The Truman Show (25th Anniversary Edition) 4K review

Jul 04, 2023- Permalink

It’s been twenty-five years since Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) realized his life was a show in Peter Weir’s The Truman Show, which also stars Ed Harris, Natascha McElhone and Laura Linney. Paramount Home Entertainment has released The Truman Show (25 Anniversary Edition) on 4K and I had a chance to take a look.

The 2160p HEVC / H.265 encoded native 4K digital transfer with Dolby Vision and HDR10 is presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The video presentation is leaps above the 2008 Blu-ray release. That release is widely regarded to be terrible, with excessive digital noise reduction, but this time around Paramount has done right by the movie. It looks gorgeous. Shot on 35mm film, the digital transfer retains the filmic qualities of the original with a pleasing film grain that hasn’t been digitally scrubbed to death. The image has great detail in facial features, textiles and sets. The colour palette is natural and the image has bright whites and deep blacks that don’t lose the detail in the darker scenes. The Truman Show looks amazing on 4K.

On the audio side of things, you have the choice of an English Dolby Atmos soundtrack as well as English Dolby TrueHD 7.1, German and French Dolby Digital 5.1 and Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 tracks. Subtitles are available for English, English SDH, French, German, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. The heights only get some occasional usage, but the soundscape does use the surrounds for environmental sounds and the odd effect. The score sounds good and dialogue is clear and centred.

The Truman Show 4K also comes with the aforementioned Blu-ray copy and a digital code in the US, while once again there is not a digital code offered in the Canadian version I was sent for review. The extras are all on the Blu-ray disc and consist of some behind-the-scenes featurettes, deleted scenes, a photo gallery, theatrical trailers and TV spots.

The Truman Show 4K combines great performances with amazing visuals and great sound. Though it would have been nice to see some new extras celebrating the 25th anniversary, that’s just a quibble and this set earns a hearty recommendation.