I introduce my son Joseph to his first movie by the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, with a viewing of the classic North by Northwest in this week’s Film After 11 podcast. One of my goals with this podcast is to instill my children with some appreciation for older movies they wouldn’t seek out on their own. Sometimes it works, and sometimes not. Sadly, this one tested Joseph’s 12-year-old attention span, much to my heartbreak.

North by Northwest may not be the best Alfred Hitchcock movie, but it is perhaps the most Hitchcock movie, a sort-of greatest hits package of all the director’s favorite themes and tropes, assembled with meticulous craftsmanship at the peak of his abilities. I love this movie in every respect and, from a grown-up perspective, think its slow-burn pacing works perfectly to build suspense for the big set-pieces. The long wait at the bus stop before the crop duster sequence, for example, with its comically numerous false-starts, makes the payoff even more satisfying.

I can only hope that Joseph comes to like this more as he gets older. Maybe I should show him Psycho next and see how he reacts to that one. Or maybe that’s not such a good idea.

Title:	North by Northwest
Year of Release:	1959
Director:	Alfred Hitchcock
Watched On:	4K Ultra HD Blu-ray
Also Available On:	Tubi Various VOD rental and purchase platforms/

The 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Warner Bros. first released North by Northwest on Blu-ray as a 50th Anniversary Edition in 2009, packaged in a Digibook case. Later reissues in standard keepcase packaging followed at various points, all recycling the same disc. That Blu-ray was pretty good for its time, but the 4K Ultra HD edition, released in 2024, is a revelation, unveiling depth, detail, and vibrancy that the Blu-ray could only hint at.

Hitchcock shot North by Northwest in VistaVision, a very high quality, premium film format for its day. VistaVision was designed for flexibility in projection, and aspect ratios anywhere between 1.66:1 to 1.85:1 are all considered valid. The earlier Blu-ray split the difference with a full-screen 16:9 high-def transfer. The 4K remaster is cropped a little tighter at 1.85:1, but even at that, most shots are composed with plenty of headroom above the actors.

Save for the rear projection work (perhaps used more often than it should have been) and a little bit of intentional gauzy soft focus, the image is otherwise extremely sharp and detailed. Because VistaVision was a fine-grained format, the grain texture in most scenes is very light, really only noticeable in a few sequences, notably the crop duster set-piece.

Best of all is the richness and depth of the Technicolor hues. The distinction between shading on Cary Grant’s gray suit and his gray tie has never been clearer. Eva Marie Saint’s dark red dress in the second half feels palpably real on screen. The HDR grading may seem subtle at first, but it brings out the glint in the actors’ eyes, and highlights such as reflections off metal surfaces. The picture has a very appealing velvety texture that hasn’t been resolved so well since the original VistaVision release prints, perhaps not even.

The 4K Ultra HD disc has a new Dolby Atmos remix, upgraded since the Blu-ray’s 5.1. The film’s original mono soundtrack is also available in DTS-HD Master Audio format, and that in itself is already an improvement over the Blu-ray, which didn’t bother to provide the mono.

I remain skeptical of most multi-channel remixes (especially Atmos) of older soundtracks, but decided to give this one a try anyway. Fortunately, it’s been handled well. The Bernard Hermann score has been expanded to a nice spread that envelops the front soundstage. For the most part, directional sound effects also move in a naturalistic manner, aside from one particular instance I noticed of a car moving to screen left while its sound pans to both surrounds (whoops!).

Of course, the crop duster sequence will be most people’s go-to test for the Atmos. To be honest, the ground-level speakers do the bulk of the work in that scene, imaging sounds so they seem to come from overhead, while the actual height speakers have only faint volume. Still, the effect works.

For its part, the mono track also has quite good clarity and fidelity. However, the musical score is much more limited. I prefer the music in multi-channel. Frankly, for this movie, the Atmos is just more fun.

For bonus features, a new 23-minute featurette about the cinematography, score and editing, as well as a 25-minute retrospective appreciation, are exclusive to the Ultra HD edition. An hour-long documentary about Alfred Hitchcock and a vintage “guided tour” by the director are clearly older in creation, but don’t appear to have been included on previous DVD or Blu-ray releases as far as I can tell.

Originating with the DVD release way back in 2000 are an audio commentary from screenwriter Ernest Lehmann and a 40-minute making-of piece.

Missing entirely are an 87-minute documentary about Cary Grant (thus far exclusive to the 2009 Blu-ray), a still gallery, some trailers, and a music-only track.

Note: Screenshots on this page were taken from the 2009 Blu-ray edition of the film and are used for illustration purposes only.