5 Best Shows To Watch On A 4K TV

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The emergence of widescreen high-definition TVs was a significant factor in what became known as the Golden Age of Television of the 2000s and 2010s — and, by the same token, the commercial availability of 4K television models from the 2010s onward has helped usher in an era of unprecedented visual richness in TV productions.

Gone are the days when concocting blockbuster-film-level spectacle for the small screen was thought of as a mostly incongruous endeavor due to the limitations of the medium; as numerous consumers around the world gain access to the same viewing resolution at home that they would have in the average movie theater, TV shows have responded in kind by getting more and more willfully spectacular.

If you own a 4K TV — that is, a model with a display resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels, four times as many as a standard HD set — your viewing experience of any series that offers the Ultra HD option is likely to be enhanced. But there are certain shows to which the element of visual lushness is particularly central, and which may, in turn, be particularly strong picks if you're looking to enjoy the 4K technology to its fullest. 

The five series listed below are all available in 4K on their respective streaming services if you're in a compatible subscription tier. They all make dazzling watches in ultra-high definition, each for its own particular reasons — whether it's the ritz of the VFX, the enveloping magnificence of the production design, or the multiplicity of filming locations. Here are the five best shows to watch on a 4K TV.

• Cast: Kit Harington, Emilia Clarke, Peter Dinklage
• Created by: David Benioff and D. B. Weiss
• Rating: TV-MA
• Number of seasons: 8
• Where to watch: HBO Max

It's no coincidence that "Game of Thrones" has become a go-to series for showcasing the capabilities of TV screens in stores around the world. To this day, years and multiple spin-offs removed from its highly controversial 2019 ending, the HBO series remains synonymous with massive, lavishly-produced, no-expenses-spared blockbuster television. It's nothing short of a landmark in the medium.

From its beginnings as a political thriller mostly taken with close-quarters palatial intrigue, this adaptation of George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" novels rode a tidal wave of critical and commercial success to increasingly higher budgets and more expansive flights of high-fantasy filmmaking. A few seasons in, it was pulling off battle sequences and feats of VFX far beyond anything that had ever been seen on TV — all in tandem with the continuous exploration of Martin's rich, painstakingly detailed world-building.

While some fans would argue that those very blockbuster ambitions eventually got the better of "Game of Thrones" on a storytelling front, its overall scope as an audiovisual feat is undeniable. Add in the excellent, deeply-considered, hypnotically propulsive drama the writers served up for at least a good half of the show's eight seasons, and "Game of Thrones" remains one of the most exciting experiences you can have with a 4K television.

• Cast: Morfydd Clark, Charlie Vickers, Ismael Cruz Córdova
• Developed by: J. D. Payne and Patrick McKay
• Rating: TV-14
• Number of seasons: 2
• Where to watch: Prime Video

Speaking of high fantasy shows that put their money where their mouth is, the floodgates of mega-budget genre TV production that "Game of Thrones" opened eventually led to Prime Video bankrolling a fresh adaptation of the saga most frequently compared to "A Song of Ice and Fire" in the annals of fantasy literature. With the shadows of both "Game of Thrones" and Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy looming over it, Prime Video's "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" opted to cover its bases by becoming the most expensive TV show production of all time.

To be sure, every penny of the show's $50-million-plus-per-episode budget shows on screen. As helmed by a small rotating team of seasoned directors (with Season 2 boasting a famously all-female directing team), "The Rings of Power" serves up all the density of detail, visual grandeur, and imaginative spectacle that you could want out of a TV series inspired by J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth books. Both seasons take advantage of the prequel framing, with events set thousands of years before "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings," to explore corners of Tolkien's vision that had seldom if ever been visualized so vividly. Very little on TV beats it for sheer immersion — and in 4K, the experience is all the more profound.

• Cast: Hiroyuki Sanada, Anna Sawai, Tadanobu Asano
• Created by: Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks
• Rating: TV-MA
• Number of seasons: 1
• Where to watch: Hulu

"Shōgun" was the breakout drama series of 2024, making history as both the show to win the most Emmys for a single season at a whopping 18, and the first series not primarily in the English language to take home the statuette for outstanding drama series. That astounding roster of wins speaks to the show's breadth of technical accomplishment: "Shōgun" nabbed laurels for its directing, editing, cinematography, costumes, hairstyling, prosthetic and non-prosthetic makeup, production design, sound editing and mixing, visual effects, and stunt performance. In other words, it swept the available awards for visual craftsmanship.

Given that rarefied achievement, it should come as no surprise that, in addition to being one of the very best-written and best-acted shows of the 2020s so far, "Shōgun" is an absolute whopper of a watch in 4K. The show follows Japan's transition from the Warring States era to the Tokugawa-ruled Edo period at the turn of the 17th century, from the perspective of feudal lord Yoshii Toranaga (Hiroyuki Sanada), a character loosely based on the real-life shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Developed by Rachel Kondo and Justin Marks from the eponymous 1975 novel by James Clavell, it's a brilliant feat of historical fiction peppered with intrigue, period-accurate detail, and incredible characters (with Anna Sawai's multi-layered aristocrat Toda Mariko as an ensemble highlight). And, as a display of cinematography and art direction, it's straight-up overwhelming.

• Cast: Brian J. Smith, Tuppence Middleton, Bae Doona
• Created by: Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski
• Rating: TV-MA
• Number of seasons: 2
• Where to watch: Netflix

Netflix's "Sense8" finds the Wachowski sisters casting their signature maximalist colors and bold strokes of sheer spectacle across the widest canvas of their careers. Teaming up with "Babylon 5" mastermind J. Michael Straczynski, the left-field blockbuster auteurs behind "The Matrix," "Speed Racer," and "Cloud Atlas" concocted an original sci-fi series in which the ineffable magic of human connection and communication lies at the core of the showmanship.

"Sense8," which aired for two seasons and two specials between 2015 and 2018, follows a group of eight strangers, scattered about Kenya, Mexico, India, Germany, the United States, South Korea, and the United Kingdom, who begin to experience a psychic connection that allows them to share in each other's experiences, senses, and thoughts in real time — a phenomenon that puts them on the radar of a powerful, dangerous organization.

It was one of the first Netflix originals, which might partly account for why the Wachowskis and Straczynski got away with making the show's production as big, splashy, and gorgeous as possible: All eight parallel stories are filmed on location around the globe, fully availing themselves of the stunning vistas available to each production unit. And "Sense8" isn't shy about mixing together those vistas in breathtaking action sequences that use cross-cutting as its own special effect. Few other TV shows are so enthusiastic in their pursuit of visual splendor — which naturally goes very well with 4K.

• Cast: Jennifer Coolidge, Natasha Rothwell, Jon Gries, Walton Goggins
• Created by: Mike White
• Rating: TV-MA
• Number of seasons: 3
• Where to watch: HBO Max

If you're looking for a great 4K watch that isn't built around action, adventure, or detailed period recreation, but will nonetheless deliver on the razzle-dazzle front, HBO's "The White Lotus" may be just the ticket. Created — and entirely written and directed across its three seasons to date — by acclaimed American scribe Mike White, this hugely successful show began as an intended miniseries in 2021 before branching out into an anthology format.

Every season follows the same basic structure: Viewers are informed that one or more violent deaths have occurred at a resort in the fictional high-end global chain known as The White Lotus. The first episode then flashes back to a few days or weeks earlier, and the subsequent season follows a party of wealthy guests who have arrived together for their stays at the season's location: Maui, Hawaii in Season 1; Taormina, Sicily in Season 2; and Ko Samui, Thailand in Season 3.

The layers of visual beauty in the real-life location shooting make the show a no-brainer for 4K, whether you want to bask in the golden glaze of the Sicilian shore or the vibrant neons of the Bangkok night. But there's much more to "The White Lotus" than vicarious living: White expertly weaves together the various tales of the guests and workers into tense, lurid, addictive television, buoyed by revelatory meditations on class and colonialism plus endless, playful riffing on the convolutions of sex and gender.