# Blu Ray Movie Suggestions **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 10, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blu-ray-movie-suggestions/563672 "2010-12-10T16:36:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Palooka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/palooka/32/2902_2.png) [@Palooka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palooka)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blu-ray-movie-suggestions/563672/21 "2010-12-10T22:13:56Z")
Anything from the [Blu Tier](http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1168342#anchor0) of AV Science’s Blu-ray quality list is going to be a winner. ---
**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2010, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blu-ray-movie-suggestions/563672/22 "2010-12-10T23:18:45Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Getting back to the OP for a moment - you’ve never heard of _Inception_? It was one of the most widely discussed movies of the year. Yeah… that was pretty much the reaction of the sales guy. I must have slept through this summer. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blu-ray-movie-suggestions/563672/23 "2010-12-11T00:27:59Z")
I second the Pixar recommendation. Tim Burton’s _Corpse_ Bride looks stunning on Blu-Ray, and you can usually find it cheap (under $10). Avatar ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blu-ray-movie-suggestions/563672/24 "2010-12-11T01:51:36Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > Nice 50" big screen HD TV and a sub-HD console. Makes a panda sad. > [@Spud](#): > > Why is it a sub HD console? I didn’t really get it for the Blu Ray but thought that was an added bonus. I thought they were all basically the same. Looks to me like **Kinthalis** doesn’t have a 360 or PS3 yet. ETA: as for recommendation, get _Band of Brothers_. Looks great in HD and there’s a picture-in-picture thing where the vets comment on the on-screen action. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blu-ray-movie-suggestions/563672/25 "2010-12-11T02:02:02Z")
> [@I'm Not Dennis Bergkamp](#): > > Saving Private Ryan, for both the visuals and the sound. > > And [The Fall](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460791/) looks stunning in Blu-Ray. I loved that movie. The little girl just stole my heart. ---
**Author:** ![fubbleskag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fubbleskag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fubbleskag)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blu-ray-movie-suggestions/563672/26 "2010-12-11T03:10:08Z")
I haven’t seen it yet on Bluray, but I really enjoyed the visuals of The Fountain. edit: I’m sad to see it only rated a Copper on the ratings link upthread :\ ---
**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blu-ray-movie-suggestions/563672/27 "2010-12-12T14:49:00Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Getting back to the OP for a moment - you’ve never heard of _Inception_? It was one of the most widely discussed movies of the year. Yeah, so I picked up a copy on the sales guy’s recommendation. Yesterday my daughter rode the team bus 4.5 hours (one way) to a game and said one of the movies they watched was Inception. She said it was really confusing and it sucked… my son chimed in that he heard it was impossible to follow. I guess I’ll be returning it and looking for a Pixar flick. If the wide discussion was that it sucked you may want to include this next time 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blu-ray-movie-suggestions/563672/28 "2010-12-12T18:06:33Z")
Inception is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it’s a great movie. It is showing up on many critics’ “Best of 2010” lists and there’s a good chance it will be nominated for multiple Academy Awards. Your kids might be a little young to appreciate it. You should probably buy them an Adam Sandler movie, or maybe a Shrek movie. Something with lots of fart jokes. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Spud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spud/32/347_2.png) [@Spud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spud)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blu-ray-movie-suggestions/563672/29 "2010-12-12T18:27:09Z")
> [@Tangent](#): > > Inception is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it’s a great movie. It is showing up on many critics’ “Best of 2010” lists and there’s a good chance it will be nominated for multiple Academy Awards. > > Your kids might be a little young to appreciate it. You should probably buy them an Adam Sandler movie, or maybe a Shrek movie. Something with lots of fart jokes. 😉 They are all teens so I think Shrek i out. Fart Jokes are right on though. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Ed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Just\_Ed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Ed)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blu-ray-movie-suggestions/563672/30 "2010-12-12T19:52:03Z")
Yes, I guess _Inception_ would be a definite case of YMMV. I just saw it on blu-ray last night, and I thought it was brilliant. Excellent effects, solid story (that _may_ be hard to follow if you’re not paying close attention - it involves dreams within dreams). But anyway, as someone mentioned upthread, your best bets for showing off your system are the big-budget blockbuster type movies (in addition to the nature documentaries already mentioned - _Planet Earth_ and _Life_ are really eye-opening in their clarity and detail). Some SF suggestions:[ul][li]Star Trek (2009)[_]Terminator 2[_]The Dark Knight[_]Avatar[_]Iron Man[_]Repo Men[_]Children of Men[_]Daybreakers[_]The Fifth Element[/ul]Epics are another good bet; _Braveheart_ and _Gladiator_ are out there (although you have to be careful with _Gladiator_, as the first blu-ray release was flawed; you want the remastered re-release). Also as someone else mentioned, Pixar flicks are always top-notch. I’d recommend _The Fantastic Mr. Fox_ as well, but that’s a Wes Anderson title, and if you’re not familiar with his humor, might not be to your taste.[/li] Another benefit of blu-ray is the added capacity for commentaries and bonus features, so if you want to highlight that (in addition to almost all of the above), you could go for Guy Ritchie’s _Sherlock Holmes_, which uses what Warner Brothers calls “Maximum Movie Mode” and has Ritchie doing picture-in-picture commentary explaining aspects of certain scenes in addition to the usual commentary track. Kevin Smith uses that to good effect on _Cop Out_, which is not a very good movie but is almost worth it to see Smith explaining (and even mocking) himself in the commentary. For music titles, I highly recommend _The 25th Anniversary Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Concerts_, which is two discs’ worth of awesome rock and roll with picture and sound quality to match. _Ladies & Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones_ features the boys on their 1972 “Exile on Main Street” tour. And Criterion’s _Complete Monterey Pop Festival_ is the best record of that 1967 landmark. (And, umm, if your taste isn’t rock and roll, I’m sorry but I don’t have any music recommendations.) The classics are also being remastered and re-released in blu, and they look absolutely stunning when done well. Black and white cinematography is really something altogether different than what we’re used to these days. Criterion titles again are always a good bet - they recently released _The Night of the Hunter_ and Chaplin’s _Modern Times_ - _Hunter_ is startlingly clear and _Modern Times_ looks far better than it has any right to at this point. Let’s see, what else? There’s really a lot of titles now that have received a great blu-ray release, so if you think of your favorite movies, genres, or directors, chances are there will be something in blu for you. Guillermo del Toro’s movies are favorites of mine - _Hellboy_, _Hellboy II_, and _Pan’s Labyrinth_ are good examples. The whole _Back to the Future_ trilogy was just recently released. _Apocalypse Now_ was recently released in both a 3-disc “Full Disclosure” edition and a more modest 2-disc edition. If you’re looking primarily for the best sound and picture quality, more recent releases are probably better bets than re-releases of older films, simply because production (of the big studios especially) is nowadays geared toward both the eventual home video release as well as the theatrical release. There are exceptions, of course (_Saving Private Ryan_, for instance, looks and sounds great on blu, and _Blade Runner_ looks good), and studios like Criterion specialize in lovingly restoring classics, but by and large the market favors new movies. But above all - Have fun with the new system! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/blu-ray-movie-suggestions/563672.md?page=1)