| Subtitles: |
English SDH, French, German SDH, Italian SDH, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, Swedish, Thai
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| Special Features: |
- Commentary by Film Historian T. Gene Hatcher with Charlton Heston. This previously released commentary is interesting if at times a little frustrating. Hatcher is a very genial host and has some good information to impart, but more than once he opts for less than insightful comments like, "Every time you see someone wearing red in this film, you know you're looking at the bad guys." Heston's comments, recorded separately and well edited into the commentary, provide a good deal more interest overall, as sporadic as they are. Perhaps drawing on the journal he kept (see below for more details), Heston's memories are quite vivid and offer a lot of background information about M-G-M's precarious finances circa 1958 as well as the several months Heston and family spent in Rome filming the epic.
- Music Only Track Showcasing Mikos Rózsa's Award-Winning Score. Even if you're not a big fan of isolated music tracks, this is one time you might want to make an exception. Rózsa, who built much of his late career in scoring epics like Ben-Hur, never wrote a more towering or affecting score than he did here, and it sounds incredibly sumptuous courtesy of the new lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. Rózsa is both incredibly vigorous and touchingly lyrical throughout this score and it remains one of the glories of mid-century film composition.
- Trailers (SD; 14:15)
- Charlton Heston and Ben-Hur: A Personal Journey (HD; 1:18:06). This beautifully made piece offers wonderful reminiscences by Heston's wife, son and daughter as well as a number of other people and helps to make Heston's personal life as captivating as his work in Ben-Hur. The documentary features a wealth of home movies, including some of Heston as a kid clowning around in his backyard, as well as a lot of 16mm footage Lydia Heston filmed throughout their marriage. One odd inclusion: Tom Selleck, who admits up front he never really worked with Heston (Selleck was a bit player in Midway, but that's their only film connection) and whose opinions, while certainly not horrible in any way, are not really necessary, especially when those who actually knew and worked with Heston are also included in the piece.
- Ben-Hur 1925 Silent Version (SD; 2:23:06). Yes, it's in standard definition, but this 1925 silent version of Ben-Hur is a spectacle to behold in and of itself, and it obviously acted as the template for Wyler's version, especially with regard to some of the set pieces like the galley scenes and the iconic chariot race. This is the restored version with two-strip Technicolor sequences and tinting intact, and it features a very nice score by Carl Davis.
- Ben-Hur: The Epic That Changed Cinema (SD; 57:46) is a decent if not overwhelmingly insightful documentary that traces the film's impact on the epic genre. While it's great to see and hear someone like George Lucas talk about how Ben-Hur influenced his filmmaking, that's balanced by the ludicrious comments of Elvis Mitchell, who gives us a laughable chronology, informing us all that "Before Mutiny on the Bounty, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago or Ryan's Daughter, there was Ben-Hur." Well, yes, Elvis, but before Ben-Hur there were little films like, oh, you know, The Robe, The Egyptian and The Ten Commandments, not to mention the 1925 Ben-Hur itself.
- Ben-Hur: The Making of an Epic (SD; 58:15) is a fairly standard making of piece, which includes a lot of background information, including on General Lew Wallace and the book, and which features interviews with a slew of people like the always reliable and informative Rudy Behlmer.
- Ben-Hur: A Journey Through Pictures (SD; 5:09) is a brief set of stills and storyboards set to Rózsa's stirring score.
- Screen Tests (SD; 29:18). Have you ever wondered what Frank Drebin—er, Leslie Nielsen—would have been like as Messala, here's your chance to find out. Keep an eye out for future I, Claudius star George Baker as Ben-Hur in one set of tests made for the British arm of M-G-M.
- Highlights from the 1960 Academy Awards Telecast (SD; 9:47)
- Newsreels (SD; 9:45) is an assortment of newsreels documenting the various premieres of the film, including Chuck chatting up customers at the boxoffice.
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