Ben-Hur (4K UHD Review)
Director
William WylerRelease Date(s)
1959 (February 17, 2026)Studio(s)
MGM/Loew’s (Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: A+
- Video Grade: A+
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: A-
Review
[Editor’s Note: The film review is by Barrie Maxwell, adapted from his look at the 50th Anniversary UCE Blu-ray release in 2011. The disc A/V and extras review is by Bill Hunt.]
Twenty-five years ago, when cinephiles were railing at the lack of classic titles on DVD, Warner Bros. tossed out one of its then infrequent such bones in the form of a DVD-18 release of William Wyler’s 1959 version of Ben-Hur. Those who acquired that disc will recall a fairly decent effort, but one somewhat compromised by framing and color fidelity issues. Five years later, Warner addressed those deficiencies and then some in a new four-disc collector’s edition DVD set of the film. And in 2011, there followed a Blu-ray version that truly stood up to its designation as an Ultimate Collector’s Edition.
Work on that release began several years before and involved a $1 million frame by frame restoration from an 8K scan of the original 65 mm camera negative. It was hoped to have the work completed in time for the film’s 50th anniversary in 2009, but the meticulous process took longer than expected and, to Warner’s credit, the studio did not rush it to meet an artificial marketing deadline. But as good as Ben-Hur’s HD release was for its time, the state of the art in film scanning and restoration has advanced much in the years since. And now at last, Warner has delivered Wyler’s beloved epic in 4K Ultra HD.
Ben-Hur relates the story of Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston), a wealthy leader of the Jewish ruling class in Judea. When his boyhood friend, a Roman named Messala (Stephen Boyd), returns to Jerusalem as its new tribune, the two reunite, but it’s clear that both have different allegiances now—Ben-Hur to his people in Judea and Messala to the Roman emperor Tiberius. Messala’s charge is to restore order to Judea, but Ben-Hur refuses to cooperate and the friendship between the two dies. Ben-Hur and his family are soon falsely arrested—how he manages to survive being condemned to the life of a galley slave, reclaim his former power, resolve the conflict with Messala, and eventually determine the fate of his mother and sister forms the bulk of the film’s more than three hour running time. Ben-Hur is subtitled as a story of the Christ, and Jesus is present at critical junctures of the plot, playing a pivotal role.
By the late 1950s, MGM was on the proverbial slippery slope to bankruptcy. It had never really adapted to the changing landscape of the times—the advent of television, the film industry’s loss of control over its theatre chains—and a succession of bloated films that failed or were only marginally successful at the box office had placed the fabled studio in jeopardy. The response was to make one giant roll of the dice with a film that would be a remake of one of the company’s most successful silent epics—Fred Niblo’s Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925). Responsibility was handed to veteran MGM producer Sam Zimbalist, who proceeded to spend $19 million including promotional costs, the most that MGM had ever expended on a production. Where did that money go? Consider some of the following statistics. For Ben-Hur, more than 300 sets covering 148 acres, most of them at Cinecittà Studios in Rome, were used. The chariot race arena took up 18 acres in itself and was one of the most expensive sets ever built. Its construction utilized a million feet of lumber, 250 miles of metal tubing, a million pounds of plaster, and 40 thousand tons of sand from the nearby beaches of the Mediterranean Sea. Props for the film numbered over a million. And Ben-Hur was filmed in MGM Camera 65, a widescreen process using film 65 mm wide with cameras that cost $100,000 each. The chariot race sequence alone cost $1 million, requiring 3 months of shooting time and 8,000 extras. The film-going public responded. Ben-Hur grossed $76 million worldwide and put MGM on safe ground again, at least for a while. Unfortunately, there was one cost that couldn’t be recouped—the life of Sam Zimbalist, who died of a heart attack during production, likely attributable to the stress of an epic production so pivotal to MGM’s future.
While the attention to detail and the amount of money invested was prodigious for the time, the film’s success really rests on three things—the direction of William Wyler, the acting of Charlton Heston in the title role, and the execution of the famous chariot race.
At the beginning there were questions about William Wyler’s ability to handle a widescreen epic, for he’d always been best known for more intimate dramas. Wyler himself had doubts, complaining that “the extreme width of the frame took in everything important and unimportant, and eventually caused the audience’s eye to wander.” But the finished product belied Wyler’s concerns. Ben-Hur is a masterly blend of spectacle and intimacy. And the critical response to Wyler’s work was strongly positive, though not unanimously so.
Charlton Heston’s work occasioned a similar reaction. The character of Ben-Hur and Charlton Heston himself are virtually synonymous now, but Heston was certainly not the first choice for the role. Burt Lancaster had been offered it, and later Rock Hudson was considered. Cesare Danova, one of several Italian actors, was also a candidate. Once Wyler was signed to direct, however, Heston was quickly finalized in the role, partly as a consequence of his work with Wyler on the latter’s most recent film, The Big Country (1958). Heston proved to be a great choice, although Wyler had to push Heston hard to get the sort of performance he wanted. Certainly, Ben-Hur contains one of Heston’s most expressive jobs of acting. It was also a marathon effort, with Heston appearing in all but a handful of the film’s many scenes. Heston’s work earned him the 1959 Best Actor Academy Award—a worthy win, even though it later became fashionable to deride his efforts in favor of others among that year’s candidates (such as Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot, or Cary Grant in North by Northwest).
The centerpiece of Ben-Hur is of course the chariot race, which remains one of the most exciting action sequences ever filmed. Some credit must go to Wyler for his overall staging of the event, but the principals most responsible were Andrew Marton, the second-unit director whom Wyler left to work out every shot, crash and stunt, and who pre-shot the actual race, and Yakima Canutt, who choreographed the stunt work. Crucial also were Heston and Stephen Boyd (who played Messala) both of whom actually learned to drive the chariots and then had to repeat much of what Marton had pre-shot. In fact, they did virtually all of the driving they seem to be doing in the film. The main exceptions were two specific stunts. One was the sequence where Boyd, doubled by a dummy, was dragged under his chariot. The other is the part of the race in which Heston has to jump a pile-up in his path and almost seems to be tossed out of his chariot. The actual jump was done by Joe Canutt, Yakima’s son, who was thrown forward out of the chariot but managed to grab a crossbar that harnessed the horses together. A shot of Heston climbing back into the chariot from in front of it was later spliced into the stunt footage resulting in a spectacular sequence. Upon viewing the final version of Marton and Canutt’s efforts, Wyler remarked that it was “one of the greatest cinematic achievements” he’d ever seen. Most of his peers clearly agreed—the film ultimately earned the Academy Award for Best Picture (and ten more Oscars as well).
Ben-Hur was shot by cinematographer Robert L. Surtees (King Solomon’s Mines, The Bad and the Beautiful, The Sting) on 65 mm photochemical film (specifically Eastman 25T 5248) using the MGM Camera 65 system (later known as Ultra Panavision 70) with specialized Panavision APO Panatar anamorphic lenses. It was finished in a traditional analog photochemical process framed at the ultra-wide 2.76:1 aspect ratio for its 70 mm theatrical release. Warner’s new 4K presentation builds on the work done in during the previous 8K restoration, but it began with a fresh 8K scan of the original 65 mm camera negative by Warner Motion Picture Imaging (as the previous restoration was 10-bit only). A new digital restoration was completed, along with grading for high dynamic range (compatible with both Dolby Vision and HDR10). Details of the new restoration process are forthcoming, and will be added here when available.
The resulting image quality is an absolute marvel. With the obvious exception of the opening titles and overture/entr’acte cards—which exhibit the usual slight generation loss in resolution—fine image detail here is absolutely exquisite. You can see it in armor, stone, marble, skin textures, costume fabrics, the elaborate adornments of Roman and Arab robes. The expanded gamut of HDR renders deeply black shadows—they’re genuinely inky, yet still remarkably detailed—with ultra-clean whites and luminous highlights on metal armor, polished palace and chariot fittings, etc. And the color! The blues, reds, greens, and purples of Roman robes are richly saturated, accurate, and so lustrous they fairly pop off the screen. The image is exceptionally clean looking, with nary a speckle, scratch, or bit of debris to be seen, nor is there any evidence of untoward digital manipulation. Yet a light wash of organic photochemical grain remains visible throughout. And optical transitions have been redone digitally where possible to eliminate generation loss.
What’s more, the film has been encoded so as to maximize the data rates at all times (Part 1 on a 100 GB disc, and Part 2 on 66 GB)—they average between 70-80 Mbps—thus handling the chaotic chariot race with ease. Combined with the high quality lenses used for the production and the large format framing, the result is tremendous depth and a highly dimensional image overall. Simply put, this is one of the finest restorations of a classic film that we’ve seen on 4K disc yet. It’s Jaws good, The Searchers good—truly something to behold.
Sonically, the film’s original English 6-track stereo mix has been preserved here in lossless 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio format (listed as 5.0 on the packging, but it is indeed the same 5.1 mix from the 50th Anniversary Blu-ray). As you’d expect, it sounds superb, with excellent dialogue clarity, full sounding mids, and pleasing low end. The sound field is definitely front-focused, with dialogue concentrated in the center, though there is a bit of directional play. The surround channels extend the field out gently around the listener to produce a natural listening experience that’s authentic to the original 70 mm theatrical exhibitions. But the discs also include a new English Dolby Atmos mix that’s every bit as good. Tonally, the Atmos still preserves the sonic character of the original mix, but it’s more enveloping and immersive, offering greater subtlety and nuance, not to mention improved dynamic range. That’s not to say that it sounds modern—not at all—it’s just less harsh in places and more sonically natural. The Atmos soundstage feels a bit wider across the front, while the overhead channels are lightly employed for sounds like the creaking of the galley’s hull before and during the sea battle, various trumpet fanfares, light crowd noise in the circus during the chariot race, the rumble of the chariots’ wheels, and howling wind and thunder in the film’s conclusion. LFE is particularly pleasing during the race and the climactic storm. In both options, the overall fidelity is impressive and composer Miklos Rozsa’s wonderful score is staged to very fine effect. Whichever mix you choose, you really can’t go wrong. Additional audio options include French, German, Italian, and Castilian Spanish in Dolby Digital 5.1, and Latin Spanish in Dolby Digital 2.0. Subtitles are available in English (for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing), French, German (for the Hearing Impaired), Italian for the Deaf, Castilian Spanish, Dutch, Korean, Latin Spanish, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Swedish.
Warner’s new 4K release is a three-disc set, featuring the film split over a pair of Ultra HD discs (the first 100 GB and the second 66 GB), as well as a regular Blu-ray of special features. Note that a Steelbook edition is also available, as is a Collector’s Edition box set with swag items (in the UK only). The bonus content on the actual discs breaks down as follows…
Disc One (4K Ultra HD – The Film: Part 1)
- Audio Commentary with T. Gene Hatcher and Charlton Heston
- Music-Only Track
Disc Two (4K Ultra HD – The Film: Part 2)
- Audio Commentary with T. Gene Hatcher and Charlton Heston
- Music-Only Track
Disc Three (Blu-ray – Special Features)
- Ben-Hur: Anatomy of an Epic (HD – 6:47) – NEW
- The Cinematography of Scale (HD – 8:23) – NEW
- Charlton Heston & Ben-Hur: A Personal Journey (HD – 78:04)
- Ben-Hur: The Making of an Epic (Upsampled SD – 58:14)
- Ben-Hur: A Journey Through Pictures (Upsampled SD – 5:08)
- Screen Tests (Upsampled SD – 4 tests – 29:18)
- George Baker and William Russell (Upsampled SD – 5:34)
- Leslie Nielsen and Cesare Danova (Upsampled SD – 7:00)
- Leslie Nielsen and Yale Wexler (Upsampled SD – 11:27)
- Haya Harareet Hair and Make-Up Test (Upsampled SD – 5:07)
This 3-disc set carries over many of the supplements from previous home video editions, though not quite all of them. First among the features that do remain is the audio commentary by film historian T. Gene Hatcher and Charlton Heston. Heston’s comments are a carry-over from the 2001 DVD and they’re nicely complemented by Hatcher’s work (added for the Blu-ray release). The result is an informative, engaging, and much more comprehensive commentary track than the previous one. Also here from the Blu-ray is the music-only track that highlights Rozsa’s remarkable score in 2.0 Dolby Digital—something that was certainly a standout on the Blu-ray and 2005 Four-Disc Collector’s Edition DVD release.
The remaining carryover extras include a pair of documentaries, an audio-visual recreation of the film (utilizing stills, storyboards, sketches, music, and dialogue), and screen test footage. The documentaries are particularly good. One is 1994’s Ben-Hur: The Making of an Epic (narrated by Christopher Plummer), which provides thorough coverage of the story’s past presentation from book to stage to screen. The other is the feature-length Charlton Heston & Ben-Hur: A Personal Journey hosted by Heston’s son, Fraser, and delivered in HD. This effort is a superb evocation of the time of filming that involved a lengthy location shoot in Rome. Heston’s family and several of William Wyler’s offspring provide informative on-screen comments, interspersed with Fraser Heston’s narration which itself draws heavily on Carlton Heston’s personal journal of the time and home-movie footage shot by Heston’s wife. Note that the content previously included in SD resolution has been AI upsampled (to mixed effect).
Unfortunately missing from the 50th Anniversary Blu-ray release is Ben-Hur: The Epic That Changed Cinema (SD – 57:46), Highlights from the 1960 Academy Awards Telecast (SD – 9:47), the Newsreels (SD – 9:45), the film’s Trailers (SD – 14:15), and the Ben-Hur 1925 Silent Version (SD – 143:06). So you’ll definitely want to keep the relevant discs from previous editions. In fact, since the film isn’t here on Blu-ray either, keeping the complete 50th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition box is probably a good idea anyway (especially as it included some pretty terrific swag items, among them a 128-page hardcover replica of Heston’s aforementioned journal).
But there’s a bit of good news here too. Warner has created a pair of new retrospective featurettes for this release, including Ben-Hur: Anatomy of an Epic and The Cinematography of Scale. Each is under 10 minutes in length, but they include behind-the-scenes photos and footage, as well as comments by Deadline film critic Pete Hammond, Academy Museum director of film programs K.J. Relth-Miller, cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw (Sinners, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever), and film historian Tony Maietta (co-host of the Going Hollywood podcast). And of course, you get a Movies Anywhere Digital code on a paper insert.
Apart from a few missing extras—and one can hardly fault the studio for emphasizing sheer A/V quality over bonus content—Warner’s long-awaited Ultra HD release of William Wyler’s Ben-Hur is everything longtime fans could have hoped for. You’ve certainly never seen this beloved epic looking so good before on disc. Warner has delivered a jaw-dropping 4K classic film restoration that’s a must-own for any serious cinephile. Seriously, whoever worked on this disc deserves to take a bow. It comes with our highest recommendation.
-Barrie Maxwell and Bill Hunt
(You can follow Bill on social media on X, BlueSky, and Facebook, and also here on Patreon)