The 5 Best 4k TVs For Watching Movies - Fall 2022 Reviews

The best TV for movies we've tested is the Sony A90J OLED. It's a flagship OLED TV with exceptional picture quality, especially if you're watching movies in a dark room. OLEDs like this one are known for their ability to turn off individual pixels, resulting in a near-infinite contrast ratio. It means that blacks are deep and inky when viewed in the dark, and there's no blooming around bright objects. If you watch HDR movies, the A90J supports HDR10 and Dolby Vision, but not HDR10+. It displays a wide color gamut and has fantastic gradient handling with minimal banding, which is ideal for scenes with shades of similar colors, like a sunset. It also gets brighter in HDR than many OLEDs, so highlights pop for a satisfying HDR experience.

If you want to connect a soundbar or receiver, it supports both Dolby Atmos and DTS:X passthrough, which helps enhance your movie-watching experience. You can adjust the stand to raise the screen high enough that placing a soundbar in front won't block the display if you choose to place it on a TV stand.

The Sony A90J OLED is a premium TV that costs more than most TVs, so if you don't want to spend that kind of money but still want an OLED, then an upper mid-range model like the LG C2 OLED is a great choice. Like the Sony TV, it displays perfect blacks in dark rooms without blooming, offering a fantastic movie-watching experience. You don't get the same peak brightness or processing features as the Sony model, but that's what you should expect if you want to save a bit of money. Still, it has decent HDR peak brightness, enough to make smaller highlights stand out, and some colors look vivid.

It comes with the LG webOS smart platform built-in, which has a ton of apps available to download, and it's easy to stream your favorite movies. It removes 24p judder from any source, which helps with the appearance of motion, and it can interpolate low-frame-rate content up to 120 fps. It supports Dolby Atmos audio passthrough, but it doesn't support DTS:X, which is a format many Blu-rays use, so you'll need to connect your Blu-ray to the receiver instead of the TV.

If you want something cheaper or something brighter than an OLED, you can get a mid-range TV like the Samsung QN90A QLED. It's different from the LG C2 OLED and the Sony A90J OLED because it has an LED panel instead. While it doesn't produce perfect black levels, it gets extremely bright, especially in HDR, so highlights stand out and colors look vivid. It still looks great in dark rooms as it displays deep blacks and has a great Mini LED local dimming feature to further improve the contrast, but there's some blooming around bright objects, which is the trade-off you have to make if you want an LED TV like this one over an OLED.

It upscales lower-resolution content well, which is great if you watch your DVD movies, and the smart interface has a great selection of apps, so you can easily find your favorite streaming services. Unfortunately, it doesn't support Dolby Vision for watching HDR, which is a widely-used HDR format, so if that's important to you, the Sony X90J is also a great choice, but it doesn't get as bright as the Samsung.

If you want something a bit cheaper than the Samsung QN90A QLED that still delivers an excellent movie-watching experience, check out the Hisense U8H. It has a fantastic contrast ratio for deep blacks in dark rooms, and the Mini LED local dimming feature is impressive as it improves the contrast while making small highlights stand out, but there's just a bit of blooming around bright objects. Its HDR brightness is also excellent, but it displays most scenes in HDR brighter than they should be.

Unlike many TVs, it supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10+ formats, meaning you can watch your favorite HDR content in the format they're available in. It also supports Dolby Atmos and DTS:X passthrough if you connect a soundbar or receiver. Although it's an amazing TV, it's a bit less powerful than the QN90A, so there's more banding in areas of similar color, and motion isn't as smooth.

If you're on a budget, there are still some great TVs you can buy, like the Hisense U6G. It's an entry-level 4k TV that still delivers impressive performance. It doesn't have any trouble upscaling lower-resolution content, which is important for watching DVDs and Blu-rays, and it displays native 4k content without any issues. It's also available in several sizes, so you can get the one you prefer the most. Although it doesn't get as bright and has a worse local dimming feature, this is what you need to expect from a budget TV, and it still has high native contrast for deep blacks.

You can easily stream your favorite movies directly from the built-in Android TV, which is easy to use and has a ton of apps you can download. It removes 24p judder from native apps and sources like Blu-rays, which helps with the appearance of motion in movies, but it doesn't have a motion interpolation feature. Unfortunately, it doesn't support any eARC passthrough, which is disappointing if you want to connect a soundbar or receiver. If you want that, the Hisense U6GR is extremely similar and supports eARC but costs more.