Double Indemnity 4K UHD Screenshots (Patreon)

Video

Issuing a beautiful 4K master, Criterion's disc excels at presenting this early '40s imagery. It's a nearly spotless print. A slight flicker aside (and inconsistent flicker at that), Double Indemnity's visual side is faultless. Preserved grain keeps the encode working, but it's perfectly resolved, even in the haze of cigar smoke.

Source materials present satisfying sharpness, the cinematography hazier without the precise sharpness of other catalog titles. All that means is Double Indemnity is preserved intact, the texture maintained where visible down to individual hairs or suit stitching.

A Dolby Vision glaze keeps the gray scale full. Excellent mid tone grays bounce between the deep, shadowed black levels and bright contrast. The lighting schemes introduce clipping to pump up intensity, yet only at the absolute peaks. This makes the slight hazy bloom pronounced naturally, making Double Indemnity look even better now than it did in '44.

Audio

Unobstructed PCM sounds its age in terms of hollow dialog and stretched treble from the score. Yet, there's stellar clarity all around, vintage and well preserved. All of the audio is stable, clear, and impressive. Static? Popping? Drop outs? None of the latter or former.