Got Sky Q, Sky Glass or Sky Stream 4K TV? Ultra HD comes as standard with your Sky Multiscreen Sky Q subscription, and costs just £5-a-month extra with Sky Glass or Sky Stream, and while it doesn’t extend to everything available, the catalogue is steadily growing all the time. Here’s Stuff’s pick of the best that Sky 4K has to offer…
Oppenheimer
Considering it’s based on the 769-page biography American Prometheus, it’s no wonder Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer clocks in at a full three hours, but not a minute is wasted in his telling of the creation of the atomic bomb.
If you’ve seen any of Nolan’s films before, Oppenheimer‘s non-linear narrative will come as no surprise, although it’s far easier to follow than Tenet. In fact, you’re more likely to be thrown by the appearance of Craig from Hollyoaks, but it’s Cillian Murphy as the titular troubled scientist who steals the show. Well, that’s as long as you don’t include the massive bomb that goes off in the middle.
Stewart Lee: Basic Lee
Over the past 20 years Stewart Lee has developed a reputation for writing stand-up shows with multiple layers, intricate structures, and whole sections that deliberately test the patience of his audiences. And while he claims Basic Lee is a simpler show, apart from the plainer backdrop that’s not entirely true.
All the Stewart Lee trademarks are here, particularly the dressing down he gives to late arrivals and the skewering of his stereotypical fan, but that’s exactly what makes the two-hour show so enjoyable. Stewart Lee revels in the fact that he’s a divisive figure and always has, so while Basic Lee is unlikely to win him many new admirers, it’s guaranteed to please his army of existing ones.
Barbie
You couldn’t escape Barbiemania in 2023, but if somehow you managed to avoid seeing Greta Gerwig’s take on the iconic doll, the cultural phenomenon is available in glorious UHD on Sky Cinema.
It’s a film that really shows off the talents of your TV, particularly the vibrant scenes set in Barbie Land – an idyllic world inhabited by all the different types of Barbie and Ken, from Margot Robbie’s Stereotypical Barbie and Ryan Gosling’s Beach Ken, to the oracle-like Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) who sends the pair off on a mission to the real world.
But there’s more to Barbie than just pretty colours. Gerwig’s script (co-written with her own Ken, Noah Baumbach) is stuffed with sharp gags and knowing references, and while it could do with being about 20 minutes shorter, it’s much more fun than a glorified toy advert has any right to be.
Ferrari
Is there a more respected and romanticised name in the world of motoring than Ferrari? The Prancing Horse is revered across the globe for its luxury sports cars and highly decorated racing teams – but it hasn’t always been that way.
Michael Mann’s imaginatively-named Ferrari tells the story of a troubled period in the company’s history, when its survival depended on a victory in the 1957 Mille Miglia – a dangerous endurance race from Brescia to Rome and back again. No prizes for guessing the ending, then, but this is also a tale of love, death, dedication and why you should avoid getting on the wrong side of Penelope Cruz.
For a film about cars there’s perhaps not quite enough four-wheeled action, and it can be difficult to pick up some of the heavily accented dialogue at first, but when those elegant machines do grace the screen it’s impossible not to fall in love with them.
True Detective: Night Country
It’s 10 years since True Detective first combined a complex whodunnit with occult weirdness in such a compelling way that it earned a place in the TV hall of fame, but none of the subsequent anthologies have managed to match it. Despite being littered with references to the original series, True Detective: Night Country doesn’t reach the same heights either, but if you’ve ever wondered what it would be like to combine The Thing with Fargo, here’s your chance.
Set during the almost perma-darkness that falls in the depths of an Alaskan winter, Night Country investigates the disappearance of a group of scientists from a remote research station, with Jodie Foster and Kali Reis playing the uneasy pair of cops working a case that opens all kinds of old wounds for the remote town of Ennis and its people. There’s more reliance on classic horror tropes here than in previous instalments, and some key moments in the climactic sixth episode don’t quite stand up to interrogation, but the performances from its leads and the hugely atmospheric setting make it a very watchable addition to the franchise.
Asteroid City
The thing about Wes Anderson films is that while you pretty much know exactly what you’re getting before you press play – weaponised whimsy, symmetrical shots, deadpan dialogue, and an ensemble cast that includes at least one of Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Adrien Brody, and Tilda Swinton – they’re so meticulously crafted that it’s hard to hold it against him.
Set in a remote desert town during a junior stargazer convention, Asteroid City is actually a movie about the making of a documentary about a play, with narrative threads that weave between the lot. Even if you get lost among all that (and nobody will blame you if you do), the contrast between the pastel-coloured town and black-and-white scenes make for a brilliantly contrasting 4K experience.
The reasons why some people love Wes Anderson films are the same as the ones that cause others to hate them. Chances are you already know which camp you fall into, and if it’s the latter, Asteroid City will do nothing to change your mind, but one thing’s for sure: you’ve never seen a Jeff Goldblum cameo quite like this one.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning
As an exercise in cinematic one-upmanship, is there a better example than the Mission: Impossible series? Each new addition goes bigger, higher and faster – and Dead Reckoning is no different.
It’s longer, too (just 11 minutes short of three hours if you watch all the credits), during which time Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt runs very fast, drives even faster, jumps off very high stuff, and puts a lot of very disposable baddies in hospital. It’s all in the name of a fairly ridiculous plot that centres on a self-replicating AI that’s powerful enough to allow whoever possesses a special two-part key to either destroy or control the whole world.
In a way, Mission: Impossible films are just like Wes Anderson ones, in the sense that you know exactly what you’re going to get before you watch one. But instead of Bill Murray being quirky, you get Tom Cruise saving the world – and when it’s this adrenaline-pumpingly enjoyable, who cares?
Sisu
If John Wick had been set in Lapland towards the end of the Second World War, it’d be a lot like Sisu – 90 blood-soaked minutes of very silly but highly entertaining Nazi-bashing.
Rather than following a Sami hitman called Juhani, the double-hard bar steward at the centre of Sisu is Aatami Korpi, who we first meet quietly digging for gold accompanied by his horse and dog. It’s not long before he runs into a bunch of German soldiers – and soon afterwards the massacre begins.
Bullets fly, blades pierce bone, and landmines get tossed like frisbees as more and more fascists become mincemeat at the hands of this near-silent but deadly prospector. If you like your violence bloody but cartoonish, Sisu is a 24-karat hit.
The Last of Us
Tomb Raider, Silent Hill and Max Payne are all proof that good games don’t necessarily translate well to film, but The Last of Us always felt perfect for television. The story of Joel and Ellie’s journey across a post-apocalyptic America was so emotionally powerful and morally complex that, in the right hands, it had the potential to be a truly great series – and Craig Mazin, the man behind HBO’s harrowing Chernobyl, has definitely delivered.
The show’s Cordyceps-ravaged world is instantly recognisable as the one from the game, full of flesh-hungry Infected and ruthless gangs of survivors, and while its nine episodes stay faithful to the main narrative arc of the game, it brilliantly fleshes out some of the more secondary characters and adds a few extra tasty plot nuggets for fans to sink their teeth into. The real triumph, though, is the portrayal of Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and the way their relationship develops right up to that devastating ending.
Phantom Thread
Come to Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread expecting the slow-burning intensity of There Will Be Blood or The Master and its captivating tale of an obsessive dressmaker in 1950s London will be a let down, although you do get the feeling that Daniel Day-Lewis’s charming but highly strung Reynolds Woodcock could turn at the slightest provocation.
His relationship with latest muse Alma is at the centre of the film, but there’s much more to Phantom Thread than just this unconventional romance. Stitching it all together is Jonny Greenwood’s brilliant score, while the costume and set design play a huge part in creating a rich and believable world for events to unfold in. Not a bad way for Daniel Day Lewis to end his Hollywood career.
Gangs of London
With possibly the highest body count of any show on TV, series one of Gangs of London was a more-than-a-little-bit-ludicrous mixture of Eastenders and The Raid. Similarities to the latter were no coincidence – the series was conceived by that film’s creators, Gareth Evans and Matt Flannery, whose adrenaline-pumping, bullet-riddled set-pieces made the first series of Gangs of London so mindlessly watchable, even if it was a touch ‘Guy Ritchie by Waitrose’ at times.
The pair were less involved in this follow-up season – and it shows. While it still has plenty of blood-spattered moments – the shootout in a posh Paris nightclub and an assault on one of the big cheese’s mansions spring to mind – it can’t quite reach the thrilling heights of series one, spending a bit too much time being all serious and not enough cracking skulls. Oh, and the name’s still rubbish.
Edge of Tomorrow
If hostile aliens had invaded Earth during the filming of Groundhog Day, and Tom Cruise had been cast as the lead instead of Bill Murray, the result might’ve looked a bit like Edge of Tomorrow.
Cruise stars as Major William Cage, a combat novice who gets thrown in at the deep end in the fight against the invading hoard. But when he clocks that every time he dies he wakes up back where he started, Cage uses his unlimited lives to perfect his fighting skills and gradually gain the upper hand. Edge of Tomorrow is a lean, nimble blockbuster that doesn’t even have to rely on repeatedly killing Tom Cruise to keep things entertaining.
Gomorrah
Sky Italia’s Gomorrah returns for its fifth and final season – and those who’ve followed the lives of Gennaro, Ciro and co since the beginning will not be disappointed by how this story ends.
Genny ended season four by going into hiding, but with Naples threatening to boil over and an old acquaintance apparently coming back from the dead, his self-imposed exile doesn’t last long.
Gomorrah’s appeal has always lied in its twists and turns, unfiltered violence and outrageous interior design – and there’s plenty of all three on offer here.
Interstellar
Christopher Nolan’s films have never lacked scope, but Interstellar goes to places the others can’t reach.
Matthew McConaughey plays Coop, a widowed astronaut-turned-farmer who blasts off into outer space in search of a new planet for humanity to settle on after blight causes a global famine and Earth starts to die. Of course, it’s not as simple as flying to the nearest wet rock and setting up camp, so prepare yourself for wormholes, gravity equations, and extra dimensional communication, but with a surprisingly human core.
Promising Young Woman
With its bubblegum colour palette and pop soundtrack, Promising Young Woman might look like a happy-go-lucky rom-com, but just like its lead character it has a hidden agenda. Carey Mulligan plays a 30-year-old medical school dropout called Cassandra, who pretends to be drunk on nights out in order to teach the self-confessed ‘nice guys’ who try to take advantage of her a thing or two about consent.
It’s this ambiguity that makes Promising Young Woman so watchable, especially when Cassie bumps into a former classmate and her unusual hobby escalates to something more personally vengeful. Of course, there are more wide-reaching, societal targets being skewered here too, not least the tendency to value a man’s career over a woman’s safety, but unfortunately it’s going to take more than one promising young woman to change that.
Mad Max: Fury Road
Just four years before Fury Road was released in 2015, director George Miller released Happy Feet Two, but what his fourth Mad Max film lacks in dancing penguins, it certainly makes up for with roaring engines, fire-breathing guitars and sun-scorched desert sands.
Tom Hardy plays the gruff, meme-worthy Max, who teams up with Furiosa (Charlize Theron) on what is essentially a two-hour car chase, albeit one with an armoured juggernaut being pursued by monster trucks, heavily-armed hotrods, and vicious biker gangs.
Fun fact: Fury Road’s main bad guy, Immortan Joe, is played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, who also appeared as Toecutter in the original Mad Max way back in 1979.
ZeroZeroZero
Drug cartels and the Mafia are hardly underrepresented when it comes to movies and TV, but both together in one? Now we’re talking. ZeroZeroZero links the two groups together via a multimillion-dollar transatlantic drug deal, with a family of American brokers caught up in the middle – and the result is one of the best new series in years.
From the mountains of Calabria to the sprawling slums of Monterrey, via the oceans and deserts in between, this globe-trotting, time-hopping eight-parter is bleak but often breathtaking. Among the Heat-esque gunfights and deadly power struggles there’s also a surprisingly human touch, largely thanks to the excellent Andrea Risborough, with a pulsing soundtrack by Mogwai to top things off.
Ex Machina
While Elon Musk spends his days courting pondlife on Twitter (sorry, X) in a desperate bid for somebody – anybody – to like him, the mega-rich tech bro at the centre of Ex Machina, Oscar Isaac’s Nathan, chooses to create an android called Ava instead.
To test whether Ava could pass as a human, Nathan invites one of his employees, Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), to his secluded high-tech mansion, but it doesn’t take long before doubts about the whole endeavour start to creep into Caleb’s thoughts.
Alicia Vikander is unnervingly good as Ava, with scarily realistic special effects only adding to the feeling of unease, but do yourself a favour and don’t watch the trailer above until you’ve seen the film. It gives far too much away.
Jaws
There’s a danger when remastering classic films in 4K that all those extra pixels will make the special effects look ropey. And while the shark in Jaws certainly doesn’t look any more realistic in Ultra HD, it was hardly the most convincing man-eater in the first place.
That’s not to say the rest of the film suffers as a result. The increased resolution makes Amity Island look even more idyllic (as long as you don’t know what’s in the water) and Steven Spielberg’s direction is still a masterclass in tension that’s arguably never been beaten.
Avenue 5
Imagine writing a sitcom about an interplanetary cruise that goes wrong and discovering that, according to experts from NASA, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic, one of the best things for protecting a spaceship against galactic radiation is human plops. With gags like that being dropped into your lap, who needs to write any others?
Fortunately, series creator Armando Iannucci isn’t that lazy, so Avenue 5 is full of the typically inventive dialogue, memorable characters and couldn’t-make-it-up scrapes familiar from his previous work on The Thick of It and Veep. The first episode isn’t the strongest but once it gets into its stride Avenue 5 is much more than just Red Dwarf for the Tesla generation.
Chernobyl
Unless you work for The Sun, you’re probably well aware that Chernobyl is based on a true story. Unlike a lot of other major tragedies, though, the events of 26 April 1986 have largely avoided dramatisation – and with this five-part series HBO has absolutely nailed it.
Depicting a paranoid and secretive state in a crisis like nothing seen before or since, Chernobyl reconstructs the disaster with exquisite attention to detail. From the accident at the power plant itself to its devastating and far-reaching consequences, this is masterfully made TV. You’ll never look at a cement mixer in the same way again.
Bad Boys II
However you feel about a third instalment of Bad Boys being made, the first one was a bonafide ‘90s classic. And while its sequel has its fair share of issues, it also has a few moments of exhilarating brilliance, not least the bit when the bad guys launch cars from the back of a transporter at Will Smith’s pursuing Ferrari.
Sure, the script is massively cliched but the chemistry between Smith and Martin Lawrence still fizzes and it arguably captures Michael Bay at his brainless peak, blowing stuff up just because he can. In a time when everyone seems obsessed with superheroes and CGI, this guilty pleasure almost feels nostalgic.
E.T.
When a small, wrinkly telecommunications expert with a glowing finger is discovered living in a wood shed in a Californian suburb, he enlists a school boy named Elliott to help him get in touch with his estranged family. Oh, did we mention he’s an alien from outer space?
Spielberg’s sci-fi classic doesn’t need 4K to shine, but it certainly gives you another reason to watch a film you’ve almost certainly already seen more often than you visit some members of your extended family.
Bonus fact: the girl Elliott kisses in biology class went on to play the stripper in Under Siege a decade later. How about that for an unconventional double-bill for your next movie night?
Billions
Now into its third series (with all three available in Ultra HD), Billions is about a grumpy US Attorney (Paul Giamatti’s Chuck) and his nemesis: a charitable-but-devious hedge fund manager called Axe, played by Homeland’s Damian Lewis.
But wait! Come back! It’s not all spreadsheets and interest rates. Yes, there’s a fair amount of baffling finance talk but it’s much funnier than you’d imagine, with the drama coming from the power struggle between these two big-bucks heavyweights. It’s classic cat ‘n’ mouse stuff, but on this occasion both animals are so rich they’re almost untouchable. Almost…
RoboCop
No, obviously not the 2014 remake, Paul Verhoeven’s scarily prescient original.
On the surface RoboCop is a fairly straightforward action movie, but, like the man himself, there’s something more complex going on under the surface. Long before Facebook, Google et al were founded, RoboCop was playing with ideas of corporate responsibility and the role of the media, and it did it with the help of a massive autonomous robot that malfunctions and goes on the rampage. Something for everyone, then.