Network (1976)
Drama • 2h 1m
Director: Sidney Lumet
Cast: Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty, Beatrice Straight, Wesley Addy, Arthur Burghardt, Bill Burrows, John Carpenter, Jordan Charney, Kathy Cronkite, Ed Crowley, Jerome Dempsey, Conchata Ferrell, Gene Gross, Stanley Grover, Cindy Grover, Darryl Hickman, Mitchell Jason, Paul Jenkins, Ken Kercheval, Kenneth Kimmins, Lynn Klugman, Carolyn Krigbaum, Zane Lasky, Michael Lipton, Michael Lombard, Pirie MacDonald, Russ Petranto, Bernard Pollock, Roy Poole, William Prince, Sasha von Scherler, Lane Smith, Ted Sorel, Fred Stuthman, Cameron Thomas, Marlene Warfield, Lydia Wilen, Lee Richardson, Lance Henriksen, Robert P. Cohen, Andrew Duncan, Todd Everett, John Gabriel, Raymond Martino, John Pashley, Michael Tucker, John Chancellor, Walter Cronkite, Betty Ford, Gerald Ford, Howard K. Smith, David Susskind
Best audio release
2006 WB DVD
UHD tiers
About the film
When veteran anchorman Howard Beale is forced to retire his 25-year post because of his age, he announces to viewers that he will kill himself during his farewell broadcast. Network executives rethink their decision when his fanatical tirade results in a spike in ratings.
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- National Film Registry
Year of Induction: 2000
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- 2026: #4252025: #4422024: #4692023: #4722022: #472
Director: Richard Brooks
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
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
4K restoration from safety preservation elements
Director: Elaine May
Cinématographe 4K Blu-ray > MoC > Olive Films. From nicolas:
The master is good but it’s not that big an upgrade from the Olive Films disc and Vinegar Syndrome’ encode has some blocky highlights. A shame that they didn’t hire David Mackenzie here.
Cinématographe has unnecessary noise gating not present on the previous releases.
Director: Sidney Lumet
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
1.85:1: Kino Lorber 4K / Capelight 4K
1.66:1: Criterion 4K but low pass filtered
Comparison between the 4Ks, Criterion on the AR choice
Other discs have unnecessary filtering and sound worse, the difference isn't substantial but audible
Director: Dennis Hopper
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Flicker Alley 4K confirmed for 2027 https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24404584&postcount=1
MoC audio is better https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=225532&page=3
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Included in the Complete Kubrick box set with FiM encode of the same master from the Universal release without the filtering.
DTS:X mix on Universal 4K Blu-ray most closely approximates original surround mix
Criterion DVD and Universal 4K Blu-ray has additional features not found on the Criterion 4K Blu-ray
Director: Sam Peckinpah
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: Sidney Lumet
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Sidney Lumet
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Criterion 4K Blu-ray replacement disc for fixed audio (there were some dialogues missing)
While the video on the replacement disc is exactly the same as the original release, the Atmos with missing lines has been corrected as it was also corrected on the Criterion commentary. Criterion also included the 6-track which is almost identical to the PAL track; It’s 4.0 in a 5.1 container. This 6-track is slightly better than the PAL DVD track as the PAL has some flutter on some parts that Criterion doesn’t have.
The Atmos on the replacement is identical to the Imprint AUS Blu-ray track which also has all the lines. The compatibility track is also the same,
It is worth mentioning the Imprint only has the Atmos and no 6-track. The 5.1 surround is with LFE and split surrounds and it’s just a downmix of the Atmos. Ditto for the LPCM 2.0 on said Blu-ray.
Sources: lddb.com (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Director: Sidney Lumet
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
While Olive Films Blu-ray is better encoded than BFI Blu-ray, it suffers from the Quicktime Gamma Bug see caps
Sources: DVDBeaver (opens in a new tab)
MoC Blu-ray is superior to old Olive Films Blu-ray, see DVDBeaver
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.
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Janus and thus Criterion likely to release 4K Blu-ray in 2027
Director: Hal Ashby
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
See caps https://slow.pics/c/lVdZaG0W
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal's 4K release is similar in encode quality, but has significant glitches in multiple frames. See comparisons 9-16 here: https://slow.pics/c/YkSVb3Ey
The pitch of the StudioCanal 4K's English audio is too high
Criterion has more extras than StudioCanal.
Director: Jacques Tati
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray (part of Jacques Tati boxset releasing December 2026)
Director: Jacques Tati
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray (part of Jacques Tati boxset releasing December 2026)
Director: Jacques Tati
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray (part of Jacques Tati boxset releasing December 2026)
Criterion/StudioCanal Blu-ray > BFI. New restoration unreleased.
Old R2 DVD 1.0
Director: Jacques Tati
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray (part of Jacques Tati boxset releasing December 2026)
2014 StudioCanal Blu-ray
The UHD is slightly cropped in.
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