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

ADDITION: Cult Films Blu-ray (October 2026): Cult Films have transferred Tinto Brass's Miranda to Blu-ray. Silvano Ippoliti's (Paprika, The Key, Caligula, Le Gang, Salon Kitty, The Iguana with the Tongue of Fire, The Great Silence, Navajo Joe) photography leans soft and atmospheric, with Brass's signature mirror shots and low angles. Many interiors are filled with haze or shot through diffusion, giving the inn a dreamy, smoky quality. The palette in those interiors is cooler and grayer than you might expect for such a sensual film. Saturated color is saved for set pieces like the striped beachwear sequence and Grandi's ever-present red nail polish and lipstick. Location work in Pomponesco, in the Po Valley near Mantua, adds authentic period texture. A war memorial dated "30° della Vittoria 1918–1948" places the action in the immediate postwar years. Miranda comes to Blu-ray from Cult Films in Tinto Brass's uncut Director's Edit, on a dual-layered disc with a very high bitrate, framed in 1.78:1. Unfortunately, the image is a disappointment, especially next to the strong transfers we have seen of other Brass titles, including some in 4K UHD (see below.) Some softness is clearly intended: Ippoliti's use of haze, fog and diffusion means scenes like the mirror shot and the misty war-memorial sequence would never look crisp. But even the cleaner close-ups and the bright daylight beach scene lack the fine texture we'd expect from a new scan. Skin, hair and fabric appear smoothed, and natural grain structure is largely absent. Darker scenes show some clumpy noise instead. Contrast is flat, and black levels lean toward a murky gray-brown rather than true black. Cult's "remastered from restored materials" doesn't specify a fresh scan, and the results suggest an older master, possibly with some noise reduction applied. The generous bitrate keeps compression clean, but it can't add detail the source doesn't have. Colors, still faded, are the high point: the reds of Grandi's nails and lips and the striped beachwear are vivid and stable, even if interiors skew cool and grayish. This is watchable and probably the best the film has looked on home video, but it falls well short of the "stunning Full HD" the packaging promises.

NOTE: We have added 38 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

On their Miranda Blu-ray Cult Films offers three audio options, English, Italian and Spanish, each a DTS-HD Master 2.0 track at 24-bit. The Italian is the preferred way to watch the film, and it's paired with new and improved English subtitles, a genuine upgrade for anyone who has struggled with earlier, looser translations. Fans of the English DUB get new English SDH as well. All three tracks are clean and clear, with no notable hiss or dropouts. Dialogue is easily discernible, and the limited 2-channel range suits the film's modest production. Riz Ortolani's (The House with Laughing Windows, Old Shatterhand, Confessions of a Police Captain, Don't Torture a Duckling, Castle of Blood, How To Kill a Judge, Lightning Bolt, Rings of Fear, Killer Crocodile, How to Kill a Judge, Lightning Bolt, Super Bitch, House on the Edge of the Park, Seven Blood Stained Orchids, Web of the Spider, Madhouse, Buona Sera Mrs. Campbell, The Dead Are Alive, The Pyjama Girl Case, The Valachi Papers, A Reason to Live, A Reason to Die, Seven Deaths in the Cat's Eyes, Requiescant, The McKenzie Break, Day of Anger, Il Sorpasso, Woman Times Seven, Cannibal Holocaust, The Voyeur, Mondo Cane,) romantic main theme benefits most from the lossless treatment. It recurs throughout the film alongside period-style songs, dance-hall tunes and the jazz instrumental Brass reused across several films. Much of the film's atmosphere comes from this diegetic music, the radios, dances and noise of the bustling inn, and it's well served here. Cult Films's Blu-ray is Region FREE.

The Cult Films Blu-ray's main supplement is Tinto Brass Reveals All, an interview with the director that runs a dozen minutes. In it, Brass discusses the making of Miranda, its roots in Goldoni's La Locandiera and the casting of Serena Grandi, the role that made her a star in Italy. There are two theatrical trailers, an English one and an Italian one, each about three minutes. A 3-minute promo for Salon Kitty plays automatically when the disc loads. The package offers a collector's reversible sleeve.

Miranda (Serena Grandi - Crime of Passion, Delirium, Frivolous Lola, All Ladies Do It, Anthropophagous, The Great Beauty) runs a bustling roadside inn and has waited years for her husband, Gino, who vanished in the war. Rather than pine, she samples the men who pass through: a courtly older gentleman, a young local, an American and others. All the while she keeps Toni, the devoted employee who truly loves her, at arm's length. Goldoni's Mirandolina was a coquette who toyed with her admirers. Brass keeps the comic architecture but makes Miranda's appetite the point. She is not punished or tamed for wanting pleasure. She is the one choosing, testing and discarding. As in The Key, the drama is a woman's loyalty to an absent husband pulling against her own desire. Here the tone is sunnier, closer to bawdy pastoral farce than to that film's fascist-era melancholy. The narrative is thin and the acting often broad. Brass's priorities are, as always, the female form, the frank camera and the gleeful puncturing of male vanity. But the period recreation is lovingly detailed: the inn's kitchen, the riverbanks, the bicycles, the dance-hall music. It gives the episodic structure a warm, communal texture. Miranda is lightweight Brass in story terms, but many consider it one of his most enjoyable films. Its bawdy postwar spin on Goldoni is anchored by Serena Grandi's star-making turn as an innkeeper who answers to no one's appetite but her own. Cult Films deserves credit for presenting the uncut Director's Edit with a choice of three lossless audio tracks, much-improved English subtitles and a worthwhile interview with the Maestro himself. The transfer is the sticking point. Even allowing for the film's deliberately diffused, hazy photography, the image looks soft, smoothed and flat in ways that point to an aging master rather than a new restoration. Brass completists and Grandi fans will still want it, since it's likely the most complete and best-presented version of the film available. But anyone expecting the strong A/V of Brass's recent high-definition and 4K UHD releases should temper their expectations.

Gary Tooze