Best English-friendly release · updated 3 months ago
Overview
In WW2, twelve year old Soviet orphan Ivan Bondarev works for the Soviet army as a scout behind the German lines and strikes a friendship with three sympathetic Soviet officers.
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Theatrical Cut: UK Artificial Eye Blu-ray > Criterion
2023 "Director's" Cut: Unreleased
Passion According to Andrei Cut: MosFilm Youtube Stream > Criterion Blu-ray
Theatrical Cut: Netherlands Lumière Blu-ray has best encoding
2023 "Director's" Cut: Unreleased
Passion According to Andrei Cut: MosFilm Youtube Stream > Criterion Blu-ray
Theatrical Cut: 2011/2018 RU Blu-ray
Passion According to Andrei Cut: ??
Directors: Marika Beiku & Andrei Tarkovsky & Aleksandr Gordon
Criterion The Killers set Blu-ray extras
Student film, available in Criterion The Killers set as extras or Streaming
Youtube Mosfilm stream is better than Criterion bonus feature of Andrei Rublev
Directors: Andrei Tarkovsky & Tonino Guerra
Kino Lorber Nostalghia Blu-ray
Documentary, included in Kino Lorber Nostalghia Blu-ray
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
Director: Andrei Tarkovsky
1986 Pioneer LaserDisc
Director: Jūzō Itami
Director: Carol Reed
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray or Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray/Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray (shared encode); slight improvement over the 2015 StudioCanal Blu-ray
StudioCanal/LG UHDs port the 1999 Criterion DVD, considered the best source
StudioCanal has a remastered Blu-ray, Lionsgate only a 4K Blu-ray
Director: Martin Scorsese
2024 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook
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: George Stevens
Criterion 4K Blu-ray is slightly better than French 4K Blu-ray see caps
Director: Ingmar Bergman
Director: David Lynch
Censored US version: Shout! Factory or Twilight Time Blu-ray
Uncensored version: old DVD
2026 Criterion 4K Blu-ray, confirmed to be uncut
Censored US version: Shout! Factory or Twilight Time Blu-ray
Uncensored version: old DVD
Director: Joachim Trier
MUBI 4K Blu-ray has zero extras
Director: David Lynch
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray > Criterion 4K Blu-ray.
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray is encoded by FiM and doesn’t have the low-pass filter the Criterion 4K Blu-ray has.
Criterion 4K Blu-ray is closer to the original DVDs than the 2015 Criterion release, not sure about whether the StudioCanal 4K is like the Criterion 4K/original DVD
Criterion 4K Blu-ray has FEL Dolby Vision, StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray has MEL
More Drama on Blu-ray
Director: John Schlesinger
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
Signal One UK Blu-Ray
Signal One UK Blu-Ray
Gorgeously filmic 2K remaster supervised and approved by Jerry Schatzberg from Fox and flawlessly encoded by FiM.
Director: Chris Columbus
Disney 4K Blu-ray has encoding issues with bitrates dipping into 40mbps, and Kaleidescape has better encoding than Disney see caps
Old Fox Blu-ray master is stretched and sharpened
Director: David Lean
Carlotta Blu-ray
Carlotta Blu-ray
Sourced from Criterion's 4K remaster, but with encoding by FiM
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24317015&postcount=132
Arrow UK 4K Blu-ray > Paramount US, same black crush as the US disc but encoded by FiM and very good new supplements
Paramount US 4K Blu-ray has FEL Dolby Vision
Arrow UK 4K Blu-ray has MEL Dolby Vision
Director: Rob Reiner
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray > US Kino Lorber/Germany Capelight - caps and audio comparison on this page. Discussion is still ongoing about the 2.0 but as none of the three 4Ks seem to have the true original mix, I think it's fair to leave them all in the blue tier for now and only note that Kino Lorber has the worst PQ.
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: Billy Wilder
Paramount 4K Blu-ray. See caps
HDR/grading: nice, but some blown out
Encoding: inconsistent, smeared motion
DNR: inconsistent, frozen
Old Paramount Blu-ray is arguably a solid alternative choice
Paramount 4K Blu-ray mono is different version of the Blu-ray mono from the same old 2000 DVD transfer.
The 5.1 remix on the 4K Blu-ray is an appalling remix done by going wild with artificially generated stems from Park Road Post who were given the surviving mono to separate. The experience is jarring and fidelity to original mix in terms of level balance, directionality and impact is nonexistent. Not only does this sound painfully weird, but the Paramount mixers then did whatever they wanted in terms of LFE, sound pans and effect changes.
The original mono mix was not restored and still needs it badly. The 4K master is filled with frozen grain examples coming and going plus some HDR issues in addition to the usual Paramount problems. It is simultaneously better and worse than the Blu-ray master.
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