2010 US Kino Lorber or 2012 UK Artificial Eye

2017 JP Kadokawa Blu-ray has the best encoding out of all the older discs.

Kino Lorber and Artificial Eye Blu-ray use the same master, between the two the PQ on Kino's release is slightly better, but the difference is negligible.

The 4K restoration (Criterion, 4K etc) are cropped to 2.35:1, have revisionistic colour grading and other changes.

Caps: old master, old master vs 4K restoration

Wong Kar-Wai on the framing:

With Fallen Angels, I have changed the format to cinemascope, because it was originally what I had intended to release the film in. When we were cutting the film, we accidentally turned the Steenbeck on anamorphic instead of standard. I felt that the film looked much more interesting because it enhanced the distance of the characters on top of the extreme wide angle that we shot on. Back then, it was impossible to shoot a film in standard and release it in anamorphic. With this restoration, we have successfully fulfilled this wish.

Criterion Blu-ray

Criterion Blu-ray> Artificial Eye Blu-ray, Korea Nova Media 4K Blu-ray release is AI upscaled

2025 Curzon UK Blu-ray (Haneke boxset)

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.

2025 Curzon UK Blu-ray

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.

Germany Blu-ray

Germany Blu-ray

English subtitles for the director's commentary in German are only available in the UK Artificial Eye Blu-ray