Law Abiding Citizen (2009)
Drama, Crime, Thriller • 1h 49m
Director: F. Gary Gray
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Gerard Butler, Colm Meaney, Bruce McGill, Leslie Bibb, Michael Irby, Gregory Itzin, Regina Hall, Emerald-Angel Young, Brooke Stacy Mills, Christian Stolte, Annie Corley, Richard Portnow, Viola Davis, Michael Kelly, Josh Stewart, Roger Bart, Dan Bittner, Patrick McDade, Richard Barlow, Greg Young, Jim Gushue, Anthony Lawton, David Villalobos, Ksenia Hulayev, Todd Lewis, Bijean Ngo, Cecelia Ann Birt, Lamont Clayton, Dave Huddleston, Gabra Zackman, Brian Anthony Wilson, Stephanie Humphrey, Tracy Toth, Jim Fitzpatrick, Lawrence Laravela, Barbara Lambert, Nakia Dillard, Keith Moyer, Robert Bizik, Ian Bonner, Jennifer Butler, Gregory R. Campbell, Bill Chemerka, Mustafa Cimen, Damien Colletti, Brian Distance, Justin Doescher, Lewis Duval, Robert Eckard, Phil. E. Eichinger, John Charles Hunt, Steven J. Klaszky, Robert Montano, Matt Nicholas, Eddie Noone, Michael Nutter, Joe Pawlenko, Lou Pacheco, Vincent Riviezzo, W. Keith Scott, William Shipman, Towanda Underdue, David Von Roehm, Matt von Siegel, Damion J. Williams
Best English-friendly release · updated 6 months ago
Overview
A frustrated man decides to take justice into his own hands after a plea bargain sets one of his family's killers free. He targets not only the killer but also the district attorney and others involved in the deal.
Theatrical: Universal 4K Blu-ray
Extended Director's Cut: 4K Streaming
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: Jamie Babbit
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray is a disaster. The compression on the base layer is horrid, and the oversized 18 Mbps FEL barely helps.
Lionsgate 4K Blu-ray includes original matrixed Dolby Stereo mix, albeit lossy, and a 5.1 surround upmix. The stereo track on previous BD and DVD releases is also lossy and sounds about the same.
Sources: fanrestore.com (opens in a new tab) · originaltrilogy.com (opens in a new tab)
2017 StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray and subsequent 4K Blu-rays are notorius for being heavily denoised and smoothened. Alternatively, 35mm scans for the theatrical cut is also available.
For the Ultimate Edition with the T-1000 searching John's room and the happy future ending, the 2009 Skynet Blu-ray, which is the older pre-2017 transfer, but has DNR.
Director: Carol Reed
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray or Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray/Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray (shared encode); slight improvement over the 2015 StudioCanal Blu-ray
StudioCanal/LG UHDs
StudioCanal/LG UHDs port the 1999 Criterion DVD, considered the best source
StudioCanal has a remastered Blu-ray, Lionsgate only a 4K Blu-ray
2D: Spain Emon Blu-ray
3D: US Lionsgate, Germany StudioCanal, or Netherlands Entertainment One 3D Blu-ray?
Sources: caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab)
Criterion 4K Blu-ray scheduled for Dec 2026 release
US Lionsgate Blu-ray looks very different from either Italy Eagle Pictures or Germany Kinowelt Blu-ray: https://caps-a-holic.com/c_list.php?c=502 but other than color grading looks better
Director: Werner Herzog
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
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