When choosing the best TV for movies, it's important to consider your TV room's lighting conditions. You'll generally have a better experience if you watch movies in a dark room as your TV's picture will look deeper and have fewer reflections. You should be looking for a TV that can deliver deep blacks, has rich colors, and has bright highlights, especially if you watch a lot of HDR content from streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, or Disney+.
We've tested more than 80 TVs in the last two years, and below are our recommendations for the best TV for home theater and movies you can buy. See also our recommendations for the best TVs for TV shows, the best 4k TVs, and the best TVs for sports.
The best TV for movies with an OLED we've tested is the LG CX OLED. It's an entry-level OLED that delivers excellent overall performance, and whether you're watching movies or simply streaming content, most people should enjoy it to the fullest. It's well-built and comes with a stand that allows it to sit close to the table. It's outstanding for watching movies because of its ability to display extremely deep blacks.
It turns off individual pixels, resulting in an infinite contrast ratio and perfect black uniformity, which is ideal for watching movies in dark rooms. It removes 24p judder from any source, like Blu-ray players or native apps, which helps improve the appearance of motion in movies. It supports both HDR10 and Dolby Vision and displays a very wide color gamut for HDR content, but sadly, it doesn't get bright enough to truly bring out highlights in that mode. If you want to connect a soundbar to enhance your movie experience, it has eARC support, allowing you to send high-quality audio to a receiver via an HDMI connection.
Unfortunately, like any OLED model, it has the risk of permanent burn-in, which shouldn't be a problem if you watch varied content. It doesn't get very bright, but if you want to place it in a bright room, it has outstanding reflection handling. The built-in WebOS also has a ton of apps available to download, making it easier to stream your favorite movies. Overall, it delivers excellent picture quality, making it the best TV for movies that we've tested in the OLED category.
The Hisense H9G is the best TV for movies in the LED category that we've tested. It's Hisense's flagship 4k model in 2020, and it delivers stunning picture quality and impressive all-around performance. LED models like this one doesn't experience burn-in like the LG CX OLED. Being a premium TV, it's well-built and has a sleek style that fits into any setting.
It has a VA panel with an outstanding native contrast ratio and incredible black uniformity. Its great full-array local dimming feature helps further deepen any blacks, so you know it's excellent for dark room viewing. Even if you want to watch movies during the day in a well-lit room, it has excellent reflection handling and easily gets bright enough to fight glare. It upscales lower-resolution content without any issues and removes 24p judder from any source. Due to its quick response time, lower frame rate content may appear to stutter, but there's a motion interpolation feature for fans of the 'Soap Opera Effect'.
Sadly, it has narrow viewing angles, which is expected from a VA panel, so it's not suggested for watching movies in wide seating arrangements. The out-of-the-box color accuracy on our unit is mediocre, so you may need to get it calibrated to enjoy it to the fullest, but this may vary between units. Also, it's only available in a 55 and 65 inch model, so it's not ideal if you want a large screen for your home theater. Regardless, it's still the best TV for home theater use that we've tested.
If you want something bigger for your setup, then check out the Sony XBR75X900H. Its reflection handling isn't as good as the Hisense H9G, but it's still excellent for watching movies, and along with the 75 inch model, it's also available in an 85 inch size. Like the Hisense, the X900H has a VA panel with excellent native contrast, good local dimming, and excellent black uniformity, so blacks appear deep and inky when viewed in the dark. It gets bright enough to fight glare, upscales lower-resolution content without any issues, and has excellent out-of-the-box color accuracy, which is typical for a Sony. It removes judder from any source, and there isn't too much stuttering with lower frame rate content, so even though there's motion interpolation, you may not need it.
If you simply want the best TV for movies with an LED, you can't go wrong with the Hisense, but if the size of the TV is important for your movie viewing experience, then go for the 75 or 85 inch Sony.
The best TV for movies and HDR content that we've tested is the Vizio P Series Quantum X 2020. This is a premium 4k LED model that offers impressive overall performance, and it's an excellent choice for watching movies, especially those available in HDR. It's similar to the Hisense H9G or Sony X900H for watching 4k content, but because there are artifacts when upscaling 480p content, it's not as ideal for watching DVDs.
It has everything you expect to find in a high-end TV for watching your favorite movies. Its VA panel has an outstanding native contrast and, combined with its great local dimming feature, it displays extremely deep blacks, making it a great choice for dark room viewing. What makes it excellent for HDR content is that it displays an extremely wide color gamut and is one of the brightest TVs we've tested, so highlights stand out the way the creator intended. Black uniformity is incredible, and the gradient handling is excellent. It also supports both Dolby Vision and HDR10+, so you won't have to worry about which format your HDR movie is in.
Sadly, our unit has a red tint to the image, even after calibration, but we don't know if this is a common issue or a problem with our unit alone, so your experience may vary. It removes judder from native 24p sources, but it can't remove judder from 60p and 60i sources, like from streaming devices. If you also want to watch TV during the day, glare shouldn't be an issue thanks to its high peak brightness and amazing reflection handling. All in all, most people should enjoy watching an HDR movie with it.
The best TV for movies in the budget category we've tested is the Hisense H8G. It's surprisingly very good considering its budget price point and is great for a wide range of uses. It has an excellent contrast ratio, decent black uniformity, and full-array local dimming to produce deep uniform blacks, suitable for dark room viewing. It also looks quite sleek and has thin bezels around the screen.
Response time is very low, and it has an optional Black Frame Insertion feature to further reduce motion blur, giving you a crisp image with minimal blur trail behind fast-moving objects. It's a very good choice watching HDR content as well thanks to its very wide color gamut, though unfortunately, it can't get very bright. On the bright side, it supports Dolby Vision, which is great if you watch most of your HDR content from streaming services like Amazon Prime or Apple+.
Unfortunately, like with most models that use a VA panel, viewing angles are disappointing, so it may not be a good choice if you have a large room with a wide seating arrangement. Also, while it has some gaming chops thanks to its remarkably low input lag, it doesn't support any variable refresh rate technology. Overall, if you don't want to break the bank but still want an impressive TV that's great for movies, this is a great choice.
If you prefer the easy-to-use Roku TV to stream your movies, then the TCL 5 Series/S535 2020 QLED is a good alternative. It doesn't get as bright as the Hisense H8G, so some small highlights may not pop the way they should in HDR. However, the TCL displays an even wider color gamut for HDR and has better gradient handling. It has one of the best contrast ratios we've tested on an LED model, and it has a decent full-array local dimming feature. It upscales lower-resolution content, like from Blu-ray players, without any issues, and it removes judder from any source, which is rare for a 60Hz TV. Sadly, it has some uniformity issues, but this may vary between units.
If you want the best budget TV for movies, you can't go wrong with the Hisense, but if you're a fan of the Roku smart platform, the TCL is a good choice too.
01/22/2021: Renamed the LG CX to 'Best OLED' and moved the Hisense H9G to its own pick as 'Best LED'; removed the Samsung Q80T and added the Sony X900H because it has a better contrast; added the Vizio P Series Quantum X 2020 as 'Best for HDR'.
11/24/2020: Added Hisense H9G, removed Sony X950H.
09/25/2020: Replaced the Sony A8H with the LG CX; the Sony X900H with the X950H, and the TCL 6 Series 2019 with the TCL 5 Series 2020; removed the Vizio M Series 2019.
07/27/2020: Replaced the Sony A8G OLED with the Sony A8H OLED, the Samsung Q70R with the Samsung Q80T, the Sony X950G with the Sony X900H, the Hisense H9F with the Hisense H8G, and the Vizio P Series Quantum 2019 with the Vizio M Series Quantum 2019 due to current availability and consistency. Removed 'Cheaper Alternative' to 'Best TV For Watching Movies' for conciseness.
05/26/2020: Replaced the Hisense H8F with the TCL 6 Series/R625 2019 and the Vizio P Series 2018 with the P Series 2019.
Our recommendations above are what we think are currently the best TVs to watch movies for most people in each price range. We factor in the price (a cheaper TV wins over a pricier one if the difference isn't worth it), feedback from our visitors, and availability (no TVs that are difficult to find or almost out of stock everywhere).
If you would like to do the work of choosing yourself, here is the list of all our TV reviews. Be careful not to get too caught up in the details. While no TV is perfect, most TVs are great enough to please almost everyone, and the differences are often not noticeable unless you really look for them.