Olympia: Part One – Festival of the Nations (1938)
Olympia - Fest der Völker
Documentary • 3h 21m
Director: Leni Riefenstahl
Cast: David Albritton, Arvo Askola, Jack Beresford, Erwin Blask, Sulo Bärlund, Ibolya Csák, Henri de Baillet-Latour, Philip Edwards, Donald Finlay, Tilly Fleischer, Wilhelm Frick, Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Göring, Ernest Harper, Karl Hein, Heinz Herman, Rudolf Hess, Adolf Hitler, Volmari Iso-Hollo, Cornelius Johnson, Matti Järvinen, Elfriede Kaun, King Umberto II, Kalevi Kotkas, Gustaf Alfons Koutonen, Luise Krüger, Maria Kwasniewska, Theodor Lewald, Luz Long, Spiridon Louis, John Lovelock, Gisela Mauermayer, Earle Meadows, Ralph Metcalfe, Paula Mollenhauer, Väinö Muinonen, Seung-yong Nam, Henri Nannen, Yrjö Nikkanen, Shûhei Nishida, Paavo Nurmi, Dorothy Odam, Martinus Osendarp, Jesse Owens, Leni Riefenstahl, Mack Robinson, Ilmari Salminen, Julius Schaub, Kee-chung Sohn, Julius Streicher, Gerhard Stöck, Naoto Tajima, Erkki Tamila, Kalervo Toivonen, Forrest Towns, Werner von Blomberg, August von Mackensen, Hans von Tschammer und Osten, Hans Woellke, Sueo Ôe
Best video release
Criterion 100 Years of Olympic Films boxset
About the film
Commissioned to make a propaganda film about the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany, director Leni Riefenstahl created a celebration of the human form. This first half of her two-part film opens with a renowned introduction that compares modern Olympians to classical Greek heroes, then goes on to provide thrilling in-the-moment coverage of some of the games' most celebrated moments, including African-American athlete Jesse Owens winning a then-unprecedented four gold medals.
- TSPDT
- 2026: #9882025: #9682024: #9552023: #9412022: #941
- Alternative Titles
- The Olympiad
Sources: DVDBeaver (opens in a new tab)
The Kino Lorber Blu-ray, while being a new 4K restoration from Bundesarchiv, has aggressive grain management and black crush see caps
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.
Director: Sidney Lumet
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab) · Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
1.85:1: Kino Lorber 4K / Capelight 4K
1.66:1: Criterion 4K but low pass filtered
Comparison between the 4Ks, Criterion on the AR choice
Other discs have unnecessary filtering and sound worse, the difference isn't substantial but audible
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Included in the Complete Kubrick box set with FiM encode of the same master from the Universal release without the filtering.
DTS:X mix on Universal 4K Blu-ray most closely approximates original surround mix
Criterion DVD and Universal 4K Blu-ray has additional features not found on the Criterion 4K Blu-ray
Director: Sam Peckinpah
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
Janus and thus Criterion likely to release 4K Blu-ray in 2027
Director: Hal Ashby
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
See caps https://slow.pics/c/lVdZaG0W
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab) · slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal's 4K release is similar in encode quality, but has significant glitches in multiple frames. See comparisons 9-16 here: https://slow.pics/c/YkSVb3Ey
The pitch of the StudioCanal 4K's English audio is too high
Criterion has more extras than StudioCanal.
Director: Jacques Tati
Sources: Criterion Forum (opens in a new tab)
StudioCanal 4K Blu-ray (part of Jacques Tati boxset releasing December 2026)
More Documentary on Blu-ray
Mono: 1999 WB DVD
5.1: Criterion 4K Blu-ray
Director: Werner Herzog
Director: Steve James
Sources: Blu-ray.com (opens in a new tab)
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has excellent master in SDR and a good encode. BD caps here.
Kino Lorber 4K Blu-ray has poor audio: The 2.0 is fine but unremarkable, the 5.1 is presumably an upmix with a botched, strongly raised LFE channel which makes the entire track unlistenable on well-tuned equipment. Audio graphs here.
Sources: slow.pics (opens in a new tab)
While it's included on both Criterion The Palm Beach Story extras and Arrow's Sullivan's Travels' extras, Criterion uses a different source and is vastly superior, see caps
Director: Ebrahim Golestan
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Maintained by the community
· last reviewed 1 year ago
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