The best movies of 2023 to test your new TV and sound system

2023 is over, a year in which we have had good cinema and also some titles that have not delivered what was expected of them. But in this article we are not going to talk about the best movies or series of last year, we have already made several lists of that. Today we want to talk to you about the best movies of 2023 to try your brand new television or sound systemwhether it's a complete speaker system or a high-end sound bar.

That is to say, as they say, we have not selected the titles based on how good or bad the film may be, but rather based on the technical aspect. So in this list we are going to have films that stand out, either for their image quality, or for their sound section. Or maybe both, you never know.

We often get the question of what movie can I use to test my new TV. And when you spend money on a new device you always like to check what it is capable of. To see if a television looks really good or not we have to use proper material, for example DTT is not worth it. Nor is any 4K movie worth it, since not all of them have the same quality.. In fact, there are 4K movies that look worse than their corresponding HD versions.

Something very similar happens with the sound section. Not all soundtracks have the same quality, not even using the same sound format. Unfortunately for Spanish speakers, audios in Spanish tend to be quite weak (although some production companies are already including Dolby Atmos in Spanish on their albums, finally). So the ideal thing to test a sound system is to use the English track, since we will always achieve much higher sound quality. If you don't like watching movies in English, at least keep it in mind for demonstrations.

These are some of the best movies of 2023 to try your television or sound system

Having said that, We have selected for you some of the 2023 movies with the best image and sound quality. As the title indicates, these are films released this year that we have just left behind, so we are not going to use those that we already knew and have seen in other similar articles. From now on, these titles join our collection of videos to use when we test a new television, multimedia player or sound system. Go for it!

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

We start with “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves”, a movie whose 4K Blu-Ray disc earned a score of 9 in our expert's analysis. At the image level, the published album has a presentation in 4K UHD with Dolby Vision, the latter on a 4 Mbps 12-bit FEL layer that does its job very well. It's not the sharpest movie in the world, but it has generous video encoding.

As for the sound, the English track is a 24-bit Dolby Atmos, with dynamic object mixing and great use of surround channels. A real shame that Paramount has decided to place a rácana track in Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 like on DVDs from 20 or more years ago. So if you want to enjoy the movie well, you have to watch it in English.

65

We continue with 65, a science fiction film with Adam Driver as the protagonist; but it still went completely unnoticed. Our expert gave a score of 9.3 for the 4K Blu-Ray out of 65 in its analysisso you can get an idea of ​​why it is on this list.

65 has an image in 4K UHD with Dolby Vision on a 2Mbps 10-bit MEL layer which, although it is not a big deal, does its job well. As for the sound, we have an English track 24-bit Dolby Atmos with 15 dynamic objects, very well designed and with a strong LFE channel. The Spanish track is a DTS HD 5.1, very common on Sony Blu-Rays. It's not Atmos, but it's certainly much better than Paramount's Dolby Digital.

Avatar: The Sense of Water

We continue with one of the highest-grossing films of 2022 (it was released at the end of 2022 in theaters). We are referring, of course, to “Avatar: The Sense of Water”, the continuation of the well-known Avatar. It did not convince many as a film, but on a technical level you cannot ask for much more. In the analysis of the 4K UHD Blu-Ray, “Avatar: The Sense of Water” received a 9.3.

In the image section we have a native 4K drive with HDR10 since, as you surely know, Disney does not use the Dolby Vision system on its physical discs (curiously it does use it on Disney+). As for the sound, it presents an original Dolby Atmos soundtrack in English and a version in Spanish and Catalan with a 16-bit DTS Audio 5.1, a shame that it doesn't even reach DTS MA. The original Atmos sounds great, with a very open surround and notable but not abundant use of height channels.

Infernal Possession: The Awakening

We arrive at one of the best 4K UHD discs of the year on a technical level. The 4K UHD Blu-Ray of “Infernal Possession: The Awakening” offers a excellent image quality for quite complicated material since, as you can imagine, much of the film is practically in the dark. It still makes good use of the expanded color space.

And as for the sound part, the 24-bit Dolby Atmos and 15 dynamic objects of the English track is simply spectacular. On the other hand, in our analysis the 4K UHD Blu-Ray of “Infernal Possession: The Awakening” took a 9.7 score. Without a doubt a real demo album.

Mission: Impossible – Deadly Sentence Part One

You may like Tom Cruise more or less, but he is a great lover of cinema and puts a lot of care into everything he does. He also on a technical level when filming and later “transferring” his films to physical format. The 4K UHD Blu-Ray of the latest Mission: Impossible movie features a great color palette job, filling out the REC 2020 space frequently. Furthermore, the feature film has resolution native 4K and cape 12-bit Dolby Vision FELwhich is noticeable in the sharpness of the film.

Sound-wise, the English track offers an outstanding Dolby Atmos mix, with a deep LFE channel. Unfortunately the film is distributed by Paramount Pictures, which results in a super crappy Dolby Digital Spanish track. But if you want to see it in English or are going to use it for demos, the Atmos track is a delight. For all this “Mission: Impossible – Mortal sentence part one” got a 9.3 in our analysis of the 4K Blu-Ray.

Grand Tourism

Sony Pictures usually takes great care of their Blu-Ray editions and with “Gran Turismo” they have done a magnificent job. The 4K UHD disc, which we had the opportunity to analyze, has a excellent video bitrate and a magnificent P3 color palette. On the other hand, we have a layer Dolby Vision in 12-bit FEL format with an average of 3 Mbps.

And in the sound part, “Gran Turismo” has the honor of receiving a 10 in our analysis. Our expert defines the English Dolby Atmos track as simply impressive, with a mix that remains dynamic practically throughout the film. In Spanish we have a DTS HD MA 5.1, which works very well and proportionally reproduces a sensational mix; remaining far from the Atmos. For everything mentioned The 4K UHD Blu-Ray disc of “Gran Turismo” received a 9.4 in our analysis.

Oppenheimer

And the film Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan's latest film, could not be missing from this list. Nolan is a director who also takes great care of the technical part of his films and it shows, although it is true that he has “his quirks” about him. For example, No Nolan film has Dolby Atmos, at least in its physical version.

Even so, his albums are a technical marvel. At Oppenheimer we have a Native 4K resolution feature film with excellent video bitrate to be a 3 hour movie. On the other hand, in terms of sound, it uses a superb sound mix with a truly spectacular LFE channel (and very hard on the subwoofers). In English we have a DTS HD MA 5.1, while in Spanish we have to settle for DTS 5.1. For everything mentioned, Oppenheimer's 4K UHD Blu-Ray disc took a 9.5 in our analysis.

The Nun II

And we close our selection with another scary movie. The Nun II may not have been the best horror movie of the year, but it surprised us with a very careful technical section. The latest movie in the “Warren-verse” has a really full English Dolby Atmos track, making the most of the sound bubble created by this technology. Unfortunately in Spanish we have to settle for a “tacky” Dolby Digital 5.1. A shame, given the good habit that Warner had gotten into by putting Atmos tracks in Spanish in some of their latest releases.

The image, however, is not much. It looks good, but it doesn't have Dolby Vision, something strange in a Warner production. We have not analyzed this film at AVPasión at the moment, but we wanted to include it for its sound section.

And here is our selection of movies of 2023 to test our new television or sound system. We're sure we've left out many, so tell us which film from the year we've just left behind has surprised you in its technical section.