North by Northwest 4K Ultra HD Review

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 “film to end all films” North by Northwest, is a spy thriller starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. Grant plays New York City advertising executive Roger Thornhill who is mistaken for a government agent by a group of spies led by a man named Phillip Vandamm (James Mason). With his life in danger and after being framed for murder, Thornhill goes on the lam and becomes entangled with a beautiful woman, Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who helps him escape capture by the police on a train, but he soon begins to question her motives as well. North by Northwest is one of Hitchcock’s most tangled – in the best way – thrillers. It utilizes every technique he was honing up to that point, from precision and groundbreaking visual techniques and unusual angles brought to life by frequent collaborator cinematographer Robert Burks, as seen in the famous crop duster scene, to the multilayered cat and mouse plot and the plot twist at the end. Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint have sizzling chemistry on screen together as well, in that 1950s sort of way. See the cleverly written banter between the two on the dining car on the train for an example. They don’t make them like this anymore.

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The Video

North by Northwest was shot in VistaVision, an eight-perf, horizontal 35mm negative format. This new 4K release from Warner Bros. was likely taken from the recent restoration done by Warner Bros. and Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation for screening in 70mm, where Warner Bros. scanned the negative at 13K, with each half of the VistaVision frame scanned at 6.5K and stitched together digitally. I did not have a chance to see the 70mm screening when it swung by at the Tribeca Film Festival earlier in 2024, but this 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray release in its 1.85:1 HEVC 2160p (4K UHD) HDR10 encodement looks miraculous. There is a fine, dense, crispy layer of grain that remains consistent throughout. I did not see any issues with DNR even as the image looked exceptionally clean and free from scratches, dirt, and sparkle. The HDR10 grading grants the image a lot of vibrancy in the color palette. Look at the famous crop duster scene, which ironically is one of the reference sequences. The dusty, almost desert-like background with the dark cyan/teal car that drives up, the sun shining off the paint, the flames when the plane crashes. Add in the amazing amount of detail one can see in this scene, from the individual blades of wheat to the textures on the clothing.

The Audio

This release of North by Northwest comes with a new lossless Dolby Atmos mix as well as the original theatrical mono mix in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. The Atmos is shockingly good for a film from 1959. It starts off with the orchestral score from Bernard Herrmann spread across the soundfield and given lots of height in the overhead channels as well. The mix for the score roughly follows the layout of a standard classical orchestra, as you can hear the violins coming mostly from the left and brass seem to come from center and at one point there is a “hit” on the brass that comes from slightly overhead center. The crop duster scene is the one with the most mixing of sound effects overhead as the plane flies over and off to the sides, but there is a lot of wide panning of sounds throughout to follow action and dialogue and always with superb clarity and dynamics.

The Supplements

We get some classic archival bonus features here, including Destination Hitchcock and North by Northwest: Cinematography, Score, and the Art of the Edit.

Bonus Features:

• Movies Anywhere Digital Copy
• Audio Commentary by Ernest Lehman
• North by Northwest: Cinematography, Score, and the Art of the Edit (1080p; 00:23:06)
• Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest (1080p; 00:39:26)
• The Master’s Touch: Hitchcock’s Signature Style (1080p; 00:57:31)
• North by Northwest: One for the Ages (1080p; 00:25:30)
• A Guided Tour with Alfred Hitchcock (1080p; 00:03:16)

The Final Assessment

North by Northwest is a masterpiece and it has been given an appropriately reference restoration here by Warner Bros. Highly recommended.

North by Northwest is out on 4K Ultra HD + Digital November 19, 2024 from Warner Bros. Home Entertainment

Purchase North by Northwest 4K Ultra HD + Digital on Amazon.com

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• Rating Certificate: Approved
• Studios & Distributors: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) | Warner Bros. Home Entertainment
• Director: Alfred Hitchcock
• Written By: Ernest Lehman | Gerald Devriès
• Run Time: 136 Mins.
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Video Format: HEVC 2160p (4K UHD)
• HDR Format: HDR10
• HDR10 Metadata:
  • MaxLL: 1788 nits
  • MaxFALL: 120 nits
  • Max. Luminance: 4000 nits
  • Min. Luminance: 0.0050 nits
• Primary Audio: English Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Compatible)
• Secondary Audio: Original Theatrical English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono | French DD 1.0 | German DD 1.0 | Italian DD 1.0 | Spanish (Castilian) DD 1.0 | Spanish (Latino) DD 1.0
• Subtitles: English SDH | French | German SDH | Italian SDH | Spanish (Castilian) | Spanish (Latino) | Dutch | Chinese (Traditional) | Chinese (Simplified) | Korean
• Street Date: 19 November 2024