NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Universal Blu-ray (July 2022): Universal have transferred Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza to Blu-ray. It looks as strong as you might expect a modern film on a dual-layered disc with a max'ed out bitrate. Pristinely clean, wonderful pastel colors (kudos to Art direction by Samantha Englender and set decoration by Ryan Watson), with excellent contrast. It has scenes that lean blue and others brown but this was probably intentional. There was speculation that it would be coming to 4K UHD, but I haven't heard anything recently. Licorice Pizza is such a distinctly visual film it would make sense. 

NOTE: We have added 60 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Universal use a robust DTS-HD Master 5.1 surround track (24-bit) in the original English language. Licorice Pizza has plenty of playful separations and quite a few instances exercising the track's, surprisingly potent, depth. The film's music is brilliant with a score credited to Jonny Greenwood - the group Radiohead’s lead guitarist - (notable for composing for films We Need to Talk About Kevin, Norwegian Wood and Anderson's Inherent Vice, There Will Be Blood, Phantom Thread and The Master) and Licorice Pizza has a fabulous mix connoting the 70's and beyond with music by Nina Simone, American jazz pianist Johnny Guarnieri, Todd Rundgren, Bing Crosby & The Andrews Sisters, Sonny & Cher, The Doors, Gordon Lightfoot, Blood Sweat & Tears, Paul McCartney and Wings, David Bowie, Gary Puckett and The Union Gap, Seals & Crofts, Mason Williams, Donovan (with The Jeff Beck Group) and others. It adds significantly to the period representation sounding embraceable in the lossless. There is an optional French DUB and English audio descriptive track available. Universal offer optional English (SDH), Spanish or French subtitles on their Region FREE Blu-ray.

No director commentary but the Universal Blu-ray offers 4-minutes of camera tests, a deleted scene where Alana inquires about whether Gary is a “Handman”, 10-minutes of a behind-the-scenes gallery of stills and short clips plus they include the complete 30-second 'Fat Bernie’s' TV commercial. The package has a slipcase, reversible artwork and a poster.

Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza is beautifully engaging focusing on Gary's entrepreneurial spirit with love his escape valve while Alana seeks her calling through personal political participation. As they come together, and float in-and-out of each other's orbits - reconciling and drifting away again - we are shared unconventional youth romance that still has unmistakable nostalgia of the 70s and the evolution of their quirky relationship. PTA considered Fast Times at Ridgemont High and American Graffiti as major influences in making Licorice Pizza. It's a gorgeous film with exceptional art direction and brief appearances by Sean Penn, Tom Waits, Bradley Cooper, and Benny Safdie. The director never fails to make highly interesting films and the Universal Blu-ray is a super way to screen it, and own it, for your home theater.

Gary Tooze