Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, based in Culver City, handles disc releases for Columbia, TriStar, Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics. Its asset management team, long led by Grover Crisp, restores the Columbia library in-house from 4K and 8K negative scans, and the Columbia Classics 4K Ultra HD box sets collect many of those restorations. Since 2024 it also manufactures and distributes Disney's discs in North America.
Sony
Best 4K release by tier:
- Excellent66
- Solid51
- Disappointing3
- Worse Than BD3
How we pick the best Sony releases
178 in 4K
Best video release on UHD Blu-ray or 4K streaming
Best Video & English-Friendly:
Sony 4K Blu-ray
Best English-Friendly:
2022 Sony 4K Blu-ray
Best Video:
2022 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook
Video Notes:
/ (2019? Sony 4K Blu-ray with the mono)
Best Audio:
1985 RCA/Columbia Hi-Fi VHS
Director: Otto Preminger
Best English-Friendly:
Sony 4K Blu-ray
Best Video:
Sony 4K Blu-ray Columbia Classics Vol 2
Best Audio:
1986 RCA/Columbia LaserDisc
Best Video & English-Friendly:
Theatrical Cut: 2022 Sony 4K Blu-ray
Director's Cut: 2023 Criterion 4K Blu-ray
Video Notes:
Better compression than Sony
Best Audio:
Criterion/Sony 4K Blu-ray
Best Video & English-Friendly:
Sony 4K Blu-ray
Best Audio:
1995 Columbia LaserDisc
Director: Martin Scorsese
Best Video & English-Friendly:
2024 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook
Video Notes:
2024 Sony 4K Blu-ray Steelbook fixes duplicate shot seen on the previous Columbia Classics release and has better encoding
Best Audio:
Original mono mix: 1990 Criterion LaserDisc/1991 Columbia LaserDisc
The 4K Blu-ray mono is only minimally worse (see blah-ray).
5.1 remix: Sony 4K Blu-ray
64 in HD
Best video release on Blu-ray or HD streaming · by Letterboxd rating
Director: Michael Haneke
Best English-Friendly:
Sony Blu-ray
Best Video:
Sony
Video Notes:
Sony > Artificial Eye
Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Best Video & English-Friendly:
All BDs are similar. Sony Blu-ray probably best encoding but cuts off last few seconds of music
Director: Michael Arias
Best Video & English-Friendly:
Sony Blu-ray
Video Notes:
GKIDS 4K Blu-ray is a sharpened upscale. Caps
Best Audio:
Audio Notes:
GKIDS 4K Blu-ray has a true lossless English dub and correct volume levels for the Japanese audio
Director: Richard Linklater
Best Video & English-Friendly:
Sony Blu-ray
Video Notes:
Criterion Blu-ray uses the same transfer as Sony but the encoding is slightly worse than Sony and barely noticeable see caps
Germany StudioCanal Blu-ray in viewing looks very similar to both the Criterion and Sony caps, but no side by side comparison available
Additional Info:
Germany StudioCanal Blu-ray is part of a 3-film box set like the Criterion
19 in SD
Best video release on DVD, SD streaming, LaserDisc or VHS · by Letterboxd rating
Best Video:
R1 Sony DVD (Icons of Screwball Comedy Vol 2)
Best Video & English-Friendly:
R1 Sony DVD
Video Notes:
(Icons of Screwball Comedy Vol 2)
Director: Edward Buzzell
Director: William Beaudine
6 with a weaker 4K
Best 4K release rated Disappointing or Worse Than BD · by Letterboxd rating
Best Video & English-Friendly:
Sony Music 4K Blu-ray
Video Notes:
AI upscale but color and HDR grading is improved as it's way more subdued see caps
Director: Michael Arias
Best Video & English-Friendly:
Sony Blu-ray
Video Notes:
GKIDS 4K Blu-ray is a sharpened upscale. Caps
Best Audio:
Audio Notes:
GKIDS 4K Blu-ray has a true lossless English dub and correct volume levels for the Japanese audio
Director: Satoshi Kon
Best Video & English-Friendly:
Sony 4K Blu-ray
Video Notes:
Sony 4K Blu-ray is very smeary with the upscaling but has correct aspect ratio and very good HDR grade.
UK Blu-ray has wrong colors, and Sony 2007 Blu-ray is the worst (encoding and AR)
See professorwho's review
Director: Frank Coraci
Best Video & English-Friendly:
Sony MOD 4K Blu-ray
Video Notes:
Sony MOD 4K Blu-ray has terrible compression
5 for audio only
The best audio is Sony's; the video and English-friendly picks are other releases · by Letterboxd rating
Director: Howard Hawks
Best Audio:
Closest to original: 1995 Columbia LaserDisc
But Sony 4K Blu-ray is the best available one.
Audio Notes:
From cbc:
I much prefer the 4K Blu-ray track. LaserDisc has several nasty constant hums, and even after you remove that, the detail level is on-par with the 4K Blu-ray and has a lot of crackling. The 4K Blu-ray has some variable noise reduction, but it's done well and non-intrusive IMO, I watched it with that track and was happy.
Best Video & English-Friendly:
Video Notes:
Criterion 4K Blu-ray (not by much, caps)
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Best Audio:
Atmos on the Sony 4K Blu-ray maybe better?
Regarding the "original theatrical audio" 5.1 mixes:
The Sony UHD and the BD DTS-HD 5.1 mixes are the same but the UHD has been pushed slightly harder and has a lot of clipping. The UHD is 16 bit vs the BD's 24 bits.
The Second Sight UHD DTS-HD 5.1 is a downmix of its respective Atmos track. Definitely different from the Sony UHD/BD mix plus a little less dynamic. Whether or not that's representative of the theatrical Dolby Digital mix is anyone's guess.
So, if you want the best version of the original 5.1, the 2012 BD is the winner.
Best Video & English-Friendly:
Director: Sally Potter
Best Audio:
2010 Sony Blu-ray for the original Dolby Stereo
Best Video & English-Friendly:
Video Notes:
Curzon 4K Blu-ray > Sony 4K Blu-ray https://forum.blu-ray.com/showpost.php?p=23258660&postcount=6
Director: Jim Henson
Best Audio:
Embassy Home Entertainment JPN LaserDisc or 1999 Sony US DVD 2.0
Best Video & English-Friendly:
Shout! Factory replacement 4K Blu-ray
Video Notes:
Shout! Factory doesn't have the low-pass filter that's on the Sony US 4K Blu-ray from 2021 with Dolby Vision (or the worse HDR10 only release from 2016). Shout! Factory retains more high-frequency grain and detail.
1 announced
Sony's release is announced; until it is out, the picks are other releases · by Letterboxd rating
Know a film where the Sony release is the one to buy? Suggest it