The Concorde... Airport '79 4K Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

The Concorde... Airport '79 4K Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov November 10, 2025

David Lowell Rich's "The Concorde... Airport '79" (1979) arrives on 4K Blu-ray courtesy of Kino Lorber. The supplemental features on the release include new audio commentary by critics Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson and remastered vintage trailer. In English, with optional English SDH subtitles for the main feature. Region-Free.

The hot target

If all these years later someone were to reveal that Blake Edwards had secretly conceived The Concorde… Airport ‘79 and then, while using an alias, worked closely with David Lowell Rich as production was initiated, everything would instantly begin making perfect sense. George Kennedy’s spicy jokes. Alain Delon’s tricks. Robert Wagner playing Susan Blakely like a violin. The goofy pool scene with the American reporter and the Soviet athlete. Charo smuggling a puppy and sticking out like a sore thumb. The black guy refusing to surrender his saxophone and then puffing a joint in the plane’s bathroom. The French policeman attempting to hand stacks of cash to a criminal on the run at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. C’mon, this is brilliant stuff, and the disclosure of Edwards’s secret involvement simply would have made the obvious painfully obvious.

The mayhem begins shortly after several radical environmentalists attempt to crash a massive balloon into an Air France Concorde getting ready to land at Dulles International Airport. Old pro Joe Patroni (Kennedy) and French ace Paul Metrand (Delon) reveal what the Concorde is capable of and avoid the disaster, but just hours later face a far more sophisticated foe. Dr. Kevin Harrison (Wagner), a multimillionaire and famous aerospace contractor, orders his chief engineer to reprogram his newest creation, a Buzzard Attack Drone, and destroy the Concorde because his girlfriend (Blakely) is on it with a folder full of documents revealing that he has been dealing with America’s greatest enemies. While trying to reach Paris, the Concorde not only wins the duel with the Buzzard Attack Drone, but also survives an attack from an F-4 Phantom, also linked to Harrison and his evil business partners. After the Concorde lands at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, a dirty mechanic then places a bomb in it so that it never reaches its final destination, Moscow, where the next Olympic Games will be held.

The Concorde… Airport ‘79 is an incredible film. It is loaded with witty jokes and bursts with energy of the kind that are present in legendary comedies like The Party and Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, but because half of it is supposed to be taken seriously, it demands to be placed in a category of its own. It is genuinely unpredictable, producing antics that are routinely impossible to categorize, as well as character transformations that appear to have been crafted by a dozen drunken writers. It is irrelevant whether all of this was done intentionally or is simply a giant mish-mash of fumbles. It is brilliant stuff.

The special effects look predictably dated. However, they add charm to the hilarious mayhem that feels right, too. The Concorde does some incredible pirouettes to avoid its attackers and, eventually, crash-lands in a ski resort somewhere in frozen Germany. It would have been amazing if, next to the crash site, Rich had placed a fake film crew shooting a wild segment from an upcoming James Bond film.

The Concorde… Airport ‘79 ended Delon’s attempt to establish himself in Hollywood. After its disastrous performance at the box office, Delon appeared only in French and European co-productions.

The Concorde... Airport '79 4K Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Kino Lorber's release of The Concorde... Airport '79 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 from the Blu-ray.
Screencaptures #36-40 are from the 4K Blu-ray.

The release introduces a new 4K restoration of The Concorde... Airport '79 sourced from the original camera negative. In native 4K, the 4K restoration can be viewed with Dolby Vision and HDR grades. I chose to view it with HDR. Also, I spent time with its 1080p presentation on the Blu-ray.

The entire film looks very healthy. However, I must immediately mention that of the four Airport films, it is the one whose cinematography produces the most density fluctuations, some of which, in tandem with the unique special effects, significantly impact delineation and clarity. You will instantly recognize the areas with the fluctuations because the shifts are unmissable. I did not see any traces of problematic digital corrections. Color reproduction and balance are convincing. However, in a few places, primary blue could have been a tad more prominent, as it is on Universal's previous Blu-ray release of the film. The HDR grade is effective. However, it tends to seriously exacerbate some of the fluctuations that are mentioned above as well. On my system, darker areas and all darker nuances that are present there looked very good. What about the 1080p presentation of the 4K restoration on the Blu-ray? It is a good upgrade in quality, too. I did not feel the need to run specific comparisons with the previous 1080p presentation because the improvements were very obvious. However, I did some comparisons with the native 4K presentation, and I thought that the 1080p presentation performed great next to it. I did not see any distracting surface imperfections or encoding anomalies to report in our review.

The Concorde... Airport '79 4K Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There are two standard audio tracks on this release: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 and English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided for the main feature.

I tested both tracks in different parts of the film. They are both good lossless tracks, with the 5.1 track perhaps performing slightly better during the action material, and specifically at the end during the crash footage. However, I must mention something that you will inevitably notice, regardless of whether you choose the 2.0 or 5.1 track. On both tracks, there are a few spots where Alain Delon's lines are virtually impossible to understand, but this is how they were recorded. Delon's accent is very thick, and clarity and sharpness are average at best, so you will likely have to turn on the optional subtitles to get everything he says. Elsewhere, the dynamic intensity is pretty good for a film from the late 1970s, and the upper register is healthy.

The Concorde... Airport '79 4K Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

4K BLU-RAY DISC

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by critics Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson. The commentators cover a lot of ground, from the production history of The Concorde... Airport '79 to is reception and impact on the careers of its stars, most notably Alain Delon. Also, there are interesting comments about the environment in which the film was made and its identity.

• Trailer - presented here is a remastered vintage trailer for The Concorde... Airport '79. In English, not subtitled. (3 min).

BLU-RAY DISC

• Commentary - this exclusive new audio commentary was recorded by critics Steve Mitchell and Nathaniel Thompson. The commentators cover a lot of ground, from the production history of The Concorde... Airport '79 to is reception and impact on the careers of its stars, most notably Alain Delon. Also, there are interesting comments about the environment in which the film was made and its identity.

• Trailer - presented here is a remastered vintage trailer for The Concorde... Airport '79. In English, not subtitled. (3 min).

The Concorde... Airport '79 4K Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If you avoid The Concorde... Airport '79 because of the seemingly countless bad reviews it has generated over the years, you will miss a wildly entertaining film that is full of genuine surprises. Whether international or not, its sense of humor makes it appear like a secret Blake Edwards project, and virtually all of its big stars look hooked on it. Despite its terrible reputation, which is not unjustified, I find it to be the most enjoyable of the four Airport films. Kino Lorber's combo pack introduces a new 4K restoration, completed at Universal Pictures, that looks very good on 4K Blu-ray and Blu-ray. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.