Blu-Ray Recommendations

[Richard Parker]

I'm not looking for movie recommendations per se, but recommendations for movies that look especially good in 1080p. What films look awesome on Blu-Ray?

I've heard good things about Dark Knight and the recent Bond films. What else? Is there a good website for these things? Is the conversion to Blu-ray of films like Heat any good?

[FordTaurusSHO94]

The Dark knight looks good during the IMAX scenes.
Both new Bond movies
Iron Man
The Incredible Hulk
I, Robot
Inglourious Basterds
Star Trek
This Is It
Watchmen
Zombieland

I use Star Trek to show off my projector and HD audio to people that have never seen Blu-ray. This Is It has some of the best sounding music I've ever heard reproduced at home from a "movie."

[Munch]

Ford has a great list. Also, animated movies look amazing. Also:

Planet Earth (BBC documentary)
Baraka

[The Shroud]

Blu-ray.com (http://www.blu-ray.com/) has reviews of almost everything, with screenshots.

Wild China (http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Wild-China-Blu-ray-Review/777/), from the makers of Planet Earth, is awesome. And North By Northwest (http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/North-by-Northwest-Blu-ray-Review/762/) looks amazing for a 50-year-old movie.

[Snowboarder Bo]

I can recommend http://www.highdefdiscnews.com/ as a great place for blu-ray reviews. They review the movie, then they review the video and audio. Both the arts and the tech reviews are fairly in-depth, with time taken to explain the terminology.

[lissener]

I saw most titles in bluray as they came out, and there's never been a more breathtaking transfer than John Ford's The Searchers. Stands up to even the highest-end digital films of the last couple years.

[Kiros]

Another vote for Star Trek - I'm up to a couple dozen Blu-Rays now and that's the one that I use to show off my AV system. There are a couple of space battle scenes with little pieces of debris going everywhere and epic music playing that really show off in a "DVD can't do this" sort of way.

[Sir T-Cups]

Up....


Or frankly anything animated. Animation is just beautiful in HD

[Bosstone]

Star Trek was the first Blu-Ray movie I got.

I also just finished watching, of all things, Speed Racer. If you're looking for eyecandy, that movie has it in spades. So fun to watch.

[Fritz]

Not a movie, but BBC's Planet Earth is drop-dead gorgeous in 1080p. Worth having.

[FordTaurusSHO94]

I forgot Wall-E on my list. Any Pixar movie though.

[phungi]

pardon the minor hijack, but can anyone recommend a decent/inexpensive Blu-Ray player?

[Richard Parker]

Thanks for the recs everyone.

phungi, I was looking for the cheapest player that wouldn't have obvious problems, and I ended up with a Panasonic DMP-BK60k. It doesn't do a lot of the internet streaming (netflix, pandora etc.) which seems to be all the rage, but it does the basics really well. I haven't watched enough movies with it to offer my personal recommendation, but it was the result I reached from my research.

[RandMcnally]

I haven't seen it in blu-ray yet, but I'm assuming that Sin City would be gorgeous.

[NAF1138]

Not a movie, but BBC's Planet Earth is drop-dead gorgeous in 1080p. Worth having.

I want to third this recommendation. If you can only own one film on Blu-Ray, this would be what you should get.

[interface2x]

The "Band of Brothers" Blu-Ray only special features are so good, I kind of wonder what I did the many years I'd watched it before getting the discs. Amazing.

[RandMcnally]

The "Band of Brothers" Blu-Ray only special features are so good, I kind of wonder what I did the many years I'd watched it before getting the discs. Amazing.

I love Band of Brothers. What are the special features?

[Annie]

pardon the minor hijack, but can anyone recommend a decent/inexpensive Blu-Ray player?
If you're a downloading kind of guy/gal, LG's play mkv's, avi's, Netflix, (http://www.lge.com/us/tv-audio-video/video/LG-blu-ray-dvd-player-BD570.jsp) and a bunch more formats. One caveat: I think the USB port only takes .fat files, so instead of plugging an external drive in, I have to transfer whatever I'm watching onto a thumb thumb drive. But mine's an older model, may be improved now

Oh yeah, great on Bluray movie- Children of Men. It's a very visually-detailed film, and bluray really makes it shine

[Bosstone]

If you're a downloading kind of guy/gal, LG's play mkv's, avi's, Netflix, (http://www.lge.com/us/tv-audio-video/video/LG-blu-ray-dvd-player-BD570.jsp) and a bunch more formats. One caveat: I think the USB port only takes .fat files, so instead of plugging an external drive in, I have to transfer whatever I'm watching onto a thumb thumb drive. But mine's an older model, may be improved nowThere's also the BD-P1590 (http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/tv-video/blu-ray/blu-ray-players/BD-P1590/XAA/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&returnurl=), which will connect to Netflix, Pandora, Youtube, and Blockbuster, but it won't play video files like AVIs. When I picked it up after Christmas, it was $150.

Be wary of cheap Blu-Ray players, though. For some reason mine simply will not play the movie 9 (I tried with two different discs of the movie), and there may be others it locks up on. Other than that one oddity, though, it's been great. The value in streaming Netflix to the BR player is not to be underestimated.

[E-Sabbath]

I've had good luck with my Magnavox NB530MGX model. Cost me 80 bucks, plays DVD and Blu-Ray, and even is smart enough to know widescreen from normal. It _does_ need the firmware update, but once you do that, it's fast, doesn't freeze up at all, etcetera.

Doesn't play Divx, but the old DVD player does, so there you go.

[interface2x]

I love Band of Brothers. What are the special features?There's something on there called "In the Field with the Men of Easy Company: Interactive Guides" that is amazing. It's a timeline at the bottom of the screen that pops up with trivia as the episode goes on. For instance, if a German says something, it translates it. If they're talking about an assault on a town, it shows a map of the area and how they plan to assault it. When you're introduced to a character, it shows a picture of the real guy with a small bio. Stuff like that - it's amazing how much stuff there is on there. Very cool.

[Munch]

Whoa! I usually browse the Amazon forums, looking for deals. Someone in the Bluray forum mentioned that Amazon UK has a huge deal on Band of Brothers (blu-ray) right now - $29.98, which includes overseas shipping. That's the lowest it's ever been - you can't hardly find a used copy at that price.

[amaguri]

Planet Earth (BBC documentary)
Baraka

Planet Earth is a must, of course, but I really quoted this for Baraka. I have a PS3 for playing Blu-Rays and a nice 1080p Plasma and Baraka was absolutely breathtakingly stunning for its entire running time.

[unwashed brain]

Danny Boyle's Sunshine looks fantastic.

[Jorge_Burrito]

There's also the BD-P1590 (http://www.samsung.com/us/consumer/tv-video/blu-ray/blu-ray-players/BD-P1590/XAA/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&returnurl=), which will connect to Netflix, Pandora, Youtube, and Blockbuster, but it won't play video files like AVIs. When I picked it up after Christmas, it was $150.

Be wary of cheap Blu-Ray players, though. For some reason mine simply will not play the movie 9 (I tried with two different discs of the movie), and there may be others it locks up on. Other than that one oddity, though, it's been great. The value in streaming Netflix to the BR player is not to be underestimated.


Check for a firmware update. Even more expensive players are occasionally having problems playing disks. Of course with the more expensive players this gets fixed asap and a new firmware released. This may not be true with cheap players.

[YamatoTwinkie]

Here's the definitive thread on avsforum on the subject:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1168342#anchor0

It's basically a ranked list, updated often, of Blu-ray titles by picture quality alone. Movies are ranked from Tier0 (amazing) through Tier 5.0 (terrible). There's only about 50 movies on the Tier0 category.

[nivlac]

I recommend the first two Bond movies -- Dr. No and From Russian with Love. The scene with Ursula Andress on the beach in Dr. No, by itself, was worth the price of the blu-ray! After watching these movies in blu-ray it made the DVD versions unwatchable for me. Watching Ironman was also a memorable experience in blu-ray, but be sure to have the surround sound hooked up or you will lose a lot of the experience.

[Tangent]

The Corpse Bride looks amazing on blu-ray. Crystal clear and beautiful colors.

[E-Sabbath]

See, I have an X-Box. That streams netflix, if I felt like it.

[Duke of Rat]

Planet Earth is a must, of course, but I really quoted this for Baraka. I have a PS3 for playing Blu-Rays and a nice 1080p Plasma and Baraka was absolutely breathtakingly stunning for its entire running time.

With a shout to Munch as well, I purchased Baraka on Blu-Ray and was extremely impressed with quality and content. I have Planet Earth on DVD, but if I see it on Blu-Ray, I'll give it another look.

[Munch]

I got Band of Brothers in the mail yesterday. Wow. Just...wow. The AV reviews are that the sound was recorded with something like this in mind (lossless), but it's still solid. The visuals are fantastic. I started up Part 1 with the special features on, and it was really impressive. Well worth the $30 for 6 discs of an amazing series. I've promised myself I won't get caught up in media collection this time around - but it's things like this that Netflix just doesn't work with.

[Dewey Finn]

Whoa! I usually browse the Amazon forums, looking for deals. Someone in the Bluray forum mentioned that Amazon UK has a huge deal on Band of Brothers (blu-ray) right now - $29.98, which includes overseas shipping. That's the lowest it's ever been - you can't hardly find a used copy at that price.
Aren't those Region 2 discs, though? Were you able to play them on a US Blu-Ray player?

[Munch]

Band of Brothers is region free for some reason (and they even claim a region the amazon site). They play like a charm.

[FordTaurusSHO94]

All Warner Blu-rays are region free. I've imported several from Amazon UK that aren't available here.

[Dewey Finn]

Whoa! I usually browse the Amazon forums, looking for deals. Someone in the Bluray forum mentioned that Amazon UK has a huge deal on Band of Brothers (blu-ray) right now - $29.98, which includes overseas shipping. That's the lowest it's ever been - you can't hardly find a used copy at that price.
Thanks for this recommendation. Band of Brothers isn't something I'm going to watch over and over again, so I decided against buying it. But the HBO series Rome is something I would like to watch again. So I ordered it from Amazon.co.uk, for $59 including postage. That compares to $90 had I ordered it from Amazon.com or $127 from DeepDiscountDVD. I'm going to have to check what else I might want. It never occurred to me that it might be cheaper to buy stuff from the Amazon UK website.