The Keys of the Kingdom (1944)
Drama • 2h 17m
Overview
A young priest, Father Chisholm is sent to China to establish a Catholic parish among the non-Christian Chinese. While his boyhood friend, also a priest, flourishes in his calling as a priest in a more Christian area of the world, Father Chisholm struggles. He encounters hostility, isolation, disease, poverty and a variety of set backs which humble him, but make him more determined than ever to succeed.
Director: John M. Stahl
Cast: Gregory Peck, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, Rose Stradner, Roddy McDowall, Edmund Gwenn, Cedric Hardwicke, Peggy Ann Garner, Jane Ball, James Gleason, Anne Revere, Ruth Nelson, Benson Fong, Leonard Strong, Philip Ahn, Arthur Shields, Edith Barrett, Sara Allgood, Richard Loo, Ruth Ford, Kevin O'Shea, H.T. Tsiang, Si-Lan Chen, Eunice Soo-Hoo, Dennis Hoey, Ruth Clifford, J. Anthony Hughes, James B. Leong, Richard Wang, Joseph Kim, Moy Ming, Beal Wong, Clarence Lung, Eugene Louis, Georgie Nokes
Director: John M. Stahl
Director: John M. Stahl
Director: John M. Stahl
Director: John M. Stahl
Director: Busby Berkeley
Director: Busby Berkeley
Director: Fritz Lang
Criterion 4K Blu-ray. See nicolas review: https://criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=841703#p841703 "The new master is simply gorgeous. Beautifully fine-grained, even the opticals don’t look that much less defined than the OCN-shots. Highlights are very nicely graded and the encode preserves them virtually flawlessly. The HDR / DV grade itself is tasteful and makes the film look tasteful. Velvety, silvery and just satisfying to look at. Furthermore, I don’t think NexSpec applied any filtering"
Twilight Time Blu-ray slightly better than Criterion 4K Blu-ray. Columbia Hi-Fi VHS probably significantly better (not been checked)
Director: Fritz Lang
Criterion 4K Blu-ray. See nicolas review: https://criterionforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=841703#p841703 "The new master is simply gorgeous. Beautifully fine-grained, even the opticals don’t look that much less defined than the OCN-shots. Highlights are very nicely graded and the encode preserves them virtually flawlessly. The HDR / DV grade itself is tasteful and makes the film look tasteful. Velvety, silvery and just satisfying to look at. Furthermore, I don’t think NexSpec applied any filtering"
Twilight Time Blu-ray slightly better than Criterion 4K Blu-ray. Columbia Hi-Fi VHS probably significantly better (not been checked)
Director: Cy Endfield
US OOP Twilight Time Blu-ray > UK Paramount Blu-ray or US Inspired Blu-ray
The UK Blu-ray not only have some DNR applied, it's also squeezed and cropped: see comparison
The color contrast from Twilight Time is however possibly suffering the Quicktime Gamma Bug, but that's an easier issue to fix than DNR or cropped images.
Director: Cy Endfield
US OOP Twilight Time Blu-ray > UK Paramount Blu-ray or US Inspired Blu-ray
The UK Blu-ray not only have some DNR applied, it's also squeezed and cropped: see comparison
The color contrast from Twilight Time is however possibly suffering the Quicktime Gamma Bug, but that's an easier issue to fix than DNR or cropped images.
Director: Andrew L. Stone
Director: Andrew L. Stone
Director: Ralph Nelson
Kino Lorber Blu-ray is minimally better encoded than Twilight Time OOP Blu-ray see caps
Director: Ralph Nelson
Kino Lorber Blu-ray is minimally better encoded than Twilight Time OOP Blu-ray see caps
Director: Arthur Hiller
Sandpiper Pictures Blu-ray is likely the same as previous Twilight Time OOP Blu-ray
Director: Arthur Hiller
Sandpiper Pictures Blu-ray is likely the same as previous Twilight Time OOP Blu-ray
Director: Tom Holland
Eureka Blu-ray's stereo sounds better than the Sony 4K Blu-ray stereo
Twilight Time has an isolated score
Director: Tom Holland
Eureka Blu-ray's stereo sounds better than the Sony 4K Blu-ray stereo
Twilight Time has an isolated score
Director: Ivan Passer
Radiance 4K Blu-ray see caps
Radiance 4K Blu-ray has padded 16-bit. See audio comparison https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=23933756&postcount=57
Director: Ivan Passer
Radiance 4K Blu-ray see caps
Radiance 4K Blu-ray has padded 16-bit. See audio comparison https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=23933756&postcount=57
More Drama on Blu-ray
Director: Orson Welles
MoC 4K Blu-ray and Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray are similar
Director: Orson Welles
MoC 4K Blu-ray and Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray are similar
Director: Jean Renoir
The Criterion 4K Blu-ray has marginally better detail and grain structure than ESC 4K Blu-ray
The ESC France 4K Blu-ray is an SDR grade erroneously presented in HDR, but if your player can force the HDR into SDR it looks very good.
Director: Jean Renoir
The Criterion 4K Blu-ray has marginally better detail and grain structure than ESC 4K Blu-ray
The ESC France 4K Blu-ray is an SDR grade erroneously presented in HDR, but if your player can force the HDR into SDR it looks very good.
Director: Robert Wise
Disney 4K Blu-ray, see caps https://slow.pics/c/hE3HUCdj
Disney 4K Atmos is great, a reference quality track. It's a very slight remix (music seems to be from a better source), but it's completely seamless and faithful to the original, better fidelity than anything since the 1994 30th Anniversary Edition LaserDisc.
All DVDs (and 2010 Blu-ray) sound far worse than the 4K Blu-ray/LaserDisc and have various missing sound cues.
Director: Robert Wise
Disney 4K Blu-ray, see caps https://slow.pics/c/hE3HUCdj
Disney 4K Atmos is great, a reference quality track. It's a very slight remix (music seems to be from a better source), but it's completely seamless and faithful to the original, better fidelity than anything since the 1994 30th Anniversary Edition LaserDisc.
All DVDs (and 2010 Blu-ray) sound far worse than the 4K Blu-ray/LaserDisc and have various missing sound cues.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
BFI 4K Blu-ray has excellent master and grade, no DNR and tasteful HDR
Restored original mono mix: Toho Japan 4K Blu-ray
Unrestored original mono: 2014 BFI Blu-ray
BFI 4K Blu-ray has OG Perspecta (in 5.1 container) and a stereo downmix of it; no original mono.
The unrestored track on BFI's earlier release appears to be an almost entirely unmanipulated transfer of the original mix. It suffers from a distracting low-frequency hum. The 4K restoration comes with a restored track, which appears to be the same transfer, but which appears to be cleaned up with a moderate amount of noise reduction and some EQ, nicely opening up the high-end, and which is likely to be preferable to most listeners. All earlier releases sound poor.
Perspecta isn't a discrete surround format, instead only relying on manipulating volume and panning of the mono track across L/C/R channels, based on embedded control tones. As such, even the Perspecta track is technically just the mono mix, though the omission of the proper mono on BFI's 4K is still unfortunate.
Director: Akira Kurosawa
BFI 4K Blu-ray has excellent master and grade, no DNR and tasteful HDR
Restored original mono mix: Toho Japan 4K Blu-ray
Unrestored original mono: 2014 BFI Blu-ray
BFI 4K Blu-ray has OG Perspecta (in 5.1 container) and a stereo downmix of it; no original mono.
The unrestored track on BFI's earlier release appears to be an almost entirely unmanipulated transfer of the original mix. It suffers from a distracting low-frequency hum. The 4K restoration comes with a restored track, which appears to be the same transfer, but which appears to be cleaned up with a moderate amount of noise reduction and some EQ, nicely opening up the high-end, and which is likely to be preferable to most listeners. All earlier releases sound poor.
Perspecta isn't a discrete surround format, instead only relying on manipulating volume and panning of the mono track across L/C/R channels, based on embedded control tones. As such, even the Perspecta track is technically just the mono mix, though the omission of the proper mono on BFI's 4K is still unfortunate.
Director: Vincent Ward
Director: Vincent Ward
Director: Sidney Lumet
2026 Criterion 4K Blu-ray
2011 Criterion Blu-ray is the best. Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has heavily filtered audio
Director: Sidney Lumet
2026 Criterion 4K Blu-ray
2011 Criterion Blu-ray is the best. Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has heavily filtered audio
International Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray
International Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray > US Paramount 4K Blu-ray for the US Cut.
International Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray, is significantly better than the US Paramount 4K Blu-ray (even with FEL Baked in and Dolby Vision), with more grain retention and detail
SDR Comparisons: International Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray vs US Paramount 4K Blu-ray: https://slow.pics/c/TEPHtKjl
HDR Comparisons: International Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray vs US Paramount 4K Blu-ray: https://slow.pics/c/hIFe11Hx
Comparisons in SDR using L8 Trim from CM v4.0 (both UHDs can use CM v4.0): Remux vs USA UHD: https://slow.pics/c/mkrhVtpl
The International Cut, which contains alternate, more violent shots in the final act, hasn't been released on home video to date.
International Cut contains alternate, more violent shots in the final act.
International Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray
International Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray > US Paramount 4K Blu-ray for the US Cut.
International Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray, is significantly better than the US Paramount 4K Blu-ray (even with FEL Baked in and Dolby Vision), with more grain retention and detail
SDR Comparisons: International Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray vs US Paramount 4K Blu-ray: https://slow.pics/c/TEPHtKjl
HDR Comparisons: International Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray vs US Paramount 4K Blu-ray: https://slow.pics/c/hIFe11Hx
Comparisons in SDR using L8 Trim from CM v4.0 (both UHDs can use CM v4.0): Remux vs USA UHD: https://slow.pics/c/mkrhVtpl
The International Cut, which contains alternate, more violent shots in the final act, hasn't been released on home video to date.
International Cut contains alternate, more violent shots in the final act.
Director: John Ford
Director: John Ford
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Kino Lorber 4k resto
The audio on the Kino Lorber Blu-ray comes from a better source than the various DVDs and the previous HD version on streaming. This audio is relatively untampered with, and is likely the best available source as no laserdisc was ever issued.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Kino Lorber 4k resto
The audio on the Kino Lorber Blu-ray comes from a better source than the various DVDs and the previous HD version on streaming. This audio is relatively untampered with, and is likely the best available source as no laserdisc was ever issued.
Director: John Woo
International Cut: US Magnolia Pictures Blu-ray
Original Hong Kong Cut (2 parts): US Magnolia Pictures Blu-ray or Hong Kong Blu-rays?
International Cut: US Magnolia Pictures Blu-ray
Original Hong Kong Cut (2 parts): US Magnolia Pictures Blu-ray or Hong Kong Blu-rays?
Director: John Woo
International Cut: US Magnolia Pictures Blu-ray
Original Hong Kong Cut (2 parts): US Magnolia Pictures Blu-ray or Hong Kong Blu-rays?
International Cut: US Magnolia Pictures Blu-ray
Original Hong Kong Cut (2 parts): US Magnolia Pictures Blu-ray or Hong Kong Blu-rays?
Edit History
4/23/2026
Format
Added
1080p Blu-ray
Added
1080p Blu-ray
Blu-ray.com
Added
https://www.blu-ray.com/The-Keys-of-the-Kingdom/126789/#Releases
Added
https://www.blu-ray.com/The-Keys-of-the-Kingdom/126789/#Releases
caps-a-holic
Added
https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=10408&d2=10407&c=4167
Added
https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=10408&d2=10407&c=4167
DVDBeaver
Added
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews22/keys_of_the_kingdom_dvd_review.htm
Added
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film/DVDReviews22/keys_of_the_kingdom_dvd_review.htm
