Captain Blood 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Captain Blood 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov February 4, 2026

Michael Curtiz's "Captain Blood" (1935) arrives on 4K Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the release include new audio commentary by author and critic Alan K. Rode; archival documentary on the making of the film; vintage radio adaptation; and original trailer. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

Exactly 90 years ago, at the Baltimore Hotel in Los Angeles, where the 8th Academy Awards ceremony was held, Michael Curtiz’s Captain Blood failed to win an Oscar statuette in any of the five categories in which it was nominated. In the most important of these categories, Best Picture, Captain Blood was in the company of such competitors as Mutiny on the Bounty, which was the eventual winner, The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, Les Misérables, The Informer, and David Copperfield. In the second most important category, Best Director, Curtiz was not even a conventional nominee. He was selected as a write-in candidate.

Regardless of how one feels about the various nominees and winners, it is remarkable that Captain Blood exited the competition without a single Oscar statuette, as it delivers everything a great old-fashioned Hollywood adventure film should. It has a legitimate upcoming star with an undeniable cinematic charisma. It is impressively directed. It is a visual spectacle. It even has a great score, creating the special atmosphere that many iconic classics are famous for. In other words, before it lost in all five categories, Captain Blood appeared destined to emerge a winner.

The greatest irony of all, however, is not that Captain Blood did not win in any category. After all, it faced many other legitimately great competitors, most of which deserved to win as well. Rather, it is that Captain Blood launched Errol Flynn’s career and instantly transformed him into a superstar, and had a similar effect on Olivia de Havilland and her career, without helping the two earn enough votes to enter the Oscar competition. Indeed, the disconnect between the Academy members and the people who went to the theaters could not have been any more striking, which was one of several big reasons write-in votes were permanently eliminated after the 8th Academy Awards. (For what it’s worth, in the years that followed, Flynn, one of the greatest of all Hollywood superstars, still failed to earn a single Oscar nomination).

Despite showcasing Flynn and de Havilland’s talents in equally convincing fashion, Captain Blood is fully dominated by the former, whose presence in front of the camera resembles that of a veteran star. After he is arrested and sentenced to death for treating a rebel, Flynn undergoes several transformations -- he is an outspoken doctor, slave, pirate, and tactician -- that singlehandedly shape the identity of Captain Blood. It is not as simple as it sounds because Casey Robinson’s screenplay and Curtiz's direction treat Captain Blood as a grand spectacle, not a one-man show, and the extensive fireworks that help it become one tend to sabotage the great work Flynn does.

Basil Rathbone plays a famous French pirate, Levasseur, who temporarily joins forces with Flynn after the two meet at the notorious Caribbean Island of Tortuga. However, it is not long before fate forces them to clash in a deadly duel.

Criterion’s combo pack release introduces an exclusive new 4K restoration of Captain Blood, sourced from a 35mm second-generation nitrate print and a 35mm nitrate duplicate negative, as well as a 35mm nitrate composite fine-grain.

Captain Blood 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Criterion's release of Captain Blood is a 4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray combo pack. The 4K Blu-ray is Region-Free. However, the Blu-ray is Region-A "locked".

Please note that some of the screencaptures included with this article are taken from the 4K Blu-ray and downscaled to 1080p. Therefore, they do not accurately reflect the quality of the 4K content on the 4K Blu-ray disc.

Screencaptures #1-33 are taken from the Blu-ray.
Screencaptures #36-40 are taken from the 4K Blu-ray.

The following text appears inside the leaflet provided with this release:

"This new 4K restoration was created from a 35mm second-generation nitrate print and a 35mm nitrate duplicate negative, both held by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, in addition to a 35mm nitrate composite fine-grain held by the Library of Congress. The original monaural soundtrack was remastered from a 35mm nitrate print, a 35mm fine-grain, and the soundtrack as previously restored by Chace Audio.

Mastering supervisors: Lee Line, Giles Sherwood.
Colorist: Anthony Raffaele/Resillion, New York.
Image restoration: Prasad Corporation, Burbank, CA.
Audio restoration: The Criterion Collection."

In native 4K, the film cannot be viewed with Dolby Vision or HDR grades. I viewed it in its entirety in native 4K and later in 1080p on the Blu-ray, again in its entirety. As clarified above, the current presentation is a reconstruction job, and in several areas, it is quite easy to tell that different footage comes from different sources. (The most obvious shifts in quality are in the final third of the film). However, I believe it is fair to describe the overall quality of the visuals as consistently very good. Indeed, even in places where density fluctuations are unmissable, delineation, clarity, and depth range from very good to excellent. Also, grain is nicely exposed and never affected by problematic digital corrections. Given the nature of the presentation, the grayscale is managed very well. In the final third of the film, some of the shifts in quality also alter the blacks and grays a bit, but even here all visuals retain a very pleasing and convincing organic appearance. Image stability is good. I did not notice any distracting surface imperfections to report in our review.

I performed various comparisons between the native 4K and 1080p presentations. I prefer the latter. In native 4K, many of the previously mentioned fluctuations are a lot more prominent, and while in some areas delineation is slightly better, the shifts in quality are also bigger. The 1080p presentation is equally convincing but produces more even visuals. If you have a very large screen and choose to view the film in native 4K, you will notice significantly more of the source limitations that the reconstruction job retains.

Captain Blood 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this release: English LPCM 1.0. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

Considering that the new presentation of Captain Blood is a reconstruction job, the quality of the lossless track is rather surprisingly stellar. There was only one area -- footage from the slave market and shortly after -- where some unevenness in the upper register was quite obvious. All dialogue and all action material sounded quite nice on my system, and while dynamic intensity could be inconsistent, I thought that the health of the lossless track was rather impressive.

Captain Blood 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

4K BLU-RAY DISC

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by Alan K. Rode, author of Mixchael Curtiz: A Life in Film, in 2025.

BLU-RAY DISC

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by Alan K. Rode, author of Mixchael Curtiz: A Life in Film, in 2025.

• "Captain Blood": A Swahsbuckler is Born - this archival documentary takes a closer look at the production of Captain Blood. It features interviews with author Rudy Behlmer, conductor John Mauceri, and sword master and choreographer Tim Weske, amongst others. The documentary was produced in 2005. In English, not subtitled. (23 min).

• Lux Radio Theatre - this radio adaptation of Captain Blood first aired on February 22, 1937. In it, Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Basil Rathbone reprise their roles from the film. In English, not subtitled. (59 min).

• Trailer - presented here is a vintage trailer for Captain Blood. In English, not subtitled. (4 min).

• Leaflet - an illustrated leaflet featuring critic Farran Smith Nehme's essay "A Pirate is Born" and technical credits.

Captain Blood 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

For Errol Flynn, everything changed with Captain Blood, a massive, risky project that should have earned at least one Oscar statuette. Some of Flynn's greatest admirers have argued that his best work is in Captain Blood, not in The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Sea Hawk, and to be honest, I tend to agree with a few of their arguments. Also, I completely agree that the Academy's failure to recognize Flynn with at least an Oscar nomination in the years after Captain Blood is, to put it mildly, unforgivable, because he is one of Hollywood's greatest superstars. Criterion's combo pack introduces a very good new 4K restoration and reconstruction of Captain Blood. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.