Let’s Get Lost — Blu-ray review

Bruce Weber’s exquisite tone poem about jazz great Chet Baker, Let’s Get Lost, debuts on Blu-ray.

The Production: 5/5

n the final moments of the luminous, kaleidoscopic film Let’s Get Lost, director Bruce Weber is heard off-screen asking his subject, Chet Baker, what he’s thought of the filmmaking process over the last handful of days. The 57-year-old Baker, his once-gorgeous, matinee idol features hardened by his itinerant life as an acclaimed jazz musician, observes in a high, sweet voice: “It was a dream.”

There’s no better summation of Weber’s project than that — Lost is frequently characterized as a documentary, but the explication and illumination promised by that description is fleeting here. Instead, Weber plunges the viewer in Baker’s life and work but refrains from laying out a birth-to-death chronology, alluding to moments and people and places, but often letting a gorgeous visual element take precedence over a story or particular narrative strand. (Indeed, Baker’s most well-known tune, “My Funny Valentine,” is heard in passing, and never placed front and center during the two-hour run time.)

While scholars or those seeking to know more about Baker and his art might find such an approach frustrating, it strangely feels right for Let’s Get Lost to more or less drift through what would ultimately be the final year of Baker’s life — he died at age 58 in May 1988, having fallen from the window of an Amsterdam hotel room — as the man himself often seems to be a ghost in his own existence.

Moving from recording sessions to late-night drives to large, impromptu dinners with young acolytes seeking wisdom from the visibly indifferent Baker, Weber stitches together an elliptical portrait of an immense talent beset by a steady stream of self-inflicted frustrations (the interviews Weber conducts with Baker’s mother, ex-wives and estranged children are equally humorous and heartbreaking).

But in the moments where Baker is crooning in the twilight of a recording studio or fronting a band during an appearance at the Cannes Film Festival, he sparks to life in a way he rarely does off-stage. By juxtaposing Baker’s past and present, especially the vintage footage of his European performances, Weber drives home the animating force of Baker’s music and how he found solace in between the notes, but seemingly nowhere else.

Let’s Get Lost has long been frustratingly unavailable in a high-quality presentation, which has thankfully been rectified by this 2025 Blu-ray release. Nominated for an Oscar and winner of the Critics Prize at the 1989 Venice Film Festival, it’s a fitting epitaph for one of music’s most troubled talents, and a fine introduction to Chet Baker for those who may only be glancingly familiar with his life and work.

Video: 5/5

3D Rating: NA

With this disc, Let’s Get Lost finally escapes DVD and migrates to high definition; the film’s only prior region 1 release was a Docurama DVD from 2013 (itself delayed from a reported 2007 disc). The black-and-white film, restored in 4K by New York-based post-production house Cineric from a 16mm reversal original (and supervised by Weber and cinematographer Jeff Preiss), is presented in 1.33:1 fullscreen.

Full of deep shadows and a mixture of newly filmed footage and archival images, Lost betrays no signs of wear or notable visual defects distracting from Preiss and Weber’s striking images. In short, Lost looks extraordinary on Blu-ray.

Audio: 5/5

In addition to a visual remaster, the aural component of Let’s Get Lost has also been given a sprucing up for this release. The included DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack features audio, per the case, remixed by Audio Mechanics.

Music is as important as spoken dialogue for Lost — this surround track does lush justice to Baker’s languorous tenor vocals and sweet, skillful trumpet playing, while also preserving the immersive feeling of riding alongside Baker in his twilight as conversation swirls across the front and rear channels. It’s a carefully considered mix, and one which treats both components of the film with equal weight, resulting in a film as pleasurable to hear as it is to watch. A DTS-HD 2.0 stereo track is included, as are optional English subtitles.

Special Features: 3.5/5

Those diving into the supplements here expecting any kind of additional insight into Chet Baker or the impact of his art are going to be mightily disappointed. Rather than contextualize Baker further (or give any kind of reflection on the film itself), Weber instead highlights his own work.

The main extras here are six, Weber-directed short films, playable separately, taken from a 22-year period, none of which directly tie into Let’s Get Lost: 1987’s Beauty Brothers (12:51; DTS-HD 2.0 stereo; 1.33:1 fullscreen); 1991’s Backyard Movie (9:02; DTS-HD 2.0 stereo; 1.33:1 fullscreen); 1995’s Gentle Giants (14:42; DTS-HD 2.0 stereo; 1.33:1 fullscreen); 1996’s The Teddy Boys of the Edwardian Drape Society (4:20; DTS-HD 2.0 stereo; 1.33:1 fullscreen); 2007’s Wine and Cupcakes (12:18; DTS-HD 2.0 stereo; 1.33:1 fullscreen) and 2009’s Liberty City is Like Paris to Me (15:51; DTS-HD 2.0 stereo; 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen).

The only other extra is a trailer for the restored Let’s Get Lost (3:09; DTS-HD 2.0 stereo; 1.33:1 fullscreen).

Overall: 4.5/5

In the final moments of the luminous, kaleidoscopic film Let’s Get Lost, director Bruce Weber is heard off-screen asking his subject, Chet Baker, what he’s thought of the filmmaking process over the last handful of days. The 57-year-old Baker, his once-gorgeous, matinee idol features hardened by his itinerant life as an acclaimed jazz musician, observes in a high, sweet voice: “It was a dream.”

There’s no better summation of Weber’s project than that — Lost is frequently characterized as a documentary, but the explication and illumination promised by that description is fleeting here.  Let’s Get Lost has long been frustratingly unavailable in a high-quality presentation, which has thankfully been rectified by this 2025 Blu-ray release.

Nominated for an Oscar and winner of the Critics Prize at the 1989 Venice Film Festival, it’s a fitting epitaph for one of music’s most troubled talents, and a fine introduction to Baker for those who may only be glancingly familiar with his life and work. Highly recommended.

Let’s Get Lost [Blu-ray]

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