Luc Besson movies available on 4K Blu-ray, ranked by transfer quality.
dir. Luc Besson
The 4K existed before this, buried inside the Luc Besson 9-film box set from Sony last November. Both the 148-minute US cut and the 158-minute international version, Dolby Vision, Atmos. Now Gaumont is giving it a proper standalone release in June with a steelbook illustrated by Flore Maquin and a wild Fnac-exclusive 6-disc edition that includes a vinyl soundtrack and a 232-page making-of book. The big question for importers is subtitles. The film was shot in English, but French releases have a history of forced French subs or swapped opening sequences. English subs are listed on the French Amazon page, which is encouraging. Sony holds the US rights and StudioCanal has the UK, so a Region A standalone may or may not follow. Collectors who grabbed the Besson box already have the disc, but anyone waiting for a single release finally has a date.
Sony Pictures · 4K Ultra HD
Beneath Anna Poliatova's striking beauty lies a secret that will unleash her indelible strength and skill to become one of the world's most feared government assassins.
A-Tier Sony 4K. Luc Besson's hitman film with Jean Reno and a young Natalie Portman. Sony's steelbook artwork got some criticism. The disc scores well at 4.5 overall. Not a lot of dedicated collector energy around this specific release.
Sony Pictures · 4K + Blu-ray
A-Tier Sony 4K. Luc Besson's assassin film with Anne Parillaud. Sony and StudioCanal both have steelbook versions, and the consensus is that StudioCanal's is the better package if you're region-free. The Sony version dropped the Spanish subtitles and audio track that StudioCanal kept.
Fred, a raffish safe blower, takes refuge in the Paris Metro after being chased by the henchmen of a shady businessman from whom he has just stolen some documents. While hiding out in the back rooms and conduits of the Metro, Fred encounters a subterranean society of eccentric characters and petty criminals.
Childhood friends Jacques and Enzo share a passion for the danger of free diving. Professional diver Jacques opted to follow in the footsteps of his father, who died at sea when Jacques was a boy; to the bewilderment of scientists, Jacques harbors a remarkable ability to adjust his heart rate and breathing pattern in the water, so that his vital signs more closely resemble that of dolphins than men. As Enzo persuades a reluctant Jacques to compete against him in a free diving contest -- determining who can dive deeper and longer without scuba gear -- Jacques meets Johana, a beautiful American insurance investigator, and finds that he must choose between his love for her and his love of the sea.
StudioCanal
A-Tier but there are two different versions floating around and people mix them up constantly. The Sony US release and the StudioCanal UK release are different masters, and the StudioCanal disc looks better. Both the standard and steelbook StudioCanal editions use the same disc, so the packaging doesn't matter for picture quality. If you're buying this, get the UK StudioCanal version.
StudioCanal · 4K + Blu-ray
Universal 4K from 2015. Scarlett Johansson sci-fi that collectors pick up cheap and then argue about whether it deserves a spot in the collection. The HDR does real work on the Paris chase sequence and the VFX-heavy finale.
