Last Embrace (1979)
Thriller, Mystery • 1h 42m
Director: Jonathan Demme
Cast: Roy Scheider, Janet Margolin, John Glover, Sam Levene, Charles Napier, Christopher Walken, Jacqueline Brookes, David Margulies, Andrew Duncan, Marcia Rodd, Gary Goetzman, Lou Gilbert, Mandy Patinkin, Max Wright, Sandy McLeod, Joe Spinell, Bert Santos, Jim McBride, Cynthia Scheider, Sasha von Scherler, George Hillman, Gary Gunter, Jonathan Demme
Best English-friendly & video release
FiM are mistakenly credited, one of the four known instances of this for a Cinématographe title (the other three being Thieves Like Us, Who Killed Teddy Bear?, and The Gambler). 4K encode was done by Vital Passenger. https://vitalpassenger.com/our-work
Updated today
Compare the discs
About the film
Secret agent Harry Hannan suffers a mental breakdown when a botched mission in Mexico results in the death of his wife. He is sent to a mental asylum, after which he eventually returns to work. But, once again, he begins to doubt his sanity when he receives a bizarre death threat written in Hebrew. Not knowing which of his colleagues wants to kill him, Hannan teams up with pretty young college student Ellie Fabian to attempt to unravel the mystery.
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
Director: Robert Altman
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Cinematrographe's HDR grading is overcooked, which is a known VinSyn tendency. Additionally, their booklet mis-credits the encode to FiM.
Director: Jerry Schatzberg
Director: Lam Nai-choi
88 Films UK or Vinegar Syndrome US Blu-ray (preference)
Different color gradings, 88 Films disc is encoded by FiM but Vinegar Syndrome encode (by Marcus Johnson) is more than robust
Vinegar Syndrome potentially has better audio than 88 Films, due to VinSyn possibly having EQ'd the audio mix after Fortune Star scanned the track in a way that makes it sound too hot, whereas 88 left it alone without addressing that issue. However, no direct comparisons exist
Director: Hal Needham
2026 Vinegar Syndrome 4K Blu-ray, 2025 Umbrella 4K Blu-ray
Director: Trey Parker
UK Refuse Films or US Vinegar Syndrome Blu-ray
Both releases have two presentations: sourced from the original Betacam master tapes, and another that uses a filmout of the tapes.
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Vinegar Syndrome 4K Blu-ray see caps
For Blu-ray, UK Second Sight is better than Kino Lorber Blu-ray
Director: Joe Dante
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · YouTube (opens in a new tab)
Director: Abel Ferrara
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Vinegar Syndrome 4K Blu-ray in July
More Thriller on Blu-ray
4K restoration of the original 3D left eye and right eye camera negatives
Director: John Woo
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Arrow has a different grade and a better encode than the Shout! Factory, though the difference in either is not major. Imprint release, which leaves Shout! Factory's master and subtitles as is, is encoded by FiM. https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=24473097&postcount=56
Original mix: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray
Alternate mix: Scanbox Nordic PAL DVD
Surround remix: HK Video France 4K Blu-ray (5.0)
Original mix: Shout! Factory 4K Blu-ray (similar to Criterion LaserDisc, but less distorted)
Alternate mix: Scanbox Nordic PAL DVD
Surround remix: HK Video France 4K Blu-ray (5.0)
Arrow used the alternate mix, but with extra filtering and lowered dynamic range. The alternate mix has much better fidelity.
Imprint presumably used the Shout! Factory original mix and left it as is, though no official confirmation.
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
The 4K discs in both Criterion and Imprint sets are FiM encodes, but low-passed, Imprint minimally less so. Unfortunately, unlike with The Killing, Kino does not hold up at all, the grain is much rougher and the compression visibly struggles making for a much less pleasant watch, even if select stills look better.
All discs use the same source transfer. Criterion cleaned up some hums and hiss, but lost a little bit of high-end detail. Unlike The Killing, the difference's relatively mino.
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.
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: Bernard Rose
Scream Factory/Arrow 4K Blu-ray or Turbine 4K Blu-Ray
SF and Turbine also have the 2004 Audio Commentary with Bernard Rose, Clive Barker, Alan Poul and actors Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd and Kasi Lemmons
Director: Rob Reiner
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab) · instagram.com (opens in a new tab)
UK Arrow 4K Blu-ray > US Kino Lorber/Germany Capelight - caps and audio comparison on this page. Discussion is still ongoing about the 2.0 but as none of the three 4Ks seem to have the true original mix, I think it's fair to leave them all in the blue tier for now and only note that Kino Lorber has the worst PQ.
The initial release of the Capelight 4K mediabook had some playback issues with Dolby Vision on Panasonic devices due to an encoding error, the HDR10 apparently works fine, see Capelight’s official response here.
The 4K master has a shot at the very end of the movie (on James Caan's face) that looks incredibly soft and not good at all. This was visible on the DCP as well so it might just be a source issue rather than being the fault of Kino, Capelight or Arrow.
Director: Steven Spielberg
Video format: UHD Blu-ray
Universal 4K
Dolby Vision grading looks identical to a cinema DCP, which is the highest compliment that could be given. Encode is perfectly solid in motion.
Director: Satoshi Kon
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Director: Ben Stiller
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
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