Addition: Criterion Region A Blu-ray - January 10': The new Criterion Blu-ray transfer is advertised as 'supervised and approved by director Wim Wenders' - so, I don't see much point in picking flaws with it. At times the color scheme on Blu-ray beside the previous DVDs looks very different - being more realistic, a softer palette, better balanced, and, essentially, closer to the Fox release than the Anchor Bay SD edition. In comparison the DVDs look falsely brightened next to the 1080P dual-layered Blu-ray rendering - which is also tighter and more detailed. The screen captures below should identify most of what you need to know about the visual superiority of the hi-def edition.

The DTS-HD Master 5.1 at 3750 kbps is quite robust when called upon sounding very clear and sharp with subtle separations and definitely crisper than the DVDs. Ry Cooder's score is wonderfully reproduced. There are optional English subtitles and my Momitsu has identified it as being a region 'A'-locked disc.

The same excellent audio commentary on the Blu-ray (and simultaneously released Criterion DVD available HERE -  presently for almost $10 more!) featuring Wim Wenders is the same one as found on both the Fox and Anchor Bay editions. This is also true of the 23-minutes worth of Deleted Scenes (with optional Wenders commentary) and Super 8 footage set to music. New though is a 1/2 hour interview with Wenders by German journalist Roger Willemsen from 2001 and 42-minutes of excerpts from a 1990 documentary on Wenders, featuring interviews with Wenders, cinematographer Robby Müller, composer Ry Cooder, actors Harry Dean Stanton, Dennis Hopper, Peter Falk, and Hanns Zischler, novelist Patricia Highsmith, and director Samuel Fuller. Kent Jones talks with with filmmakers Allison Anders and Claire Denis for about 20-minutes. They served as assistant director and production assistant on the film Paris, Texas and have good insight into the filmmaking process. “Wim Wenders Hollywood April ’84,” is a 12-minute segment from the French television program Cinéma cinémas, showing Wenders and Cooder at work on the score. This Blu-ray alos has some Galleries of Wenders’s location-scouting photos entitled Written in the West and 16 behind-the-scenes photos by Robin Holland. Lastly we get a theatrical trailer and 46-page liner notes booklet featuring an essay by film critic Nick Roddick, interviews with Stanton, writer Sam Shepard, and actors Nastassja Kinski and Dean Stockwell, and excerpts from Wenders’s book of photos from the aforementioned Written in the West.

You can forget what a poignant film this is until you see it again and it's a true pleasure to own it in such an excellent audio and video transfer with the extensive extras. Very strongly recommended!

ON THE DVDs: The NTSC version is brighter and sharper, where the PAL edition looks slightly saturated. I now see some very slight edge enhancement on the NTSC. Extras are a duplicate, as is the Wenders commentary. Audio - the NTSC have replaced the 5.1 mix (non-original) with a Spanish DUB. I suppose many might want that 5.1 although the films content would never test it. I prefer the menus of the NTSC.