Hard Eight (1997)
Drama, Crime • 1h 42m
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson, F. William Parker, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Nathanael Cooper, Wynn White, Robert Ridgely, Kathleen Campbell, Michael J. Rowe, Peter D'Allesandro, Steve Blane, Xaleese, Melora Walters, Jean Langer, Andy Breen, Renee Breen, Jane W. Brimmer, Mark Finizza, Richard Gross, Cliff Keeley, Carrie McVey, Truman Robbins, Ernie Anderson, Wendy Weidman, Jake Cross
Best English-friendly release · updated 10 months ago
Compare the discs
slow.pics (opens in a new tab)Overview
A stranger mentors a young Reno gambler who weds a hooker and befriends a vulgar casino regular.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Sources: parkcircus.com (opens in a new tab)
Like previous releases, the 4K Blu-ray was scanned from an interpositive rather than the original camera negative at Paul Thomas Anderson’s request which may explain the softness.
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray teased
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
> Sony 4K Blu-ray (better encoding on the Criterion) see caps https://slow.pics/c/fbftSpZF
Director: Roman Polanski
Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray see caps. Much better contrast and grain exposure but the grade is a bit questionable as it skews heavily towards magenta in some caps and the encode looks low-pass filtered.
Atmos Remix: Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray
Original 5.1: Imprint Australia Blu-ray or StudioCanal Germany/France Blu-ray
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray encoded the "Original 5.1" as lossy Dolby Digital, which is very different from the AC3 on the original DVD. This new "Original 5.1" may in fact be a downmix of the Atmos track. FWIW, the original DVD AC3 still sounds very good.
Director: John Schlesinger
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Included Imprint Blu-Ray also has markedly better image compression than the Criterion Blu-Ray, though do note the Imprint has some adjusted color grading within roughly the first five minutes of the film
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=16775595&postcount=450
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24237074&postcount=73
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: Jack Cardiff
Video format: HD Streaming
HD Streaming
Director: Iain Softley
Director: Steven Shainberg
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
UK ICON 4K Blu-ray (caps)
UK 4K Blu-ray has a slightly better encode than US Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray and Germany StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray
5.1 mix is flawed on Shout! Factory/ICON, a phasey upmix instead of the proper discrete surround. The UHD 2.0 tracks are downmixes of that track.
2008 Fox Blu-ray sounds great, very close to the original 70mm mix, only with split surround.
2001 DVD has the original mix as 4.1 and matrixed 2.0.
Imprint 4K has a 4.0 track. The StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray has a different 5.1, unclear if it's the same as Fox BD.
Director: Jonathan Kaplan
US Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray or Australia Imprint 4K Blu-ray?
Fox 2002 NTSC DVD includes the original mix as discrete LCRS 4.0, later reelases only include a matrixed version an an inferior 5.1 upmix.
The matrixed stereo version on Shout! Factory's 4K Blu-ray sounds good.
More Drama on Blu-ray
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: Liliana Cavani
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
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: Akira Kurosawa
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: Bruce Robinson
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray has stronger encode than Criterion
Director: Olivier Assayas
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Encoding is clunky on both Arrow and Criterion BDs but Arrow at least included the original stereo mix in addition to the 5.1 remix, while Criterion only included the 5.1 remix.
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
Edit history
Every recommendation follows the same method — how these calls are made.