ADDITION: Criterion - Region 'A' Blu-ray - March 18': The Criterion is advertised as a "New 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by director Jim Jarmusch". The monochromatic appearance looks magnificent. It bests the 1.78:1 BAC in every visuals area - it has more information in the frame - notably on the left edge with a sliver less on the right edge - it has beautifully layer contrast, the image is tight and the grains is fine and consistent. The matched screen captures support the vast improvement of the 4K restoration. It is in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio.

Audio comes in a 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack (24-bit) and the effects (train, gunshots, horses etc.) sound clean and rich - but mostly the lossless transfer benefits the sublime, improvised, score by the iconic Neil Young (with his music in countless films from Paul Schrader's Hardcore to Sam Mendes' American Beauty). It is beautifully supportive of the film's tone - and Criterion add optional English (SDH) subtitles on their Region 'A'-locked Blu-ray disc.

Criterion include an excellent, new, selected-scene audio commentary by production designer Bob Ziembicki and sound mixer Drew Kunin who cover so much from the film's Death poses, the 'Cleveland' running joke, and, obviously, a lot on the sets and audio, people shaking the train, the colors that aren't shown (Depp's jacket), theories on when the 'death' occurs etc. There are some long gaps (hence scene select) but there is a lot here and fans will love the input. We also get a 3/4 hour new Q&A in which Jarmusch responds to questions sent in by fans from around the world. It was from November 2017 and is a great watch. There is some, dark, rarely seen footage - 25-minutes worth - of Neil Young composing and performing the film’s score while watching the film followed by a 3.5 minute video. Thee is a new, 27-minute, interview with actor Gary Farmer who describes Jarmusch coming to Toronto and discussing the project with him for a couple of days and his involvement in the film. Some may appreciate new, brief, readings of William Blake poems by members of the cast; Mili Avital, Alfred Molina, and Iggy Pop running over 7-minutes in total. There are 1/4 hour's worth of, poor quality, deleted scenes and a selection of Jarmusch’s location scouting photos in Arizona, Nevada and Oregon - plus there is a trailer. The package has a liner notes booklet with essays by film critic Amy Taubin and music journalist Ben Ratliff.

Dead Man is a masterpiece. It is subtle and rich - a fascinating journey. The Criterion Blu-ray is immaculate - one of the most satisfying packages of the early year. It has our highest recommendation!   

***

ADDITION: BAC - Region FREE Blu-ray - June 09': Not much to say - it's a bit of a puny single-layered Blu-ray - not worthy of the film. Contrast is a better, detail as well - but not enough. The big rap against this BAC Blu-ray is that it has forced French subtitles when the English audio is chosen. My Momitsu tells me it's region FREE but with no extras either this deserves a pass till a more bona-fide edition can come out. The MiraMax DVD remains quite strong and is definitely worth picking up for the film.  

***

ON THE DVD: This is a very good DVD. The picture quality is excellent, it has some decent, if not illuminating, extras, is anamorphic and has removable close-captioned subtitles. I guess another of the big pluses of this intriguing film-on-DVD is that the price is very reasonable. This appears to be as clean and sharp a black and white print as I can remember and is accented further by the great outdoor cinematography. For Jarmusch fans and those ready to become one - this is a must-own DVD.  out of    

Gary W. Tooze