GoodFellas 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

GoodFellas 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

One 4K rating goes one way and the other goes the other. Whaddya want from me?

Reviewed by Randy Miller III September 18, 2020

Nearly four years after the standard 4K edition of Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas was released (and is currently OOP), Warner Bros. and Best Buy have collaborated on a Steelbook variant, now available in-store and online. Disc contents are identical, with the only real differences being exterior packaging design. Although the Steelbook itself leaves something to be desired, this at least gives 4K fans an affordable alternative to the earlier release.

For a film synopsis, please see Michael Reuben's 2016 review of the standard 4K edition. Goodfellas is an undisputed masterpiece, one of the celebrated director's most influential films, and an all-time Top 10 for yours truly. Comedian Bill Burr once summed it up by saying "every scene is a fuckin' closer." I can't add anything to that, so I won't.

However...I do feel that the 4K disc's maligned 2160p transfer -- which doubled as WB's first title encoded with HDR enhancement -- warrants a second opinion, so please see the "Video" section below if you're interested.

GoodFellas 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

First of all, I'd like to preface that I am evaluating Goodfellas' 2160p transfer as a comparison to the 25th Anniversary Blu-ray, released more than a year before the standard 4K edition; both discs were, after all, sourced from the same director-approved 4K scan of the original camera negative and thus share many basic visual similarities that stand in sharp contrast to prior releases, including the 2007 Blu-ray. Simply put, if your last exposure to Goodfellas was via a home video edition released before 2015, it's going to look very different than you remember.

The main difference here is color: Goodfellas now appears substantially colder and less saturated which, combined with mild to moderate contrast boosting on the 25th Anniversary Blu-ray, was the primary reason it looked so distractingly different than before. This 2160p transfer, featuring the studio's then-first use of HDR, tightens up the impact of both: overcast skies are much less likely to exhibit blooming (conversely, shadow detail is generally improved as well) and some of the film's more memorable uses of color are now closer to "vivid" than "slightly washed-out". In all but a few very brief instances, skin tones look more realistic as well: an early exception is the violent opening nighttime drive, where the faces of Henry Hill, Jimmy Conway, and Tommy DeVito are pushed slightly into HDR orange territory. Yet on the whole, it offers a more consistently pleasing presentation that would have felt like a much smoother transition into Goodfellas' "new" visual territory...had we all seen it before the 25th Anniversary Blu-ray.

One trade-off, partially due to its more dialed-back contrast, are black levels that don't go quite as deep as the Blu-ray. This does slightly hamper a few of the film's darker scenes, which look considerably flatter; there's no inherent loss of image detail (in fact, the opposite is true), but if your particular 4K display doesn't boast an extremely high contrast ratio, you might be tricked into thinking this 4K presentation lacks the Blu-ray's boosted visual punch during Goodfellas' darkest moments. Likewise, I also felt that the brightest highlights -- which now look slightly more diffused -- also contribute to that same notion. Clearly not a flaw per se, but one that could easily be misinterpreted as one.

Objectively, the more refined mid-range detail automatically makes this an improvement, as do the tighter levels of film grain and better compression thanks to the format's built-in strengths. There are no hints of excessive DNR, banding, or edge enhancement, which all contribute to this 2160p transfer's more filmic appearance overall. While no fans have a good enough memory to know if Goodfellas' current appearance matches how it looked in 1990, this is undoubtedly a solid early 4K effort that remains its best home video presentation to date. Advancements during the last four years still allow room for improvement, but this is far from disappointing treatment for a certified classic.

GoodFellas 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

For a critique of the DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio mix, please see our review of the standard 4K edition.

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

Since the only new element here is the packaging, all on-disc extras are identical to the standard 4K edition.

• Steelbook Packaging - Honestly, this is one of the least interesting Steelbook designs in recent memory. The majority of its exterior is jet black and glossy, which means this fingerprint magnet will prove tough to handle. But the form isn't much better than the function here: its front cover features a nondescript man in a suit (a way to avoid royalty fees?), while the back has a much smaller image of a gun and a drink. The interior at least switches things up a bit with a black-and-white two-panel image featuring Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro), Paulie Cicero (Paul Sorvino), and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci). The 4K disc gets its own hub on the left side, while the Blu-ray movie and bonus feature discs are overlapped on the right. This isn't the worst packaging of all time or anything -- it's just painfully bland and the glossy finish feels cheap.

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

Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas is a prime entry in the director's body of work and required viewing for film lovers, even those not typically drawn to crime dramas. You might already own it on home video, but WB's 4K disc is the best to date: sourced from a director-approved restoration with the studio's first use of HDR enhancement, it outpaces the 25th Anniversary Blu-ray...but not by an extremely wide margin, especially depending on your setup. Best Buy's belated Steelbook offers an affordable alternative to the standard 4K edition, which is currently unavailable with no official word of a return. If you already own that disc, this one isn't unique enough to be a worthy collectible.