates, Robert Flemyng, Isla Blair, Barry Foster, John Baskcomb, Edward Fox, Tom Chatto, W.G. Foxley, James Cosmo, David Griffin, Jack Gwillim, André Maranne, Myles Hoyle, Anthony Nicholls, Duncan Lamont, Nicholas Pennell, Sarah Lawson, Andrzej Scibor, Mark Malicz, Jean Wladon, Wilfried von Aacken, Reinhard Horras, Karl-Otto Alberty, Helmut Kircher, Alexander Allerson, Paul Neuhaus, Dietrich Frauboes, Malte Petzel, Alf Jungermann, Manfred Reddemann, Peter Hager, Hein Riess, Wolf Harnisch, Rolf Stiefel, Nikki Van der Zyl, Paul Angelis, Graham Armitage, Hilda Barry, Kate Binchy, Ernest Blyth, A. J. Brown, Daniel Brown, Fay Bura, Mary Burleigh, Pauline Chamberlain, Massimo Ciprari, Günter Clemens, John Comer, Les Conrad, Victor Croxford, George Curtis, Basil Dignam, Eric Dodson, Jim Dowdall, Hugh Elton, Harry Fielder, Meriel Forbes, Gareth Forwood, Paddy Frost, Hugh Futcher, Brian Grellis, Michael Guest, Barry Halliday, Paul Hansard, Vincent Harding, Pat Heywood, Stuart Hoyle, Desmond Jordan, Geoffrey King, Jack Le White, Illona Linthwaite, Maureen Lipman, Reg Lye, David McKail, Harald Meister, Rosalind Mendleson, George Merritt, Hilary Minster, Ingo Mogendorf, Richard Morant, Richardson Morgan, Steve Morley, Geoffrey Morris, Norman Morris, Douglas Nottage, Hugo Panczak, Clifford Parrish, Eileen Peel, David Quilter, Pam Rose, George Roubicek, John Savident, Clive Scott, Jack Sharp, Albert Shepherd, Sadie Slade, Kathleen St John, Philip Stewart, Frank Sussman, Nick Tate, John Tatham, Reg Thomason, Chris Tranchell, Joseph Tregonino, Paul Tropea, Rosetta Tropea, Michael Trubshawe, Alan Tucker, Franz Van Norde, Mickey Varey, Dagobert Walter, David Webb, Peter Wesp, Alister Williamson, Fred Wood
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 7 months ago
Overview
In 1940, the Royal Air Force fights a desperate battle against the might of the Luftwaffe for control of the skies over Britain, thus preventing an attempted Nazi invasion.
Director: Jean Vigo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Directors: Alberto Cavalcanti & Charles Crichton & Basil Dearden & Robert Hamer
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
France Rimini 4K Blu-ray see caps vs Artificial Eye Blu-ray
Director: Otakar Vávra
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Deaf Crocodile 4K Blu-ray see nic review
Restored: Deaf Crocodile 4K Blu-ray
Unrestored: Czech PAL DVD
Preferences will vary, the restored track sounds good, but not necessarily faithful to the original elements.
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
(Indicator 4K Blu-ray, based on review)
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.
Director: Guy Hamilton
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Director: Guy Hamilton
Director: Guy Hamilton
Director: Roman Polanski
Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray see caps. Much better contrast and grain exposure but the grade is a bit questionable as it skews heavily towards magenta in some caps and the encode looks low-pass filtered.
Atmos Remix: Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray
Original 5.1: Imprint Australia Blu-ray or StudioCanal Germany/France Blu-ray
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray encoded the "Original 5.1" as lossy Dolby Digital, which is very different from the AC3 on the original DVD. This new "Original 5.1" may in fact be a downmix of the Atmos track. FWIW, the original DVD AC3 still sounds very good.
Director: John Schlesinger
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Included Imprint Blu-Ray also has markedly better image compression than the Criterion Blu-Ray, though do note the Imprint has some adjusted color grading within roughly the first five minutes of the film
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=16775595&postcount=450
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24237074&postcount=73
Director: Martin Scorsese
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · blah-ray.blogspot.com (opens in a new tab) · facebook.com (opens in a new tab)
Imprint Australia 4K Blu-ray has slightly better compression than Criterion 4K Blu-ray.
The master in DV looks all but identical to the Criterion’s HDR grade. Detail-wise, FiM’s encode looks like it uncovered a tiny bit of extra high-frequency information that got filtered on the Criterion. See nicolas review
1990 Criterion LaserDisc/1993 MGM LaserDisc/2002 R2 MGM DVD are the best. See blah-ray https://blah-ray.blogspot.com/2018/01/raging-bull-1980.html
Imprint Australia 4K Blu-ray has better audio than Criterion 4K Blu-ray, from nicolas:
I believe that what’s on Imprint’s 4K is one of the good mixes MGM and Criterion released during the LaserDisc days. Music is powerful and detailed, dialogues have excellent fidelity and ambient sounds have perceptible depth. I compared the "new" 2.0 with the anemic 5.1 as well as the Criterion 4K mix and could clearly hear the improvements.
Director: Jack Cardiff
Video format: HD Streaming
HD Streaming
Director: Iain Softley
Director: Steven Shainberg
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
UK ICON 4K Blu-ray (caps)
UK 4K Blu-ray has a slightly better encode than US Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray and Germany StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray
5.1 mix is flawed on Shout! Factory/ICON, a phasey upmix instead of the proper discrete surround. The UHD 2.0 tracks are downmixes of that track.
2008 Fox Blu-ray sounds great, very close to the original 70mm mix, only with split surround.
2001 DVD has the original mix as 4.1 and matrixed 2.0.
Imprint 4K has a 4.0 track. The StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray has a different 5.1, unclear if it's the same as Fox BD.
Director: Jonathan Kaplan
US Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray or Australia Imprint 4K Blu-ray?
Fox 2002 NTSC DVD includes the original mix as discrete LCRS 4.0, later reelases only include a matrixed version an an inferior 5.1 upmix.
The matrixed stereo version on Shout! Factory's 4K Blu-ray sounds good.
Director: Kevin Costner
4K restoration of the extended cut to be screened in Locarno Film Festival
PQ looks the same for all BDs, but only Shout! Factory/Australia Via Vision Blu-ray/Germany Kinowelt Anniversary Blu-ray has both theatrical and extended cut
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