A Fistful of Dollars Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.0

A Fistful of Dollars Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 29, 2025

A Fistful of Dollars marked Clint Eastwood's first starring role in a major motion picture, and of course it turned out to be a completely epochal one not just in the annals of cinema generally, but for Eastwood's career in particular and really also for genre filmmaking and even international co-productions. This film along with its "siblings" has had a somewhat wending history on Blu-ray and 4K (in Region A at least), with Metro Goldwyn Mayer (remember them?) releasing The Man with No Name Trilogy in 2010, followed a year later by a standalone release of A Fistful of Dollars. Kino Lorber entered the fray in 2018 with its release of A Fistful of Dollars, followed by a 2023 release, but with an intermediary A Fistful of Dollars 4K put out by Kino Lorber in 2022, which evidently offered the same 1080 disc as the 2023 standalone release (in addition to a 4K disc, of course). The Kino Lorber releases in particular have been pretty controversial in terms of color timing, and so fans may be especially interested in Arrow's entry into this fray, with both this release and their own A Fistful of Dollars 4K.

As mentioned above, A Fistful of Dollars has had both 1080 and 4K releases in Region A. You have a veritable satchel full of reviews of Region A releases to peruse if you're so inclined, as follows:

The Man with No Name Trilogy Blu-ray review is Casey Broadwater's take on the original trilogy release from MGM

A Fistful of Dollars Blu-ray review is Brian Orndorf's take on the 1080 release in 2018 from Kino Lorber

A Fistful of Dollars 4K Blu-ray review is Svet Atanasov's take on the 4K release in 2022 from Kino Lorber

A Fistful of Dollars 4K Blu-ray review is my take on Arrow's 4K release, which arrived a couple of weeks before this 1080 release did.

A Fistful of Dollars Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Fistful of Dollars is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. Arrow provides the same insert booklet for both its 1080 and 4K releases (hence some HDR verbiage and the like, below), which has the following information about the presentation:

A Fistful of Dollars (Per un pugno di dollari) has been exclusively restored by Arrow Films and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1. The soundtrack is presented in restored original Italian and English mono, as well as remixed Italian and English 5.1 audio.

The original 35mm 2-perf Techniscope camera negative was scanned and restored in 4K / 16-bit resolution at L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna. The film was further restored and colour graded in SDR, HDR10 and Dolby Vision at Silver Salt Restoration, London.

The original Italian film and audio materials sourced for this new restoration were made available from Unidis Jolly Film SRL. Materials were delivered by the Cineteca di Bologna and L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna.

Additional English picture and audio materials were made available from Amazon / MGM Studios.

A 35mm Imbibition Technicolor print was sourced from The Cinema Museum, London, for colour reference.

Principal audio restoration on the original mono tracks was completed by Bad Princess Productions. Additional 5.1 audio restoration work was completed by Þorsteinn Gislason.

The original Italian trailer was restored in 4K with HDR10 grading at R3Store Studios, with Dolby Vision grading completed at Fidleity in Motion. The outtakes were sourced from Unidis Jolly Film SRL and scanned in 2K resolution at L'Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna.

As I mentioned in my review of Arrow's 4K version, the mere inclusion of "L'Immagine Ritrovata" may distress some who weathered the controversy surrounding the Kino Lorber releases, but Arrow has on several occasions taken "problematic" masters and done rather remarkable things with them, and to my eyes the color timing on this release is certainly better than the original 1080 Kino Lorber release that Brian Orndorf reviewed, and in the color timing department in particular I'd argue at least the equal of Kino Lorber's 4K release, which, as some will no doubt know, did not offer any HDR grades, something that makes it arguably a bit more "comparison worthy" to this SDR 1080 presentation. All of the extremely weird green and teal tones of the original Kino Lorber 1080 release are thankfully completely in abeyance here, and the palette is typically quite beautifully suffused and natural looking. As I mentioned in the review of Arrow's 4K version, there are still undeniable variances at play in terms of warmth and suffusion, something that can perhaps be especially noted in how the hues in skies can change, sometimes within the same sequence (and so obviously regardless of weather). There are a few passing moments where things struck me as just slightly on the brown side, with a somewhat degraded image quality overall, but on the whole this is a really luscious looking transfer that preserves an organic looking grain field and which delivers some really appealing detail levels throughout, especially when Leone and cinematographers Massimo Dallamano and Federico G. Larraya virtually fill the frame with faces.

A Fistful of Dollars Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Fistful of Dollars features DTS-HD Master Audio Mono and DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 options in either English or Italian. Arrow authored the disc so that you can only really toggle between the mono and surround mixes in any given language, and so I wasn't able to do the "side by side" (and/or "ear by ear") comparison between, say, the Italian and English mono tracks, but my overall reaction to all four options was that the mono provided the best overall listening experience, and one that obviously recreates the original theatrical experience, for better or worse considering modern day sensibilities. Both of the mono tracks can show just the barest hints of distortion when Morricone's cues are at their most hyperbolic, but I didn't really hear any other major issues. Interestingly, I found the Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track to be a bit more full bodied and better balanced than the English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly on all tracks, but given the almost patent insanity of the number of languages that were spoken on set during the shoot, sync is inevitably loose no matter what language is chosen. Optional English subtitles are available.

A Fistful of Dollars Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

1080 Disc One

• Commentaries

Commentary by Sir Christopher Frayling




Commentary by Tim Lucas

• Trailer Gallery

Italian Theatrical Trailer (HD; 3:40)




German Theatrical Trailer (HD; 3:38)




German Re-release Trailer (HD; 4:31)




UK Teaser Trailer (HD; 00:59)




US Theatrical Trailer (HD; 2:26)




US Radio Spots (HD; 5:59) play to key art.




US Double Bill Trailer (HD; 2:06)




US Double Bill TV Spots (HD; 1:23)




US Double Bill Radio Spots (HD; 2:21) play to key art.

1080 Disc Two

• Where It All Started (HD; 13:48) is a 2024 interview with film historian Fabio Melelli. Subtitled in English.


• Wind and Fire (HD; 16:56) is a 2024 interview with Ennio Morricone biographer Alessandro De Rosa. Subtitled in English.


• Four Fingers Four Picks (HD; 15:08) is a 2024 interview with guitarist and composer Bruno Battisti D'Amario. Subtitled in English.


• A Night at the Movies (HD; 12:35) is a 2024 interview with filmmaker Paolo Bianchini. Subtitled in English.


• A Fistful of Outtakes (HD; 36:14) is a wonderful recently discovered assemblage of material from Unidis Jolly Films. Some introductory text reveals that there are over six hours of outtakes in Unidis Jolly Films' archives, which would seem to be an interesting opportunity for some enterprising niche label.


• The Day the Soundtrack Changed (HD; 22:36) is a 2024 visual essay by music historian Lovely John. Regular readers of my reviews may know of my fondness for multichannel audio, and in that regard, while not lossless, some listeners may really enjoy UK SACD label Dutton Vocalion's release of Hugo Montenegro's fantastic album of Morricone themes, which features an impressive surround mix that shows what an innovative arranger and orchestrator Montenegro was (he was also at the forefront of both quadraphonic and synthesized music).


• Marisol: Sergio Leone's Madonna in the West (HD; 31:37) is an archival interview from 2017 with Marianne Koch.


• MGM Archive Extras

The Frayling Archives (HD; 18:38) is a 2010 tour through Frayling's vast memorabilia collection.




A New Kind of Hero (HD; 22:55) features Frayling in 2005.




A Few Weeks in Spain (HD; 8:30) is an archival 2003 interview with Clint Eastwood.




Not Ready for Primetime (HD; 6:21) is a kind of funny archival interview with Monte Hellman, who was tasked with shooting a prologue for the American broadcast television premiere of the film in the seventies.




The Network Prologue (HD; 7:45) is that very Hellman piece (with its own separate introduction).




Restoration Italian Style (HD; 5:44) may provide a few unintended laughs with its archival assessment of MGM's restoration for DVD.




Location Comparisons 1964 - 2004 (HD; 5:22)




Tre Voci (Three Voices) (HD; 11:13) is an archival interview with Mickey Knox, Sergio Donato and Alberto Grimaldi.

• Alternate Credit Sequences

German Opening Credits (HD; 2:46)




Original English Credits (HD; 3:18)




Italian Re-release Credits (HD; 3:20)

• Image Galleries

A Fistful in Pictures (HD; 14:52)




On the Set (HD; 3:57)




Promoting A Fistful of Dollars (HD; 15:48)

This is another beautifully packaged effort from Arrow, with a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella, art which is duplicated on an included double sided fold out poster. A perfect bound collector's booklet features a number of great essays by Henry Blyth, Bilge Ebiri, Pasquale Iannone and Eloise Ross. Everything is housed in a really handsome slipbox which is itself enclosed in an O ring.

A Fistful of Dollars Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Arrow has delivered another sterling release of a classic with a controversial past in high (and ultra high) definition. Technical merits are great and as usual Arrow has assembled an impressive slate of supplements and packaged everything handsomely. Highly recommended.