Moneyball (4K UHD Review)
- Review Date: Nov 10, 2026
- Format: 4K Ultra HD
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Director
Bennett MillerRelease Date(s)
2011 (May 12, 2026)Studio(s)
Columbia Pictures/Scott Rudin/Michael De Luca/Rachael Horovitz/Plan B Entertainment (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: A-
- Video Grade: A
- Audio Grade: B+
- Extras Grade: B
Review
The year is 2001. Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics have just lost the American League Division Series to the New York Yankees, the game’s richest club. But Oakland is one of the team’s poorest, and its owners aren’t interested in spending more money. So faced with losing his three best players—Jason Giambi, Johnny Damon, and Jason Isringhausen—to free agency, general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt, Fight Club, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood), himself a former player, realizes that he needs to do something different to compete in what is obviously a fundamentally unfair sport. Enter an unlikely hero, in the form of a Yale-educated economics nerd named Peter Brand (Jonah Hill, Superbad, The Wolf of Wall Street).
When Brand inadvertently scuttles trade talks between Beane and the Cleveland Indians’ GM just by whispering in someone’s ear, Beane tracks him down and learns that Brand has developed a new and controversial way to evaluate talent, seeking undervalued players that deliver the highest on-base percentage instead of highly-paid superstars. Mind you, nobody in the game thinks this is a good idea, or that it could possibly work, particularly Oakland’s veteran talent scouts. And at first it doesn’t. But when things begin to turn around for the team… Major League Baseball begins to realize that Brand and Beane have found a new wrinkle in a 130-year old sport.
Moneyball is obviously a film that lives or dies by its acting and writing, so it’s fortunate that Brad Pitt delivers one of his best performances. What’s more, his chemistry with Jonah Hill is completely out of left field and engaging. These two guys somehow make talk of sabermetric data analysis enjoyable to watch, and the fact they’ve only made this single film together is a crime against cinema. The supporting cast is solid too, including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright, Chris Pratt, Nick Searcy, Jack McGee, Glenn Morshower, Kerris Dorsey, and more—never underestimate the value of great character actors. Of course, the writing is superb, by scribes Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin (of Schindler’s List and The West Wing fame). And the film is based on author Michael Lewis’ 2003 non-fiction book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game about the real Beane and his actual deputy, Paul DePodesta, so the source material is rich and fascinating. Lewis has a knack for finding interesting stories of people fighting the good fight, keeping the lights on and the machine running, or otherwise swimming against the stream. This is just a very good film, and director Bennett Miller (Capote, Foxcatcher) lands the plane quite capably.
Moneyball was photographed by cinematographer Wally Pfister (Memento, Inception, The Dark Knight Trilogy) on 35 mm film (Kodak Vision3 250D 5207 and 500T 5219) in Super 35 format using Arriflex 435 ES, Panavision Panaflex Millennium XL2, and Panavision Panaflex Platinum cameras with Panavision Primo lenses, and it was finished as a 4K Digital Intermediate at the 1.85:1 flat aspect ratio. For its release on Ultra HD, Sony has encoded that source for release on a 100GB disc (with data rates averaging 70 Mbps). There is no HDR grade; this is 10-bit SDR only.
The good news is, the film doesn’t really need HDR—the shadows are deep and fairly well detailed. Highlights are subdued obviously, but the 10-bit space allows them a bit of added nuance. Overall image detail and texturing are impressive. There’s light organic grain throughout. The film occasionally utilizes SD video footage of game broadcasts, and that looks like garbage, but that’s by design. And the colors are obviously not as rich as you’d find in a HDR grade, but they’re accurate. Frankly, this isn’t the kind of film that’s meant to dazzle with its palette. In fact, there’s an intentionally harsh visual look that reinforces the cold realities the characters are facing in the story. All in all though, this is a very nice 4K image.
The 4K disc includes its primary English audio in 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio format. It’s essentially the exact same mix that was included on the 2012 Blu-ray. Sonically, it’s no powerhouse, but then it doesn’t need to be. The soundstage is medium wide in front, with crisp and clean dialogue, ample use of the surround channels for ambience and atmospherics, and decent LFE. Mychael Danna’s minimalist piano and orchestral score is rendered in good fidelity. Also included are French and Spanish 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, and optional subtitles in English, English SDH, French, and Spanish.
Sony’s 4K release is a single-disc package that includes the film in 4K on Ultra HD. (The previous Blu-ray edition is still available separately.) The 4K disc includes the following special features:
- Deleted Scenes (HD – 3 lengthy scenes – 12:01 in all)
- Brad Loses It (HD – 3:10)
- Billy Beane: Re-Inventing the Game (HD – 16:01)
- Drafting the Team (HD – 20:54)
- Moneyball: Playing the Game (HD – 19:26)
- Adapting Moneyball (HD – 16:31)
- Theatrical Trailer (HD – 2:28)
Most of these are holdovers from the Blu-ray. The best of them is Billy Beane: Re-Inventing the Game, which features author Michael Lewis and others talking about the real life subject of the film. But all of the featurettes are solid and worth your time. A commentary for a film like this would have been interesting, or even an extended interview with Lewis talking about his book. Nonetheless, this is a solid, if modest, batch of features. A Movies Anywhere Digital Copy code is also included in a paper insert.
Anyway you slice it, Moneyball is a no-frills yet genuinely entertaining film. Likewise, Sony’s 4K release is a no-frills but genuinely solid Ultra HD. Given the somewhat inverted ratio of price to value here, outside of a sale it’s probably only for diehard fans of the film. But if that’s you, it’s worth adding to your lineup.
- Bill Hunt
(You can follow Bill on social media on X, BlueSky, and Facebook, and also here on Patreon)