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

ADDITION: Criterion 4K UHD / Blu-ray (February 2026): Criterion have transferred Claude Sautet's Classe Tous Risques to Blu-ray and 4K UHD. We compared the 2008 Criterion DVD to the 2014 BFI Blu-ray HERE and below. The new 2160P and 1080P shows more information in the frame compared to the cropped BFI which even has chopped head space, it is sharper and far more textured and film-like. Sourced from the original camera negative and presented in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio with Dolby Vision HDR grading, this a revelation for this 1960 black-and-white classic. The transfer boasts exceptional sharpness and fine detail - every texture in Lino Ventura’s weathered face, the weave of trench coats, and the gritty Milan and Paris locations emerges with remarkable clarity - while retaining a natural, filmlike grain structure that feels organic rather than artificially scrubbed. HDR enhances the cinematography’s deep-focus compositions by delivering richer blacks, brighter highlights, and more nuanced mid-tones, giving Ghislain Cloquet’s stark imagery a newfound depth and three-dimensionality without ever looking artificial or modernized. Minor age-related artifacts have been carefully mitigated, resulting in a clean yet authentic presentation that honors the film’s neorealist roots and noir atmosphere. On a capable 4K HDR display, this is easily the best the movie has ever looked in home video. Bravo Criterion!

While we are in possession of the 4K UHD disc, we cannot resolve the encode yet, and therefore, cannot obtain screen captures. We hope to add to this review at some point in the future. So, the below captures are from Criterion's 2025 1080P Blu-ray transfer.

NOTE: We have added 92 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Blu-ray, Criterion use a linear PCM mono track (24-bit) in the original French language. Georges Delerue’s (Malpertius, Passion of Slow Fire, Police Python 357, A Man in Love, One Deadly Summer, Mister Johnson, Jules et Jim, The Woman Next Door, Cartouche, The Last Metro, Day For Night,) score is sparse and haunting, deployed with surgical precision rather than wall-to-wall emotion. His themes - melancholic strings and subtle woodwinds - emerge mainly during moments of transition or quiet reflection, such as the road-trip escape that briefly evokes the open-air sweep of a Western before reality reasserts itself. The music never overwhelms; it deepens the undercurrent of loss and inevitability, behaving like a classic noir gem that creates atmosphere through absence as much as presence. Sound design is equally naturalistic and mono-era precise: ambient street noise, the roar of engines, terse argot-laden dialogue, and the sudden crack of gunshots all feel lived-in and unadorned. Jean-Pierre Melville praised the laconic behavioral realism, and the closing voice-over narration lands with detached chill, sealing the film’s existential punch. Together, the look and sound reject New Wave flashiness for a hard-bitten classicism that feels profoundly modern - raw, intimate, and heartbreakingly human. There is virtually no audible hiss, distortion, or damage, and the mono presentation feels entirely appropriate for the era and Sautet’s restrained directorial style. The uncompressed transfer is is clean, stable, and fully faithful to the original 1960 recording. Dialogue is crisp and intelligible throughout, with the terse French argot and subtle vocal inflections of Ventura and Belmondo coming through clearly without strain. Criterion offer optional English subtitles on their Region 'A' Blu-ray and Region FREE 4K UHD.

Criterion's 4K UHD package duplicates the 2008 DVD's special features - available on the accompanying Blu-ray disc, starting with a generous set of excerpts from the 2003 documentary Claude Sautet, ou La magie invisible, offering insightful commentary on Sautet’s understated approach. A dozen-minute interview with novelist and co-screenwriter José Giovanni provides fascinating context on the real-life inspirations and the adaptation process, while two archival clips of Lino Ventura (totaling about 1/4 hour) reveal the actor’s grounded perspective on his craft and this role in particular. Three original trailers round out the video supplements. The accompanying liner notes booklet is excellent, featuring insightful essays by Bertrand Tavernier and N. T. Binh, a reprinted interview with Sautet, and Jean-Pierre Melville’s heartfelt 1962 tribute. The Eric Skillman cover art is characteristically stylish and evocative.

Claude Sautet's Classe Tous Risques stands as one of the finest and most emotionally resonant French gangster films ever made. Though released in the same year as Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless and initially overshadowed by the explosive arrival of the French New Wave, it has since been rightly reclaimed as a masterpiece of classical yet deeply personal filmmaking. Adapted by Sautet, José Giovanni (who drew from real underworld experiences), and Pascal Jardin from Giovanni’s novel, the film stars Lino Ventura (The Beast Is Loose, Last Known Address, Army of Shadows, Illustrious Corpses, Monsieur Gangster, Witness in the City, Le Deuxième souffle, Touchez Pas Au Grisbi, The Sicilian Clan, Speaking of Murder) as Abel Davos, a condemned mobster returning from exile in Italy with his wife and two young sons, and a young Jean-Paul Belmondo (Les Distractions, Le Doulos, The Body of My Enemy, Pierrot Le Fou, Cartouche, The Hunter Will Get You, Borsalino, Le Magnifique, Léon Morin, Priest, Greed in the Sun, The Professional,) as Éric Stark, the idealistic outsider who becomes his unlikely ally. At its core, Classe Tous Risques explores honor among thieves and its inevitable erosion. Davos’s old Parisian associates - comfortable in their legitimate fronts - abandon him, prioritizing self-preservation over past loyalties. This betrayal contrasts sharply with the pure, almost paternal bond that forms between Davos and the much younger Stark, who risks everything simply because he recognizes a man of genuine “class.” Jean-Pierre Melville, a champion of the film, praised this cross-generational male friendship as more authentic and laconic than the talky camaraderie in contemporaneous New Wave works like Jules and Jim. Family is another profound and unusual element for the genre. Davos is not a glamorous anti-hero but a weary father desperate to give his sons a better life. Scenes of him walking with his boys (who must trail ten yards behind for safety) or silently handing them over to a safe guardian are quietly devastating, evoking neorealist classics like Bicycle Thieves. The film never sentimentalizes these moments; instead, it shows how crime’s violence inevitably destroys the very domesticity the outlaw seeks to preserve. Underneath runs a vein of existential fatalism. Davos’s code of honor, while noble, brings only more death and suffering. The closing voice-over narration - delivered with chilling detachment - drives home the point: no matter how skillfully one plays the game, the house (fate, society, the police) always wins. Lino Ventura delivers a career-defining performance as Abel Davos. A former wrestler with a battered, soulful face, Ventura embodies stoic physicality and buried anguish. He never breaks down theatrically; his pain registers in a clenched jaw, a averted gaze, or the way he slumps against a tree after parting with his children. It is one of the great tragic portraits in French cinema. Jean-Paul Belmondo, fresh from Breathless, is equally compelling as Éric Stark. Here he plays against his emerging New Wave persona - less cocky and anarchic, more quietly principled and observant. The chemistry between Ventura and Belmondo grounds the film’s emotional center; their scenes together feel lived-in and understated, built on mutual respect rather than flashy dialogue. Supporting roles amplify the themes: the old gang members - led by Michel Ardan (Panique) as Riton represent comfortable compromise, while characters like the slippery fence Arthur Gibelin (Marcel Dalio - Pépé le Moko, La Grande Illusion, The Rules of the Game, Casablanca, Flesh and Fantasy, The Song of Bernadette, To Have and Have Not, The Snows of Kilimanjaro, Razzia sur la chnouf, Donovan's Reef, Cartouche, How to Steal a Million, The Beast) and the vibrant Liliane (Sandra Milo - Il Generale Della Rovere, Adua and Her Friends, 8½, La Visita, Juliet of the Spirits) add texture and fleeting humanity. Sautet’s direction is the antithesis of New Wave pyrotechnics - terse, economical, and observational. He favors long takes, natural lighting, and real locations (Milan streets, the French Riviera, gritty Paris apartments), creating a sense of lived reality. Cinematographer Ghislain Cloquet (Tess, Love and Death, Mouchette, The Young Girls of Rochefort, Au hasard Balthazar) contributes understated yet expressive black-and-white imagery: deep-focus compositions that isolate characters in crowds, chilly dawn sequences on the beach, and matter-of-fact violence that never glamorizes. The film’s power lies more in what is not shown: the quiet despair of a man who knows his time has passed. Classe Tous Risques bridges the classic French policier tradition of Jacques Becker (Touchez pas au Grisbi) and early Melville with the more introspective crime films that followed. In conclusion the Criterion 4K UHD package is superb and long-overdue upgrade for one of the greatest French gangster films ever made. The new restoration dramatically improves on previous home video releases in both picture and sound, while the extras and booklet provide meaningful context without padding. For admirers of Sautet, Ventura, or classic policier cinema, this is an essential purchase that finally presents Classe Tous Risques in the technically pristine form its quiet power deserves. Highly recommended - Criterion has done the film proud.

Gary Tooze