Awakenings 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		0.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.5

Awakenings 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

One stayed in the cuckoo's nest.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III January 15, 2026

Sony's steady commitment to upgrading their catalog titles to UHD continues with director Penny Marshall's terrific 1990 film Awakenings starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro. A highly effective and performance-driven drama with strong supporting turns by Julie Kavner, Penelope Ann Miller, Ruth Nelson, Max von Sydow, Peter Stormare, and several others, it has retained its power during the past 35+ years and shines brighter than ever on this very welcome new 4K edition, which aims to fully replace Sony's own 2011 Blu-ray and does so in every possible category.

For a synopsis and warm appreciation of the main feature, please see Michael Reuben's 2011 Blu-ray review linked above. For obvious reasons, I fully agree with his take on Awakenings and consider it to be one of the best American films of of 1990 alongside Goodfellas, Misery, and Jacob's Ladder. A sizable hit upon its theatrical release, Awakenings has nonetheless managed to become slightly buried in the massive filmographies of its lead actors, so hopefully this UHD edition will put it in the hands of a new generation of potential fans. It certainly deserves them.

Awakenings 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

NOTE: These screenshots are sourced from the UHD disc but downscaled to 1080p/SDR and should not be considered an accurate representation of the 4K picture quality in terms of detail, color, and brightness levels.

Sony's UHD edition of Awakenings was advertised as being taken from a new 4K restoration, which surely involved a new scan of the original camera negative, from the looks of it. This is a superlative 2160p/HDR10/Dolby Vision transfer that absolutely drips with authenticity, an entirey film-like and purist-friendly effort that features excellent fine detail, strong textures, accurate color representation, and a generous amount of film grain at every turn. As Michael Reuben correctly pointed out in his 2011 Blu-ray review, Awakenings isn't exactly a showy film, as the often drab and beige-heavy interiors of the Bainbridge Hospital are about as visually exciting as those seen in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Nonetheless, even the most everyday moments are appealing in their accuracy and this helps to create an often arresting atmosphere that also features a few welcome trips outdoors and to other environments along the way. The HDR layer is subtle and provides excellent support for effectively reigning in deep shadows and bright highlights, as well as occasionally more bold and vivid hues. It's also authored on a full triple-layer disc and runs at a very high bit rate from start to finish, meaning there's basically no room for compression-related issues like banding, posterization, or macro blocking. In all respects, this is a flawless effort that should please die-hard fans enormously.

Awakenings 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sony's modus operandi for their recent UHD catalog reissues appears to be undoing the sins of earlier Blu-rays that only included remixes of original audio tracks. That's a sentiment I can get behind 100%, but they've taken one more step this time around by including both backward and forward thinking options: while the 5.1 remix from their 2011 Blu-ray returns here (and is already detailed in the linked review), we also get a full-bodied Dolby Atmos mix as well as the film's original theatrical 2.0 mix. The Atmos track -- which, as always, folds down to a TrueHD 7.1 mix if you're not equipped for the newer format -- sounds like a more natural and nuanced extension of the admittedly solid 5.1 remix, adding more detailed object-based effect placements as well as subtle overhead support that mostly arrives during Randy Newman's excellent original score. It'll be a fine choice for those whose who can fully make use of it... but I'm just as fond (if not more so) of the 2.0 track, which scales things in the other direction with a sturdy replication of its original audio as heard in theaters circa 1990. Fidelity is outstanding all around, which means that viewers are free to pick their favorite, guilt-free.... and if that doesn't equal a perfect five-star rating, I don't know what does.

Optional English (SDH) subtitles, as well as French and Spanish dubs and subs, are provided during the main feature.

Awakenings 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a slipcover; a Digital Copy code and three new-to-disc extras are also included.

• NEW! Making Of (6:09) - This archival featurette offers a surface-level overview of the film intercut with on-set footage and comments from cast and crew members including Robert De Niro (looking ironically a bit like Joaquin Phoenix in Joker), Robin Williams, and Penny Marshall, as well as a few enjoyable outtakes.

• NEW! Archival Interviews with Cast and Crew (8:45) - Very similar to the supplement included on Sony's recent 4K reissue of Thunderheart and other catalog titles, this series of archival on-set interviews (here named "Selected Soundbites") features brief on-set comments from Robert De Niro, Robin Williams, and Penny Marshall, producers Lawrence Lasker & Walter F. Parkes, and consultant Oliver Sacks, M.D., these clips share a little bit of overlap from the previous featurette but this is another great inclusion.

• NEW! Theatrical Trailer (2:43) - This vintage promotional piece can also be seen here.

Awakenings 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Penny Marshall's excellent 1990 film Awakenings earns a welcome debut on UHD with this outstanding reissue from Sony that advances upon their 2011 Blu-ray in every department... and dramatically so, in some respects. Although a remastered 1080p disc with identical new-to-disc extras would've been appreciated for those who haven't moved on to 4K yet, this is yet another reason to make the jump. Highly Recommended to fans and first-timers alike.