Blu-ray Review: Dark City (1998) Limited Edition

4K UHD, Blu-ray Release Date: June 24, 2025
Price: 4K UHD $59.99, Blu-ray $35.63
Studio: Arrow/MVD

RATINGS (out of 5 dishes): Movie  | Audio  | Video  | Overall 

It took a while for filmmaker Alex Proyas’ (The Crow) 1998 science fiction film noir thriller Dark City to get the attention and respect that it has finally garnered over the past decade-plus. True believers, though, dug this cult favorite from the get-go (though you’d never know that from its poor box office performance).

Set in a strange, shadowy urban world where, in the classic film noir sense, nothing is quite what it seems (led by the fact that the sun never rises), Dark City zeroes in on a man named John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell, Judy), who has  no memory of who he is or how he got where he is—or if he did indeed murder the bloodied woman who lies dead on his hotel room floor. And from the point on, the mystery/drama/chase is on!

With a cast that includes William Hurt (Broadcast News) and Jennifer Connelly (Phenomena) and a pair of eccentric performances by Kiefer Sutherland (The Contractor) and Richard O’Brien (The Rocky Horror Picture Show), Dark City, to its credit, delivers when it comes to the answers, which are genuinely on-target and creepy.

The supplemental package that comes along with this gorgeously rendered edition (it’s  presented in 4K UHD with an equally impressive Dolby Atmos track) is, in the best Arrow tradition, outstanding. Aiding and abetting the three included archival audio commentary tracks (!) are two new ones by the “Film Versus Film” podcast hosts Craig Anderson, Bruce Isaacs, and Herschel Isaacs and another track from director Proyas, where he illuminates and adds to the points he raised in his original commentary from New Line’s 1998 Platinum Edition DVD! Other newly produced bonuses include a Return to Dark City hour-long documentary; Rats in a Maze, a visual essay by film scholar Alexandra West; and I’m as Much in the Dark as You Are, a visual essay by film scholar Josh Nelson on film noir and identity in the film.

Finally, in terms of the discs’ physical presentation, Dark City is packaged with striking cover artwork and inner sleeves, along with a handful of additional small-sized art cards featuring more darkly designed work that is design to razzle—not to mention dazzle.