Top Gun: Maverick 4K UHD Screenshots (Patreon)

Video

Top Gun: Maverick is everything modern blockbuster cinema should and can be when at its best. Blistering true 4K imagery fills the screen with ludicrous sharpness defining every single line, facial pore, metal surface on jets, and the dazzling wide shots. The slightest film grain layers the frame, unobtrusive and resolved. Texture refuses to recede no matter the circumstance.

Color grading favors a digital slant, but it's not without moments of intense, high-end saturation. Density doesn't change, just the palette, so color is always and continuously bold. Great flesh tones deliver on warmth, and the vivid greenery around the locations absolutely pops.

Generous in Dolby Vision potential too, the brilliant contrast uses the glistening sun to its fullest potential, ricocheting from visors, windows, and sleek jet metals. California sun lives up to its potential courtesy of this disc. Flawless.

Audio

Joining Godzilla: King of Monsters, Pacific Rim, and Mad Max: Fury Road at the format's top audio discs. Atmos erupts potent bass that isn't only room shaking, but house shaking. Jet engines spare nothing in their power, the Hz so ludicrously low, walls will beg for a reprieve. Explosions generate thrust equal to or even better than the afterburners.

Likewise, motion accurately bounces between speakers, and height channels take on more notable work here by default than any other reference disc. Every opportunity is taken to showcase home theater's ability to mimic the best full theaters out there. It's masterful, and so well balanced, the brilliant score isn't lost in the mayhem.