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
About the film
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)
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
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
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: 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: 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: 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
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)
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