Central Station (1998)
Central do Brasil
Drama • 1h 50m
Director: Walter Salles
Cast: Fernanda Montenegro, Vinícius de Oliveira, Marília Pêra, Othon Bastos, Otávio Augusto, Matheus Nachtergaele, Caio Junqueira, Stela Freitas, Maria Menezes, Sergio Kato, Soia Lira, Rita Assemany, Harildo Déda, Gildásio Leite, Nanego Lira, José Pereira da Silva, Everaldo Pontes, Inaldo Santana, Gideon Rosa, Antonieta Noronha, Socorro Nobre, Iami Rebouças
Best English-friendly release
· updated 4 months agoBest video release
UHD tiers
Overview
An emotional journey of a former school teacher, who writes letters for illiterate people, and a young boy, whose mother has just died, as they search for the father he never knew.
Director: Jean Vigo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
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
Directors: Alberto Cavalcanti & Charles Crichton & Basil Dearden & Robert Hamer
Video format: UHD 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: Basil Dearden
Excellent 4K master and encode, except for opticals grain is very fine, grading is beautifully silvery and luminous, nice HDR re-grade by Fidelity in Motion
Director: Walter Salles
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Director: Béla Tarr
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Curzon 4K Blu-ray scheduled for October 2026 release
Supposed to have better translation than Criterion.
Director: Michael Haneke
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
2025 Curzon UK Blu-ray or 2013 TF1 FR Blu-ray (caps)
Curzon has a slightly better encode and preserves all the noise of the digital source, but ends up obscuring actual detail in some shots. Both are quite good, only caveat being that the TF1 disc is slightly cropped and has a black bar on top.
2008 Artificial Eye UK and 2025 Umbrella AU discs have incorrect pitch. TF1 FR disc is missing 7 minutes of audio in the left channel. See spectrograms.
Director: Jean Vigo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Jean Vigo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Directors: Jean Vigo & Boris Kaufman
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Michael Haneke
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
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