criterionforum.org

With Region Free Bluray players out there now, what are some of the better titles that can take advantage of the fact?

I know Fox, Disney, Lionsgate, and a few others region-lock their titles, but are identical in content usually.

Help out with a list of Locked titles or ones that are not available in Region-A Land.

The BFI's rather nice Red Desert Blu-Ray is Region B I believe.

Any plans for this in Region A? If not, it's surely a must for all us region-free folk.

Sanjuro wrote:The BFI's rather nice Red Desert Blu-Ray is Region B I believe.

Any plans for this in Region A? If not, it's surely a must for all us region-free folk.

Criterion has said it is planning to release "Red Desert", but the timing is not determined. They did not say if this will have a Blu Ray version.

Region B BFI titles currently comprise:

Arabian Nights
The Bed-Sitting Room
The Canterbury Tales
The Decameron
The Innocents
The Leopard
The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner
Privilege
Red Desert
Salo - The 120 Days of Sodom
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

The Innocents, The Leopard and Privilege aren't released yet, but they'll definitely be region-locked - contractual requirements from Fox (first two) and Universal (Privilege), respectively. (This isn't speculation: I checked with people who've had sight of the contracts).

For my complete list of the region status of BFI Blu-rays, including fifteen region-free titles, go here.

http://bluray.liesinc.net/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I know that website has a list of locked / free titles on a list.

Also, I know Optimum region-codes their titles, but a lot of them have absolutely no extras on them, which is a shame, like "La Haine" and "Brick".
Some do have extras, like "Martyrs" and "Gomorrah".

Also, what are some titles, Region Free or not, that have PAL-ified extras?
Also, where is a list of ITV UK's titles?

manicsounds wrote:Also, what are some titles, Region Free or not, that have PAL-ified extras?

As far as I'm aware, all the BFI's Region B titles are 1080p throughout on the actual Blu-ray discs, though in some cases (i.e. Salò), there's a supplementary DVD which will of course be encoded for PAL. For economy-of-scale reasons, it'll be the same disc two that comes with the DVD edition - no point producing it in Blu-ray, since the material was SD quality to begin with.

This is a thread for "Essential Region B/C locked titles that aren't available in Region A", right?

Just checking in case it gradually turns into a list of every region-locked Blu-Ray in existence.

I guess Salo counts because of the extra scene on the BFI disc.

Sanjuro wrote:This is a thread for "Essential Region B/C locked titles that aren't available in Region A", right?

Just checking in case it gradually turns into a list of every region-locked Blu-Ray in existence.

As far as I'm aware, all the BFI's region-locked titles are currently unavailable elsewhere.

Sanjuro wrote:This is a thread for "Essential Region B/C locked titles that aren't available in Region A", right?

Just checking in case it gradually turns into a list of every region-locked Blu-Ray in existence.

I guess Salo counts because of the extra scene on the BFI disc.

Also, SALO wasn't released by Criterion on BluRay, only on DVD. (I happen to have the BFI DVD)
And "Essential" VS "Crap", depends on how you look at it, with this title.

I know that "Cliffhanger" is available in the UK on BD, but I think most of us here wouldn't really care about that. As the thread title is, "Essential", and to use common sense, I guess.

Ah, sorry. I thought Criterion Salo was Blu. My mistake.

The new Werner Herzog Blu-Ray box set is Region B according to Moviemail (or 'PAL' according to Amazon - what the hell does that mean...?)

Bumping this back up -- because surely there must be some new candidates for essentiality by now. ;~}

Well it'll just be a case of all the usual suspects in terms of labels in various countries. Medusa and RHV have done good Blu releases in Italy, Arthaus in Germany are very consistent, and then there is BFI, MoC and Metrodome in the UK. A lot of it depends on what languages you can speak too?

I've done a lot of research into German and Italian cinema on DVD and Blu and own about 200 films from those areas combined so I can make suggestions in those areas, but again it'll depend on whether you need disks to be English friendly or not.

Probably most of us here would find English-friendly suggestions the most useful. ;~}

I personally would love to know of (otherwise unavailable) French-subbed French releases -- a thing which rarely appeared in the DVD era.

http://www.dvdfr.com/dvd/f151886-silence-de-la-mer.html

Le silence de la mer is out on Blu with French subs.

Anvil: The Story Of Anvil (UK) seems to be the only BD release in the world, coded B
Belle De Jour (StudioCanal) is one of those "only B" titles in their collection,
so is The Go Between
Breaking And Entering (UK, Germany, Italy, etc), Minghella's last film is only in Region B land
Danny Boyle's Trainspotting and Shallow Grave got nice editions in the UK, region B
Suspiria (UK) is B-locked
Shane Meadows' This Is England, Somers Town, Dead Man's Shoes have nice Region B discs from the UK
Haneke's The White Ribbon and Cache are great Region B releases from Artificial Eye

The Korean Blu-Ray of Johnnie To's Exiled is another essential title which happens to be region-free and unlike its DVD counterpart, the extras all carry English subtitles.

manicsounds wrote:Haneke's The White Ribbon and Cache are great Region B releases from Artificial Eye

White Ribbon is available in the US from Sony, and the AE Cache disc is region-free.

And the bitrate is higher on the Sony release of The White Ribbon according to the Beaver.

Looking at the White Ribbon comparison screenshots at 100%, I'd say the U.S. bluray shows (marginally) more compression artifacts than the AE - but I'm willing to put this down to differences in screenshot methodology, since the bitrate is indeed higher...