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Is there anything more satisfying than adding cool movies to your watch lists? OK, there are probably tons of things more satisfying, but still, it’s never a bad thing to have a well-curated range of great films at the ready so you don’t waste time searching across your various streaming platforms.
While there’s no shortage of great options, we hope to make your selection process a little easier by rounding up some of the better newly-available releases on the four leading platforms: Netflix, Hulu, HBO, and Amazon Prime. From Academy Award winners and political nail-biters to festive flicks and twisted arthouse films of the highest caliber, we have you covered.
Want to take a deep dive into the world of streaming? We also have guides to the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon, and the best movies on HBO.
Netflix
Spring Breakers (2012)
Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers may be one of the least controversial “controversial” movies of recent memory. Especially considering Korine is the guy who made Kids. But it is wacky, weird, and a lot of fun. Candy (Vanessa Hudgens), Faith (Selena Gomez), Brit (Ashley Benson), and Cotty (Rachel Korine) are short on the cash they need for their spring break trip, so they casually rob a diner and head to Florida. Unsurprisingly, they’re soon arrested at a party. But when they’re unexpectedly bailed out by a drug dealer and aspiring rap artist called Alien (James Franco), they’re soon roped into a life of crime.
Watch on Netflix
Pieces of a Woman (2020)
Vanessa Kirby and Shia LaBeouf star in this heavy drama about a home birth gone wrong. Martha and Sean are a Boston couple who are ready for their lives to be irrevocably changed by parenthood. Instead, they’re irrevocably changed by tragedy. Over the following years, Martha must navigate her grief while managing her fractious relationships with Sean and her mother (Ellen Burstyn) as they face a court battle against the publicly vilified midwife.
Watch on Netflix
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig star in David Fincher’s American remake of the Swedish crime classic. Craig plays disgraced financial reporter Mikael Blomkvist, given an opportunity to redeem his reputation when he’s hired by wealthy industrialist Henrik Vanger to solve the 40-year-old murder of Vanger’s niece. In his investigations, Blomkvist meets the strange, extremely suspicious but brilliant hacker Lisbeth Salander. As they work to solve the crime, they unravel a much larger, unconscionably evil conspiracy that threatens to consume them both.
Watch on Netflix
Mank (2020)
Legendary director David Fincher gets to work with his son, writer Jack Fincher, on this Netflix original. Mank centers on alcoholic screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) in 1930s Hollywood as he races to finish his magnum opus, Citizen Kane. The Golden Age of Hollywood through the eyes of the deeply cynical, scathing “Mank” is anything but golden.
Watch on Netflix
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
Denzel Washington continues his devotion to adapting August Wilson’s Century Cycle to the screen with Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Based on Wilson’s play of the same name, the film goes well beyond the boundaries of the classic bottled play to explore the origins of the Blues and the racial tensions of 1927 Chicago. Viola Davis stars as Blues pioneer Ma Rainey and the late Chadwick Boseman shines in his final role as the upstart trumpeter, Levee.
Watch on Netflix
Hulu
Hell or High Water (2016)
Nominated for four Oscars, Hell or High Water is one of the better modern westerns of recent years. A story about two brothers with different motivations to knock off the bank that’s about to foreclose on their family’s ranch, it’s a slow-burning affair that ultimately turns explosive. Hot on the siblings’ trail is Sheriff Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges in an Oscar-nominated performance), who is a few weeks away from retirement and determined not to let these boys get the better of him.
Watch on Hulu
Gretel & Hansel (2020)
An especially horrifying twist on the classic fairy tale, Gretel & Hansel aims to disturb at every turn. After their mother descends into madness, Gretel and Hansel are forced to fend for themselves in the dark forest. When they fortuitously stumble upon a bounty of food left outside an isolated home, they should probably be suspicious. But the friendly owner invites them inside, seemingly taking pity on them. You know what happens next. Or do you?
Watch on Hulu
You Cannot Kill David Arquette (2020)
One of the stranger, more electric documentaries you’ll see this year, You Cannot Kill David Arquette follows cult Hollywood star Arquette as he tries — as an almost 50-year-old man — to revitalize his professional wrestling career. In the late ’90s, Arquette was primed for superstardom as an ahead-of-his-time jack of all trades. But after winning a highly controversial WCW World Heavyweight Championship in 2000, he became the most hated man in wrestling. The bad press spiraled, derailing a once-promising career. Now, he’s pushing increasingly-dangerous limits to regain his reputation and self-respect.
Watch on Hulu
The Princess Bride (1987)
If you haven’t seen William Goldman’s The Princess Bride, do yourself a favor while it’s on Hulu. The fairy tale doubles as one of the finest romantic comedies of the 20th century — sweet, beautiful, and absolutely hilarious. Westley (Cary Elwes) returns to the land of Florin after years away to win back the hand of his one true love, Buttercup (Robin Wright). But Buttercup is engaged to be married to a terrible prince, forcing Westley to rush across the kingdom, battling all the evils the land can throw at him to save his love … and the day.
Watch on Hulu
Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982)
One of the most groundbreaking sci-fi films of the 20th century, Blade Runner‘s final cut is how the movie was truly intended to be seen. In a dystopian future, the world is a constantly stormy, overcrowded slum where technology both gives and takes away. In this world, a supreme authority orders that Replicants, a race of bio-engineered humans, be exterminated. To accomplish those aims, Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former Replicant Hunter, is pressed back into service to eliminate four Replicants that have returned to Earth. But in his journey, Deckard unwittingly falls in love with a Replicant woman.
Watch on Hulu
Amazon Prime
One Night in Miami (2020)
Regina King directs this fictionalized account of four of the world’s most famous Black activists meeting together in Miami amidst the cultural upheaval of the 1960s. On the night of February 25, 1964, Cassius Clay, Jim Brown, Sam Cooke, and Malcolm X sit down together to discuss the responsibility of being successful and Black during the civil rights movement. Striking tones that unmistakably resonate in today’s social climate, One Night in Miami is a brilliant account of how history does — and more importantly, doesn’t — change.
Sylvie’s Love (2020)
A classic love story for a modern audience, Sylvie’s Love takes place over the 1950s and ’60s in New York. Sylvie (Tessa Thompson) aspires to be a television producer, and one sultry summer, she strikes up a relationship with Robert (Nnamdi Asomugha), a jazz musician working in her father’s record store. The two unlock a passion that neither has ever experienced before. But the summer ends, and time goes on. Years later, they reunite in a different time to find that their feelings haven’t changed an ounce.
Uncle Frank (2020)
Written and directed by Alan Ball (American Beauty, Six Feet Under), Uncle Frank is part dark comedy, part melodrama. Paul Bettany stars as a gay literature professor who reluctantly returns to his conservative, small-town home to attend his father’s funeral. There, with some help from his teenage niece, he unpacks the trauma and frustration inflicted on him by his odd family.
Sound of Metal (2020)
Riz Ahmed stars in this Sundance favorite acquired by Amazon. When a heavy metal drummer, Ruben (Ahmed), begins to lose his hearing, his entire world is turned upside down. Unable to hear his music, he begins to severely question his own identity and becomes pitted in a battle with his own deafness.
28 Days Later (2003)
Halloween may have passed, but there’s always time for a pulse-pounding horror classic. Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later revitalized the zombie horror genre and ushered in a (perhaps oversaturated) new era of zombie apocalypse media. To this day, 28 Days Later remains one of the most provocative, nuanced, and downright horrifying depictions of that apocalypse — especially given its final twist. Jim (Cillian Murphy) wakes up from a coma to find London all but deserted. Very soon, he discovers why when he joins a group of survivors of a “Rage” virus that leaked from a medical research lab and infected the country.
HBO and HBO Max
Blue Valentine (2010)
This steamy but strained romance grew into a cult hit in the years after its release. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams play Dean and Cindy, two ordinary people living a quiet life in a modest neighborhood. But the closer you get to their relationship, you see a downward spiral despite the clear physical attraction that endures. His lack of ambition and her self-absorption begins to tear at the seams of their relationship, revealing irreversible cracks in the marriage.
Watch on HBO Max
The High Note (2020)
Grace Davis (Tracee Ellis Ross) is a musical superstar whose talent and ego have reached extraordinary heights, even in an extraordinarily egomaniacal world like the LA music scene. Maggie (Dakota Johnson) is Grace’s overworked personal assistant who, despite getting coffee all the time, still aspires to be a music producer. When Grace’s manager presents her with a choice that could alter her career, Maggie and Grace conspire on a plan that could change both of their lives for the better. Buckle up, because this musical is non-stop.
Watch on HBO Max Watch on HBO
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
Milos Forman’s Best Picture-winning film is a worthy adaptation of Ken Kesey’s seminal novel about a mental institution. Jack Nicholson plays Randle Patrick McMurphy, a prison farmhand who is transferred to a mental institution on purpose, believing it will be less restrictive. But Nurse Ratched runs the psych ward with an iron fist, cowing her patients through abuse, medication, and fear. As McMurphy and Ratched square off in a battle of the wills, the rest of the ward’s patients are swept up in the frenzy, getting dangerously close to recapturing some semblance of normalcy.
Watch on HBO Max
Wonder Woman 1984 (2020)
On Christmas Day 2020, Wonder Woman 1984 became the first day-and-date release to hit HBO Max as part of Warner Bros. agreement to stream all of their new releases on the platform in 2021. The follow up to Wonder Woman needs no introduction, really. But if you need a primer: It’s been nearly seven decades since the events of the first film, and Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) is an archivist at the Smithsonian. But when a mysterious artifact comes into the museum’s possession, it launches a sequence of events that threaten to destroy the world.
Watch on HBO Max
I Used to Go Here
Gillian Jacobs stars in this quirky, thoughtful comedy about a successful author who is asked to speak at her alma mater. Upon her return, she finds herself deeply enmeshed in the lives of a group of college students, reliving her glory days and finding herself trapped in nostalgia.
Watch on HBO Max
Related topics: Netflix | Hulu | Amazon Prime | More streaming services
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