Backdraft (1991)
Drama, Thriller, Action, Crime • 2h 17m
Overview
Two feuding siblings carrying on a heroic family tradition as Chicago firefighters. But when a puzzling series of arson attacks is reported, they are forced to set aside their differences to solve the mystery surrounding these crimes.
Director: Ron Howard
Cast: Kurt Russell, William Baldwin, Robert De Niro, Donald Sutherland, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Scott Glenn, Rebecca De Mornay, Jason Gedrick, J. T. Walsh, Anthony Mockus Sr., Cedric Young, Juan Ramírez, Kevin Casey, Jack McGee, Mark Wheeler, Richard Lexsee, Beep Iams, Ryan Goldstein, John Duda, Robert Swan, Clint Howard, Ron West, Kevin Crowley, Carlos Sanz, Jane Jenkins, David Crosby, W. Earl Brown, James Ritz, Irma P. Hall, Nydia Rodriguez Terracina, Dennis Liddiard, David Luckenbach, Gregory Lundsgaard, Dan Tullis Jr., Peter C. Hobert
Director: Ron Howard
Theatrical: Universal 4K Blu-ray
IMAX Cut: 2005 DVD
Theatrical: Universal 4K Blu-ray
IMAX Cut: 2005 DVD
Theatrical: Cinema DTS
Director: Ron Howard
Theatrical: Universal 4K Blu-ray
IMAX Cut: 2005 DVD
Theatrical: Universal 4K Blu-ray
IMAX Cut: 2005 DVD
Theatrical: Cinema DTS
Director: Ron Howard
2026 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook
2026 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook added Dolby Vision
Director: Ron Howard
2026 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook
2026 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook added Dolby Vision
Director: Ron Howard
Director: Ron Howard
Director: Ron Howard
Universal 4K Blu-ray - caps. Looks stunning against the horribly neutralized old master. Very glad Deakins supervised the new grade and had Universal restore his color filters.
Universal Blu-ray (included in the 4K edition) has the original 5.1 mix not on the 4K disc
The original 5.1 surround mix from the 2011 USA BD was included alongside the new Atmos upmix. The compatibility track is a downmix of the Atmos. The Atmos is overall lightly remixed with noticeably more high frequencies rolled-off relative to the old 5.1. I think the 5.1 sounds better. The 5.1 mix from the USA BD was used as it sounds essentially the same as the EUR BD (with some minor loudness differences) while not featuring the dither noise and low frequency noise that the EUR has. Commentaries between the USA UHD and USA BD are the same, with both featuring Dolby Surround metadata
Audio comparison: 5.1 surround
Director: Ron Howard
Universal 4K Blu-ray - caps. Looks stunning against the horribly neutralized old master. Very glad Deakins supervised the new grade and had Universal restore his color filters.
Universal Blu-ray (included in the 4K edition) has the original 5.1 mix not on the 4K disc
The original 5.1 surround mix from the 2011 USA BD was included alongside the new Atmos upmix. The compatibility track is a downmix of the Atmos. The Atmos is overall lightly remixed with noticeably more high frequencies rolled-off relative to the old 5.1. I think the 5.1 sounds better. The 5.1 mix from the USA BD was used as it sounds essentially the same as the EUR BD (with some minor loudness differences) while not featuring the dither noise and low frequency noise that the EUR has. Commentaries between the USA UHD and USA BD are the same, with both featuring Dolby Surround metadata
Audio comparison: 5.1 surround
Director: Ron Howard
Theatrical Cut: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray
Extended Cut: The 30th Anniversary Extended Cut on fanedit.org has the additional TV footage and is also uncut.
Theatrical Cut: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray
Extended Cut: The 30th Anniversary Extended Cut on fanedit.org has the additional TV footage and is also uncut.
The TV version is extended but is censored. The Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray is restored from an interpositive, no release so far is confirmed to be from the Original Camera Negative.
Director: Ron Howard
Theatrical Cut: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray
Extended Cut: The 30th Anniversary Extended Cut on fanedit.org has the additional TV footage and is also uncut.
Theatrical Cut: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray
Extended Cut: The 30th Anniversary Extended Cut on fanedit.org has the additional TV footage and is also uncut.
The TV version is extended but is censored. The Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray is restored from an interpositive, no release so far is confirmed to be from the Original Camera Negative.
Director: Ron Howard
Director: Ron Howard
Director: Ron Howard
Director: Ron Howard
Director: Ron Howard
Director: Ron Howard
Director: Ron Howard
Theatrical: Sony 4K Blu-ray
Extended: Old Sony Blu-ray
Theatrical: Sony 4K Blu-ray
Extended: Old Sony Blu-ray
Director: Ron Howard
Theatrical: Sony 4K Blu-ray
Extended: Old Sony Blu-ray
Theatrical: Sony 4K Blu-ray
Extended: Old Sony Blu-ray
Director: Ron Howard
Director: Ron Howard
Director: George Roy Hill
Director: George Roy Hill
France M6 4K Blu-ray has Dolby Vision, but is inferior with more washed out colors and inferior encoding plus no hardcoded subtitles for the Portuguese language parts
France M6 4K Blu-ray has Dolby Vision, but is inferior with more washed out colors and inferior encoding plus no hardcoded subtitles for the Portuguese language parts
Director: Joe Wright
Director: Joe Wright
Director: Robert Budreau
Director: Robert Budreau
Directors: Andrew Adamson & Vicky Jenson
2011 Blu-ray (4K Blu-ray is upscaled; former PDI animator Jonathan Gibbs confirms the film was originally rendered at 1828 pixels wide to save space)
Universal 25th Anniversary 4K Blu-ray with Dolby Vision and Atmos
2011 Blu-ray (4K Blu-ray is upscaled; former PDI animator Jonathan Gibbs confirms the film was originally rendered at 1828 pixels wide to save space)
The old 2 disc DVD has extras missing from 4K Blu-ray
Directors: Andrew Adamson & Vicky Jenson
2011 Blu-ray (4K Blu-ray is upscaled; former PDI animator Jonathan Gibbs confirms the film was originally rendered at 1828 pixels wide to save space)
Universal 25th Anniversary 4K Blu-ray with Dolby Vision and Atmos
2011 Blu-ray (4K Blu-ray is upscaled; former PDI animator Jonathan Gibbs confirms the film was originally rendered at 1828 pixels wide to save space)
The old 2 disc DVD has extras missing from 4K Blu-ray
Director: Martin Scorsese
Director: Martin Scorsese
Director: Ivan Reitman
Plaion German 4K Blu-ray > US Kino Lorber see comparison and caps
Kino Lorber has an exceedingly poor encode, only slightly improved by the DV layer.
Original matrixed Dolby Stereo: Universal US Blu-ray
Dolby Atmos remix: Plaion DE 4K Blu-ray
Universal's BD uses the same transfer as the old LaserDisc and sounds a bit better than Plaion's, which has worse dynamics.
Plaion's Atmos remix is tastefully done and preserves the original mix's characteristics, the 5.1 track on Kino's release is overly aggressive and unbalanced.
Director: Ivan Reitman
Plaion German 4K Blu-ray > US Kino Lorber see comparison and caps
Kino Lorber has an exceedingly poor encode, only slightly improved by the DV layer.
Original matrixed Dolby Stereo: Universal US Blu-ray
Dolby Atmos remix: Plaion DE 4K Blu-ray
Universal's BD uses the same transfer as the old LaserDisc and sounds a bit better than Plaion's, which has worse dynamics.
Plaion's Atmos remix is tastefully done and preserves the original mix's characteristics, the 5.1 track on Kino's release is overly aggressive and unbalanced.
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
More Drama on Blu-ray
Director: Robert Wise
Disney 4K Blu-ray, see caps https://slow.pics/c/hE3HUCdj
Disney 4K Atmos is great, a reference quality track. It's a very slight remix (music seems to be from a better source), but it's completely seamless and faithful to the original, better fidelity than anything since the 1994 30th Anniversary Edition LaserDisc.
All DVDs (and 2010 Blu-ray) sound far worse than the 4K Blu-ray/LaserDisc and have various missing sound cues.
Director: Robert Wise
Disney 4K Blu-ray, see caps https://slow.pics/c/hE3HUCdj
Disney 4K Atmos is great, a reference quality track. It's a very slight remix (music seems to be from a better source), but it's completely seamless and faithful to the original, better fidelity than anything since the 1994 30th Anniversary Edition LaserDisc.
All DVDs (and 2010 Blu-ray) sound far worse than the 4K Blu-ray/LaserDisc and have various missing sound cues.
Director: S. S. Rajamouli
Zee5 Streaming has the original Telugu audio and English subtitles (albeit with English portions also overdubbed in Telugu)
Netflix Streaming only has the Hindi dub but better video quality
France Carlotta 4K Blu-ray coming in December
Japan Twin Co. 4K Blu-ray
Japan Twin Co. 4K Blu-ray has original Telugu Atmos audio
Director: S. S. Rajamouli
Zee5 Streaming has the original Telugu audio and English subtitles (albeit with English portions also overdubbed in Telugu)
Netflix Streaming only has the Hindi dub but better video quality
France Carlotta 4K Blu-ray coming in December
Japan Twin Co. 4K Blu-ray
Japan Twin Co. 4K Blu-ray has original Telugu Atmos audio
Director: Ivan Passer
Radiance 4K Blu-ray, though note its different color grading from the IP-sourced but poorly compressed Fun City Editions US Blu-ray (caps)
Judging from spectrograms at https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=23933756&postcount=57, Fun City Editions US Blu-ray appears to have marginally less filtering than Radiance 4K Blu-ray (whose padded 16-bit depth is a non-issue). There are also loudness differences, though it's unclear whether dynamic range also differs. Caveat: need to A/B both tracks to confirm, but no one has posted actual A/B impressions.
Director: Ivan Passer
Radiance 4K Blu-ray, though note its different color grading from the IP-sourced but poorly compressed Fun City Editions US Blu-ray (caps)
Judging from spectrograms at https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=23933756&postcount=57, Fun City Editions US Blu-ray appears to have marginally less filtering than Radiance 4K Blu-ray (whose padded 16-bit depth is a non-issue). There are also loudness differences, though it's unclear whether dynamic range also differs. Caveat: need to A/B both tracks to confirm, but no one has posted actual A/B impressions.
Director: Rob Reiner
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray release date September 21 2026
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray or Germany Capelight 4K Blu-ray no comparison available
Shout! Factory Blu-ray has exclusive extras the Kino Lorber/ Capelight release doesn't
The initial release of the Capelight 4K mediabook had some playback issues with Dolby Vision on Panasonic devices due to an encoding error, the HDR10 apparently works fine, see Capelight’s official response here.
Director: Rob Reiner
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray release date September 21 2026
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray or Germany Capelight 4K Blu-ray no comparison available
Shout! Factory Blu-ray has exclusive extras the Kino Lorber/ Capelight release doesn't
The initial release of the Capelight 4K mediabook had some playback issues with Dolby Vision on Panasonic devices due to an encoding error, the HDR10 apparently works fine, see Capelight’s official response here.
Director: Rob Reiner
Director: Rob Reiner
Director: Noah Baumbach
Director: Noah Baumbach
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