Sky 4K: 30 best things to watch in 4K on Sky Q, Sky Glass or Sky Stream

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…

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Sinners

If you thought all the blood had already been sucked from the vampire genre, Sinners proves that there’s still plenty of life left in it yet.

Michael B Jordan plays both Elijah and Elias Moore (or Smoke and Stack as everybody calls them) – two brothers who return to their home town in 1930s Mississippi with plans to open a juke joint. But rather than their criminal past catching up with them, it’s a blood-sucker with a penchant for folk music who causes all the trouble on their opening night.

If you liked Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk Till Dawn, but thought it could benefit by incorporating some elements of Crossroads (the one inspired by the claim that legendary blues musician Robert Johsnon made a pact with the Devil, not the rubbish Britney Spears film from 2002) then Sinners offers loads to sink your teeth into.

28 Years Later

It’s not quite been 28 real-world years since 28 Days Later – the close-to-home story of a virus that turned people into bloodthirsty cannibals – was released, but this second sequel has still been a long time coming.

Almost three decades after the initial outbreak, 12-year-old Spike lives on an island off the coast of Northumberland that is only accessible at low tide, but his mother is chronically ill and he believes help exists on the mainland. Unsurprisingly, much of what resides there is not exactly what you’d call friendly.

28 Years Later also has one of the most Marmite endings of recent years, but if the sheer chutzpah of it doesn’t put a massive grin on your face (and make you desperate to find out where the follow-up, 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, goes next) then you definitely take yourself too seriously.

Friendship

If you’re familiar with I Think You Should Leave, Tim Robinson’s Netflix series of brilliantly absurd comedy sketches, you’ll have some idea what to expect from Friendship. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to see any of its gags coming.

Here Robinson plays Craig, a suburban dad who comes out of his shell after befriending new neighbour Austin (Paul Rudd), but after a faux pas at a party brings the bromance to a premature end, Craig’s behaviour begins to get more and more unhinged.

Robinson often finds humour in the most mundane situations, and while it’s director Andrew DeYoung who’s responsible for the screenplay here, Friendship still sometimes feels like an ITYSL sketch that got out of hand – and that’s no bad thing.

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

Is this really the end? Nearly 30 years after Tom Cruise first stepped into Ethan Hunt’s shoes, The Final Reckoning is supposedly the final installment in the Mission: Impossible franchise.

You’ll need to have seen 2023’s Dead Reckoning Part One for this eighth part to make any sense – and even then its AI-gone-rogue plot is more than a little bit silly – but as a canvas for Tom Cruise to show off the size of his cojones it’s impossible to fault.

With the threat of nuclear armageddon, experimental diving suits, old Cold War bases in the middle of nowhere, and a climactic sequence that’s as death-defying as anything Cruise has ever done, if this is the last M: I film it certainly goes out with a suitably big bang. How long will Hollywood be able to resist rebooting it?

The Bikeriders

Despite having a name that makes it sound like a film about a bunch of MAMILs, The Bikeriders tells the story of a Chicago-based motorcycle gang called The Vandals in the late ‘60s. Led by Tom Hardy’s Johnny, The Vandals start out as a purely local concern, but as membership grows so do the problems.

It cruises along at a pretty relaxed pace – more laidback chopper than high-performance Kawasaki Ninja – and the plot isn’t particularly sophisticated, but it captures the period beautifully and Jodie Comer is brilliant as Kathy, who, as the wife of Austin Butler’s Benny, is afforded an almost unique perspective on the whole bruising affair.

Nosferatu

Nobody likes estate agents much, but sending one to a vampire’s house seems unnecessarily harsh. However, that’s what happens to Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult) in Nosferatu after the mysterious Count Orlok expresses an interest in buying a house in his German hometown. 

Thomas makes the grueling journey to visit the prospective buyer in the Carpathian mountains, but the shadowy figure is more interested in the young estate agent’s wife, Ellen, than completing on a nice little bungalow to retire to. 

With Count Orlok remaining almost entirely shrouded in darkness for much of his meeting with Thomas, Nosferatu is a great way to show off how well your TV handles the creepily atmospheric low-light scenes, while a proper sound system will ensure Orlok’s croaky voice sends shivers up your spine every time he opens his mouth.

A Quiet Place: Day One

It’s not quite the loudest city in the world (that honor goes to Paris) but New York is still pretty noisy – and perhaps that’s what makes it so appealing to the aliens in A Quiet Place: Day One.

Terminal-cancer patient Sam (Lupita Nyong’o) is on a visit to Manhattan when the creatures choose to attack, ruthlessly slaughtering anything that makes the slightest sound. With the government destroying any route off the island in an effort to contain the invaders – a tactic the two prequels tell us is doomed to fail – Sam begins a perilous journey (along with her cat) to the evacuation point. 

While the central conceit is perhaps losing its impact a little, the change in location freshens things up and Sam’s condition adds an extra human element to what could easily have been just another monster movie.

Monkey Man

“You like John Wick?” a backstreet weapons merchant asks Dev Patel’s unnamed ‘Kid’ near the beginning of Monkey Man, but he might as well have been talking directly to the audience, such is the shadow that Keanu Reeves’ deadly dog-lover now casts over the revenge genre.  

Patel’s character earns a crust throwing bare-knuckle boxing bouts, but his real purpose in life is to avenge the murder of his mother. On the way we get brutal punch-ups (both inside and outside the ring); a car chase involving a suped-up rickshaw; and a Rocky-style training sequence soundtracked by traditional Indian drums. 

By the time the film reaches its multi-storey finale it’s The Raid rather than John Wick that feels like the most fitting comparison. But that’s OK, because we like that film too.

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.

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.

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 TV. The story of Joel and Ellie navigating an America ravaged by the flesh-hungry Infected was so emotionally powerful and morally complex that, in the right hands, it had the potential to be a truly great show.  

The first series received universal acclaim, but the follow-up, which only partially tells the story of The Last of Us Part II, divided opinions. For those willing to judge it on its own merits, though, season two is a worthy successor, with Bella Ramsey’s Ellie venturing into places that will be sure to test the audience’s sympathies. 

The ending is undoubtedly abrupt, and making us wait until 2027 for series three (aka the second half of series two) feels misguided, but it still makes for some utterly compelling television.

Dune: Part Two

2021’s Dune isn’t free to watch on Sky, but don’t assume you can dive straight into Dune: Part Two and fill in the gaps as you go along. Denis Vileneuve’s version of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi novel is dense with lore concerning the desert planet of Arrakis and the fight to control its valuable natural resource known as Spice. 

It’s a world that lends itself well to 4K, where everything is often bathed in a golden orange glow and the eyes of its long-term inhabitants turn an icy blue, but the brief visits made to the almost colourless home planet of the enemy House Harkonnen are equally arresting. It makes for some spectacular set pieces, with brilliantly imagined technology and costumes, although it’s still slightly hard to accept that the hero of the whole thing shares a first name with Paul Daniels.

Gangs of London

Despite its rather pedestrian title, Gangs of London drifts further into absurdity with every series that passes – but we wouldn’t have it any other way. 

What started out as a slightly ludicrous mash-up of Eastenders and The Raid has become a globe-trotting tale of double- and triple-crossing, which, in all honesty, has become a little hard to keep track of. But the action sequences are as gloriously gory as ever, including one shootout that involves creative use of an umbilical cord, and the visual flair is still there, even if watching in 4K does sometimes make the special effects look a bit shonky. 

It might borrow a drug-related plot point from The Wire, and there’s more political involvement here than previous series, but Gangs of London is still as mindlessly watchable as ever. 

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.

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.

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.

Billions

Now into its seventh series (with all of them 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…

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?

The Third Day

From Summerisle to Royston Vasey, there are some places where it’s just not worth booking an Airbnb – and after watching The Third Day you’ll want to add Osea Island to the list. Jude Law’s Sam stumbles upon this seemingly idyllic community by accident, but the evasive residents, dismembered animals, and bright orange insects soon suggest all is not as it seems.

Unsurprisingly, The Third Day owes a significant debt to The Wicker Man (the original, not Nic Cage’s unintentionally hilarious remake) but the involvement of immersive theatre company Punchdrunk makes this six-parter a real assault on the senses. That’s particularly true of the first three episodes, which veer from dreamlike to nightmarish as Sam gradually loses his grip on reality.

Unfortunately, the 12-hour, single-take episode that sits between the two halves isn’t available on-demand, although based on what went before it, watching that might be enough to tip anyone over the edge into madness.

The Meg

When you settle in for a movie night you’re not always in the mood for a multi-layered, thought-provoking drama. Sometimes you just want to watch Jason Statham have a fight with a fish the size of an Isle of Wight ferry.

It’s a good job, then, that The Meg exists. Having disturbed a prehistoric megalodon at the bottom of the sea, a marine research team calls upon diver Jonas (Statham and his globe-trotting accent) to return to the depths that haunt him after a previous rescue mission ended badly.

Obviously it’s no Citizen Kane, and there’s a suspicion that it only exists to facilitate the pun just before the end credits roll, but who doesn’t want to watch a boat drag Jason Statham along, like a bit of big, angry, bald bait, all in 4K?

The Trip to Greece

It’s been more than 15 years since Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon first toured the Lake District in a Chelsea tractor, eating in fancy restaurants, doing impressions and trying to have the last word. Surely the format can’t still work for a fourth series?

This time the duo are retracing the steps of Odysseus, which means they start in Turkey, where Coogan sets the tone with a Partridge-style ‘A-ha!’ from within a Trojan horse. They spend the rest of this very British comedy odyssey comparing Greek relics to Legoland, espousing the advances in modern dentistry as Don Corleone, and considering a cockney Henry VIII. You’d think the appeal would’ve worn off by now, but with its breathtaking scenery and often quite revealing banter, there remains something quite compelling about eavesdropping on the pair’s working holidays.

Series 3, The Trip to Spain, is also now available in Ultra HD.

Pacific Rim

Michael Bay’s Transformers series somehow managed to give the ‘big robots smashing seven bells out of stuff’ genre a bad name, but 2013’s Pacific Rim managed to claw back a bit of respectability.

Pitting gigantic, mind-controlled mechs called Jaegers against even bigger sea monsters from another dimension, Pacific Rim isn’t exactly a masterclass in emotional subtlety. Unsurprisingly the tiny humans are overshadowed by their vessels and scaly foes, but there aren’t many things that look better on a big telly than robots and monsters having a ruck in 4K.

The Godfather

Here’s an offer you can’t refuse: the greatest film of all time in 4K. Only the first two parts of Francis Ford Coppola’s mafia trilogy are available on Sky in Ultra HD, but don’t listen to the people who say Part II is better: they’re wrong.

Despite being the best part of 50 years old, this version of The Godfather practically looks like it was shot yesterday, with post-war New York and Sicily really brought to life. Life, of course, is not something that every character in The Godfather gets to enjoy, but you can make the most of this bona fide classic from the safety of your sofa.

Dunkirk

If you’ve seen any of Chris Nolan’s last few films you’ll probably settle in to watch Dunkirk prepared for the long haul, but it’s refreshingly lean, partly due to the fact that there’s very little dialogue.

But then there’s not a lot to talk about when you’re busy either trying to escape or rescue others from the beaches of Dunkirk during World War 2. Nolan’s film portrays the evacuation from land, sea and the air, but there’s one thing that’ll stick with you after the credits have rolled: the clinging sense of dread that’s created by the music and sound design. Got a surround sound system? This is a film to plug it in for.

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