I just bought a new 4K OLED TV and, of course, I want to get the most out of it, so I’m looking for some recommendations for movies with great and visually stunning 4K HDR (ideally DolbyVision) releases. Bonus points if it’s not just pretty but also generally a good movie.
2001: A Space Odyssey looks quite a bit different from the theatrical version, but damn if it doesn’t look incredible in 4K HDR on an OLED. Real showcase for those deep blacks and incredibly immersive.
Oh yea. That one’s already on my list. Wanted to rewatch it regardless and after reading they made a pristine 4K rerelease based on an all new 8K scan of the original negatives, that plan was sealed.
Man, some of those old movies just look absolutely incredible in their 4K remasters. Lawrence of Arabia is another “holy shit” kind of movie that always looked good but I’ve never seen it look this good.
There’s a lot of newer movies that definitely just are lazy Blu-ray upscale transfers or just have an HDR layer applied with no thought at all (the worst example I’ve seen is The Bourne Identity), but thankfully there’s still an audience and publishers out there that understand that people still buying disc players are doing so because they want the best picture possible at home, so they do put some effort into it.
Another odd example I have is The Witch - the original 4K release had a basic HDR layer slapped onto it that blasted up the brightness and contrast and totally killed the mood (and was blasted by the director who actually told people not to buy it), but a later release had director oversight which had thoughtful HDR applied that preserves the tone. It really shows how important it is to actually adapt movies to the format to really get the intended effect.
Yea, 4K BluRays are a minefield. I’m not getting anything before checking some picture quality reviews.