To start with, one essential feature that you should look into before buying the best tv for watching movies is the size of the TV. I would recommend taking the larger-sized TVs because the more extensive the screen size you buy, the more you will benefit from an excellent performance like the wider viewing angle and the bigger screen cinematic experience.
When it comes to watching your beloved series, there are some things you don’t want to ignore, like picture quality, display resolution, and refresh rate. To help you prepare for the coming big release of your favorite movie, we’ve rounded up the best TVs for watching movies, from the best TV brands to the number one HDR displays.
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Sony A8H 4K UHD OLED Smart TV – Best overall TV for watching Movies
The best TV for movies we’ve in the market so far is the Sony A8H 4K UHD OLED. This TV is perfect for most uses, and just like other OLED displays, it has excellent black uniformity, deep, and inky black levels. It looks very modern and sleek and has attractive stands and TV mounts, which can be adjusted to two varied heights, helpful if you want to fit a soundbar underneath the TV.
Without a doubt, the response time makes fast-moving images look great, but you should expect some 24p images to stutter. This isn’t a major problem since you can solve it by enabling the motion interpolation feature. This TV handles reflections seamlessly in bright spaces, but, like most OLEDs, brightness is reasonable enough to combat glare though it could be better. The TV is perfect for viewing HDR movies thanks to its remarkable wide color gamut, support for Dolby Vision tech, and extremely high HDR peak brightness, an enhancement over last year’s Sony A8G OLED displays.
Unfortunately, as with all other OLED televisions, it has a high risk of permanent burn-in, although this should not be a problem with different content in movies. This also tends to appear more from static graphics. As the best budget option on this list, you can expect that it doesn’t come cheap, so you may want to consider our best budget option. It’s a little bit cheaper and performs equally well despite its color levels and gradient handling not being the best.
Specifications:
- Type: OLED
- Resolution: 4K UHD
- Sizes: 55, 65 Inches
- HDMI Ports: 4
Pros:
- Perfect black levels
- Decent HDR Peak Brightness
- Can remove judder from all sources
Cons:
- Stutters in lower frame rate content.
The Sony A8H OLED is an excellent display for watching movies. It delivers superior picture quality with its infinite contrast ratio and excellent response time. It upscales lower resolution, which is excellent for watching cable TV scenes or sports. Expect HDR content to look good due to its wide range of colors and fair brightness. Here’s the thing, though. Although the Sony A8H has an excellent input lag, it still doesn’t support gaming features like VRR desired by most gamers. As if that’s not bad enough, there’s the obvious risk of permanent burn-in that comes with most OLED TVs.
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Samsung QLED Q80T Series 4K UHD Smart TV – Best LED Alternative
If you’re concerned about the issue of burn-in on the Sony A8H OLED, the best-LED TV for watching movies is the Samsung Q80T LED. You won’t get the perfect black levels found on the Sony, but it can get very bright and doesn’t have the risk of burn-in, due to its LED panel type. Its brighter screen makes it a perfect choice for daytime viewing in a bright environment, and gamers will appreciate its minimal input lag and VRR support technology. While its HDR peak brightness is high, it doesn’t provide Dolby Vision, a disappointing fact for anyone who likes watching HDR movies on services like Netflix or Disney+.
If perfect blacks are what you’re concerned about, then buy the Sony A8H, but if you’re avoiding the possibility of burn-in and want something that still provides excellent picture quality, get the Samsung.
Specifications:
- Type: LED
- Resolution: 4K UHD
- Sizes: 55, 65,75, 85 Inches
- HDMI Ports: 4
Pros:
- Great contract ratio
- Enhanced local dimming
- Can get very bright
- Excellent response time
- Wide color gamut
- Can remove judder from all sources.
Cons:
- Screen corners appear darker.
The Samsung Q80T LED is an excellent TV for your movie nights. It delivers a crystal-clear picture quality with its impressive contrast rates and fast response time. Its peak brightness and remarkable reflection handling make it suitable for viewing in bright rooms. It also performs well in dark places thanks to its excellent contrast ratio and full-array local dimming features. Its low input lag and FreeSync support will keep gamers excited. However, there’s a possibility of a dirty screen effect that can be heartbreaking when watching fast movie scenes.
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Sony X900H 4K UHD Smart LED TV – Best TV with Excellent Color Accuracy
The best display for movies that has very accurate colors is the Sony X900H. This LED TV is an excellent choice for most uses and is the newest version of the very popular Sony X900F from 2018. Like most Sony TVs, customization and app options are bliss since it relies on Android for its smart features. It has a skinny frame and looks very attractive and modern overall.
This TV has extremely accurate colors; however, you will only notice minor improvements after calibrating it. There are only unnoticeable inaccuracies with blue and red colors, and white balance is only slightly off, so you’ll view movies the way the director wanted. Other than that, it has deep blacks due to its excellent contrast and excellent local dimming feature, and it can get very bright for HDR movie content.
Sadly, unlike Samsung’s high-end TV models, Sony doesn’t add any extra layer to help with good viewing angles. This means that the image quality degrades quite a bit when viewed from the sides, which may not be the perfect display if you often watch movies with a large group of viewers. Gamers will also get disappointed as it doesn’t support VRR yet.
Specifications:
- Type: LED
- Resolution: 4K UHD
- Sizes: 55, 65,75, 85 Inches
- HDMI Ports: 4
Pros:
- Great contrast levels
- Excellent local dimming
- Produces uniform blacks
- Gets bright enough to bring out details
- Low input lag, suitable for fast-moving scenes
Cons:
- Produces stutter in lower frame rate content
The Sony X900H is a great display for watching movies. It delivers good picture quality due to its excellent contrast ratio, peak brightness, and wider color gamut. Its quick response time reduces any chance of motion blur, and its low input lag comes in handy, especially if you are a serious gamer. You can expect content to be delivered with vibrant colors and highlights that pop. On the downside, it comes with narrow viewing angles, which means it’s not ideal for large rooms or seating arrangements.
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Hisense H8G Quantum Series – Best Budget TV
The best television for movies in your budget range is the Hisense H8G. It is surprisingly perfect considering its price tag and is ideal for a wide range of uses, including a PC monitor. It has decent black uniformity, an outstanding contrast ratio, and full-array local dimming. This can only mean you get perfect deep, uniform, blacks that are ideal for dark space viewing. It also has a sleek design and has a thin frame around the screen.
Its response time is low, and it has an optional black frame insertion feature to reduce motion blur further, gives you crisp graphics with little to no blur trail behind fast-moving scenes. It’s a perfect choice for watching HDR multimedia. Unfortunately, it can’t get very bright, which may be irritating to some people. On the brighter side, it supports the Dolby Vision feature, which is excellent if you watch most of your HDR multimedia from streaming services like Amazon Prime, Netflix, or Apple+.
Unfortunately, like most displays that use a VA panel, viewing angles are very disappointing, so it may not be the best display if you have a large living room with many viewers. Also, while this display has some gaming chops, thanks to its extremely low input lag, it doesn’t support any varying refresh rate technology. Overall, if you don’t want to break your bank but still want an impressive display that’s great for movies, this is a perfect choice.
Specifications:
- Type: LED
- Resolution: 4K UHD
- Sizes: 50, 55, 65,75 Inches
- HDMI Ports: 4
Pros:
- Displays deep blacks
- Full array local dimming
- Wider color gamut
- Excellent contrast ratio
Cons:
- Can’t get bright enough
- Narrow viewing angles
The Hisense H8G is an ideal budget-friendly TV for watching movies. It’s great for viewing movies in dark rooms due to its excellent contrast rates and full-array local dimming technology. The HDR feature is a bit limiting as this display can’t get bright enough to bring out details. However, it has an excellent response time and very low input lag suitable for gaming. This makes it a good choice for watching TV shows, movies, or sports. Although this Tv gets bright enough to combat glare, you are likely to lose some image accuracy, especially when viewing from the side.
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TCL 6 Series Smart Roku UHD LED TV – Best Roku Smart TV
If you want a budget television with the user-friendly Roku smart OS feature, go for the TCL 6 Series. Its reflection handling isn’t as perfect as Hisense H8G, and its colors aren’t as accurate. Still, it has a much better black uniformity level and uses Roku for its smart interface, which is very easy to navigate. It can remove judder from different sources, and it upscales low-resolution content easily with no visible problems. Unfortunately, it has some uniformity downsides as the edges of the screen are darker, and there’s a noticeable dirty screen effect in the center of the screen. Hisense H8G, however, has a wide color display and enough brightness, so highlights easily pop in HDR.
Overall, if you absolutely hate reflection or simply looking for something pocket friendly, get the Hisense. However, if you must truly have the ease of use associated with ROKU, then TCL is your best bet.
Specifications:
- Type: LED
- Resolution: 4K UHD
- Sizes: 50, 55, 65,75 Inches
- HDMI Ports: 4
Pros:
- low input lag
- Deep uniform blacks
- Excellent wide color gamut
Cons:
- Noticeable motion artifacts
Overall, the TCL 6 Series is an excellent TV for most uses if you are looking for a user-friendly display. It has a high contrast ratio and generates deep, uniform blacks levels in dark spaces. Its low input lag makes it a perfect choice for gaming, but its slower response time causes more motion blur. Although the display is suitable for a bright room due to its high brightness levels, the image quality degrades at an angle, which isn’t ideal when watching movies with a group of friends.
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Buying Guide when Looking for the Best TV for Watching Movies
A good size screen is not the only thing you need to keep in mind when buying a TV. To make your work easy, and make sure you get the best tv for watching movies, keep these tips in mind.
Response Time
Since movies are packed with action, you expect to see a lot of things happening at the same time. This ‘multiple actions’ is the reason why response time is vital when choosing the best TV for movies. A response time enables the initial pixel of any color to switch in a flash to a different color depending on what you are watching. By responding quickly, it smoothes out the images for a more immersive cinematic viewing experience.
Viewing Angles of displays
The second most essential feature for the best TVs for movies will be the viewing angle that it offers its users. This is especially beneficial for sharing the television with friends and family during movie nights. I’d recommend any screen that is over an average of 30 degrees as they will do the job for most people, and you can often find good deals on this. TVs with over 60 degrees viewing angles are absolute perfection but are often overpriced for the other technologies they are likely to offer.
Additionally, viewing angles are often categorized on how quickly three different parts of the image lose quality as you watch from the left or right side. You’ll want to be keen on the brightness, black intensity levels, and color intensity. Each of these features plays a different role in the overall quality of the image, and depending on your ideal viewing behavior, one could matter more than the other. If you often watch movies at night, the brightness isn’t required as much as the black levels because an excellent black quality will help dark room viewing experience. If you prefer watching movies during the day, then brightness is a factor you can’t ignore.
Resolution and Reflection
Both resolutions and reflections play a huge role in the best TV for movies. Resolutions range from 480p to 8K, and finding the best TV for the money can become quite overwhelming. I recommend 4K resolution as it is the most reliable as for now, and most smart televisions options upscale 720p content very well to this level. This is good as many movies are made at a 720p resolution.
Another thing to look for will be how well the smart TV handle reflections. If you like watching movies during the daytime, and if your windows are open, glare is a usual suspect. That means the best 4k TVs for movies will have to handle reflections very well. Most displays will have a glossy finishing or some sort of anti-reflective material to help reduce this side effect, but not every TV brand is made equally.
Permanent Burn-In
Lastly, one final factor to look for when finding the best TVs for watching movies will be if the smart TV is at serious risk of permanent burn-in. This is the overall risk of developing a static picture stuck on screen after being exposed to static content for a series of time. The pixels that have been damaged are left with an image of previous content that is no longer there. Most smart TVs aren’t at risk of this issue, but OLED displays have become prone to this. So why is this vital for the best TVs for movies?
Well, often, movies will include slow-paced and fast-paced scenes. After a prolonged time, this could affect a television that is at risk for suffering burn-in. Though this is a rather mere and rare issue, I take it into consideration to prevent future problems from happening. This also will ensure a more immersive experience for years to come and get full benefits for your investment.
Final thoughts
We hope this TV review article is helpful, and you are sure about which television you would want to purchase for your cinematic movie nights. Our top pick list above is what we found the best displays for watching movies available in the market. These are the best smart televisions for watching movies that you can buy in every price range, depending on your budget. If you want to create a cinematic theatre experience in your living room, grab one of the best TVs for watching movies highlighted here to help
