Arrow vs. Kino Lorber 4K UHD Sergio Leone’s Western classic “A Fistful of Dollars”

4K ULTRA HD COMPARISONS / HDR vs. SDR SCREENSHOTS

The top image is from the UK Arrow Video (2025), the bottom from Kino Lorber (2022). Notice the difference in color grading, black level, highlights, and expanded framing with the Arrow release.

Clint Eastwood stars as the lone American cowboy who rides into the border town of San Miguel and is confronted by a gang of gunslingers for the Baxter clan. Eastwood created his character’s visual style, by buying a pair of black jeans from a shop on Hollywood Boulevard, the hat from a Santa Monica wardrobe firm, and the trademark black cigars from a Beverly Hills shop. The poncho was a gift from the director.

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BASED ON Akira Kurosawa’s 1961 samurai classic “Yojimbo,” starring the great Toshiro Mifune. And, “A Fistful of Dollars,” Sergio Leone’s 1964 classic starring the great Clint Eastwood in his career-defining role as the ‘Man With No Name.’

Four years ago, Kino Lorber announced it would release the three ‘Man With No Name’ Westerns on 4K Ultra HD. Initially, they considered adding HDR grading to the Italian 4K restorations of the original 35mm 2-perf Techniscope camera negative, but eventually opted out. Was it too costly, or did the HDR grading fail to render the results they had hoped?

Three years ago, we said this about the Kino Lorber 4K release of “A Fistful of Dollars.”

The original 4K restoration was funded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and captured from the original Techniscope camera negative at the Cineteca di Bologna’s archive in Italy by Unidis Jolly Film S.R.L. Cinematographer Ennio Guarnieri (“La Dolce Vita”) supervised the 2018 color correction from a 1965 reference print but it suffered from an excessive yellow tint. Dallamono, who also filmed “For a Few Dollars More,” died in 1976.

The new KL Studio Classics edition features two discs – 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray, and both have been given a new color grading. The standard dynamic range colors are natural and saturated, and the 4K provides a more cinematic experience with its more organic film grain look. From top to bottom and size to size the 2160p disc improves with overall clarity – especially with the beautifully composed wide shots.

Film grain is quite apparent since the Techniscope format used two frames within the normal 35mm frame, a way of cutting costs in low-budget moviemaking. Even though it can’t match the clarity of traditional 35mm widescreen films, the sharpness is a leap forward compared to the previous 2018 edition.

TODAY:

Arrow Video based in the U.K. decided to release all three Leone Westerns with SDR, HDR10 and Dolby Vision grading, plus providing a completely different framing. Each frame has more horizontal image on the left and right, and more vertical depth, with more of an image on the bottom. The top of the frame is still the same.

“A Fistful of Dollars” was encoded onto a 100 GB disc and consistently runs over 80 Megabits per second and peaks over 100 Mbps. The film grain is heavy, similar to the look of the Kino Lorber disc. The new HDR grading provides a deeper black level and provides more detail within the highlight, especially with the clouds, evident within the screenshots. The color grading seems more natural, with the added black level, and overall, this tops the Kino Lorber release from 2022.

Arrow Video says this about the presentation on page 55 of the booklet.

“A Fistful of Dollars” (Per un pugno di dollari) has been exclusively restored by Arrow Films and is presented in its original aspect ratio 2.35:1. The soundtrack is presented in restored original Italian and English mono, as well remixed Italian and English 5.1 audio.

The original 35mm 2-perf Techniscope camera negative. Was scanned and restored by 4K/16-bit resolution at L’Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna. The film was further restored and colour graded in SDR, HDR10 and Dolby Vision at Silver Salt Restoration, London.

The original Italian film and audio materials sourced for this new restoration were made available from Unidis Jolly Film SRL. Materials were delivered by the Cineteca di Bologna and L’Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna.

Additional English picture and audio materials were made available from Amazon/MGM Studios.

Principal audio restoration on the original mono tracks was completed by Bad Pictures Productions. Additional 5.1 audio restoration work was completed by Porsteinn Gislason.

The original Italian trailer was restored in 4K with HDR10 grading at R3Store Studios, with Dolby Vision grading completed at Fidelity in Motion. The outtakes were sourced from Unidis Jolly Film SRL and scanned in 2K resolution at L’Immagine Ritrovata, Bologna.

EXTRAS:

The Bonus Blu-ray (Region B) houses the majority of the extras, with three new interviews with Italian film experts, with English subtitles.

When It All Started, a newly filmed interview with film historian and critic Fabio Melelli (English subtitles)

Four Fingers Four Picks, a newly filmed interview with guitarist Bruno Battisti D'Amario (English subtitles)

Wind & Fire, a newly filmed interview with Morricone biographer Alessandro de Rosa (English subtitles)

A Night at the Movies, a newly filmed interview with filmmaker Paolo Bianchini

A Fistful of Outtakes, highlights from the original rushes (English subtitles)

The Day the Soundtrack Changed, a new visual essay by musician and disc collector Lovely Jon exploring the film’s iconic score

Marisol: Leone’s Madonna of the West, an archival interview with co-star Marianne Koch

The Frayling Archives and A New Kind of Hero, two archival interviews with Sir Christopher Frayling

A Few Weeks in Spain, an archival interview with Clint Eastwood

Tre Voci, an archival featurette with Leone collaborators Mickey Knox, Sergio Donati and Alberto Grimaldi

Opening scene with Harry Dean Stanton filmed for the film’s US TV debut in 1975, plus an archival interview with the prologue’s director Monte Hellman

Restoration Italian Style, an archival featurette on the film’s remastering for DVD

Location Comparisons 1964-2004, an archival featurette

Alternate credits sequences

Three comprehensive image galleries: A Fistful of Pictures, On the Set and Promoting “A Fistful of Dollars”