Ultra Panavision 70 Ultra Panavision 70 (formerly MGM Camera 65)

What Ultra Panavision 70 is

Ultra Panavision 70 is a 65mm film format that adds a mild anamorphic squeeze. The lens compresses the picture horizontally by 1.25x onto the negative, and a matching lens on a 70mm projector stretches it back out. The result is a 2.76:1 picture, wider than the 2.39:1 of standard scope. Panavision's own timeline lists the MGM Camera 65 in 1955, "a 65mm Mitchell camera system housed in a Panavision soundproof blimp", with an Academy plaque in 1959 for Ultra Panavision 70 (Camera 65). The ASC dates the launch to 1957 and the Ultra Panavision name to 1960. Raintree County (1957) and Ben-Hur (1959) carry the original MGM Camera 65 credit; Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) used the later name. Quentin Tarantino revived the system for The Hateful Eight (2015), and Ryan Coogler used it for Sinners (2025).

How the 1.25x squeeze works

The ASC describes a 1.25x squeeze on a 2.2:1 image area that projects at 2.76:1. The arithmetic is 2.2 x 1.25 = 2.75, and published sources split between 2.75:1 and 2.76:1 depending on the exact aperture. The squeeze also buys sensor area: the ASC says the Ultra Panavision 70 image area is three times that of 35mm anamorphic. Lenses squeeze either with a traditional front anamorphic element or with a pair of prisms in a wedge-shaped housing, and one 135mm lens can vary its squeeze from 1.25 to 1.50. The extra 5mm of 70mm print width was historically used for soundtracks. See 65mm and 70mm film for the film stock itself.

Panavision lenses then and now

For The Hateful Eight, Panavision's Dan Sasaki supplied 15 Ultra Panavision lenses in eight focal lengths from 35mm to 400mm, and five of them (40mm, 50mm, 135mm, 180mm and 190mm) were new builds. Panavision's history page says it refurbished the original APO Panatar 1.25x anamorphic optics for the film. Its current catalog differs: the Ultra Panavision 70 lens set lists a 1.3x squeeze, T2 to T6, from 35mm to 400mm, and the Ultra Panatar line lists a 1.3x squeeze in nine focal lengths from 35mm to 300mm, typically T2.8. Both mount on any camera with Panavision's System 65 mount. Restoring the old glass was physical work: some vintage lenses were reworked to clear the mirror shutters of updated 65mm cameras, others were recoated or had spherical components swapped, and the new builds changed air gaps to induce circle aberrations that soften focus roll-off. Panavision describes the current sets as a "soft, glamorous, classic-looking image" with elliptical bokeh, vertical defocus and flares. Magazines were a second constraint: standard 1,000 ft loads run about 8 minutes at 24 fps, so the crew built three 2,000 ft magazines. The 1.3x figure applied to a 2.2:1 frame would give 2.86:1, but Panavision does not state a delivered ratio on those pages.

Ultra Panavision 70 vs IMAX and standard scope

Ultra Panavision 70 is wide and short; IMAX 15/70 is tall and nearly square. Sinners mixed them. The in70mm record lists the 5-perf 70mm prints as "2.76:1 imagery (1.25x anamorphic squeeze)" sourced from a mixture of Ultra Panavision 70 and 65mm IMAX, while the separate IMAX 70mm prints alternate 2.76:1 with 1.43:1. Sinners opened on five U.S. 70mm venues. The Hateful Eight was the first time widely circulated 70mm prints reached theaters since Far and Away (1992), and it was released as a roadshow; It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World had also been shown with the single-projector Cinerama system. For the roadshow, about 100 theaters ran 70mm, roughly 120 used projectors were bought and upgraded, and Schneider Optics made 100 projection lenses, stopped down to f/2.8 or f/3.2 for depth of focus. See IMAX 15/70 film and IMAX expanded aspect ratio.

How 2.76:1 appears on a 16:9 TV

A 16:9 panel is 1.78:1. The picture height fraction is 1.778 / 2.76 = 64.4%, so letterbox bars take 35.6% of the screen, 17.8% top and bottom. On a 3840 x 2160 panel, a 2.76:1 image is 3840 x 1391 pixels, about 5.3 million of the panel's 8.3 million, with 769 black rows (about 384 each). On a 65-inch TV (56.7 x 31.9 inches), the image is 56.7 inches wide and 20.5 inches tall with 5.7-inch bars, a picture diagonal of about 60.3 inches. Standard 2.39:1 on the same TV uses 1607 rows (74.4%, 23.7 inches tall), so a 2.76:1 film is 13.4% shorter than a scope film. On a 2.40:1 projector screen the same film fills 87.0% of the height (2.40 / 2.76), with bars totaling 13.0%. Do not zoom to fill: it crops 35.6% of the picture width on a 16:9 panel.

Home releases keep the full frame. The Hateful Eight Blu-ray is 1080p AVC at its original 2.76:1. Sinners reached 4K UHD on July 8, 2025: Dolby Vision and HDR10, HEVC at 63.75 Mbps, with listings of 2.75:1 and 1.78:1. A review on that page says the film's IMAX 1.43:1 frames were widened slightly to a screen-filling 1.78:1, so the full 16:9 height appears only in those sequences. See Dolby Vision for the HDR layer and the viewing distance tool for how wide a 2.76:1 picture should be.