Falling Down (1993)
Crime, Drama, Thriller • 1h 53m
Director: Joel Schumacher
Cast: Michael Douglas, Robert Duvall, Barbara Hershey, Rachel Ticotin, Tuesday Weld, Frederic Forrest, Lois Smith, Joey Singer, Ebbe Roe Smith, Michael Paul Chan, Raymond J. Barry, D.W. Moffett, Steve Park, Kimberly Scott, James Keane, Macon McCalman, Richard Montoya, Bruce Beatty, Matthew Saks, Agustin Rodriguez, Eddie Frias, Pat Romano, Julian Scott Urena, Karina Arroyave, Irene Olga López, Benjamin Mouton, Dean Hallo, James Morrison, John Fleck, Brent Hinkley, Dedee Pfeiffer, Carole Androsky, Margaret Medina, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Mark Frank, Peter Radon, Spencer Rochfort, Carole Ita White, Russell Curry, John Fink, Jack Kehoe, Valentino D. Harrison, Jack Betts, Al Mancini, John Diehl, Amy Morton, Abbey Barthel, Susie Singer Carter, Wayne Duvall, Valisha Jean Malin
Best English-friendly, video & audio release · updated 2 months ago
US/UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray has both the original Dolby Stereo 2.0 mix in its best quailty and the original Dolby Stereo 4-track discrete stems in 4.0.
UHD tiers
Top-notch restoration; Engine encoding. The original 4-track stems being included alongside the Dolby Stereo 2.0 are also very welcome.
Overview
An ordinary man frustrated with the various flaws he sees in society begins to psychotically and violently lash out against them.
Director: Stanley Kubrick
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: Stanley Kubrick
Criterion Box Set coming October 20th with FiM encode, new restoration of mono mix which should be better than what was on the WB 4K Blu-ray and 1999 DVD and revised colour timing to make the film look more like it did in 1971.
WB 4K 5.1: a remix but has higher fidelity
Mono: 4K Blu-ray/1999 DVD
Director: Terry Jones
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
The Criterion BD, which is sold separately, has a clunky encode unlike the Criterion UHD, even if it plays better in motion than the caps would suggest. Still, provided you're equipped to play 4K discs, UHD or bust for this one. https://slow.pics/c/hmDYlKgE
Director: Miloš Forman
Theatrical: WB 4K Blu-ray
Extended: Warner Bros Blu-ray
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Warner Bros 4K Blu-ray: Huge improvement in colors and detail. The restoration was done by the Academy instead of WB MPI which explains that there’s no grain management or issues with colors. They also accessed the original credit optical and scanned that one instead of recreating them digitally
Theatrical: WB 4K Blu-ray, according to Saentz, the 5.0 is a recreation of the original and subsequently 70mm mix from original elements.
Director: John Woo
> US Shout! Factory, better encoding by Engine House and redone opening credits, errors present in Shout! Factory fixed
Mono is from an alternate higher fidelity source than Shout! Factory.
Director: John Schlesinger
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Included Imprint Blu-Ray also has markedly better image compression than the Criterion Blu-Ray, though do note the Imprint has some adjusted color grading within roughly the first five minutes of the film
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=16775595&postcount=450
https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24237074&postcount=73
Director: Carol Reed
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray or Lionsgate Limited 4K Blu-ray
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
Director: Ridley Scott
Theatrical Cut: Fox 4K Blu-ray
2003 Directors Cut: Fox 4K Blu-ray
(additional scenes appear to be upscaled)
Original Theatrical 70mm 6-Track Stereo: Fox 4K Blu-ray (DTS-HD MA 4.1)
Original Theatrical 35mm Matrixed Dolby Stereo: 1999 DVD? (2.0 mix on the UHD is a downmix)
2003 Directors Cut: Fox 4K Blu-ray, Fox Blu-ray (DTS-HD MA 5.1)
Director: Dario Argento
4.0 track on the Synapse 4K Blu-ray
Director: Martin Scorsese
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · blah-ray.blogspot.com (opens in a new tab) · facebook.com (opens in a new tab)
Imprint Australia 4K Blu-ray has slightly better compression than Criterion 4K Blu-ray.
The master in DV looks all but identical to the Criterion’s HDR grade. Detail-wise, FiM’s encode looks like it uncovered a tiny bit of extra high-frequency information that got filtered on the Criterion. See nicolas review
1990 Criterion LaserDisc/1993 MGM LaserDisc/2002 R2 MGM DVD are the best. See blah-ray https://blah-ray.blogspot.com/2018/01/raging-bull-1980.html
Imprint Australia 4K Blu-ray has better audio than Criterion 4K Blu-ray, from nicolas:
I believe that what’s on Imprint’s 4K is one of the good mixes MGM and Criterion released during the LaserDisc days. Music is powerful and detailed, dialogues have excellent fidelity and ambient sounds have perceptible depth. I compared the "new" 2.0 with the anemic 5.1 as well as the Criterion 4K mix and could clearly hear the improvements.
Japan GAGA 4K Blu-ray is worse
Director: Joel Schumacher
Director: Joel Schumacher
Theatrical Dolby Digital 5.1: WB LaserDisc AC3, 1997 WB DVD 5.1
2005 5.1 retransfer: 2005 WB DVD Dolby, DTS. WB Blu-ray TrueHD
4K Blu-ray has Atmos remixes with new effects and changes. The original matrix surround track is somewhat different in its mix than the 5.1 discrete but relatively the same.
Director: Joel Schumacher
Dolby Stereo SR: WB LaserDisc (best audio mix of the film)
Dolby 5.1: WB LaserDisc AC3, WB DVD
2005 5.1 retransfer: WB DVD Dolby and DTS, WB Blu-ray TrueHD
4K Blu-ray has Atmos remixes with new effects and changes. The original matrix surround track is better mixed than the 5.1 discrete with more surround and low end engagement amazingly. It also hides the extensive ADR a bit due to the inherent quality dip comparing matrix to discrete formats.
Director: Joel Schumacher
2019 Shout! Factory Blu-ray
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
BD 1080p Comparison: https://slow.pics/c/6hg4Y5fB (USA-Shout! vs AUS-Imprint vs GER-NamelessMedia vs AUS-Shock)
Director: Joel Schumacher
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Sony 4K Blu-ray looks like a very nice upgrade and is maybe even more but people are debating the addition of a Kieślowski-like yellow color filter they put over a segment in the film at around 16 minutes, on the other hand, this cap of the Blu-ray looks terrible and clearly not right either, so leaning on Sony having reinstated the filter
Director: Lewis Teague
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray disappointing
R1 DVD
R1 DVD sounds best and has the original mono and a Dolby Stereo remix
Director: Ron Shelton
Australia Imprint 4K Blu-ray disappointing, nice new master, but poor encode, grain completely crippled in some scenes, artifacts abound, etc, makes Kino Lorber look like FiM.
Director: William Friedkin
Sources: caps-a-holic (opens in a new tab)
Plaion have also released a BD sourced from Arrow's recent 4K remaster, holds up strongly in comparison https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?d1=19341&d2=19005&c=5415
Director: John Carpenter
Sources: blog.sporv.com (opens in a new tab)
1997? Signature Collection LD
Good: 2017 Arrow and 2016 Shout! Factory Blu-ray have the original audio options.
the only track on Universal 4K, which is in DTS:X, has a mixing error of around 6dB too low on side channels, otherwise very similar to other 5.1 mixes.
Director: Rob Reiner
Arrow 4K Blu-ray releasing December 14 2026
Director: Brian De Palma
Arrow 4K Blu-ray has a better encode than the Kino Lorber and Capelight 4K Blu-rays. Capelight 4K Blu-ray looks low-passed in comparison to the Arrow but is slightly closer to the Arrow in PQ than the Kino Lorber.
Director: Bob Clark
Scream Factory 4K Blu-ray
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray in December
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