I have found that when it comes to screen resolutions/aspect ratios/bit depth, character encoding and time zones, we are all the mercy of our digital overlords and have to accept whatever works.

If you don't mind stretching artifacts, you could always stretch the image as most smart TVs can do that. But mind you things tend to look weird when stretched. If you have a distinct problem with unused portions of the screen, that will fix it though.

That's just TV screens. Content, specifically movies, never stopped having multiple aspect ratios all along. TV shows were more likely to have the same aspect ratio as the current TV standard (though some shows started being filmed in a widescreen aspect ratio while CRTs were still dominant), however as the line between movies and TV got blurred, that stopped being true some years ago.

True, but 16:9 seems more than sufficient so in don't see why you'd need other resolutions. (1440x1920 for 4:3 HD conversions, but otherwise...). You won't have situations with say Hogan's Heroes where the commandant and the prisoner are 1/2 a foot away in order to see them both talking at the same time during a closeup scene (which would be highly unrealistic but sorta was needed in the 4:3).

People look weird, objects look weird, everything just feels off. I'd rather have the black bars.

Could be worse. One of the HD stretching they originally used had different ratios between sections of the TV, and just hurts my eyes and brain looking at it....

Our widescreen TVs are 16:9, but some movies or shows are filmed in wider versions, perhaps for future support reasons or just because Cinema can support them. If you used a projector for instance, you could also take advantage of wider.

If its wider, then with our TVs we end up with black bars at top and bottom.

There are some movies which switch between 16:9 and widescreen for dramatic effect (for example flashback vs real story).

And a few movies even go back to something close to 4:3.

If you watch Zak Snyder's Justice League, he uses at least 3 different image formats.

Cinemascope is very limiting, some directors prefer to show more of the picture without taking focus from the actors.

And then there's the Cinerama format - a wonderful 2.59:1

Now that's wide.

Most movies made for the theater are 2.35:1 which will have black bars even on 16:9 monitors. That's the way it is. Some movies are 4:3. IMAX is like an aspect ratio monster because it changes aspects ratios in mid-movie to show you more vertical space in certain scenes... But there's nothing wrong with the monitor. Is just the way it is. Some series want to be more "cinematic" and also use these aspect ratios instead of the 16:10 OR 16:9 most screens have. Those black bars were a conscious creative choice of the creators, for better or worse.

As far as I understand this stuff, if you really want to get rid of those black borders, you'll have to invest in a 21:9 (ultrawide) monitor, because that's the CinemaScope format.

However - if you'd go for a 21:9 monitor, you'd probably still experience black borders (in some cases) - only this time they'll be at the sides of your screen.

I support what people said above. There's nothing you can do, simply because there's nothing wrong with your TV/monitor. The problem is that just there is no universally followed standard screen ratio. So some producers film in one format (like 16:9 or 21:9 ) and their movies work beautifully in your screen that happens to follow the same ratio.

But then you want to watch another show/movie that was filmed in a different format. It obviously won't fit. You'll have black borders to make up the difference and there's nothing anyone can do to avoid it other than buying a different TV for each screen ratio.