Welcome to the August 2025 edition of the Blu-ray Bounty, where I’ll be looking at three new 4K discs.
If this is your first time here, welcome! You can check out previous editions of the Blu-ray Bounty here, where we’ve covered some excellent 4K Blu-rays, some of which I’ve ended up buying for my own shelf!
4K Blu-ray is extremely popular at TechRadar. That’s because 4K Blu-ray discs are a cornerstone for our testing of the best TVs, best soundbars and the best 4K projectors.
For my review setup this week, I’ll be using the LG G5, one of the best OLED TVs of 2025, along with the Samsung HW-Q990C soundbar and the Panasonic DP-UB820 4K Blu-ray player.
As always, I’m not reviewing the movie itself, just the quality of the disc’s picture and soundtrack.
Last month, I looked at five new 4K Blu-ray releases: Sinners, Dark City, Hans Zimmer: Live in Prague, A Hard Day’s Night and Black Bag. So be sure to check out the July 2025 Blu-ray Bounty if any of those movies interest you.
Thunderbolts
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One of the surprise hits of 2025, Thunderbolts is one of the latest big character team-up movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), with this entry focusing on a lesser-known, more anti-hero lineup of characters such as Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) and Red Guardian (David Harbor).
As you’d expect from a big-budget Marvel movie, Thunderbolts looks slick. The picture is detailed and refined throughout, with realistic textures that benefit from Dolby Vision HDR. The 3D-like presentation also has plenty of scenes with strong contrast, including one in a dark room with red lighting. Color isn’t abundant in this movie, but when used, it packs a great visual punch.
With plentiful gunfights, fight scenes and explosions, Thunderbolts is a perfect action movie for flexing your home theater’s sound system, especially the subwoofer. The Dolby Atmos soundtrack not only delivers plenty of rumble, but the fight scenes give height speakers a workout. Dialogue is crystal clear throughout, and all effects sound crisp and rich.
The Phoenician Scheme
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Wes Anderson’s latest movie tells the story of a wealthy tycoon (Benicio Del Toro) who makes his nun daughter (Mia Threapleton) heir to his fortune. Soon after, they become targets of assassins, rival tycoons and terrorists. As usual with a Wes Anderson film, there’s an ensemble cast, and here it includes Michael Cera, Tom Hanks, Benedict Cumberbatch and Scarlett Johansson, to name a few.
Presented in Dolby Vision, The Phoenician Scheme is visually striking. Colors, although used sparingly, are vibrant, especially reds and greens, and textures have a realistic, nearly 3D-like level of sharpness. It’s this level of detail throughout that impresses most with the 4K presentation.
The Phoenician Scheme won’t showcase your home theater audio system to its full effect, but the dialogue is clear and presented upfront in the mix. Its Dolby Atmos soundtrack is laid back, though a scene where a group of guerrillas led by Richard Ayoade unleashes bullets into a ceiling, and one in a jungle with crickets and a constant breeze, does make use of height channels to great effect. The quirky soundtrack is well-balanced with the dialogue throughout.
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse
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Hearts of Darkness is a documentary about the making of Francis Ford Coppola’s epic Vietnam War movie, Apocalypse Now. Composed of behind-the-scenes footage by Coppola’s wife Eleanor and interviews with cast and crew members, it details the various issues faced on the movie’s production.
Where this Hearts of Darkness 4K restoration, presented by Studio Canal, really impresses is in how the production’s grainy, home-shot footage has been cleaned up. Cinephiles will appreciate that there is still plenty of grain present, but the footage itself is clear and detailed throughout. Colors are striking, with vivid green trees and vibrant orange fire.
The documentary also cuts to footage from the movie Apocalypse Now, which looks so crisp and detailed that it’s like you’re actually watching that movie. Skin tones are true-to-life, and objects and facial features have a refined appearance.
This 4K disc features both a DTS-HD Master Audio (MA) 5.1 and mono LCPM soundtrack. The DTS-HD soundtrack presents surround effects such as rain with a high level of clarity, and both Eleanor’s narration and the speech of the cast and crew in interviews are also clear throughout.
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james.davidson@futurenet.com (James Davidson)
