18/07/2025
🖼️ The huge difference between DUNE standard and IMAX 1.43:1 full aspect ratio.
IMAX 1.43:1 is nearly square compared to the wider standard aspect ratio (often around 2.39:1 in theatrical releases or 1.90:1 in some digital IMAX theaters). This taller frame reveals up to 40% more vertical image, especially at the top and bottom, providing a much grander sense of scale and detail, notably in Dune’s vast desert landscapes and large-scale set pieces.
The standard format crops this vertical information, focusing on a more horizontally wide image but losing much of the full composition that the director intended for IMAX. This cropping can mean vital visual effects and background details get trimmed out, reducing immersive impact.
Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films use this expanded IMAX ratio selectively, switching between 1.43:1 and 1.90:1 throughout the movie. Watching outside IMAX means you miss this full height, receiving a cropped, less immersive presentation.
The larger IMAX ratio fills more of the viewer’s peripheral vision, making scenes feel more epic and enveloping—an effect purposefully used in Dune to emphasize the epic and often overwhelming scale of Arrakis.
[Photos via: .shows]
