The 10th Victim Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		2.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.0

The 10th Victim Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov April 12, 2025

Elio Petri's "The 10th Victim" (1965) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include new audio commentary by critics Steve Mitchell and Troy Howarth; archival program with Paola Pegoraro Petri and critic Kim Newman; and vintage trailer. In English or Italian, with optional English and English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".

Shoot to kill

It is not difficult to argue that Elio Petri’s The 10th Victim is the spiritual father of Paul Michael Glaser’s The Running Man. Both films enter a dystopian future in which hunting and killing people is a very popular, state-approved game. Both films depict the media as a corrupt entity that regularly stages events and manipulates the masses. Both films see modern society as a failed experiment dominated by tribalism and greed.

In The 10th Victim, the killing game, called The Big Hunt, is always in progress. It is played by volunteers who must go through ten rounds as ‘hunters’ and ‘victims’, five of each, after a supercomputer in Geneva randomly pairs them. The ‘hunters’ know the identity of the ‘victims’, but the ‘victims’ are unable to recognize the ‘hunters’. After each round, the winner gets a cash prize. If a player wins ten rounds, the organizers of The Big Hunt are supposed to transfer one million dollars to his bank account and declare him Decathon.

The most exciting player in The Big Hunt is American beauty Caroline Meredith (Ursula Andress), who has racked up nine impressive wins, the most ever recorded. For her tenth and final round, the supercomputer in Geneva selects her to be a ‘killer’ and go after Italian playboy Marcello Poletti (Marcello Mastroianni), also an experienced player with several impressive wins. Because Meredith is one murder away from becoming a Decathon, she strikes a lucrative deal with a big TV company to lure her ‘victim’ to a special place where his death will be filmed and used to further popularize The Big Hunt among the masses. However, soon after Meredith establishes contact with Poletti and begins luring him toward the special place where he is supposed to die before the rolling TV cameras, the two unexpectedly fall in love.

The 10th Victim is, like several other Petri films, a chameleon. It is quite extravagant, at times flashy and very sexy action thriller, but it is painfully obvious that it was conceived as a prophetic political film. (This is hardly surprising, as all of Petri’s films are political films). It uses The Big Hunt as a ruse to present a version of a future society that, most unfortunately, no longer looks ridiculous. For example, the seemingly random violence depicted in The Big Hunt is now a fact of life in major metropolitan areas in Europe and America. As in The 10th Victim, it is casually accepted as an unavoidable ‘flaw’ of contemporary democracies, too. While The Big Hunt is in progress, The 10th Victim even correctly predicts that the media of the future will evolve into a corrupt entity staging and exploiting events for profits.

However, it must be acknowledged that The 10th Victim does not prioritize its prophecies and politics. They are simply there for those who wish to extract and ponder them. The rest is managed very nicely to entertain in a way that perhaps only Italian films could during the 1960s. Virtually all of this material has a pulpy quality and a cheeky sense of humor that now feels quite refreshing.

Petri’s director of photography was Gianni Di Venanzo, who lensed some of the greatest post-war Italian films, including 8½, Big Deal on Madonna Street, La Notte, and L'Eclisse.

The 10th Victim Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, The 10th Victim arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber.

Please note that the screencaptures included with this article appear in the following order:

Screencaptures #1-23 are from the Kino Lorber release.
Screencaptures #28-40 are from the Blue Underground release.

The release introduces a 2K restoration of The 10th Victim that was prepared at L'Immagine Ritrovata in 2012. Unfortunately, this 2K restoration is extremely disappointing.

While it produces dramatically healthier visuals than the ones seen on Blue Underground's original release -- on this release, the entire film is plagued by moderate scanner noise causing plenty of smearing -- the 2K restoration regrades the film and, in some areas, it introduces gamma issues. The regrading is quite dramatic, pretty similar to the regradings that destroyed the native appearance of Le Cercle Rouge and The Designated Victim. For example, primary blues, reds, and greens are either destabilized or wiped out, and vast portions of the film now boast a purely digital monochromatic appearance. Also, the regrading jobs destabilizes some darker nuances and different ranges of shadows/shadow nuances, and as a result, it often looks like a filter was applied. Needless to say, all of this is beyond frustrating and disappointing because the healthier grain and outstanding density levels of the raw files easily could have produced a 'reference quality' presentation of The 10th Victim. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free player in order to access its content).

The 10th Victim Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this Blu-ray release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 and Italian DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Optional English SDH (for the former) and English (for the latter) subtitles are provided.

During the VHS and DVD eras, I have seen The 10th Victim in English and Italian. I think that both tracks can be used. However, most of the actors utter their lines in English, which are then overdubbed in English. On the Italian track, there is overdubbing in Italian as well. I would select the English track since it is the more commonly used one, but it is great to have the Italian track as an option as well. The English track is very healthy. There are no traces of any age-related anomalies on it. However, even when Piero Piccioni's music becomes prominent and/or there is action, dynamic intensity is unremarkable. This is an inherited limitation.

The 10th Victim Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Elio Petri: Subject for Further Research - in this archival program, Paola Pegoraro Petri and critic Kim Newman discuss Elio Petri's diverse oeuvre and The 10th Victim. In Italian and English, with English subtitles where necessary. (29 min).

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by critics Steve Mitchell and Troy Howarth.

• Trailer One - presented here is an original U.S. trailer for The 10th Victim. In English, not subtitled. (2 min).

• Trailer Two - presented here is an original Italian trailer for The 10th Victim. In Italian, with English subtitles. (3 min).

• Cover - reversible cover with vintage poster art for The 10th Victim.

The 10th Victim Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Over a decade ago, L'Immagine Ritrovata prepared a 2K restoration of Elio Petri's film The 10th Victim. Sadly, this 2K restoration, like so many other restorations that have emerged from the Italian lab, is a random digital reimagination of Petri's film. There is another release of this small but wonderful film that Blue Underground produced. However, this release offers a flawed presentation of is as well. What should you do if you want to own a copy of The 10th Victim? You are going to have to decide what is more important to you -- healthier visuals or more accurate visuals.