The Irishman (2019)
Crime, Drama, History • 3h 29m
Director: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Ray Romano, Bobby Cannavale, Anna Paquin, Stephen Graham, Stephanie Kurtzuba, Jack Huston, Kathrine Narducci, Jesse Plemons, Domenick Lombardozzi, Paul Herman, Gary Basaraba, Marin Ireland, Lucy Gallina, Jonathan Morris, Dascha Polanco, Welker White, Louis Cancelmi, Bo Dietl, Sebastian Maniscalco, Aleksa Palladino, Steven Van Zandt, Jim Norton, Daniel H. Jenkins, Billy Smith, Kevin O'Rourke, Action Bronson, Glenn Cunningham, Paul Ben-Victor, Patrick Gallo, James Martin, Jake Hoffman, Barry Primus, Danny A. Abeckaser, Anthony J. Gallo, J.C. MacKenzie, Joseph Bono, Jamil Antonio Stefan, Louis Vanaria, Craig Vincent, John Polce, Joseph Riccobene, Vinny Vella, Thomas E. Sullivan, John Cenatiempo, Robert Mladinich, Rich Reilly, Robert Funaro, Tess Price, Jennifer Mudge, India Ennenga, Jordyn DiNatale, Kate Arrington, Bernie Martin, Philip Suriano, Tony Suriano, Jason A. Iannacone, Michael C. Brennan, James P. Harkins, Al Linea, Garry Pastore, Frank Pietrangolare, Frank Aquilino, Johnny T. Sollitto, Patrick Murney, Samantha Soule, Richard V. Licata, Vito Picone, Larry Mazza, Craig DiFrancia, Ira Drukier, Jon Bruno, Paul Borghese, Steven Maglio, James Licata, Veronica Alicino, Mike Massimino, James Ciccone, Ron Castellano, Marco Greco, Meghan Rafferty, Aldo Sergi, James Lorinz, Jeffrey Paul, Robert C. Kirk, Vince Maritato, Lawrence Smith, Rebecca Faulkenberry, Ken Wulf Clark, John Rue, Steve Routman, Fernando Vera, Peter Claymore, Charles DelGatto, Michael Gongora, Eugene Bunge, Matthew F. O'Connor, Cliff Moylan, Vincenzo DelRiccio, Steve Beauchamp, Alfred Sauchelli, Jr., Joe Giorgio, Diana Agostini, Lauren Aparicio, Kelley Rae O'Donnell, John Garrett Greer, Jack Caruso, John Scurti, Thomas J. Jenkins, Steve Witting, Luke Smith, Brent Langdon, James D. Forsha, Giacomino J. Matra, Paul Pearlman, Frank L. Messina, Cilda Shaur, Dominick LaRuffa Jr., Erick Zamora, Joe Caniano, Lou Martini Jr., Michael Bottari, John Bianco, Margaret Anne Florence, Siena Marino, Lori Arkin, Nicholas Chrysan, Samantha Coppola, Logan Crawford, Jeff DeHart, Mark Fairchild, Blaise Corrigan, Jill Brown, Tim Neff, Matt Walton, Peter Jay Fernandez, Stephen Mailer, Gino Cafarelli, Robin Kerbis, Lucia Giannetta, Michael Romeo Ruocco, Amanda Kloots, Anne Horak, Brittany Bigelow, Vanessa Mitchell, Madison Eastman, Purdie Baumann, Jesse Wildman, Nina Lafarga, Neil Posner, Michael Leviton, Bridget Barkan, Andrea Weinzierl, Richard V. Pagano, Nicholas Wight, Clark Carmichael, Joseph Russo, Jeremy Luke, Barbara Eyland, Tracy J. Everitt, Saint Marino, Mario Corry, Johnny Potenza, Joe Passaro, Patrick Borriello, Alfred Nittoli, David Aaron Baker, Stanley Burns, Bill Timoney, Thomas J. McDonald, Virl Andrick, Ernest L. Sanders Jr., Bill McHugh, Kevin Kane, Amelia Brain, Craig 'Radio Man' Castaldo, Michael Iacono, Tommy Bayiokos, Michael Cullum, Rick Bolander, Shade Rupe, Ian Zelbo, Jacqueline Kennedy, John F. Kennedy, Leonard Zimmerman, Norman Aaronson, Michael DiMonte, Albert Gomez
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 7 months ago
Overview
Pennsylvania, 1956. Frank Sheeran, a war veteran of Irish origin who works as a truck driver, accidentally meets mobster Russell Bufalino. Once Frank becomes his trusted man, Bufalino sends him to Chicago with the task of helping Jimmy Hoffa, a powerful union leader related to organized crime, with whom Frank will maintain a close friendship for nearly twenty years.
Featured in Films/TV shows with a 1080p Blu-ray, but a higher quality master is found elsewhere
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Video format: 4K Streaming
Director: Michael Bay
Video format: HD Streaming
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
4K possibly teased?
Director: Simon West
Video format: 4K Streaming
Video format: 4K Streaming
Director: Marc Forster
Video format: 4K Streaming
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Video format: 4K Streaming
Streaming has the original theatrical Dolby Atmos mix
Disney/Fox Blu-ray only has a 5.1 downmix
Kaleidescape is lossless (TrueHD 7.1), others are all lossy (E-AC-3 5.1 JOC) at varying bitrates.
Streaming: Kaleidescape
Streaming: Kaleidescape > Movies Anywhere > Disney+
Director: Martin Campbell
Video format: 4K Streaming
Video format: 4K Streaming
4K Streaming
Sources: 007homemedia.blogspot.com (opens in a new tab)
Warner Bros Blu-ray is the best Blu-ray even though it has color and major contrast issues
4K SDR master on streaming seems to be from the same scan and looks like it has less tinkering than the Blu-ray
Caps of 4K SDR master: 007 on Home Media: On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Other releases have horrendous DNR
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
(same as all tracks since the DVD)
Criterion 4K Blu-ray see caps
Phenomenal disc, and perhaps the single greatest testament to NexSpec's positive 180 this year. Highlights are beautifully handled and grain structure is fully intact in areas where NexSpec's (and Pixelogic's) encodes would frequently fall apart in 2025 and before then. Criterion BD encode also looks to be robust from linked caps, save for this one frame: https://slow.pics/c/cMjMefmi
Sources: capelight.de (opens in a new tab)
> Paramount US, same black crush as the US disc but encoded by FiM and very good new supplements
Paramount US 4K Blu-ray has FEL Dolby Vision
Arrow UK 4K Blu-ray has MEL Dolby Vision
Director: Martin Scorsese
2024 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook
Sources: blah-ray.blogspot.com (opens in a new tab)
2024 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook fixes duplicate shot seen on the previous Columbia Classics release and has better encoding
Original mono mix: 1990 Criterion LaserDisc/1991 Columbia LaserDisc
The 4K Blu-ray mono is only minimally worse (see blah-ray).
5.1 remix: Sony 4K Blu-ray
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: Martin Scorsese
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
MVD 4K Blu-ray see caps but it has the encoding error with the dropped frames
Director: Martin Scorsese
2024 Second Sight 4K Blu-ray
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Director: Martin Scorsese
But Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray is very similar.
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.
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