Dio: Dreamers Never Die 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		4.0

Dio: Dreamers Never Die 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 18, 2025

Note: It looks like Mercury is also offering a deluxe limited edition of Dio: Dreamers Never Die, though it doesn't seem from our listing that it includes a 4K disc.

Public personae don't necessarily always give an accurate insight into private behaviors, and as was mentioned in my Alice Cooper: Billion Dollar Babies Blu-ray review, one really need look no further than Mr. Cooper himself with his self proclaimed love of Burt Bacharach, something that might not be hinted at by Cooper's onstage antics or his approach toward songcraft. In a somewhat similar way, Ronnie James Dio may have entered the pantheon of all time great metal vocalists with a few "performance art" accoutrements like frequent use of a so-called devils horn hand gestures and a kind of overall Gothic ethos in his public persona which probably unsurprisingly is not at all indicative of the "regular guy" shown in this appealing documentary from 2022. There's a very sweet if undeniably elegiac tone running through this piece, which perhaps just slightly hilariously tends to play like one of those old Behind the Music documentaries, albeit with an almost shocking (in a good way) absence of roiling interpersonal relationships, drug abuse and/or any of the other blandishments of rock fame and fortune.

The fact that this was a Dio Estate approved production and features both interviews with family, friends and colleagues as well as wealth of fantastic archival material, that might make Dio: Dreamers Never Die seem like it's going to be a hagiography, and in fact, that can't really be denied, but the the kind of ironically funny thing in that regard is that Dio was such a nice guy, one without many if any whiffs of scandal attending his long career, and with a legacy of leaving good memories, as evidenced by any number of talking heads featured in the piece.

Fans of any of the famous bands Dio fronted will find a wealth of background information here, but what's actually kind of gobsmacking in a way is seeing Dio as a late fifties "teen idol" type earlier in his career (replete with impressive pompadour) before he adopted the trappings of a rock superstar. Even in his superstar years, though, he seemed to have never lost that often mentioned but just as often seemingly ignored moral compass that other musicians of his ilk and indeed generation certainly never paid attention to. That makes the reminiscences of his wife Wendy especially heartfelt, though on the minus side some may feel the inclusion of Jack Black was a blatant grab at some marquee value despite Black's own admission of being a "super Dio fan".

Dio: Dreamers Never Die 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Note: Screenshots are sourced from the 1080 disc in this package.

Dio: Dreamers Never Die is presented in 4K UHD courtesy of Mercury Studios with an HEVC / H.265 encoded 2160p transfer (often) in 2.38:1. Mercury actually never provided a review copy of this release, which came somewhat early after their transition from Eagle Rock Entertainment, and before they tended to start offering separate standalone releases of any given title in either 4K UHD or 1080. That said, this is another Mercury Studios 4K release without HDR, which basically makes the presentation here very similar to that of the 1080 disc also included in the package. This is a pretty traditionally structured documentary, and as such there is a whole gamut of source material utilized (including some in narrower aspect ratios, hence the "often" above), and there are understandable and sometimes quite wide variances in clarity, fine detail levels, grain structure and palette suffusion. Those variances are arguably even more noticeable in the 4K UHD version. Dio: Dreamers Never Die has an unavoidably heterogeneous appearance as a result of the glut of different source material, and the increased resolution of the 4K presentation probably only points out that heterogeneity more strongly than the 1080 version. The contemporary interview material all looks sharp as a tack, and I'd probably argue that there is at least minimal improvement in fine detail on these sections when stacking this 4K version up against the 1080. That said, I think most would be hard pressed to cite any real differences in palette. While a lot of the archival video material can be fairly worn and shoddy looking, most of the archival stills look beautifully sharp and well detailed.

Dio: Dreamers Never Die 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Dio: Dreamers Never Die features DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and LPCM 2.0 options. This is another documentary where my hunch is those coming for more of a concert video affair will probably be be somewhat disappointed that the music tends to be utilized here either as interstitial vignettes between interviews or as actual underscore. That said, some of the bombastic material that helped define Dio's presence in his heyday does have a noticeably more vigorous and spacious presentation in the surround track, even if nothing ever lasts very long. All of the spoken material is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional subtitles in several languages are available.

Dio: Dreamers Never Die 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Both the 4K and 1080 discs in this package sport the same sole supplement:

• Deleted Scenes (HD; 19:24)

Dio: Dreamers Never Die 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Mercury Studios has frankly continued to baffle me with its 4K UHD releases. Many have been kind of randomly timed, often appearing years after a 1080 release, so at least this particular one is offering both resolutions together in one package. That said, this is yet another 4K UHD release from Mercury Studios without any kind of HDR grade. Since it looks like the only other way to get the 1080 disc is via that pretty spendy limited edition linked to above, this may be the best bet even for those who aren't particularly excited by the technical presentation on the 4K disc. With all of this understood as background, and with an understanding that I wouldn't be surprised if some just opted to ignore the 4K presentation entirely in favor of the perfectly solid 1080 presentation, Dio: Dreamers Never Die comes Recommended.