History movies available on 4K Blu-ray, ranked by transfer quality.
dir. Sam Mendes
S-Tier Universal 4K with a perfect 5.0 specs score. Roger Deakins' cinematography in HDR is the reason to own this, and the one-take illusion works even better at home where you can study the transitions.
Universal Pictures · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Richard Attenborough
S-Tier from the Australian Imprint label, with a Kino Lorber US release also available. Richard Attenborough's massive WWII epic with an all-star cast, shot on location in the Netherlands.
Australia Imprint · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Miloš Forman
S-Tier Warner Bros. 4K with a perfect 5.0 specs score. The 4K restoration played theatrically before the disc release. Both the theatrical and director's cut are included. The production design finally gets the resolution it needed.
Warner Bros. · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. William Wyler
Transfer praise is strong. People are watching it for the first time at age 50 and ordering Lawrence of Arabia the next day. The 4K remaster is pulling a new generation into the epic format films.
Warner Bros. · 4K Ultra HD
dir. Ridley Scott
S-Tier Sony 4K. Ridley Scott's war film. Someone bought it and the case was empty, which is a recurring Amazon complaint across many titles.
Sony Pictures · Steelbook
dir. Michael Curtiz
S-Tier Criterion 4K. Errol Flynn swashbuckling in HDR.
Criterion Collection · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Ron Howard
S-Tier Universal 4K. Russell Crowe boxing in HDR. Coming to 4K in September.
dir. Sam Peckinpah
S-Tier ViaVision 4K. Sam Peckinpah's WWII film. ViaVision's Imprint label from Australia has been picking up interesting catalog titles.
ViaVision
dir. Thomas Clay
S-Tier Pull Back Camera 4K. A period revenge drama from a small label.
Pull Back Camera · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Al Reinert
S-Tier Criterion 4K. Al Reinert's Apollo documentary. NASA footage in 4K.
S-Tier Sony 4K. Attenborough's epic biopic. The scale of the production benefits from 4K.
dir. Mel Gibson
S-Tier Lionsgate 4K. Mel Gibson's WWII film about the medic who refused to carry a gun. The battle sequences are intense in HDR.
Lionsgate · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Shaka King
S-Tier Warner Bros. 4K. Shaka King's film about Fred Hampton with Daniel Kaluuya's Oscar-winning performance. The opening uses footage from Agnes Varda's Black Panther documentary, which Criterion fans appreciated. Not a lot of 4K-specific collector activity around this one yet.
dir. Kathryn Bigelow
S-Tier Shout Factory 4K. Kathryn Bigelow's submarine thriller with Harrison Ford. Shout picked it up for 4K. Not much collector excitement, with one person calling it a sleep aid.
Shout! Factory
dir. David Lean
The post calling this disc a personal benchmark for the format stayed one of the week's biggest threads. The replies are a collective argument for 70mm on 4K, with Suspiria, Vertigo, Ben-Hur, Blade Runner, and The Sound of Music all named. Shot on film, all of them, with restorations that match the source. If you don't own this one yet, the community is running out of patience.
Sony Pictures · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Greta Gerwig
S-Tier Sony 4K. Gerwig's Little Women, and it's only available inside the Columbia Classics Vol. 5 box set. People spent years asking for this on 4K and then got frustrated when Sony buried it in a collection instead of giving it a standalone release. Sellers have been splitting the set and selling individual discs, which tells you how much demand there is for this as a standalone.
dir. Spike Lee
S-Tier Imprint 4K. Spike Lee's Malcolm X, and the 4K has one of the largest file sizes for any movie on disc. Three different 4K releases exist from Criterion, Icon, and Imprint, with Imprint having the best A/V quality overall including the original stereo mix. Criterion has better extras and shelf presence. Angela Bassett weeping over Denzel at the end still destroys people.
Imprint · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Christopher Nolan
S-Tier Universal 4K with a perfect 5.0 score. Oppenheimer sold out in one week, which prompted a Variety article about why retailers were pulling physical media while discs were selling like this. The IMAX scenes that fill the full screen are the reason to own the disc over digital, since the streaming version crops them. Nolan films consistently drive 4K sales more than anything else.
dir. Satyajit Ray
S-Tier Criterion 4K. Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy opener, and the 4K set is considered gorgeous given how damaged the original negatives were. The films are regularly called some of the greatest ever made. The feminist reading keeps surprising first-time viewers who expect a straightforward coming-of-age story.
dir. Steven Spielberg
The black and white photography in 4K is consistently cited as reference quality for the format. The 30th Anniversary steelbook is the current edition most people are buying. Paramount's 4K handling of their prestige catalog has been strong, and this is one of the best examples. Not a film anyone watches casually, but the one everyone owns.
dir. Stanley Kubrick
Universal S-Tier 4K with a perfect 5.0 score. Kubrick's sword-and-sandal epic gets cited as a reference disc in every catalog discussion. The 70mm photography has more detail than a modern display can fully resolve, and HDR finally gives the gladiator pit scenes the contrast they need. Available for under $13 USD on Amazon as a standalone, same disc as the one in the Kubrick 4K box set.
The classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson, the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.
dir. Peter Greenaway
R. Neville, a brash young draftsman, is hired to make a dozen landscape illustrations at the estate of Mr Herbert and his wife Virginia. Aside from monetary compensation, the arrangement includes a sexual liaison offered to Neville by Virginia while her estranged husband is away. But when the murdered body of Mr Herbert is discovered at the estate, mysterious clues found in Neville's drawings point to the identity of the killer.
Le Chat Qui Fume · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. David Lynch
StudioCanal S-Tier 4K. The Lynch/Hopkins black-and-white body horror character study got the StudioCanal restoration treatment, and it's one of the few Lynch films not on Criterion in 4K. Black-and-white grain structure is the main draw.
StudioCanal · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Bernardo Bertolucci
A dramatic history of Pu Yi, the last of the Emperors of China, from his lofty birth and brief reign in the Forbidden City, the object of worship by half a billion people; through his abdication, his decline and dissolute lifestyle; his exploitation by the invading Japanese, and finally to his obscure existence as just another peasant worker in the People's Republic.
Arrow Video · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Anthony Harvey
StudioCanal S-Tier 4K. O'Toole and Hepburn chewing scenery in medieval England. The announcement caught people off guard because nobody expected this one to get the 4K treatment, and the transfer delivered.
dir. Brian De Palma
Paramount's 2022 4K scored 4.5 on blu-ray.com with natural grain and a punchier audio mix than the old Blu-ray. Avoid the $11 USD Paramount 4K Preorders line on Amazon, which ships in DVD-sized cases with no special features and is cheaply produced on purpose. The Best Buy steelbook has better artwork if you want the premium version.
Paramount Pictures · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Jonathan Glazer
The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife Hedwig, strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden next to the camp.
Elevation · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Michael Reeves
England, 1645. The cruel civil war between Royalists and Parliamentarians that is ravaging the country causes an era of chaos and legal arbitrariness that allows unscrupulous men to profit by exploiting the absurd superstitions of the peasants; like Matthew Hopkins, a monster disguised as a man who wanders from town to town offering his services as a witch hunter.
88 Films · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Michael Bay
A-Tier Paramount 4K from 2019, upscaled from a 2K digital intermediate so the resolution bump is modest. The Dolby Vision HDR is good, especially during the compound attack at night where the gunfire and explosions have actual detail instead of blown-out white. Shot on a mix of film and digital. The Best Buy steelbook has been hard to find and goes in and out of stock. Don't expect extras, it's literally just a digital copy.
Paramount Pictures · 4K Ultra HD
dir. Fred Zinnemann
A-Tier Sony 4K. Part of the Columbia Classics Collection Volume 5, which frustrated collectors who wanted a standalone release. Buried alongside On the Waterfront, Tootsie, The Age of Innocence, and Little Women. The box set bundling means paying for films you might already own to get the ones you don't.
dir. Werner Herzog
A-Tier Shout Factory 4K. Werner Herzog dragging a cast through the Amazon jungle, now in HDR. The behind-the-scenes stories are almost as famous as the film itself.
Shout! Factory · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Julian Schnabel
A-Tier Criterion 4K. The color version had some issues that people noticed. Criterion's black-and-white films tend to fare better than their color transfers.
dir. Paul Verhoeven
A-Tier Capelight Pictures 4K. Verhoeven's nun film. Capelight has the German 4K release, and Zavvi stocked it for Canadian buyers.
Capelight Pictures
dir. Bryan Singer
Singer Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor and bass guitarist John Deacon take the music world by storm when they form the rock 'n' roll band Queen in 1970. Hit songs become instant classics. When Mercury's increasingly wild lifestyle starts to spiral out of control, Queen soon faces its greatest challenge yet – finding a way to keep the band together amid the success and excess.
Enraged at the slaughter of Murron, his new bride and childhood love, Scottish warrior William Wallace slays a platoon of the local English lord's soldiers. This leads the village to revolt and, eventually, the entire country to rise up against English rule.
dir. Danila Kozlovsky
A-Tier Warner Bros. 4K. Russian disaster film about the Chernobyl divers.
dir. Damien Chazelle
A-Tier Universal 4K. Damien Chazelle's Neil Armstrong film. The IMAX moon landing sequence is a highlight.
dir. James Mangold
A-Tier Disney 4K. Matt Damon and Christian Bale racing at Le Mans. The race photography works well in HDR.
Walt Disney Studios · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Roland Emmerich
The story of the Battle of Midway, and the leaders and soldiers who used their instincts, fortitude and bravery to overcome massive odds.
dir. Chen Kaige, Wen Muye
Anthology of short films directed by several different directors.
dir. Sydney Pollack
A-Tier Universal 4K. Sydney Pollack's Oscar winner with Streep and Redford. The African landscape photography is the main draw, and the John Barry score is preserved in lossless.
Pat Garrett is hired as a lawman on behalf of a group of wealthy New Mexico cattle barons to bring down his old friend Billy the Kid.
dir. Akira Kurosawa
StudioCanal's A-Tier 4K has people asking when Criterion or someone else will do the definitive release. The 35mm theatrical screenings keep fueling demand for Kurosawa in the best possible presentation.
dir. Dexter Fletcher
The story of Elton John's life, from his years as a prodigy at the Royal Academy of Music through his influential and enduring musical partnership with Bernie Taupin.
dir. Oliver Stone
Shout Factory A-Tier 4K. Oliver Stone's Snowden film with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Shout Factory has been quietly building a run of Stone titles in 4K.
dir. Tom McCarthy
Shout Factory A-Tier 4K. The Boston Globe journalism film that won Best Picture. Shout Factory picked this up and the signal is thin, which tracks for a drama that's more about the writing than the visuals. If you care about the film it's worth owning, but it's not a transfer that's going to sell anyone on the format.
dir. Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman
Exuberant, eye-opening movie that serves up a dazzling hundred-year history of the role of gay men and lesbians have had on the silver screen. Film contains fabulous footage from 120 films showing the changing face of cinema sexuality, from cruel stereotypes to covert love to the activist triumphs of the 1990s.
An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie's abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing 'Mister' Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.
King Charles VI declares that Knight Jean de Carrouges settle his dispute with his squire, Jacques Le Gris, by challenging him to a duel.
Pre-order on Please Rewind. One comment noted it'll likely hit Target's B2G1 deal starting this week, which would put it around $26.66 USD if timed right.
20th Century A-Tier 4K. Spielberg's newsroom drama. Decent transfer but not a disc that demands 4K. More of a Hanks/Streep collection purchase than a demo pick.
20th Century Studios · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Philip Kaufman
At the dawn of the Space Race, seven test pilots set out to become the first American astronauts to enter space. However, the road to making history brings momentous challenges.
dir. Cecil B. DeMille
Still coming up in Easter and Passover context. Someone rewatched it ahead of their Ben-Hur collector's edition arriving and the comments went to Spartacus comparisons. The 4K is A-Tier.
dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood
The story of the Agojie, the all-female unit of warriors who protected the African Kingdom of Dahomey in the 1800s with skills and a fierceness unlike anything the world has ever seen, and General Nanisca as she trains the next generation of recruits and readies them for battle against an enemy determined to destroy their way of life.
Returning to their lord's castle, samurai warriors Washizu and Miki are waylaid by a spirit who predicts their futures. When the first part of the spirit's prophecy comes true, Washizu's scheming wife, Asaji, presses him to speed up the rest of the spirit's prophecy by murdering his lord and usurping his place. Director Akira Kurosawa's resetting of William Shakespeare's "Macbeth" in feudal Japan is one of his most acclaimed films.
BFI
dir. Todd Douglas Miller
A look at the Apollo 11 mission to land on the moon led by commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin.
dir. Baz Luhrmann
B-Tier 4K. Luhrmann turned the color saturation up to eleven and the 4K disc doesn't pull any punches on that front. Walmart had an exclusive steelbook that sold through quickly.
dir. Martin Scorsese
First physical release after nearly three years of waiting. Criterion disc. Early rewatchers are calling it one of the best films of the decade, and the consensus is that it rewards a second and third viewing far more than the theatrical experience.
B-Tier from Paramount on a film that deserves better. The steelbook has been commanding high resale prices, with some listings hitting $200 USD. Sony taking over Disney's disc production created temporary OOP situations across Paramount's catalog too, and Saving Private Ryan availability fluctuated. The Omaha Beach sequence is the obvious demo material, but the B-Tier transfer means it's not showing what a proper 4K restoration could.
StudioCanal B-Tier 4K via Lionsgate Limited. Oliver Stone's Jim Morrison film has its fans and the soundtrack in lossless is worth the upgrade on its own.
dir. Sean Durkin
The true story of the inseparable Von Erich brothers, who made history in the intensely competitive world of professional wrestling in the early 1980s. Through tragedy and triumph, under the shadow of their domineering father and coach, the brothers seek larger-than-life immortality on the biggest stage in sports.
Leonine · 4K + Blu-ray
dir. Randall Wallace
The story of the first major battle of the American phase of the Vietnam War and the soldiers on both sides that fought it.
Paramount Pictures
dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel
D-Tier 4K. Bruno Ganz as Hitler. The D-Tier suggests a middling transfer.
4K + Blu-ray
dir. Brandon Slagle
On July 7, 1944, a U.S. Army hospital on the remote island of Saipan is overrun by Japanese forces during a relentless attack. Outgunned and surrounded by the enemy, a lone medic puts it all on the line to lead a band of wounded soldiers to safety.
Vertigo Releasing · 4K Ultra HD
dir. Chloé Zhao
The powerful story of love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare's timeless masterpiece, Hamlet.
Universal Pictures · 4K Ultra HD
dir. Brian G. Hutton
A biplane pilot is saddled with a spoiled industrialist's daughter on a search for her missing father through Asia that eventually involves them in a struggle against a Chinese warlord.
dir. Bruce Beresford
This is a movie about the life of Israel's king David.
An epic that details the checkered rise and fall of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and his relentless journey to power through the prism of his addictive, volatile relationship with his wife, Josephine.
Sony Pictures · 4K Ultra HD
dir. Richard Linklater
After writing for Cahiers du cinéma, a young Jean-Luc Godard decides making films is the best film criticism. He convinces producer Georges de Beauregard to fund a low-budget feature, and creates a treatment with fellow New Wave filmmaker François Truffaut about a gangster couple. The result? Breathless, one of the first features of the Nouvelle Vague era of French cinema.
dir. Mika Ninagawa
Anna Tsuchiya blasts back in time playing an oiran, a top-notched geisha of the Edo period’s Yoshiwara District, navigating brothel politics while trying to cling to the man she loves.
88 Films · Limited Edition
dir. F. Gary Gray
In 1987, five young men, using brutally honest rhymes and hardcore beats, put their frustration and anger about life in the most dangerous place in America into the most powerful weapon they had: their music. Taking us back to where it all began, Straight Outta Compton tells the true story of how these cultural rebels—armed only with their lyrics, swagger, bravado and raw talent—stood up to the authorities that meant to keep them down and formed the world’s most dangerous group, N.W.A. And as they spoke the truth that no one had before and exposed life in the hood, their voice ignited a social revolution that is still reverberating today.
dir. Sergei Parajanov
The life of the revered 18th-century Armenian poet and musician Sayat-Nova. Portraying events in the life of the artist from childhood up to his death, the movie addresses in particular his relationships with women, including his muse. The production tells Sayat-Nova's dramatic story by using both his poems and largely still camerawork, creating a work hailed as revolutionary by Mikhail Vartanov.
dir. Peter Medak
Twins Ronnie and Reggie Kray are raised in east London, under the influence of their hateful but doting mother Violet. As they grow up, Ronnie's violent nature takes over, and Reggie follows his brother's lead. The two become notorious crime lords who rule over the East End club scene. But at the height of their power, the brothers veer into different lives, giving the older crime bosses a chance to reclaim what the Krays took from them.
dir. Daniel Vigne
Village of Artigat, southern France, summer 1542, during the reign of Francis I. Martin Guerre and Bertrande de Rols marry. A few years later, accused of having committed a robbery, Martin suddenly disappears. When, almost a decade later, a man arrives in Artigat claiming to be Martin, the Guerre family recognizes him as such; but doubts soon arise about his true identity.
Second Sight Films · Limited Edition
dir. Robert Zemeckis
The story of French high-wire artist Philippe Petit's attempt to cross the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in 1974.
Sony Pictures · 4K Ultra HD + Digital
dir. Douglas Hickox
Severin Films announced a Collector's Edition 4K with three SKUs, including a deluxe limited edition and a UHD + 2xBD combi pack. The blu-ray.com thread was enthusiastic across the board, with multiple people calling it a must-buy and comparing it favourably to the original Zulu.
Severin Films · 4K Ultra HD
