The 34 best 4K Ultra HD movies and TV shows to watch tonight

The seventh (and penultimate, apparently) entry in the Mission: Impossible franchise sees Tom Cruise’s super-agent Ethan Hunt face off against a malevolent rogue A.I. Don’t worry, though: despite its ostensibly “topical” subject matter, this movie is Hollywood escapism of the most potent and enjoyable flavour.

With its glamourous international locations, star-studded ensemble cast and impeccably filmed stunt sequences (for which Cruise, despite edging towards eligibility for his free pensioner bus pass, cheerfully puts his own body on the line time and time again), this is top-tier stuff in terms of production values. Unsurprisingly, it’s one of the most expensive films ever made – and you can see every red cent up there on the screen, making this one of the best 4K movies around if you’re looking to put your TV to the test.

Despite “disappointing” at the box office by only making several hundred million dollars for Paramount Pictures, there’s also a pretty involving plot squirrelled away inside this glistening gold wrapper. They don’t make many films like this anymore, so enjoy it while you can.

Watch Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One on Netflix

Watch Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One on Paramount+

Shot in stark black and white, this eight-part reworking of Patricia Highsmith’s novel is written and directed by Steven Zaillian (best known as for penning the script for Schindler’s List). Andrew Scott stars as the eponymous conman, a shapeshifting sociopath who, after washing up in 1960s Italy, parasitically inserts himself into a young couple’s stylish life on the Amalfi coast.

Readers who recall Anthony Minghella’s movie The Talented Mr. Ripley may wonder if Netflix’s series can match its compelling brew of glamour and menace. Well, having watched both adaptations, we think there’s room enough for the pair of them. With more time to play with, Zaillian, Scott and the rest of the cast (Johnny Flynn and Dakota Fanning among them) serve up a more methodical, involved depiction of Tom Ripley’s complex, precarious life of deception and murder.

Watch Ripley on Netflix

Based on the novel by James Clavell, this beautifully shot historical epic explores 17^th-century Japan through the eyes of sailor John Blackthorne – the first Englishman to set foot in the country. He’s there on the King’s business, but ends up embroiled in a vicious civil war between rival lords – and his fate becomes dramatically intertwined with that of the enigmatic Japanese Christian woman who becomes his translator.

Shogun is one of the most highly rated shows of 2024 so far, and it’s easy to see why. It’s not merely a technically brilliant series that conjures up a rich and gorgeous vision of feudal Japan; it’s also a gripping political drama populated by compelling characters, from Hiroyuki Sanada’s cunning Lord Toronaga to Cosmo Jarvis’ stubborn and conflicted Blackthorne.

Watch Shogun on Disney+

Before James Cameron took soapy melodrama to the high seas in Titanic, he took us deep beneath the waves for this underrated sci-fi thriller starring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and long-time Cameron favourite Michael Biehn.

When a US nuclear sub releases its distress buoy before sinking into a seemingly bottomless ocean trench, the military draft a nearby oil company’s survey crew – ensconced in the cramped confines of a seabed station – to launch the rescue operation. Events take a turn for the weird when the roughnecks realise that not only is their Navy SEAL overseer suffering from psychosis-inducing pressure sickness, but the sub’s accident was caused by something much stranger than mechanical failure or Soviet foul play.

While not as OTT and showy as Cameron’s later blockbusters, The Abyss’ tense, claustrophobic setting and ground-breaking (for the time) use of CGI effects make it a diverting watch. This Disney+ version has been remastered in dazzling 4K Ultra HD.

Watch The Abyss on Disney+

In the past, video game screen adaptations been worked about as successfully as a chocolate fireguard, but Fallout (like 2023’s The Last of Us) is another happy sign that the trend is being well and truly bucked.

Created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy (the team behind HBO’s Westworld) with the cooperation of Bethesda Game Studios, this show not only captures the charming retro-futuristic visuals and perceptive, satirical humour of the source material but succeeds in being an entertaining series – even for those completely unfamiliar with the games.

How does it pull this off? Why, through the old-fashioned arts of clever worldbuilding, relatable characters and an involving plot. That’s right, the basics. The story follows a naïve and (literally) sheltered vault-dweller as she emerges into the irradiated post-nuclear wasteland that was once California on a mission to rescue her father. On the way she’ll encounter ghouls, power armoured knights and all manner of outlandish beasts.

Watch Fallout on Prime Video

Emily Blunt plays a British aristocrat who arrives in the American West in search of revenge in this fantastic Amazon/BBC co-produced miniseries.

Blunt’s Lady Cornelia Locke teams up with Eli Whipp, a Native American who served in the U.S. Army as a scout, and the pair gradually uncover shared secrets from their pasts as they journey across the dust-covered, blood-drenched frontier plains. Brutal and beautiful in equal measure, and guaranteed to take you on an emotional rollercoaster over its six episodes.

Watch The English on Prime Video

Watch The English on BBC iPlayer

This sci-fi drama gives history a remix, portraying an alternative universe where the Soviet Union was the first nation to put a human being on the moon. This reinvigorates an embarrassed and outraged America’s emotional and material investment in the space race. This ‘what if’ scenario gives the show’s creators scope to delve into the hypothetical ramifications for technology, aeronautics and politics, but there’s plenty of human drama front and centre too.

Fast-forwarding a decade to the early 1980s, the second season sees the Cold War threaten to warm up as American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts vie for control of lunar resources, while the third season takes place in the early 1990s, where participants in the space race have set their sights on a new finish line: Mars.

Watch For All Mankind on Apple TV+

Bong Joon-ho’s black comedy won both the Cannes Palm d’Or and Oscar for Best Picture. It’s something of an outlier for the latter (the Academy usually picks feel-good or outwardly worthy films, and has never before awarded Best Picture to a foreign-language movie), but  watching it it’s easy to see why it’s been so lauded: it’s masterfully crafted, funny, shocking and insightful, and rips along at a dizzying pace. Not just one of the best 4K movies around – it’s one of the best movies we’ve seen this decade.

The film revolves around two Korean families: the poverty-stricken Kims and the wealthy Parks. The Kims formulate a scheme that sees all four of them installed as well-paid household employees of the trusting Parks, but a shocking revelation makes their triumph short-lived. A brilliantly entertaining treatise on class, inequality and how the modern world can make bloodsuckers of us all.

Watch Parasite on Netflix

Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford’s first, and best, Indiana Jones movie is a thrilling, globe-trotting blockbuster that set the standard for all adventure flicks that followed. A throwback to the swashbuckling flicks of Spielberg and producer George Lucas’ childhood, it sees Ford’s bullwhip-wielding, fedora-sporting archaeologist travel to Egypt in an attempt to locate the Ark of the Covenant. But he’s in a race with the Third Reich, who plan to use the ancient casket’s powers to subjugate the world.

The special effects and, er, ‘cultural depictions’ may have aged a bit since the film’s 1981 release, but this is Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking at its most enjoyable. A hugely entertaining, fast-paced and downright iconic popcorn movie that everyone will enjoy.

Watch Raiders of the Lost Ark on Netflix

The most expensive TV show of all time may not have lived up to its grand expectations, but Amazons’ The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power truly impressed with its breathtaking visuals and set pieces. The eight-part series follows a bunch of elves and dwarves across Middle Earth as they try to answer the question, who, or what is Sauron?

The series was largely met with a collective ‘meh’ by audiences, even if Nielsen found that viewers watched the first two episodes for 1.25 billion minutes in its first four days. In our opinion, the plot is sometimes muddy and slow moving, and sometimes ties itself into plot knots. Where The Rings of Power truly shines, though, is in how incredibly beautiful it looks on screen. Battle scenes are hugely and detailed, much more suited to a cinema screen than a living room one. The landscapes of Middle-Earth more than live up to those found in Peter Jackson’s original trilogy, too.

Watch Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power on Amazon Prime Video

The best sci-fi horror movie ever (and one of the best horror movies full stop) and the film that spawned a sprawling franchise based around its titular ‘xenomorph’, 1979’s Alien is a masterpiece of tension and visuals, with director Ridley Scott at the very top of his game.

When the motley crew of deep space hauler Nostromo (a wonderful bunch of relatable regular working Joes rather than the sort of exaggerated, OTT personalities we usually see in this type of film) pick up a transmission from a moon, they set down to investigate, sparking off a sequence of events that we wouldn’t dream of spoiling here but, yes, eventually involves a predatory alien stalking the corridors and vents of the ship. It’s fantastic cat-and-mouse sci-fi stuff, and – courtesy of Scott’s mastery of lighting and the stellar production design, looks incredible for a movie now well over 40 years old. Especially in 4K.

Watch Alien on Disney+

Spider-Man takes a break from the behemoth of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and finds a brand-new direction in this wildly inventive animated movie. It uses the multiverse theory (essentially, that there are an infinite number of parallel dimensions co-existing on top of each other) to take the web-slinger we all know and love in all sorts of weird and wonderful directions.

To reveal too much would diminish the joy of watching this alternate universe Spidey – Brooklyn schoolkid Miles Morales – embark on his own origin story, brilliantly paralleling the one we’ve already seen in so many other movies, comics and games. The fact that it’s all brought to life in an amazing (no pun intended) animation style is simply the icing on a tasty cinematic cake.

Watch Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse on Netflix

The term ‘work-life balance’ takes on a whole new meaning in this sci-fi drama about the joys of office toil. Adam Scott plays Mark S., a manager working at Lumon, a faceless corporation where secrecy is paramount – so much so that employees must agree to have their minds and memories surgically divided into separate sections: one for work and one for personal life.

These two personalities never cross over or ‘meet’ (that’s the intention, anyway), making each employee essentially two people living in a single body. The so-called ‘severance’ procedure throws up a host of ethical, moral and existential questions, each of which the show explores in entertaining fashion while unravelling the mystery of what actually goes on at Lumon, and why it’s vital that employees can’t take their work home with them, even as a memory.

Watch Severance on Apple TV+

Netflix’s best new show of 2023 (so far at least) stars Ali Wong and Steven Yeun as Los Angelinos who, in the first few minutes of the first episode, go from total strangers to mortal enemies. The flashpoint is a road rage incident, but as we get to know the characters it’s clear that their fury arises from somewhere far deeper. They can’t seem to stop this feud, even as their respective personal and professional lives threaten to unravel as a result of the ongoing dust-up.

If it all sounds a bit heavy, don’t be put off; Beef is also funny, stylish and ultimately ends in a very different place to where it begins – and it’s shot fantastically too. A welcome reminder that Netflix can still occasionally make a great TV series. More of this, please – although that’s not to say we want or need a second season; this is basically perfect on its own.

Watch Beef on Netflix

Rogue One’s swashbuckling master thief Cassian Andor (the excellent Diego Luna) gets his own series, giving us a new street-level perspective on the nascent uprising against the Empire that eventually grows into the Rebel Alliance.

If, like us, you were left somewhat deflated by Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lack of stakes and strangely lifeless tone, Andor is the show to reignite that Star Wars spark. Created by Tony Gilroy (who also wrote the Jason Bourne movies and, yes, Rogue One), it’s far more gritty, grounded and grown-up than any previous Star Wars series we’ve seen, with characters that feel real, flawed and drawn in shades of grey. The worst thing about it? It makes The Mandalorian look like a children’s TV series.

A second and final series is now streaming too – and if anything, it’s even more accomplished than the first. Andor isn’t just a great Star Wars TV show – it’s a great TV show full-stop.

Watch Andor on Disney+

In the 1920s, Oklahoma’s Osage Native American tribe were, per capita, the richest nation on the planet – a consequence of the oil reserves beneath their reservation and the mineral rights they retained over it. As sure as night follows day, this wealth attracted the attention of thieves and swindlers who wanted to ensure the Osage’s money ended up in the ‘right place’: the pockets of white men.

Killers of the Flower Moon is a deep, long and unflinching exploration of this shameful episode, told with care and craft in director Martin Scorsese’s signature ‘show, don’t tell’ manner; it’s beautifully acted, scored and shot, albeit with more stylistic restraint than we’ve seen in his previous crime movies. This too is technically a crime movie, of course, but the wrongdoing so effectively portrayed here isn’t merely theft or murder – it’s nothing short of attempted genocide. An epic, unrelenting tale of devastating betrayal that looks fantastic in 4K Ultra HD.

Watch Killers of the Flower Moon on Apple TV+

If superheroes were real, they’d be jerks, perverts and outright fascists. That’s the premise behind this excellent comic book adaptation, in which a bunch of superstar costumed crusaders are owned and controlled by a ruthless corporation that keeps their bad behaviour (ranging from voyeurism and drug abuse to plain old murderous psychopathy) under wraps to keep the cash rolling in.

When one super-powered outrage leaves a young man bereaved and hellbent on revenge, he joins a group of like-minded vigilantes with the aim of taking Vought down once and for all. Effortlessly blending humour, action and drama, The Boys was Amazon’s best original series of 2019 – and it’s still going strong four seasons in.

Watch The Boys on Amazon Prime Video

Henry Cavill swaps Superman’s cape for Geralt of Rivia’s silver ponytail in Netflix’s adaptation of the Polish fantasy novel series. If you’ve played the hugely successful video games, you’ll know what to expect: a hearty mix of beast slaying, potion quaffing, spellcasting, grimdark medieval combat and nudity.

If you aren’t already familiar with Andrzej Sapkowski’s world and characters, be warned: this series will toss you right into the mixer without spelling everything out. The lack of hand holding is refreshing, particularly as everything falls better into place within a few episodes. In this age of algorithmically-steered TV shows, it’s nice to be treated like an adult with a decent attention span.

Watch The Witcher on Netflix

Most of the stuff in this article is fictional, but this breathtaking documentary deserves a spot on any best 4K movies list. As terrifying as it is enthralling, this remarkable film follows the ever-so-slightly bonkers free solo climber Alex Honnold, whose lifelong dream is to scale the 3,200-foot El Capitan in Yosemite National Park alone, without ropes or equipment. Those who aren’t keen on heights might want to watch from behind the sofa, but for everyone else the Oscar-winning Free Solo is a sweaty-palmed thrill ride.

Watch Free Solo on Disney+

The original (and probably second-best) Star Wars movie, A New Hope is now over 40 years old. It still looks and sounds fantastic (partly due to director George Lucas’s inability to stop tinkering with it years after its release), but this trailblazing space opera adventure is beloved for more than just the spectacle of zero-g dog fights and light saber duels.

Star Wars‘ enduring characters and mythology are introduced and established in this movie, but it also serves as a fantastic self-contained adventure story about a simple farm boy who becomes the heroic figurehead of a revolution. It’s simple stuff at its core, but done so brilliantly that you can’t help but be sold.

Watch Star Wars: A New Hope on Disney+

The Crown ranks as one of Netflix’s best original series to date. That’s partly down to the phenomenal production values that have been instilled in this retelling of Queen Lizzie II’s early years. Over £100 million was invested in this extravaganza, starring Claire Foy and Matt Smith (and, from the third season, Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies), and that all adds up to a swanky amount of period detail as well as several weighty performances.

Watch The Crown on Netflix

The Safdie brothers’ handheld camera feverishly follows Adam Sandler’s hustling jeweller around New York as he attempts to juggle the demands of celebrity clients, his wife, his girlfriend and a bunch of mobsters looking for their money.

If you’re looking for a relaxing watch, Uncut Gems ain’t it – the camerawork, Daniel Lopatin’s electronic score and Sandler’s barely hinged performance (he’s become an expert at playing a man teetering on the edge) all serve to conjure a feeling of unease and anxiety that barely lets up over two hours. It’s deliciously delirious stuff.

Watch Uncut Gems on Netflix

Yes, Breaking Bad had some memorable supporting characters – Los Pollos Hermanos kingpin Gus Fring, psychopath Tuco Salamanca and, of course, ‘Better Call Saul’ Goodman. But one of its more subtle stars is the Albuquerque landscape, shot beautifully on 35mm film and the main reason why the series has the distinctive look of a modern spaghetti western.

The money Breaking Bad saved by shooting in New Mexico (rather than California, as Vince Gilligan had originally planned) was pumped into its cinematic visual production, ensuring that its 4K version bursts from your screen like a Tuco-bothering chemical explosion.

Watch Breaking Bad on Netflix

This collection of R-rated animated shorts about the future is like a tube of Smarties for 4K fans – each of the 18 films is short and tasty, and as soon as you finish one there’s another one right there to eat/watch.

With a variety of animation styles on show and a bunch of clever ideas to shove inside your head alongside the gorgeous visuals, Love Death + Robots is a definite top-tier Netflix entry for 4K/HDR TV owners. It’s also jam-packed with bloody violence, sex and filthy language, so dainty types should be warned – this ain’t your typical cartoon series.

Watch Love Death + Robots on Netflix

This series (now six seasons strong – or nine if you count the pizza-, BBQ- and Gallic-focussed spin-offs) follows world-renowned chefs as they take viewers on a personal journey through their culinary evolution. Essentially, each episode affords the viewer an intimate, informative glimpse into what gets a genius’s creative juices flowing.

Lovingly shot in razor-sharp 4K quality (with HDR too, natch ), you can almost smell the doubtless delightful aromas drifting through the screen and tickling your nostrils. From glistening, perfectly-cooked cuts of meat to steaming pasta dishes and dainty desserts, this is pornography for your appetite. Just try not to dribble all over your remote control, eh?

Watch Chef’s Table on Netflix

When original creator SyFy decided to drop The Expanse after three seasons, Amazon swept in and saved it – going on to produce a fourth season and host the lot on Amazon Prime for streaming: all in glorious 4K!

That news will be music to the ears of anyone who digs sprawling, critically-acclaimed and complex space operas, as The Expanse is all of those things: set a couple of centuries in the future where humanity’s colonisation of the solar system has resulted in tension between competing factions, it’s basically Game of Thrones with spaceships instead of dragons.

Watch The Expanse on Amazon Prime

Don’t let Paramount’s decision to dump this movie straight to Netflix rather than give it a cinema release put you off watching it, because Annihilation is one of the most accomplished and intriguing science fiction films of recent years. Not only is it visually outstanding – presented here both in 4K and HDR – and packed with tension, it’s a brain-twister that’ll leave you with more questions than answers (but enough clues to work everything out, too).

When an unexplained “shimmer” engulfs a tract of land in the southeastern United States, then starts expanding, the government doesn’t know how to act. Everything and everybody they send inside disappears, never to return – with one exception. When Natalie Portman’s biologist finds herself personally drawn into the mystery, she joins a team venturing into the Shimmer and uncovers the shocking truth at its centre.

Watch Annihilation on Netflix

Clarkson and co’s Top Gear-topper is a love-it-or-hate-it kind of deal. If you’re a greasy-fingered petrolhead, or simply into following middle-aged boy-men on their banter-fuelled road trips, you’re going to enjoy this series a lot.

If you can’t stand this brand of overbearing laddishness, The Grand Tour isn’t likely to transform you into a believer – but for anybody looking for some beautifully shot, mindless entertainment to grace that new Ultra HD telly, this impeccably-produced show fits the bill.

Watch The Grand Tour on Amazon

It might be an homage to all things 80s (think E.T. meets The Goonies meets The Thing), but other than the scratchy, retro opening title, everything about Stranger Things‘ production is cutting edge. It was actually shot in 6K, but even on our backwards 4K TVs the picture is stunning. Gruesomely so at the more horror-tinged points of the series. But whether you’re an AV nerd or not, this demands to be seen – it’s two seasons of truly stunning, surprising, unique television.

Watch Stranger Things on Netflix

Altered Carbon is set in the kind of neon-soaked cyberpunk hellhole – created via dizzyingly expensive special effects – that positively demands to be delivered in 4K and HDR. And, thankfully for us, it is!

This glossy, gory cyber-noir takes us 300-odd years into the future, where Earth has become an overpopulated, dirty, decadent mess – but outright death is a rarity. That’s because your consciousness, digitally backed up on a device called a “stack”, can be transported between bodies – if, of course, you can afford to pay the exorbitant fee such an operation entails.

Into this terrifying new world drops hard-boiled anti-hero Takeshi Kovacs, released from prison and dropped into a snazzy, buffed-up Joel Kinnaman-shaped sleeve after a couple of centuries on ice. Why has Kovacs been brought back after so long? In order to solve a murder, of course – a mystery that the insanely wealthy victim (who’s now reincarnated in a fresh cloned sleeve, natch) believes only Kovacs’ unique skills can unwrap.

Watch Altered Carbon on Netflix

No one really likes lawyers. They don’t have millions of adoring fans on Instagram, and their spirit animals are sharks – cold, grey killers, with dead, soulless eyes. But they’re not all bad. Take the slick and lovable Saul Goodman, aka Slippin’ Jimmy – a slick, rule-bending practitioner of justice who won our hearts in Breaking Bad, a show with incredible cinematography that has transitioned into this equally spectacular spin-off.

Watch Better Call Saul on Netflix

With a bum-numbing running time of 161 minutes, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a demanding movie – but once it gets going it’s difficult not to become swept up in Quentin Tarantino’s luscious alt-history exploration of Tinseltown’s glorious 1960s Golden Age.

Yes, there are lengthy scenes of snappy but seemingly inconsequential dialogue and the camera loves to linger on the graphic violence when it eventually arrives, but hey, when have either of these things put people off Tarantino’s films before? There’s so much of that typical QT magic on show, too – a certain cinematic chutzpah and self-confident swagger that you rarely find elsewhere. Glossy, glitzy, cool and, yes, self-indulgent; it’s an event movie you shouldn’t miss, and it looks absolutely stunning in 4K.

Watch Once Upon a Time In Hollywood on Netflix

Black Mirror‘s move from Channel 4 to Netflix has meant a bigger budget, giving Charlie Brooker’s series of dark, self-contained cautionary tales a grander scope. It’s also meant an image quality upgrade to 4K and HDR which, given the show’s cynical view of chasing the latest tech trend, feels somewhat ironic – but when it looks this good, we’ll take it regardless.

Watch Black Mirror on Netflix