Hairspray (1988)
Comedy, Music, Romance • 1h 32m
Director: John Waters
Cast: Ricki Lake, Divine, Debbie Harry, Vitamin C, Sonny Bono, Leslie Ann Powers, Ruth Brown, Jerry Stiller, Michael St. Gerard, Clayton Prince, Mink Stole, Shawn Thompson, Ric Ocasek, Pia Zadora, Jo Ann Havrilla, Alan J. Wendl, Josh Charles, Jason Downs, Holter Graham, Dan Griffith, Regina Hammond, Bridget Kimsey, Frankie Maldon, Brooke Stacy Mills, John Orofino, Kim Webb, Debra Wirth, Dawn Hill, Cyrkle Milbourne, Doug Roberts, John Waters, Toussaint McCall, Lydia Troy, Verna Day, Kevin Joseph, Cory Tabachow, Marcy Brodsky, Donald Wheeler, Paul Zimmerman, Jennifer Johns, Brook Yeaton, Jeff Gardner, Jay Hillmer, Rhea Feikin, Coley Sohn, Susan Lowe, Rosemary Knower, Colleen Simon, Kathleen Wallace, Keith Pruitt, Al Granick, Robert Di Santo, Mollie Hall, Dorie Ellwood, Maggie Linton, Brenda Alford, Carolyn Walker, Mary Jefferson, Alfie Brown, Tipper Burton, Leo Rocca, Jim Parisi, Margo Tully, Matt Myers, Beverly Brigham, Wilbur Griffin, James Adam Tucker, David Samson, Robb Case, Joey Perillo, Mary Vivian Pearce, Mojo Gentry, Dale Guy Madison, Mark Murray-Mazwi, Christine Mason, Mmekutmfon Essien, Bill Lee Brown, Fredella Calloway, Joseph Eubanks, Angel Harper, Cornell Hills, Gorham Scott, Darrell Taylor, Peter Koper, Kevin Murray, George Stover, Buddy Deane, Michael Willis, Chuck Yeaton, Rick Anderson, Harold Anthony, Milton Clark Jr., Harold A. Cornish, Bernice Moore, June Thorne, Scheryll Anderson, Cheryl Andrews, Sonja Bonair, Sylvia Byrd-Leitner, Charlie Hawke, Rudy Jones, William Rose, Miriam Kiss, Patrick Mitchell, Jim Lyons, Frederick Strother, Christopher Golley, Mary Lou Barber, Jacole Fletcher, Brad Baker, John Carhart III, Scott Coblio, Jean Crispens, Vincent De Paul, Lisa M. DeHaven, Christopher Eaves, Lewis Erskine, Stephanie Mazzeo, Jeff Vespa, Stephen Wozniak, Elizabeth Coffey
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 3 months ago
UHD tiers
Overview
'Pleasantly plump' teenager Tracy Turnblad achieves her dream of becoming a regular on the Corny Collins Dance Show. Now a teen hero, she starts using her fame to speak out for the causes she believes in, most of all integration. In doing so, she earns the wrath of the show's former star, Amber Von Tussle, as well as Amber's manipulative, pro-segregation parents. The rivalry comes to a head as Amber and Tracy vie for the title of Miss Auto Show 1963.
Director: Jean Vigo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Directors: Alberto Cavalcanti & Charles Crichton & Basil Dearden & Robert Hamer
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
France Rimini 4K Blu-ray see caps vs Artificial Eye Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
(Indicator 4K Blu-ray, based on review)
Director: Otakar Vávra
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Deaf Crocodile 4K Blu-ray see nic review
Restored: Deaf Crocodile 4K Blu-ray
Unrestored: Czech PAL DVD
Preferences will vary, the restored track sounds good, but not necessarily faithful to the original elements.
Director: Anthony Mann
Criterion 4K Blu-ray, Universal 2008 DVD
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
2008 Universal DVD mono
The mono on the Criterion is severely filtered resulting in it sounding incredibly muffled. It is nearly as filtered as the 2003 original Universal DVD which had extreme filtering and sounds horribly thin. The 2008 DVD remaster and original Laserdisc analog mastering are mostly left alone. The original LD master is from a worn element but otherwise sounds very natural. The 2008 DVD is the highest quality version we have without the heavy filtering and the defects of the LD master. It isn't perfect but easily the best of the main four sources by a dramatic margin.
The existing 4K SDR restoration looks excellent, but the Criterion extras are limited and disappointing. The classic Stewart interview commentary from the LD is ported over but given a new mastering. Compared to past releases it has been very slightly noise reduced.
Director: Basil Dearden
Excellent 4K master and encode, except for opticals grain is very fine, grading is beautifully silvery and luminous, nice HDR re-grade by Fidelity in Motion
Director: Steve James
Director: Victor Fleming
3D: Warner Bros 3D Blu-ray or Apple Vision Pro
Director: Morton DaCosta
Warner Archive 4K Blu-ray Nov 24th
Director: Tony Scott
The 70mm 6-track mix has a higher bitrate on the Paramount 1998 DVD, but is more limited than on the THX LaserDisc The Paramount 1998 DVD also has open matte versions in fullscreen 1.33:1 and widescreen 2.00:1 instead of the theatrical aspect ratio of 2.39:1, but the 2.00:1 widescreen presentation is non-anamorphic. The THX LaserDisc is available in both fullscreen 1.33:1 and widescreen 2.00:1 variants.
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.
Criterion Box Set coming October 20th with FiM encode, work done to un-Nolan the 4K master, the first ever appearance of the 35mm mono track on physical media and a new restoration/remastering of the 70mm 6-track mix.
(early pressing has errors of a shot, later pressings fixed)
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Criterion Box Set coming on October 20th with FiM encode
DTS:X mix most closely approximates original surround mix
Criterion DVD has additional features not found on the 4K Blu-ray
Director: John Waters
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Criterion 4K is in director's preferred aspect ratio of 1.66:1.
Director: John Waters
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has poor encoding see caps but still a huge improvement over the 2014 Universal Blu-ray
Theatrical cut is on the 4K disc, but the restored Director's Cut is only on the Blu-Ray disc. Director's Cut utilizes the same 4K transfer as the theatrical cut for 86 minutes, but the 6 minutes of restored footage could only be salvaged from a standard definition source and are thus needed to be upscaled.
Director: John Waters
Criterion Blu-ray
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Director: John Waters
Criterion Blu-ray
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Edit history
Every recommendation follows the same method — how these calls are made.