You just bought the best OLED TV – and watching these movies and shows makes it all worth it
On Cyber Monday, I bought one of the best TVs, the LG C2 OLED. In fact, our LG C2 OLED review explains why the The best TV out there (we rank it as such on multiple pages). In short: excellent color reproduction, all the bells and whistles appropriate for gaming, and then some.
But even on sale this Cyber Monday, it might cost more money than I’d like to say out loud (well, good, the 55-inch LG C2 OLED is $1,299 at Amazon). (Opens in a new tab)$300 off the regular price). This is a huge investment. One I never wanted to make. But I destroyed another OLED I was burning artifacts in display. And it’s been bothering me since last spring when I first noticed it. Months later, I shrank and hit Buy.
As the live stream editor at Tom’s Guide, my over-the-top analysis didn’t end there. Instead, I spent the following days analyzing every gushing decision I’d made about the LG C2. The shows and movies I watch mean a lot to me – I guess that’s what happens when you spend a lot on top streaming services. It all added up to two weeks which left me pretty confident in how great they can make movies and shows look. The OLED screen that ruined it sold me with perfectly dark blacks and great contrast, and the C2 looks even better.
And the great news I can report, is that even though I spent some time tweaking the settings, I have no buyer’s remorse. I love this TV, and I will do everything I can to make sure it lasts as long as possible. Here are the shows and movies I’ve been testing, and if I need to change any settings to make them look their best.
Tip: How to adjust LG C2 TV settings
In this article, I discuss changing the picture settings. To adjust to a preset, click the gear button on the Magic Remote and select the top option (Picture Settings).
Then there are the Clarity settings (which some call the Soap Opera effect). To find it, hold down the gear button, select Image, then Advanced, then Clarity and look for TruMotion.
Avengers: Endgame (Disney Plus)
In news that should surprise no one, Avengers: Endgame is a great movie. But the thing that absolutely struck me was how immaculate Robert Downey Jr. seemed at first, as Tony Stark floated off into space. You’ve seen this movie on 4K TVs before, but Mr. Stark has never looked as crisp as it did back then. For this movie, I have an LG C2 set to Dolby Vision Cinema Home, and while I have TruMotion turned off to prevent “soap opera mode,” something almost feels weird about this particular scene. Having said that, my eyes quickly got used to it.
These utterly depressing scenes were almost undercut by how fragile everything was. The color contrast and balance enabled by Dolby Vision and the OLED panel gave a better look to the scenes as Tony Stark’s confessions to Pepper. The darkness sounded even more overwhelming, giving his speech even more sadness.
Watch Avengers Endgame Disney Plus (Opens in a new tab)
Top Gun: Maverick
Watching Top Gun: Maverick on 4K Blu-ray, I was amazed and surprised that I enjoyed the cockpit shots. These planes fly at almost alarming speeds, and the LG C2 brought out a lot of great detail in these moments.
The intimate scenes showing the pilots’ faces and the snowy landscape are hypnotic, and the clarity with which they’re rendered is impressive.
The intimate scenes showing the pilots’ faces and the snowy landscape are hypnotic, and the clarity with which they’re rendered is impressive. This is a movie that makes me wonder if I bought a big enough TV, because the screen size really made the flying scenes that much more impressive.
Given the amount of action there is in Top Gun: Maverick, I played with Clarity’s Cinematic Motion setting. This option is intended to help enable animation to appear more like it did on the screen. However, I found the best image quality with this setting disabled (I may tinker with this in the future). Once again, this OLED panel’s color reproduction and black capabilities sang beautifully in Top Gun: Maverick. This was most noticeable with the fiery explosions and the blues and blacks in the room where Jon Hamm’s character gave orders.
Buy or rent Top Gun Maverick on Amazon (Opens in a new tab)watched it on Paramount Plus (Opens in a new tab) Starting December 23
Akira (upstream)
Watching street gangs do battle across Neo-Tokyo, I knew I’d made the right choice to watch the blockbuster anime Akira on the LG C2. The film puts biker gang friends Kaneda and Tetsuo in the middle of a government conspiracy, and discovers that a less confident Tetsuo is gaining superhuman abilities and attacking the world. A really nice movie, Akira has a simple animation that the LG C2 helps sing.
Oh, and while you can watch Akira in HD on Hulu (and I did as part of my testing for this story), I’d much rather watch it on the recently remastered 4K Blu-ray, where the dimly-lit bar at which the guys hang out is more clearly visible. Even at this lower resolution, the chase scenes are still great. The head and taillights—especially those red taillights emanating from the Kaneda chopper—pop perfectly. There are no big presets you need to change here, 4K Blu-ray supports Dolby Vision, so Home Cinema is still what I used.
Watch Akira on Hulu (Opens in a new tab) or buy 4K Blu-ray on Amazon (Opens in a new tab)
Yellowstone (peacock)
Yes, I’m still trying to be on the biggest show on TV. And when I watched Yellowstone Episode III on the LG C2, I was as surprised as I was cringed. While this TV is great for watching crystal clear views of untouched development Montana landscapes, where blue skies and green trees look perfect? One of the bleak death scenes in Yellowstone came out very clearly as well, with the character’s face shaking, setting off a grim chain of guilt-inspired dialogue.
Every pore and hair was as pure as can be, and before I knew it he was admiring the waves of amber grain that the horses galloped over. Later, in a pitch-black nightscape, the outline of young Casey Dutton seemed brighter than the black background of the field where he was waiting.
Yellowstone Stream Run peacock (Opens in a new tab)
The White Lotus (HBO Max)
Then, on a Sunday night, I did what a bunch of others did, and watched the Season 2 finale of White Lotus on HBO Max. And some scenes I wasn’t expecting looked amazing thanks to the deep blacks of the LC C2’s OLED panel. For example, a short shot of a volcanic eruption looked most idyllic when magma glowed against a pitch-black sky.
The underwater scenes in this episode are of varying degrees of clarity, but I’ll probably never forget what a certain character’s face looked like through that vibrant blue.
White lotus stream on HBO Max (Opens in a new tab)
Avatar (Disney Plus)
As much as I hate it, James Cameron’s Avatar is a pretty good looking movie. I’m not a fan of the plot of the original story, but I meant to re-watch before I went to the Avatar: Waterway show I was invited to. So, I loaded it up on the LG C2, where the blue tones of Na’vi leather, along with the purples and greens of florals felt alive and electric. And everything seemed better once I found the right settings.
I already felt compelled to tinker since Disney Plus doesn’t offer Avatar in HDR or Dolby Vision, so I opened Picture settings and scrolled through the settings. I’ve heard Vivid and Sports mode go a little too far to try and make something look as bright and colorful as possible, and that was very true here. Then, I realized that the Na’vi leather blues seemed too muted in respectable director mode. Only in ISF Expert mode (set to Bright/Daytime, as my living room has some light leaking in), did things look okay. This setup also helped the warm colors of the flames in the Na’vi fire pit look just right.
Avatar stream on Disney Plus (Opens in a new tab)
The Barbarian (HBO Max)
One of the best movies of 2022, Barbarian reminded me of the benefits of Filmmaker mode. With this setting enabled, the scene in which Tess (Georgina Campbell) is exploring an Airbnb from hell seemed even more accurate. Switching from Filmmaker mode to ISF, I noticed that the latter either added too much brightness or got too dark. There may not be one perfect picture setting for every movie.
Lighting and color balance can be critical to horror movies like Barbarian, and when you get a TV this great, you want to make sure you’re using it right. Later in the movie, when characters are immersed in red light in a dark bar, the LG C2 allowed tones to look great, without getting too bright or losing any detail.
Barbarian stream on HBO Max (Opens in a new tab)
Next: huh? The world’s first 55-inch wireless OLED TV is coming (Opens in a new tab).
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