UHD Titles Worth/Not Worth Upgrading [Archive]

[Yakushima]

Sorry it took so long, but I finally pulled the contemporary UHDs list together.

If anyone has any additions or changes they want me to make, just let me know. And if I ever become inactive, someone can remake the post and continue from there.

Thank you for putting this together, Fus1on!

Just one comment, FWIW: I recently re-watched Interstellar UHD and found the encoding underwhelming, to the degree that I double-checked if I accidentally put a Blu-ray disc instead of UHD in my player. It pales especially in comparison to Oppenheimer and Dunkirk 4K discs. I would put it in the Solid section. Thanks again!

[Fus1on]

Sorry it took so long, but I finally pulled the contemporary UHDs list together.

If anyone has any additions or changes they want me to make, just let me know. And if I ever become inactive, someone can remake the post and continue from there.

Thank you for putting this together, Fus1on!

Just one comment, FWIW: I recently re-watched Interstellar UHD and found the encoding underwhelming, to the degree that I double-checked if I accidentally put a Blu-ray disc instead of UHD in my player. It pales especially in comparison to Oppenheimer and Dunkirk 4K discs. I would put it in the Solid section. Thanks again!

You're welcome!

I do remember watching it on a smaller LED screen a while ago and having similar thoughts on the encoding, but recently, I rewatched it on a much larger OLED and I thought it looked absolutely fantastic, which is why I placed it in the Reference tier. I might move it down to Solid just because I also did watch the Dunkirk and Tenet UHDs on that same LED screen and I didn't notice any of the issues I previously had with Interstellar.

I will at least say that all of the IMAX scenes in the Interstellar 4K look phenomenal.

[Fus1on]

Interstellar (Paramount)

(Moved from Reference to Solid)

[nicolas]

Sorry it took so long, but I finally pulled the contemporary UHDs list together.

If anyone has any additions or changes they want me to make, just let me know. And if I ever become inactive, someone can remake the post and continue from there.

Thank you for putting this together, Fus1on!

Just one comment, FWIW: I recently re-watched Interstellar UHD and found the encoding underwhelming, to the degree that I double-checked if I accidentally put a Blu-ray disc instead of UHD in my player. It pales especially in comparison to Oppenheimer and Dunkirk 4K discs. I would put it in the Solid section. Thanks again!

Thank you for your efforts, much appreciated! I will look through my collection and see if I find anything else to add to your list. To clarify once more: We’re using your post to declare the most demo-worthy UHDs of newer films, right? I interpret that we’re judging the rank according to a general assessment of the masters and encodes’ virtues and flaws and not whether the UHD is an upgrade to simultaneously or shortly earlier released BDs of the same master. Please correct me if I’m wrong but these are two distinctly different ways of categorizing.

I’ve asked as I did notice a few older films that aren’t too contemporary any more, such as Brokeback Mountain, Batman Begins with their original 2K DIs. Personally I think these are titles better suited for Finch’s master list, as are the older Sony Pictures Classics titles due to the respective UHDs mostly being from new restorations and upgrades of old formats. Still Alice and CMBYN are the exceptions as they were sourced from their original DIs and belong to your list.

[nicolas]

Interstellar (Paramount)

(Moved from Reference to Solid)

I’d also suggest to put the Raimi Spider-Man’s, Pirates of the Caribbean films and Rango to Finch’s list again due to their age and the UHDs being format upgrades. Nolan’s films up to Interstellar were all newly scanned in 4K from an IP at Nolan’s insistence, so these are technically new 4K masters compared to what was available at the time.

Perfect Days by Criteiron is not reference due to encoding issues (I’ve seen this confirmed via screenshots) and would downgrade it to disappointing. Yes, it’s that severe. I’ll be getting the MUBI of this and report once I have it.
I don’t think that Fabelmans is reference, only solid. The encode looks subtly low-pass filtered to me.
The Zone of Interest reference PQ/AQ but with caveat about burnt-in English subtitles which affects the display of the Spanish subs.

Whiplash, Us, The Boy and the Heron, Last Night in Soho and EEAAO are reference to me - but looking forward to hearing what you saw that made you add it to solid. I also believe that First Man is gorgeous throughout, it’s only that the 16mm scenes are jarring compared to the 15/65 IMAX footage.

[Fus1on]

Sorry it took so long, but I finally pulled the contemporary UHDs list together.

If anyone has any additions or changes they want me to make, just let me know. And if I ever become inactive, someone can remake the post and continue from there.

Thank you for putting this together, Fus1on!

Just one comment, FWIW: I recently re-watched Interstellar UHD and found the encoding underwhelming, to the degree that I double-checked if I accidentally put a Blu-ray disc instead of UHD in my player. It pales especially in comparison to Oppenheimer and Dunkirk 4K discs. I would put it in the Solid section. Thanks again!

Thank you for your efforts, much appreciated! I will look through my collection and see if I find anything else to add to your list. To clarify once more: We’re using your post to declare the most demo-worthy UHDs of newer films, right? I interpret that we’re judging the rank according to a general assessment of the masters and encodes’ virtues and flaws and not whether the UHD is an upgrade to simultaneously or shortly earlier released BDs of the same master. Please correct me if I’m wrong but these are two distinctly different ways of categorizing.

I’ve asked as I did notice a few older films that aren’t too contemporary any more, such as Brokeback Mountain, Batman Begins with their original 2K DIs. Personally I think these are titles better suited for Finch’s master list, as are the older Sony Pictures Classics titles due to the respective UHDs mostly being from new restorations and upgrades of old formats. Still Alice and CMBYN are the exceptions as they were sourced from their original DIs and belong to your list.

No problem.

To tell you the truth, my original intention was to make a list of worthwhile discs without taking the BD into account, however some of them did end up being ranked based on their comparison to the BD (i.e. The Boy and the Heron, Rango, etc.). I can absolutely reorganize the list to be more consistent with my original intention. I'll change it depending on what y'all think works best for this thread.

I am perfectly fine with moving several of the titles on my list to the master list. I did purposefully put several UHDs on my list with the intention of being moved to the master list later. I will also say that Finch suggested that I limit my list only to titles that were released no earlier than 2000, so that's why films like Brokeback Mountain and Batman Begins ended up on the list. I obviously broke this rule with some of the Sony Pictures Classics and Paramount Scares inclusions (as well as SW Ep 1), but I think some of the more recent films within those sets are worth mentioning.

Side Note: I'm pretty sure Still Alice UHD was actually a new restoration. It was an upscale of the original 2K DI, just like Synecdoche.

[Fus1on]

Interstellar (Paramount)

(Moved from Reference to Solid)

I’d also suggest to put the Raimi Spider-Man’s, Pirates of the Caribbean films and Rango to Finch’s list again due to their age and the UHDs being format upgrades. Nolan’s films up to Interstellar were all newly scanned in 4K from an IP at Nolan’s insistence, so these are technically new 4K masters compared to what was available at the time.

Perfect Days by Criteiron is not reference due to encoding issues (I’ve seen this confirmed via screenshots) and would downgrade it to disappointing. Yes, it’s that severe. I’ll be getting the MUBI of this and report once I have it.
I don’t think that Fabelmans is reference, only solid. The encode looks subtly low-pass filtered to me.
The Zone of Interest reference PQ/AQ but with caveat about burnt-in English subtitles which affects the display of the Spanish subs.

Whiplash, Us, The Boy and the Heron, Last Night in Soho and EEAAO are reference to me - but looking forward to hearing what you saw that made you add it to solid. I also believe that First Man is gorgeous throughout, it’s only that the 16mm scenes are jarring compared to the 15/65 IMAX footage.

Perfectly fine with the top titles moving to the master list.

Really surprised to hear that about Perfect Days honestly. I watched it a few weeks ago and thought it looked great. I even decided to check the Blu-ray.com forum to confirm that I wasn't missing anything egregious with it and they seemed to vastly prefer the Criterion version over the Italian release. I definitely want to either look at some screencaps for this one, or check out my disc again just to make sure. I'm not super attached to the disc, so I'll drop it into Solid for now, and check back later.

The Fabelmans is one I watched once a while ago and thought looked great, but I'm again not super latched onto it, so I'll drop it to Solid.

I'll make sure to add that caveat to The Zone of Interest.

With that last paragraph, I see that you finally understand the confusion I have every time I go to the master list and see that Jaws and Lawrence of Arabia are somehow in Blue tier.

Whiplash I personally think is really good (in particular, the Atmos is incredible), but I never found it to be that strong of an upgrade compared to the BD, plus I thought it looked particularly soft. I haven't seen it since I got my OLED, so I'll definitely check it out there.

Us is one that I definitely need to check out again. I remember watching it for the first time in 4K immediately after watching the Get Out UHD, which I thought was fantastic, and I was underwhelmed by the way Us looked as a result. Not a very fair assessment in retrospect.

The Boy and the Heron looks and sounds fantastic, but I didn't think it was significant enough of an upgrade from the BD to warrant putting it in Reference tier. If we decide that the contemporary list should be ranked purely without using BD comparisons, The Boy and the Heron will unquestionably be in Reference tier.

Last Night in Soho I thought had fantastic DV and Atmos, but I didn't really find it to be super detailed, and also thought some textures were a little soft, especially in comparison to the BD. I'll check this one out again.

EEAAO was a bit more of a mixed bag to me depending on the camera/aspect ratio choices used. For all of the full frame 16:9 shots, I thought it was a little too noisy, meanwhile all of the widescreen shots looked great. Compression, in general, was kind of iffy to me on this one. Atmos was incredible though. Definitely need to check it out again on my OLED.

First Man I kind of explained in the parenthesis, but the non-IMAX scenes look good, not great. I thought they looked generally a little too soft for my liking. Meanwhile, the IMAX scenes looked sharper than a razor. I'm also a little disappointed that the First Man UHD was derived from a 2K upscale rather than a native 4K transfer, although that was probably the best they could do given that it was finished in 2K.

Again, I'll check back with all of the ones that I've mentioned from above, but those are my incredibly basic and vapid reasons for why they aren't in Reference tier. Thanks for questioning my judgement, by the way, it's greatly appreciated.

[Fus1on]

Furiosa (WB)

(Added to Reference)

[nicolas]

Furiosa (WB)

(Added to Reference)

Thank you for your lengthy responses. I have another idea to make this a bit easier re. judgment about which titles to put on your list. Finch’s post is all about UHD upgrades from older formats. Your post could include all the contemporary films where the UHD already was the “first” and best format and so technically doesn’t represent an upgrade to something that came before, such as with Furiosa. That way, we’re having two firmly separated lists: All sorts of upgrades collected in one and the ranking of new UHDs based on their strengths and issues without taking in the BD as much. (Another aspect in favor of this would be that some modern titles, again like Furiosa, don’t have the BD included any more in the 4K set, which makes your comparative approach slightly harder to achieve because there’s no real reference material and people generally don’t do caps for contemporary UHDs, let alone comparisons. Caps-a-Holic also only rarely.

Again, your call and looking forward to hearing other voices as well.

Perfect Days caps: https://slow.pics/c/LyLsge39 (the Italian is even inferior due to chroma noise)

Whiplash was only shot in 1080p HD and processed in a 2K DI. I was convinced the film had a 4K DI so yes, that makes it a solid upgrade and maybe another title for Finch depending on how we’re going forward.

[nicolas]

For Finch: The UK Icon import of Point Break has the same transfer as the US, both are very well encoded as confirmed on the other forum. Nothing on the UK’s audio yet but it’s likely the same as Shout’s.

Icon’s Malcolm X on the other hand is better encoded than the Criterion. Grain resolves finer and is more detailed throughout. The Criterion came out during a time when they were still low-pass filtering the entire films in order to ease their encodes.

Constantin Film Germany’s The Name of the Rose is a poor release with vastly inferior encoding to the French disc, no lossless audio (only DTS-HD HR) and only SDR BT.2020 compared to DV on the French. The release is English friendly with subtitles for the Latin passages. This may serve as an indication for how Downfall likely turns out next month.

[Finch]

Added the Malcolm X Icon to the red and as a superior import though I did mention that the Criterion is worth owning for the extras. If Icon's Point Break has better audio (perhaps even the OG track), I'll add it to the red tier.

Added the Raimi Spidermans, Rango and all Pirates except the first one to blue.

Criterion's Perfect Days 4K is in the Disappointing tier.

Remind me, please, where the Sony Pictures Classics titles go? Are they all red or blue or a mix? EDIT: I already have Children of the Lost City and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon in red for their boxset versions, Run Lola Run in blue.

[M-A]

Run Lola Run is currently in disappointing, which I always thought was a bit harsh. I think blue is more accurate (especially when considering how bad the old blu-ray is)

[nicolas]

Added the Malcolm X Icon to the red and as a superior import though I did mention that the Criterion is worth owning for the extras. If Icon's Point Break has better audio (perhaps even the OG track), I'll add it to the red tier.

Added the Raimi Spidermans, Rango and all Pirates except the first one to blue.

Criterion's Perfect Days 4K is in the Disappointing tier.

Remind me, please, where the Sony Pictures Classics titles go? Are they all red or blue or a mix? EDIT: I already have Children of the Lost City and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon in red for their boxset versions, Run Lola Run in blue.

I’d take Run Lola Run, CMBYN, Still Alice, Synecdoche, Orlando, SLC Punk, Celluloid Closet and The Devil’s Backbone and Children of the Lost City to blue. The latter because of slightly imperfect highlights that look better on the SC BD: https://caps-a-holic.com/c.php?a=1&x=50 ... 0&i=4&go=1
SC released this film on UHD too but there are no caps & credible feedback I can find. Crouching Tiger in DV on its own is red but compared to the 2017 UHD blue as the visual differences are largely dependent on the DV layer. Personally I think Volver is the set’s highlight and the one title I’d put into red.

[bfaison]

Perfect Days by Criteiron is not reference due to encoding issues (I’ve seen this confirmed via screenshots) and would downgrade it to disappointing. Yes, it’s that severe. I’ll be getting the MUBI of this and report once I have it.

At times the UHD doesn't look too far off from the stream in my opinion, take a look at any scene where there are power lines in the sky and there's just artifacts all around them. I wasn't a fan of the look of the film at all here, even the HDR is underwhelming and there are moments where it just looks so digital and flat.

Contemporary UHD Releases

Where are you pulling this list from? Or am I missing something and you review them elsewhere?

[cdnchris]

Perfect Days is disappointing and I almost had to wonder if it's related to the master they were provided because it's so "off" from some of their recent 4Ks. But if there's better then maybe that's not the case. I don't think it's terrible, and it's fine, but "underwhelming" would be correct. Especially since...

Mother, to my astonishment, looks pretty great. It's bizarre the film is receiving a 4K, and looks just like every other comedy from the 90's (Brooks even talks a little about the visual limitations in the film in the interview), but it's quite good. Highlights look good as well, which helps with all of the sheer curtains that appear.

[yoloswegmaster]

I've noticed artifacts and banding issues appearing in films shot digitally whenever I catch them in theaters, so I wonder if that is the case here. Does the BD that's included have similar issues to what is present on the UHD?

[nicolas]

Perfect Days is disappointing and I almost had to wonder if it's related to the master they were provided because it's so "off" from some of their recent 4Ks. But if there's better then maybe that's not the case. I don't think it's terrible, and it's fine, but "underwhelming" would be correct. Especially since...

Mother, to my astonishment, looks pretty great. It's bizarre the film is receiving a 4K, and looks just like every other comedy from the 90's (Brooks even talks a little about the visual limitations in the film in the interview), but it's quite good. Highlights look good as well, which helps with all of the sheer curtains that appear.

I’ve ordered the MUBI UHD of Perfect Days after hearing the terrible feedback. I’ve watched the film digitally on Apple TV and it looked good to me, so it’s likely all encoding-related on both available UHDs.

[jegharfangetmigenmyg]

What's up with all the Melville UHD titles? With Bob le Flambeur and Le doulos, what are we at now? 8, 9 titles? Is there a fan at KL, or? I mean, he's a good director and all, and I shouldn't complain, but I could mention a dozen other French (or other legacy directors) that I would rather see UHD upgrades from. I reckon it must be because he's selling well? But more than Godard, Truffaut, etc.?

[nicolas]

What's up with all the Melville UHD titles? With Bob le Flambeur and Le doulos, what are we at now? 8, 9 titles? Is there a fan at KL, or? I mean, he's a good director and all, and I shouldn't complain, but I could mention a dozen other French (or other legacy directors) that I would rather see UHD upgrades from. I reckon it must be because he's selling well? But more than Godard, Truffaut, etc.?

This is due to KL's current release practices. They've recognised that UHDs sell well, even of films that don't necessarily come to mind when thinking about imminent format upgrades. Had they licensed the bigger French New Wave films, they would've been 4K by now, for sure. An "advantage" is that KL doesn't care if a master is SDR only.

[rrenault]

I assumed StudioCanal never licensed out UHD rights to North American boutiques before doing a release themselves for the European market, so I’m wondering how these KL releases of the four French films were able to go ahead, unless there was some loophole KL used.

Perhaps it’s a Disney scenario where they’ll license things out very sparingly. I can’t imagine Canal ever had any intention of putting Melville’s black and white films on UHD.

Kino does appear to have the streaming rights to these films, as well, whereas Criterion doesn’t have streaming rights to any of their in-print SC titles, so Kino must have struck a different sort of deal.

[Finch]

Desperado (Arrow) + The Last Emperor (Criterion) (tie with Arrow)

[swo17]

The Last Emperor (Criterion) (tie with Arrow)

But isn't the Arrow preferable for having all cuts in OAR?

[Finch]

Oh! That's a good catch. I'd overlooked that.

[dwk]

If the limited edition has sold out, then no the Arrow doesn't have both cuts. (also being the television cut, shouldn't it actually be 4X3?)

[yoloswegmaster]

The LE did sell out and there is no television cut included with the standard edition (which is kinda lame). The funny thing is that they don't even have the 4K standard edition listed on their own website.