Seeing that The Trial is getting a Studio Canal release and with the good news that's been trickling in lately, can we update the list posted years ago? I don't see an "Orson Welles on DVD" thread...


Citizen Kane (1941) - Warner Blu Ray

The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) - The R1 DVD release by Warners seems to be best

It's All True (1943) - Paramount release from 2004 seems to be the only choice

The Stranger (1946) - The blu-ray is apparently DNRed to death, so MGM's R1 (from noir box) would probably be the best bet

The Lady from Shanghai (1947) - Columbia Classics edition

Macbeth (1948) - go for the french Wild Side 3xDVD (is this the same transfer as the UK single-disc?)

Othello (1952) - go for the UK R2

Mr. Arkadin (1955) - Criterion's Complete 3-Disc Set is the one to get

Touch of Evil (1958) - MoC's 2-Disc Blu-Ray only could be the best release of any Welles film!

The Trial (1962) - go for the the french Studio Canal edition--a Blu Ray is announced for Sept 3, 2012

Chimes at Midnight (1965) -The French Studio Canal edition is OOP and was quickly pulled, leaving the recently-released Mr. Bongo the one to beat pending some reviews in all likelihood (though it's in the wrong AR)

The Immortal Story (1968) - go for the italian edition, but Criterion has is streaming on Hulu Plus

F for Fake (1974) - Criterion and MoC both have excellent editions

Don Quijote de Orson Welles (1992) - wait, just grab yourselves a seat and wait

King Lear - is anything available but the E1 edition?

I'm happy to update this with links later on/some point this week

Olive Films recently acquired Macbeth. I wouldn't be surprised if a Blu-ray gets announced sometime this year.

No, those are different transfers (hugely different!). The UK Second Sight dvd has lots of scratches and dirt, and apparently no post-filtering. The French is heavily filtered, no scratches. Here is a comparison (beware that these images are not exact representaions of what the transfers look like. For instance, some cropping and resizing has been done. These grabs were made for another purpose several years ago, but they've been captured under similar circumstances and should be comparable). Top: French. Bottom: UK.

Jeez the French looks significantly better, can't believe I just bought Sight and Sound cus I saw it in Kim's!

How's the audio on the French? the UK is certainly scratchy and you can hear the vinyl/tape/audio source

They've done a lot of audio restoration too on the French disc. It's quite good (actually even better than the video restoration, which is perhaps overdone just a little bit IMO). The French release has forced French subs though.

Not forced on my Oppo. And they weren't forced on my last player (Region Free Momitsu clone.) In any case you can rip them out with shrink or decrypter if they bother you.

My Macbeth edition is the original 2005 release with the 80-page book. There's no doubt that it has forced subs; I've tested it on Oppo (region-hacked BD player), Panasonic, Yamaha, and Philips. I've not managed to remove the subs on any of these players. If your edition is the rerelease, then it seems likely that the forced subs are gone on that particular release.

Sure, the forced subs doesn't have to be a big problem. There are a lot of workarounds. It plays from PC without subs. But my preferred option, as you suggest, is to rip it to a hard drive and play it via NAS.

Yes, I have the original Wild Side boxset also. I bought it new in Fnac Bastille in October 2007 (the day after Goldman Sachs crashed and the AUD turned into 45 Euro cents. I will try it all again (havent since i bought the Oppo 93) but I am certain I was playing it through various MOmitsu clones, the last being an Aldi home brand.