Five Star Final (1931)
Crime, Drama • 1h 29m
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Marian Marsh, H.B. Warner, Anthony Bushell, George E. Stone, Frances Starr, Ona Munson, Boris Karloff, Aline MacMahon, Oscar Apfel, Purnell Pratt, Robert Elliott, Polly Walters, James P. Burtis, Frank Darien, James Donlan, Evelyn Hall, Gladys Lloyd, Arnold Lucy, Franklin Parker, William H. Strauss, David Torrence, Harold Waldridge, Jack Wise
HD Streaming
Video format
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 10 months ago
Overview
Searching for headlines at any cost, an unscrupulous newspaper owner forces his editor to print a serial based on a past murder, tormenting a woman involved.
Director: Leo McCarey
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · DVDBeaver (opens in a new tab)
> Germany Wicked Vision Blu-ray > US Flicker Alley Blu-ray see DVDBeaver caps
Director: John Ford
Sources: ibb.co (opens in a new tab)
Warner Archive Blu-ray is 4K restoration from nitrate projection elements
Germany Filmjuwelen Blu-ray is AI upscaled https://ibb.co/album/mCJ7RQ
Director: Frank Capra
Director: William Dieterle
Director: David Butler
Video format: Only Unofficial Sources
Sources: archive.org (opens in a new tab)
The DVD isn't an official one, and according to a user review on Amazon:
This DVD comes from Archive.org, where the movie can be viewed for free. The original source, comes from the Fox Movie Channel
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
Sources: mega.nz (opens in a new tab)
Warner Bros 2011 Blu-ray
The older track sounds significantly more natural. The WAC BD uses a new mastering which sounds much worse. A lot of the dialogue sounds off, sort of echoey, garbled or even artifacted. Its overzealous click removal also erased some sounds. Its only positive is a new EQ that brings out the bass more making some of the score more effective.
It seems that the new mastering likely uses AI "enhancement" or some other form of aggressive filtering, resulting in extended peaks despite losing real high end detail (most pronounced on sample 3).
Samples (WAC is mislabeled as UHD)
Commentary is mono on the Blu-rays and panned stereo on NTSC DVD (different channels for each speaker).
Director: Mervyn LeRoy
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
More Crime on Blu-ray
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Both come from a 4K scan of a 35mm film out which was made from the original 2K DI but the Lionsgate release has visible dust and damage marks while the Universal release is cleaned up more thoroughly. Both releases suffer from DNR which seems to have been baked into the DI. The colour grade is basically the same for both releases but the Lionsgate has Dolby Vision whereas the Universal is HDR10 only. The compression on the Lionsgate UHD base layer is apparently fine so the FEL doesn't make much of a difference.
The Lionsgate UHD has Dolby Atmos whereas the Universal UHD has DTS:X. Kick-ass was originally released with a 5.1 track which may be on the Universal Blu-ray.
The Lionsgate UHD is on a BD-100, the Universal UHD is on a BD-66.
The Universal UHD has no extras.
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)
Director: Iain Softley
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Both 88 Films and Germany Capelight are superior to the Shout! Factory in HDR10 but their FEL layer may even things out. Objectively, the Capelight looks best as they avoided the chroma blocking that’s visible in 88’s disc but they in turn included an Atmos mix. I have the Shout! Factory, love how it looks and the 4K transfer is spectacular. https://slow.pics/c/vPmFQSAH
Shout! Factory has the exclusive The Beauty of the Baud and the You Can't Stop Us All featurettes.
Director: John Woo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
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
TV series
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative for all episodes
Director: Lloyd Bacon
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Ralph Bakshi
Director: Roman Polanski
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