The Smashing Machine (2025)
Drama, History • 2h 3m
Director: Benny Safdie
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader, Bas Rutten, Lyndsey Gavin, Zoe Kosovic, Oleksandr Usyk, Satoshi Ishii, James Moontasri, Yoko Hamamura, Paul Cheng, Andre Tricoteux, Marcus Aurelio, Roberto "Cyborg" Abreu, Jerin Valel, Raja Flores, Egidiyus Klimas, Randi Lynne, Yasuhiro Nakatsuka, Kenny Rice, Tak Sasaki, Paul Wu, Joshua Mazerolle, Jason William Day, Mark Kerr, Annette Alvarado, James McSweeney, Jonathan Corbblah, Ilan Rosenberg, Nick Toren, Jill Basey, Bethany Brown, Soichi Sato, Takaaki Nagata, Jugo Hashimoto, Haruo Tokashiki, Hiroko Taki, Hironori Kamoshita, Yasuko Mitsuura, Shinpei Otsuki, Olga Dzyurak, Takeshi Kurokawa, Tomoka Kobayashi, Chris Franco, Takao Osawa, Midori Takiya, Naoshi Sasaki, Rina Shimomura, Royal Johnston, Whitney Moore, Adrianne Lovato, Tomoya Naka, Yuki Kedoin, Stephen Quadros, Tomoyasu Hotei, Nala Sinephro, Ryan Ventura, Gary Copeland, Jamie Fair, Jordan Greer, Byron Capers, Ei Yoshikawa, Roberto de Abreu Filho, Lance Gibson, Yushin Okami, Marcus Vinicios, Adam Santos, Christopher Ackerman, Shawn C. Orr, Brett Randy Bourgeois, Scott Meloshinsky, Hugo Steele, Brennan Walstrom, Roberto Abreu, Jason Broadwell, Ismail Elfallahi, Charles Chi Soo Kim, Paul Lazenby, Jasper Salon, Nina Sugii, Naoki Tasaki, Jason Tremblay, Taylor Trujillo, Lawrence Yang
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 7 months ago
> US A24 4K Blu-ray
Overview
In the late 1990s, up-and-coming mixed martial artist Mark Kerr aspires to become the greatest fighter in the world. However, he must also battle his opioid dependence and a volatile relationship with his girlfriend Dawn.
Directors: Benny Safdie & Josh Safdie
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
4K encode is low-pass filtered and noticeably so, which was unfortunately par for the course with Criterion 4Ks until sometime in 2024, and the encode is still less than ideal even despite that. Still better than the Criterion and Lionsgate Blu-Ray discs for the Dolby Vision grading alone.
Director: Guillermo del Toro
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
Japan GAGA 4K Blu-ray is worse
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 Drama on Blu-ray
Director: Preston Sturges
No information on French Elephant Films Blu-ray
Director: Ralph Bakshi
Director: Martin Scorsese
Other releases have horrendous DNR
Director: Roman Polanski
Kino Lorber disc has audio pitch errors
Director: Roman Polanski
Director: Terrence Malick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Lovely underlying remaster by Criterion and Resillion but encode is sadly low-pass filtered by Pixelogic, and even then, the encode is still less than ideal. Still easily obliterates any prior disc release, but certainly wouldn't hurt to have a UK or German label take a crack at this same master.
Sources: YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Sourced from a 4K scan of the 35mm Fine Grain. Even with its unfortunate and noticeable print damage, tears, and other issues, still easily beats any prior disc release, though the Imprint BD (same master as Kino, but inferior encode) included in their Essential Film Noir Collection Vol. 3 set does include more extras. https://youtu.be/-Wrsn6-XJCo
Director: Michael B. Jordan
Caveat: No IMAX expanded aspect ratio
Edit history
Every recommendation follows the same method — how these calls are made.