Top Hat (1935)
Music, Comedy, Romance • 1h 39m
Director: Mark Sandrich
Cast: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Edward Everett Horton, Erik Rhodes, Eric Blore, Helen Broderick, Lucille Ball, Gino Corrado, Leonard Mudie, Dennis O'Keefe, Nick Thompson, Tom Ricketts, Robert Adair, William A. Boardway, Tex Brodus, Phyllis Coghlan, Lorinne Crawford, Oliver Cross, Jay Eaton, Jack Ellison, George Ford, Jack Geiger, Charlie Hall, Peter Hobbes, Frank Mills, George Nardelli, Edgar Norton, Paul Power, Rita Rozelle, Scott Seaton, Genaro Spagnoli, Mary Stewart, Anya Taranda
Best English-friendly & video release · updated 1 month ago
IVC Japan Blu-ray is clearly from a higher generation film element and looks terrible. Comparisons: https://slow.pics/c/XUTwiv7B
Overview
Showman Jerry Travers is working for producer Horace Hardwick in London. Jerry demonstrates his new dance steps late one night in Horace's hotel room, much to the annoyance of sleeping Dale Tremont below. She goes upstairs to complain and the two are immediately attracted to each other. Complications arise when Dale mistakes Jerry for Horace.
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.
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.
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: Mark Sandrich
4K restoration from Original Camera Negative
Director: Jean Rouch
Video format: HD Streaming
Sources: amazon.com (opens in a new tab)
Director: Robert Flaherty
Video format: HD Streaming
Sources: amazon.com (opens in a new tab)
Director: Shinji Aoyama
Video format: HD Streaming
Video format: HD Streaming
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
Amazon US HD Streaming is from the 2018 UCLA restoration. Olive Films Blu-ray is from an older scan and quite rough. caps
Olive Films Blu-ray is again rough, with distortion, crackle and other issues, but sounds much more natural. With some EQ the restored track can be significantly improved
Director: David Butler
Video format: Only Unofficial Sources
Sources: archive.org (opens in a new tab)
The DVD isn't an official one, and according to a user review on Amazon:
This DVD comes from Archive.org, where the movie can be viewed for free. The original source, comes from the Fox Movie Channel
Director: Mariano Llinás
Video format: HD Streaming
Director: Kiyotaka Oshiyama
Video format: 1080p Blu-ray
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
The 4K Blu-ray is an upscale with strong sharpening. Caps
2026 Japan Avex 4K Blu-ray
Includes original 5.1 and an Atmos remix. The HD disc only includes 5.1.
Director: Rich Lee
Video format: 4K Streaming
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