Welcome to the October 2025 edition of the Blu-ray Bounty, where I test some of the latest 4K Blu-ray releases to see if they make a worthy addition to your 4K collection. This month, I’ll be checking out 5 discs, including two movies perfect for Halloween!
If this is your first visit, you can check out previous editions of the Blu-ray Bounty here, where we’ve got our hands on some truly fantastic 4K discs over the past 11 months. In the September 2025 Blu-ray Bounty, I looked at a jam-packed 7 discs: Master & Commander: The Far Side of the World, Tron, Tron: Legacy, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, How To Train Your Dragon (2024 live-action), Elio and Thief (Arrow Video).
4K Blu-ray is a staple source for when we test the best TVs and best soundbars, due to its superior picture quality to 4K streaming (it has a much higher bit rate) and its uncompressed soundtracks. It’s why several of us here at TechRadar are fervent 4K Blu-ray collectors ourselves.
As always, I’m not reviewing the actual movie itself, just the quality of the 4K disc’s picture and audio.
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
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The Rocky Horror Picture Show is an iconic 1970s musical/horror/comedy based on the stage musical The Rocky Horror Show, written by Richard O’Brien (who plays Riff Raff in the movie). It tells the story of a young couple Brad (Barry Bostwick) and Janet (Susan Sarandon) who end up in a castle filled with strange people, led by Dr Frank-N-Furter (Tim Curry).
The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s Dolby Atmos soundtrack is truly excellent. Every song is bright, clear and generates a real 3D surround. Every instrument is accurately mapped and well balanced, bass is tight with superb punch in tracks such as Time Warp, and vocals are bold with perfect nuance, delivering every breath and big vocal in Sweet Transvestite perfectly. Outside of the musical numbers, other effects such as the whirring lift and cracking of thunder are convincing and speech is crystal clear throughout.
Visually, this 4K restoration of The Rocky Horror Picture Show has given a serious uplift to the picture. Textures are wonderfully crisp, with people’s skin in particular looking true to life. Colors are vibrant and bold with wonderfully rich hues, such as the scene where Brad and Janet first go to Frank-N-Furter’s lab, where the gaudy pink walls and bright red cloth strike the perfect balance between punchy and natural.
Thankfully for cinephiles, there’s a good level of grain retained as well. In some scenes, blacks look very inky occasionally bordering on crushed, but are still incredibly deep and they looked great on the LG G5 OLED.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
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Set in an alternative-reality 1960s, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is Marvel’s latest big team reboot and sees the Fantastic Four introduced into the MCU for the first time. It stars Pedro Pascal as Mr Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby as Invisible Woman, Eben Moss-Bachrach as The Thing and Joseph Quinn as The Human Torch.
The Fantastic Four: First Step’s 4K disc shines, of course, with its color. The alt-1960s aesthetic is perfectly captured with oranges, yellows and browns of civilian clothing, and the Fantastic Four’s apartment looking both natural and rich throughout. The team’s blue uniforms are bright and bold, but also look realistic, while the Human Torch’s fire is dazzling.
Marvel’s movies often have crisp, authentic looking textures and Fantastic Four is no exception. In Dolby Vision, this movie looks superb, adding even more pop to colors, while also delivering strong contrast.
The 4K disc’s Dolby Atmos soundtrack is as action packed and powerful as expected. Sound is precisely mapped with excellent positioning, especially as the Human Torch soars overhead or across the screen, with the sound moving between the HW-Q990C soundbar and the surround speakers authentically.
Bass has plenty of impact and will make a good test for your subwoofer, and there’s a great balance between the score and all the other parts of the Atmos soundtrack.
The Sound of Music
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Inarguably one of the most famous musicals in existence, The Sound of Music was a hit when it arrived in 1965, becoming the highest-grossing movie of all time, a title it held for five years. Starring Julie Andrews as Maria, it follows her story as the governess to the seven children of the Von Trapp family and her relationship with their father George (Christopher Plummer) in 1938 Austria.
As you’d hope from a musical like this, The Sound of Music 4K’s Dolby Atmos soundtrack is sublime. Vocals are delivered with real clarity and the score is accurately positioned, creating a full 3D sound effect. From the sweeping strings in the title track to the delicate woodwind in ‘My Favorite Things’, the Atmos soundtrack breathes new life into this timeless classic.
Outside of musical numbers, effects such as rain come from overhead and even the sound of movement is connected to the action on screen. Speech is crystal clear throughout as well.
This 4K restoration looks superb as well. Colors are the most notable beneficiary, really popping on screen throughout the movie. Whether it’s the lush greens of the hills or the bright reds and oranges of the fruit and vegetables in the markets, colors are bright, vibrant and the right amount of saturated.
Textures, especially people’s skin and finer details such as blades of grass, look refined and crisp. While the Dolby Vision HDR picture may not be as obvious as some other restorations, there’s no denying this 4K disc looks excellent.
Jurassic World: Rebirth
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The latest in the Jurassic Park franchise, Jurassic World: Rebirth follows a new team who travel to an island full of de-extinct dinosaurs. Set after Jurassic World: Dominion, the latest instalment stars Scarlett Johansson, Mahersala Ali, Jonathan Bailey and Rupert Friend.
Jurassic World: Rebirth is a good-looking 4K disc. Textures on rocks and trees in the environment have plenty of refined detail and look realistic. Colors have a good level of pop throughout, especially the greens of the jungle on the island and the blue of the ocean. There’s also strong contrast between dark and light tones, especially in scenes where the characters explore caves and blacks are rich throughout.
The Dolby Atmos soundtrack is great for giving your home theater system a workout. The thumping bass from stomping dinosaurs and big impacts will let your subwoofer flex its muscles, while sound has excellent directionality when dinosaurs fly overhead. Speech is clear throughout, even in the most chaotic of scenes.
The score is well balanced across all speakers, giving other effects room to breathe, but delivering enough clarity in the right moments (you’ll hear the classic theme more than a few times).
Dead of Night (1945)
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Dead of Night (1945) has one of the rare distinctions of being one of the only horror movies made in Britain in the 1940s, which were banned as a result of WWII. This supernatural anthology horror movie also comes from Ealing Studios, which was primarily known for producing comedies.
This 4K restoration is impressive to say the least. Textures such as skin tones have seen the most uplift, taking on a much richer, sharper look. Contrast is strong, with a great balance between light and dark tones throughout, capturing the supernatural element. Presented in black and white, there’s a good balance of gray, black and white tones throughout and there’s plenty of film grain maintained.
The 4K disc only comes with a standard LCPM 2.0 soundtrack, but this has been cleaned up nicely so that speech is clear throughout and the dramatic score still has plenty of punch. Even the scene with a live music performance has great clarity.
Want to get our setup? I’ve included the best deals on the LG G5 OLED TV, Samsung HW-Q990C soundbar and its predecessor, the Samsung HW-Q990F. Plus, the best deals on 4K Blu-ray players.
The best 4K Blu-ray players for all budgets
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james.davidson@futurenet.com (James Davidson)
