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ATC C1 5.1

Blu-ray and find that both TVS produce a broadly similar picture with some key improvements in favour of the GX.

The biggest one is black depth. As the film opens with a look around Ripley’s drifting shuttle, the unlit areas of the cockpit are noticeably inkier without any loss of detail. As the film progresses, the extra black enhances overall contrast and makes edges a little more pronounced, resulting in an image that’s a little more solid and three-dimensional overall.

The GX’S motion handling continues to impress here, too, as does that slight extra richness. This isn’t a vast improvement over the C9, but it is at least as good in every way. Drop all the way down to standard-def and the GX once again trumps the C9 with a deeper, fuller delivery. The upscaling is just a touch cleaner and smoother, too.

To round this home cinema system off, we need a great 4K Blu-ray player. Streaming is an amazing way to access UHD content, but the best, most consistent medium via which to watch 4K remains the humble disc.

Crisp, insightful picture

The one major downside to Pioneer’s UDP-LX500 4K Blu-ray player is that it has only a few smart features. But the TV in this set-up takes care of all of that, so it’s really not an issue. This player’s highlights are what matters. And it will provide you with a crisp, insightful picture, and dynamic, expressive sound with truly impressive timing through the amp and speaker package.

Pioneer designed this player to be just as accomplished with audio as it is with video – and it shows. There’s weight and power here, but the Pioneer also keeps a tight grip, drawing crisply defined lines around rumblings as they ripple out and around your head. Switch to CD playback, and the Pioneer sounds equally natural and effortless in its delivery.

The high praise doesn’t stop with the player’s sound quality. The UDP-LX500 does, of course, deliver a fantastic picture too, edging its rival Panasonic DPUB9000 for outright detail and clarity, with a subtle, neutral tone. You’re able to enjoy the picture’s vibrancy without any straining of the eyes. The Pioneer is also a confident upscaler for those Blu-rays and DVDS in your collection.

This is one of the most expensive 4K machines we’ve reviewed so far, but introduce it to a system such as the one we suggest here – one that can make the most of its abilities – and you’ll want every night to be movie night.

It also has The Touch by Stan Bush as the lead track, but beyond that, it features some really interesting sci-fi ideas and some big storylines for the Transformer characters themselves. The original Transformer film puts the subsequent live action movies to shame.

Forget the instantly forgettable 2012 remake. Have you forgotten it? Good. At the peak of Hollywood’s Cold War fear came Red Dawn, the film that poses the question of what would happen if the Russians really invaded the USA.

The answer is, of course, that they would be stopped by a bunch of kids armed only with hunting rifles, pistols, and bows and arrows. Starring Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson, Jennifer Grey, Harry Dean Stanton and more, this film is a bonafide killer.

The Man With Two Brains is pretty much as silly as the trailer looks – certainly no sillier – but it is also scattered with moments of comedy genius. The film follows widowed brain surgeon Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr on his journey of love, self-discovery and body swapping. Written and directed by Carl Reiner, it doesn’t quite reach the heights of his earlier classic The Jerk, but this is still vintage Steve Martin nonetheless.

Matthew Broderick plays Neil Simon in the second part of the New York screenwriter’s quasi-autobiographical coming-of-age trilogy.

It follows Brooklyn boy Eugene Jerome as he is drafted into basic training for World War II in Biloxi, Mississippi, under the back and ball-breaking command of Sergeant Merwin J Toomey – played brilliantly by Christopher Walken. Funny and life-affirming in equal measure.

This is the Martin Scorcese film you never knew existed. It’s a black comedy – not exactly your classic Scorcese genre – following Paul (Griffin Dunne) on a single night in New York. It starts off with a date with Rosanna Arquette and goes south, and then further south, very quickly. Think the arc of John Cleese in Clockwise and you’ve got the gist.

Probably the ultimate in cult 80s movies, Drugstore Cowboy was director Gus Van Sant’s second feature. It stars Matt Dillon as the leader of a group of junkies who go around robbing pharmacies of their wares and then shoot up pretty much whatever they find. It’s based on the autobiographical novel by long-time drug user and dealer James Fogle.

Ignore the name, this film is effectively a feature-length sketch show by a gang of directors and an ensemble cast the reads like a who’s who of the 1980s. There are one or two duff moments, of course, but that’s balanced out by some absolute genius – such as the wake that turns into a stand-up comedy night and the spoof of Ripley’s Believe It or Not!

Another coming of age drama, again loosely based on the experiences of the writer who grew up in rural New South Wales. It was first part of a proposed trilogy following the same Australian boy and features two of Australia’s best Hollywood exports, Noah Taylor and Ben Mendelsohn.

Part two is a film called Flirting, starring Nicole Kidman, which might also have made this list had it not been released in the 90s. Both were awardwinning films but, for some reason, the third part of the trilogy was never made.