The Phantom of the Opera (2004)
Thriller, Drama, Romance • 2h 21m
Director: Joel Schumacher
Cast: Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson, Miranda Richardson, Minnie Driver, Ciarán Hinds, Simon Callow, Victor McGuire, Jennifer Ellison, Murray Melvin, Kevin McNally, James Fleet, Imogen Bain, Miles Western, Judith Paris, Halcro Johnston, Paul Brooke, Oliver Chopping, Alison Skilbeck, Lee Sellers, Ramin Karimloo, Chris Overton, Jesika Cannon, Annabel Porter, Laura Hounsom, Lorraine Stewart, Lucy Casson, Jonathan D. Ellis, Jose Tirado, David Langham, Sebastien Torkia, Chris Jarvis, Liesl Dowsett, Greet Botterman, Kirsty Tapp, Amy Lawson, Tess Cunningham, Kathryn Dunn, Pia Driver, Sophia Hurdley, Elena Buda, Mark Carroll, Brian Wheeler, Terry Kelly, David Arneil, John Griffiths, Graham McDuff, Tricia Deighton, Mandy Holliday, Jackie Marks, Sophie-Louise Dann, Valerie Cutko, Julia Worsley, Margaret Preece, Annalene Beechey, Lucy Potter, Remy Martyn, Richard Bayliss, Andrew Charles Corbett, Ralph Broadbent, Damien Lee Stirk, Alexander Cameron, Pascal Langdale, Paul Costin, Carlos Otera, Matthew Draper, Annika Strandberg, Ben Gant, Beth Sheather, Jonathon Hill, Isabel Lesto, Sarah Frasca, Timothy Kipling, Sandra Eloani, Jonathon Kitchen, Ruben Halse, Tristan Keyte, Damian Jones, Michael Mansbridge, Jeff Moore, Vanessa Perroncel, Lea Jerova, Julian Poole, Rebekah Dobbins, James Pullman, Lee Chapman, Robert Purvis, Gavin Lee, Dave Tosh, Rod Buchanan, Chris Worsey, Ashley Wallen, Adam Pudney, Ben Garner, Blake Clayfield, Damien Delaney, Marcus Tesch, Michael Small, Milo Miles, Nathan Clark, Stephen B. White, Stephen Berkeley, Kasper Cornish, Philip Catchpole, Ryan Jenkins, Gavin Wilkinson, Alec Mann, Scott Wyer, Paul Micha, Clinton Goldsmith, Andrew Corbett, Luis Gallo Mudarra, Damien Jackson, Tom Tanscy, Luke Jackson, Aaron Sillis, Melanie Perks, Lorena Randi, Lisa Stevens, Rachael Crocker, Julia Florimo, Caroline Lynn, Joanna Woodliffe, Marilena Nicolaou, Joanna Ernest, Georgina Hagerty, Simone De La Rue, Claire Goodman, Gem Collingwood, Maddy G. Harris, Juliet Gough, Deborah Bundy, Pippa Raine, Leigh Daniels, Gabriel Noble, Maryam Pourian, Candice Evans, Janine Davis, Bethany Elliot, Dawn Collins
Best English-friendly & video release
Japan GAGA 4K Blu-ray is worse
Updated 1 month ago
Compare the discs
About the film
A young soprano becomes the obsession of a disfigured and murderous musical genius who lives beneath the Paris Opera House.
- Alternative Titles
- Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera
Director: Joel Schumacher
Director: Joel Schumacher
US/UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray has both the original Dolby Stereo 2.0 mix in its best quailty and the original Dolby Stereo 4-track discrete stems in 4.0.
Director: Joel Schumacher
Theatrical Dolby Digital 5.1: WB LaserDisc AC3, 1997 WB DVD 5.1
2005 5.1 retransfer: 2005 WB DVD Dolby, DTS. WB Blu-ray TrueHD
4K Blu-ray has Atmos remixes with new effects and changes. The original matrix surround track is somewhat different in its mix than the 5.1 discrete but relatively the same.
Director: Joel Schumacher
Dolby Stereo SR: WB LaserDisc (best audio mix of the film)
Dolby 5.1: WB LaserDisc AC3, WB DVD
2005 5.1 retransfer: WB DVD Dolby and DTS, WB Blu-ray TrueHD
4K Blu-ray has Atmos remixes with new effects and changes. The original matrix surround track is better mixed than the 5.1 discrete with more surround and low end engagement amazingly. It also hides the extensive ADR a bit due to the inherent quality dip comparing matrix to discrete formats.
Director: Joel Schumacher
2019 Shout! Factory Blu-ray
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
BD 1080p Comparison: https://slow.pics/c/6hg4Y5fB (USA-Shout! vs AUS-Imprint vs GER-NamelessMedia vs AUS-Shock)
Director: Joel Schumacher
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Sony 4K Blu-ray looks like a very nice upgrade and is maybe even more but people are debating the addition of a Kieślowski-like yellow color filter they put over a segment in the film at around 16 minutes, on the other hand, this cap of the Blu-ray looks terrible and clearly not right either, so leaning on Sony having reinstated the filter
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Video format: 4K Streaming
4K master with OAR of 1.85 restored streaming on HBO MAX
WB 4K Blu-ray teased by Guillermo Del Toro
CA Alliance Blu-ray or dutch Blu-ray are the same masters but have additional sharpening.
The original DVD has an isolated score and a exclusive easter egg
Director: Josh Safdie
Sources: testsbluray.com (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Entertainment in Video UK 4K Blu-ray or French Metropolitan 4K Blu-ray
The UK 4K Blu-ray and Canada 4K Blu-ray both do not have the low-pass that the US 4K Blu-ray has. The UK 4K Blu-ray has some general blockiness and chroma artifacting issues, but the Canada 4K Blu-ray has at least a handful of scenes where the encode completely falls apart and massive macroblocks are visible. The Canada 4K Blu-ray also does not have hardcoded forced subtitles for the newsreel scene like the US and UK 4K Blu-rays. The grade is the same between all three discs.
See tenia's review of the French 4K Blu-ray but no comparison available
The Atmos mix is the same between the US 4K Blu-ray and the UK 4K Blu-ray save for the amount of dynamic objects: the UK 4K Blu-ray has 15 to the USA's 11.
The UK 4K Blu-ray also has a DD-EX compatibility track and a lossless version of the commentary track that is in Dolby Digital on the US and Canada 4K Blu-rays.
UK 4K plays fine in motion https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24007274&postcount=181
Director: Wes Craven
France M6 Video 4K Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray disappointing - Avoid. Terrible release. Another Kino-grade encode with a huge DV layer. The Lionsgate Limited Steelbook has a different disc with exclusive bonus discs and apparently another poor encode but they also messed up the DV metadata and made that disc unwatchable with DV enabled.
US releases for the original audio
Pay per view version audio is on the UK Entertainment in Video Blu-ray and the France M6 Video 4K Blu-ray
Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray has exclusive extras
Director: Halina Reijn
Director: Ari Aster
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray or the newly released UK Entertainment in Video 4K Blu-ray?
More Thriller on Blu-ray
Director: Roman Polanski
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
UK 4K teased by 88 Films https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?p=24252379
Carlotta France 4K Blu-ray > Vinegar Syndrome 4K Blu-ray (better encode on Carlotta without any low-pass filtering, more extras and English subtitles on Vinegar Syndrome)
4K restoration of the original 3D left eye and right eye camera negatives
Director: John Woo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Arrow has a different grade and a better encode than the Shout! Factory, though the difference in either is not major. Imprint release, which leaves Shout! Factory's master and subtitles as is, is encoded by FiM. https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24473097&postcount=56
Original mix: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray
Alternate mix: Scanbox Nordic PAL DVD
Surround remix: HK Video France 4K Blu-ray (5.0)
Original mix: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray (similar to Criterion LaserDisc, but less distorted)
Alternate mix: Scanbox Nordic PAL DVD
Surround remix: HK Video France 4K Blu-ray (5.0)
Arrow used the alternate mix, but with extra filtering and lowered dynamic range. The alternate mix has much better fidelity.
Imprint presumably used the Shout! Factory original mix and left it as is, though no official confirmation.
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Arrow 4K Blu-ray > Criterion 4K Blu-ray > Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray
1991 Orion LaserDisc vs 2024 Arrow 4K Blu-ray
Director: Jonathan Demme
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Sources: vitalpassenger.com (opens in a new tab)
FiM are mistakenly credited, one of the four known instances of this for a Cinématographe title (the other three being Thieves Like Us, Who Killed Teddy Bear?, and The Gambler). 4K encode was done by Vital Passenger. https://vitalpassenger.com/our-work
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
The 4K discs in both Criterion and Imprint sets are FiM encodes, but low-passed, Imprint minimally less so. Unfortunately, unlike with The Killing, Kino does not hold up at all, the grain is much rougher and the compression visibly struggles making for a much less pleasant watch, even if select stills look better.
All discs use the same source transfer. Criterion cleaned up some hums and hiss, but lost a little bit of high-end detail. Unlike The Killing, the difference's relatively mino.
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
The 4K discs in both Criterion and Imprint sets are FiM encodes, but low-passed. The compression is better, but some of the grain is lost. Difference is pronounced in screen caps, but not likely to be noticed during playback, without a reference to compare it to. Comparisons
All discs use the same source transfer. It's not of the highest quality, and it includes some slight distortion, looping, clicks, pops, and hum. Criterion cleaned it up for their release, but unfortunately also lost a lot of fidelity in the process.
MGM NTSC DVD doesn't seem to have some of the more prominent distortion and has slightly different EQ but is otherwise the same.
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
WB 4K
Sources: YouTube (opens in a new tab)
An undeniably significant improvement from the BD yet still severely flawed. See DFIC's review.
Director: Bernard Rose
Scream Factory/Arrow 4K Blu-ray or Turbine 4K Blu-Ray
SF and Turbine also have the 2004 Audio Commentary with Bernard Rose, Clive Barker, Alan Poul and actors Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd and Kasi Lemmons
Director: Rob Reiner
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · instagram.com (opens in a new tab)
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.
The 4K master has a shot at the very end of the movie (on James Caan's face) that looks incredibly soft and not good at all. This was visible on the DCP as well so it might just be a source issue rather than being the fault of Kino, Capelight or Arrow.
Edit history
Every recommendation follows the same method — how these calls are made.