Finally, a U.S. 4K presentation – “Killers of the Flower Moon”
- Bill Kelley III
- 9 minutes ago
- 7 min read
4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / HDR SCREENSHOTS
The Criterion Collection 4K version (2026)
Italy’s Eagle Pictures 4K version (2024)
Both 4K Ultra HD versions are nearly identical, with only the video bitrate numbers varying. In this shot, the Criterion disc runs between 45.5 Megabits-per-second to 43.1 Mbps, and the Italian disc - 43 Mbps to 40.3 Mbps. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as World War I veteran Ernest Burkhart, and Lily Gladstone stars as his wife, Mollie Burkhart.
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“KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON: THE CRITERION COLLECTION”
4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray; 2023; R for violence, some grisly images, and profanity
Best extra: “Killers of the Flower Moon: A Historical Collaboration” featurette
IT’S BEEN 789 days since Martin Scorsese’s 10 Oscar-nominated “Killers of the Flower Moon” first landed on 4K Ultra HD in Europe.
At last, it makes its U.S. 4K premiere from the fine folks at The Criterion Collection. They’ve assembled a perfect three-disc set, with a number of detailed featurettes and interviews on a Special Features Blu-ray, while the striking 4K imagery and Dolby Atmos soundtrack have been encoded onto a single 100 GB disc. An additional Blu-ray includes the 1080p theatrical version.
As weird as it sounds, Italy’s Eagle Pictures, based in Rome, got the first 4K UHD/Blu-ray rights from Apple+ and Paramount Pictures, and released their exclusive 4K disc over two years ago. At that time, we got our hands on the Italian disc, and the results were spectacular, even though it was also encoded onto one 4K disc. We also selected the 4K disc in our Annual Top 10 4K mastered discs of 2024.
(1-3) The Osage Nation moved from Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas and settled in the Oklahoma Territory after purchasing land from the Cherokee Nation in 1872. In the 1890s large volumes of oil were found, and in 1907 the Osage reached a deal that enabled them to retain communal mineral rights. (4-7) After WWI Ernest Burkhart arrives in Fairfax, Okla. The ride to his uncle William “King” Hale’s cattle ranch passed hundreds of oil rigs. His uncle (Robert DeNiro) gives Ernest an introduction to the way of life in Osage County.
Scorsese’s docudrama is a long one, running nearly three and a half hours without an intermission, which seems to be a lost art with today’s filmmakers. It all takes place in the middle of the “reign of terror,” a series of murders in the 1920s, when at least 60 Osage men and women were murdered, “by every possible means, from shootings to gradual poisoning and bombings to bilk them out of their wealth,” says writer/producer/director Scorsese.
For five decades starting in 1901, the tribe received mineral rights payments of nearly $300 million – in today’s dollars $4 billion – for the discovery of oil on their land, which they purchased from the Cherokee Nation in 1872, just northwest of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Scorsese says the heart of the film is the love story between Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his wife, Mollie, played by Lily Gladstone, a daughter of the Piegan Blackfeet Nation. She had been a frontrunner to win the Best Actress Oscar in March 2024, but to the surprise of many, Emma Stone won the golden statue for the strange “Poor Things.”
Robert DeNiro plays William “King” Hale, the mastermind behind the killings of Osage oil heiress Mollie Burkhart and her two sisters Anna (Cara Jade Myers) and Minnie (Jillian Dion). Gladstone says that Hale was a “de facto father figure” to Ernest and planted the idea when the WWI veteran married an Osage woman, telling him, “There’s good money in that.” She also explains how the film “reopened fresh wounds that hadn’t fully closed.” Hale was arrested by the newly formed Bureau of Investigation (now the FBI), after the tribal elders went to Washington D.C. asking for help.
Originally, Scorsese and co-writer Eric Roth focused the storyline on the birth of the FBI, an element of David Grann’s 2017 bestseller. DiCaprio was to play the lead FBI agent, which eventually became Jesse Plemons’ role. But during COVID-19, Scorsese realized the true story came from inside the Osage Nation and the relationship between Ernest and Mollie.
(1&2) Dozens of mysterious deaths hit the oil-rich Osage Nation. (3-6) Ernest becomes a driver for his uncle and picks up Mollie in town. The two fall in love and have a traditional Osage marriage ceremony.
EXTRAS
“‘Killers of the Flower Moon’: Historical Collaboration” (36 mins.) includes a wealth of information from Scorsese, DiCaprio, Gladstone, author David Grann, Osage Nation Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear, Osage culture consultant John Williams Sr., editor Thelma Schoonmaker, and members of the cast and crew.
You’ll discover how the Osage community still wrestles with the memories of the murders from 100 years ago. Much of the terror had been buried for decades within the community and by state authorities. Consultant Brandy Lemon said, “It wasn’t actually taught, even as a section in our Oklahoma history class.” While Williams, a Special Forces Vietnam Vet., who died during the production, was eight years old in the mid-1950s, when he first heard about the Osage killings from his mother.
Yancey Red Corn tells how his grandfather was poisoned and died. “They didn’t trust anybody outside the family… so there’s that generational trauma. My dad was overprotective, and I’m overprotective of my son,” he says. Yancey’s father wrote a book, “A Pipe for February” (2002), which became the inspiration for Grann to explore the Osage murders.
Grann visited the Osage library and museum in 2012 and discovered a massive panoramic black and white photograph taken in 1924 with over 100 Osage in traditional wear. Yet a portion of the left side was missing, where once stood William Hale. The museum director, Catherine Red Corn, told Grann, “It contained this figure so frightening, I decided to remove it. The devil was standing right there.” The author says, “This was not a singular figure who had committed these crimes. It was really about a culture of killing.”
Scorsese demanded that the Osage people be involved in every aspect of the production as consultants, cast members, extras, and crew. The production was filmed during the latter days of COVID-19 in Osage County on Osage lands.
The “Reign of Terror” continues
“‘Wahzhazhe’” A Song from the Osage’ (33 mins.) Scorsese and members of the Osage Nation detail the film’s final shot: a newly composed song/dance, similar to the sacred InLonSchka for the “first son,” which isn’t allowed to be photographed or video-recorded.
“Rodrigo Preito” (25 mins.) Mexican cinematographer and four-time collaborator with Scorsese, talks with Dolby Institute director and podcast host Glenn Kiser.
“Cannes Press Conference” (30 mins.) excerpts from the press event, held the following day after the World Premiere at the French Riviera film festival in May 2023.
“Cover Art” (1 min.) a promotional video featuring Osage artist Noah Kemohah, whose work titled “Earthen Blanket Dusk,” appears on the movie posters and the Criterion disc jacket.
“36-page booklet” with two essays by New Yorker writer Vinson Cunningham and Sundance Indigenous Director Adam Piron, with production photographs.
Mollie fears for her life
VIDEO
First off, “Flower Moon” is still a striking TRUE 4K mastered presentation on the new Criterion disc and the Italian disc from 2024. The majority of the film was captured on anamorphic Panavision lenses, with an old-school 35mm color negative (2.39:1 aspect), except for the recreated black and white
.
Both 4K discs are nearly identical. There’s no visible difference in color timing or contrast, but the video bitrates vary between scenes. In some moments, the Italian disc has a higher bitrate, and then the Criterion disc has a slightly higher rate. Both had the challenge of mastering 4K video of three hours and 26 minutes onto a single 100 GB disc.
Some films running over three hours that originally had an intermission, split the film onto two 4K discs to ensure a higher bitrate. Sony used that technique with “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962) and the same with the recent 4K release of “Ben Hur” (1959) from Warner Bros. Both were Oscar Best Picture winners in their respective year.
Film grain is well resolved with plenty of natural structure from start to finish. Onscreen clarity, especially the wide-angle shots, is crisp and detailed from the background to the foreground from the Oscar-nominated footage from Prieto (“The Irishman,” “Silence,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Barbie”).
Dolby Vision and HDR10 provide excellent highlights and deep, dark shadows. Meanwhile, the expanded color spectrum is natural and slightly desaturated with its multicultural cast. The exteriors of this modern western are breathtaking and include hundreds of digitally rendered oil drilling rigs dotting the landscape.
SIDENOTE: Criterion doesn’t provide any details on the video or audio mastering, a traditional part of their booklets. The only information is on the outer cardboard sleeve: New 4K digital master, approved by Scorsese, which would account for the different bitrate compared to the Italian 4K.
AUDIO
Criterion does port over the Dolby Atmos soundtrack featured on Apple+, which was MIA on the Italian disc. It was encoded with six-channel DTS-HD, but both are very powerful with wide frequency response. Strangely, we noticed that the audio bitrate on the Italian disc is slightly higher, even though it has fewer channels.
The Oscar-nominated score is by Scorsese’s longtime collaborator, the late Robbie Robertson. Scorsese’s documentary, “The Last Waltz” (1978), of Robertson’s last concert with his Rock ‘n’ Roll group The Band, is considered one of the best live concerts ever captured on film.
The dialogue is front and center with layering environmental sound effects – rain, thunder, insects, and gun blasts – filling the theater room along with Robertson’s haunting rhythmic composition of acoustic and electric guitars, strings, harmonica, and drums. Robertson, himself of First Nations’ descent, was raised on a reserve in Ontario, Canada. He visited the Oklahoma set for inspiration.
The three-disc 4K/Blu-ray set from Criterion is welcome, especially to U.S. physical media lovers.
— Bill Kelley III, High-Def Watch producer
The Bureau of Investigation arrives
SPECS:
100 GB disc
TRUE 4K mastering
Captured on 35mm film stock with Panavision anamorphic lens, and framed in the theatrical 2.39:1 aspect. Some scenes are recreated as newsreel footage and home movies captured with hand-cranked Bell & Howell cameras, 1.33:1 aspect.
Video bitrate: Varies from the upper 10 Megabits per second to nearly 90 Mbps, averaging in the low 50 Mbps, with a running time of 206 minutes.
Box office: Domestic $68 million, and worldwide $159 million, with an estimated production budget of $200 million paid by Apple+.
Rotten Tomatoes: Top Critics’ 95 percent, Audiences 84 percent.
Metacritic: Critics: 89 percent, User score 7.6
Awards: 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Actor, Original Score, Original Song, Best Supporting Actor, Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design, and Costume Design
BAFTA Awards – nine nominations
Golden Globes – winner Best Female actor