Sony’s A Knight’s Tale 4K Steelbook Is a Massive Improvement

When you think of movies in desperate need of restoration and a full 4K treatment, you don’t often think of films that arrived in the last 25 years. To be clear, almost any film that has been released could use some sort of restoration, some just need it more than others. And there are few mainstream movies from the 2000s that have needed one as badly as A Knight’s Tale.

Even though it was released in the 21st century, A Knight’s Tale is a unique situation in that its previous physical releases sincerely hurt its quality. The Blu-ray edition of A Knight’s Tale was a notoriously bad release, compressing the film and layering all kinds of unnecessary edits on top of the picture. The colors were altered, the edges were smoothed, and a lot of detail was lost in the process. The Blu-ray has been a thorn in the side of the film’s fans for quite a while, but Sony has finally come to the rescue with the 4K we’ve all been asking for.

Sony’s 4K Steelbook release of A Knight’s Tale arrived on Tuesday and it takes just a few seconds of the movie to show fans that this is the version worth owning. The color is back! It doesn’t pop like some other movies but that’s the thing — it shouldn’t. A Knight’s Tale has a very muted, earthy color palette, creating a lived-in feel for a rags to riches tale. The Blu-ray tried to spice up a purposeful style and, understandably, failed. This new 2160p remaster goes back to the roots and actually delivers the film as it was always meant to be seen.

Click Here to Purchase A Knight’s Tale 4K Steelbook

The new Dolby Atmos track is also fantastic, cleaning up the dialogue and honing in on so many of the small sounds that populate the tournaments. The surround sound wasn’t exactly as immersive as I had expected going in, but the track still fully utilizes the space it has and doesn’t disappoint.

The special features on A Knight’s Tale are pretty standard for this era of film, but there’s a couple of major wins here that need to celebrated. Not only does this release of A Knight’s Tale include both the theatrical and extended versions of the movie, but the included Blu-ray disc (which has also been remastered and is far better than the previous Blu-ray release) also contains a series of deleted and extended scenes from the film’s dailies. This isn’t a massive feature, but it’s one of the few times recently that a major studio has included a brand new feature on a 4K release. Most of the time, these studio releases contain previous features only, leaving new features up to boutique labels like Criterion or Arrow. Seeing Sony add on something new for A Knight’s Tale is a great step towards more bonus content on these discs, which is something physical media collectors have been begging for.

A Knight’s Tale is a great movie that as long deserved a great physical media release. Finally, 24 years after debuting in theaters, it has one. You can snag your own copy here.

A copy of A Knight’s Tale was provided for the purpose of this review.