A true cinematic masterpiece and an unfortunate hagiography debut on 4K disc

I've seen Ben-Hur probably a hundred times or more in various theatrical and home video releases, so I know the movie well. Heck, I've owned it on every consumer video format except (surprisingly) laserdisc.

My favourite version was the boxed Blu-ray set from a decade or so ago, but even it didn't look as good as I'd hoped it would. Oh, it was good, but it never popped off the screen like some titles do – and if there's one film that deserves to be the greatest home theatre video experience, it's Ben-Hur.

Fortunately, Warners' new 4K restoration is a revelation and it belongs in the library of every film fan who takes him/her/itself seriously. It's that good.

Warners, and Paramount, has earned a proper place in my heart for their work on restoring such old films, moving the home video presentation from "looking great but still video" to "looking like film". It's quite the thing.

For example, other titles that have received such fantastic restorations include 2001: a space odyssey, The Ten Commandments, Blazing Saddles, North by Northwest, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Dragonslayer, the Searchers and the like. Watching these 4k restorations is nearly like seeing the films for the first time! I kid you not.

Ben-Hur belongs in this club. William Wyler's Tale of the Christ is old Hollywood at its greatest, a grand tale with a cast of thousands and (via the chariot race) one of the greatest action scenes ever shot. The film won 11 Oscars, a record that stood until James Cameron's Titanic bullied other and arguably better films (Contact?) from public consciousness the way the first Star Wars movie took over theatregoers' eyes in 1977.

I think Titanic is great, but not 11 Oscars great. That honour, to me, should have waited until the third and last (so far) 11 Oscar winner: The Return of the King, which deserved all its accolades (and also looks terrific in 4K).

But I digress.

I'm not going to focus on the story, which is so well known by now I needn't bother. So, I'll focus on this exquisite new release instead.

The film is broken up into two parts, each on its own 4K disc. The break, as it should (and did on the previous Blu-ray), comes at Intermission. You also get a third disc, a Blu-ray, which contains most of the supplements.

Ben-Hur was shot on 65 mm film and displayed at an ultra-wide 2.76:1 aspect ratio. This means you're going to have BIG black bars above and below the spectacular picture, but I wouldn't have it any other way – especially for the chariot race. I saw that race in "Pan&Scan" on VHS and the race was pretty well wasted: you couldn't see anything because most of the action was cut off the sides. But in its original aspect ratio you can see all the teams, all the action, the strategy, the whole shebang. It's fantastic!

Not that the rest of the scenes are chopped liver by any means! Warners' new version of the film was apparently remastered at 8K right from the original negatives, including the HDR and Dolby Vision treatment. I noticed the upgrade right from the opening overture, the title card of which is sharper and cleaner than ever before.

Overall, colours and detail are fantastic! Whether you're looking at the sets, the costumes, the actors' faces, the chariots – you name it! – this is truly the definitive Ben-Hur (at least until 8k becomes popular, if it ever does). This really pays off in the many darker scenes, which now reveal detail I'd never noticed in the seven thousand other times I watched the film.

You'll have to pry this 4K version from my cold, dead Oppo disc player…

The sound is great, too. You get a new Dolby Atmos track as well as the original six track mix presented here as DTS-HD Master Audio 5.0. Dialogue comes through clearly – even the Sheik's shouts during the aural cacophony of the big race come through better than I've noticed before. The use of surround is subtle but effective, the dynamics are better than one might expect from a 1959-vintage soundtrack, and you really do feel a part of the action.

Then there's Miklos Rozsa's fantastic score. This was the first musical score I ever noticed specifically in a movie and it offers the type of sweeping symphonic sound George Lucas would exploit later (thanks to the great John Williams) in his Star Wars movies. I love this score, and have owned it for decades.

I'm apparently not alone. One of the extras is an isolated music score and I was thrilled to see it included. Alas, it's exactly that: the isolated score and nothing else. So, you have wonderful moments of gorgeous music followed by blank areas where dialogue (and the entire chariot race) is not heard. And I didn't think the sound quality of the isolated score was up to the quality of the non-isolated version.

I guess I won't be throwing away my CD.

The other extra you get on the main two discs is a commentary by film historian T. Gene Hatcher and Charlton Heston, recorded separately. I listened to part of it – the chariot race – and it was interesting enough that I'm going to watch the whole movie again with this track on.

The third, Blu-ray, disc contains two short new featurettes that are pretty much a waste of time, but there's a good selection of "legacy" (read "old" as from earlier video versions) stuff. My favourite is about and hour and a half worth of Charlton Heston & Ben-Hur: a Personal Journey, which was a fascinating look at the actor and his experiences.

There's also a "making of" featurette that's pretty good, some stills, and some screen tests – including a couple with Leslie Nielsen playing Messala. I was disappointed to find there was no clip of him telling Judah to stop calling him Shirley.

Other than that, this is really a must own!

Then there's All the President's Men

Then there's All the President's Men, which outlines how Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein brought down a duly-elected (supposedly) president and created a media atmosphere that has brought a once-respected profession to a place where instead of being a voice for truth, it has become an outlet for partisan propaganda.

Fortunately, as the so-called "legacy media" becomes more irrelevant, newer smaller and less dishonest voices replace them. And that's one reason CNN has apparently lost something like two thirds of its viewers over recent years. Who wants to be inundated by partisan hacks masquerading as truth tellers?

Speaking of CNN. I was particularly interested by the two "new" supplements on this otherwise respectable 4K presentation: there were CNN's Dana Bash and Jake Tapper, who spent the past several years lying to the people about Joe Biden, Donald Trump and many other things (COVID comes to mind, too), telling us about how great journalists are.

I nearly wet myself.

Anyway, the movie itself is decent. William Goldman wrote the script and I have a lot of time for his work on such screenplays as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Great Waldo Pepper, The Princess Bride (from his own novel), Memoirs of an Invisible Man, Marathon Man, Papillon, a Bridge Too Far…

It's a pretty straightforward tale of two up and coming journalists who happen across the story that will eventually make them folk heroes to generations of ink-stained wretches who helped piss away the legacy of journalism in order to pursue partisan politics.

Think I'm blowing smoke? Then answer me why the once-great Washington Post – the setting for this story – is laying off huge numbers of its staff as its slogan of "democracy dies in darkness" becomes more ridiculous every day.

Robert Redford stars and produces this movie (with Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein) about a bungled break-in at the Democratic party headquarters in the Watergate hotel. They doggedly pursue the story, peeling away layers of intrigue and corruption and helping lead to convictions of some Nixon loyalists and the eventual resignation of President Richard Nixon himself – probably the first media-related coup in U.S. history.

Goldman's script shows us the hard and often thankless (or worse) work the two reporters had to do to ferret out the truth that led to their eventual deification in the annals of Mainstream Media.

This worship of news media mavens makes me wonder if someone's ever going to do a film about the TV news folk who faked vehicle crash tests or who happily broadcast the Toyota "unintended acceleration" show trial that damaged the reputation of a car maker later found innocent…

Then there's Covid…

Fortunately, this movie is more of a political thriller than a simple service at the altar of Big News.

Despite a dearth of action, director Alan J. Pakula created an intelligent paranoid thriller that draws you in as the story unfolds. He also hired an excellent supporting cast, including Jason Robards (who won an Oscar for his portrayal of Post editor Ben Bradlee), Hal Holbrook, Jack Warden, Martin Balsam, Jane Alexander, Ned Beatty, Robert Walden, Stephen Collins and Lindsay Crouse.

The movie also captures the era beautifully – heck, Hoffman smokes cigarettes all through the movie!

The new 4K disc isn't by any means the video revelation that Ben-Hur is, but it's not bad. There's plenty of grain but it doesn't look artificial – though it does work against the darker scenes such as in the parking garage where Saint Bob meets Deep Throat. Colours are nice, though and detail is very good.

Audio, dts-HD Master Audio, is pretty good considering its age and comparative simplicity. Dialogue is always clear and the filmmakers have done a pretty good job of making us feel a part of the story.

Besides the laughable CNN extras, there's a "making of" consisting of mostly self-congratulatory media navel gazing from the likes of Walter Cronkite and Linda Ellerbe, with famed "journalist" filmmaker Oliver Stone and even some guy from Newsweek – the once supposedly great magazine that sold for a dollar several years ago – along as well. They harrumph about how great they and their ilk are and how "Woodstein" have been such an inspiration to all right-thinking folk.

There's also "Out of the Shadows: the Man Who Was Deep Throat", and a Jason Robards promotional appearance on Dinah Shore's old TV talk show.

All the President's Men is an interesting time capsule, a film about a profession that, thanks to partisanship and hubris, has not only ill-served the public it's supposed to be helping, but has basically destroyed itself in the process.

But it's still a decent film, thanks to a good screenplay, fine direction, and excellent performances.

Copyright 2026 Jim Bray
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