Best Movies to Watch: Your Ultimate Guide to New Releases & Streaming

One of Them Days

Keke Palmer and R&B singer SZA are roommates desperately trying to scrape together enough money to avoid eviction in this low-key gem that has both Friday and Insecure in its DNA. (Issa Rae, creator of the latter HBO show, is a co-producer.) Can we get more comedies like this, please?

Watch One of Them Days now on Netflix 

Heart Eyes

A crazed killer with a nifty costume stalks couples on Valentine’s Day in this spirited mix of slasher and romcom.

Watch Heart Eyes now on Netflix

Paddington in Peru 

Everyone’s favourite furry, marmalade-scarfing London expat returns home to ‘darkest Peru’ in the third instalment in the beloved live-action series. It’s not the best in the franchise, but it’s still a sweet, kind, silly antidote to everything else happening in the world.

Watch Paddington In Peru on Netflix starting May 15

Fear Street: Prom Queen

Netflix adapted Goosebumps author RL Stine’s slightly more mature horror series into a successful trio of interlinked movies. Now comes a stand-alone set in the same universe. In the late ’80s, a campaign for prom queen at a local high school is disrupted by an unexpected contender – just as the frontrunners start mysteriously disappearing. 

Watch Fear Street: Prom Queen on Netflix starting May 23

In a Violent Nature 

A deranged killer stalks a group of teens through the Canadian wilderness. Sounds painfully generic, but this deliberately slow-paced slasher generates nauseating levels of terror through near-ambient stillness – and some extremely gnarly kills.

Watch In a Violent Nature now on Hulu 

The Order 

Jude Law grows out an ’80s cop mustache and relocates to rural Idaho in pursuit of a neo-Nazi gang, led by a convincingly menacing Nicholas Hoult. Overlooked in theaters, this grim, taut thriller from Australian director Justin Kurzel deserves to find a new life on streaming.

Watch The Order now on Hulu 

Summer of 69

An inexperienced high school senior (newcomer Sam Morelos) recruits an exotic dancer (Saturday Night Live’s Chloe Fineman) to be her ‘sex coach’ as she makes a last-ditch attempt to seduce her crush in the directorial debut from writer-actor Jillian Bell. Sure, the title pun is a groaner, but the world needs more raunchy comedies, and this one looks equally sweet and filthy.

Watch Summer of 69 now on Hulu

The Last Showgirl

Pamela Anderson earned an unlikely Golden Globe nomination for her portrayal of an aging Vegas showgirl in this drama from Gia Coppola. The film itself is uneven, but Anderson is excellent, showing strength and vulnerability in the sort of role she’s never really been afforded.

Watch The Last Showgirl on Hulu starting May 23

Babygirl

Nicole Kidman does for milk what Madonna did for candles in the ’90s in this sly erotic thriller about a high-powered CEO risking it all for a hot young intern, played by Harris Dickinson. Wouldn’t you?

Watch Babygirl now on Max

Companion

Call it Ex Machina 2: Rise of the Sexbots. In this devilish horror-comedy, a hyper-realistic AI ‘companion’ (Sophie Thatcher) goes rogue on her owner (Jack Quaid), but that doesn’t begin to describe the wickedly fun – and frequently blood-splattered – twists and turns this darkly comic satire takes along the way.

Watch Companion now on Max

The Brutalist

Brady Corbet’s Best Picture hopes may have been dashed by a spurious AI controversy, but his third film is still a remarkable achievement, a sweeping story of immigration, artistic ambition and the American Dream, with an Oscar-winning Adrian Brody performance at its center and astounding production design. Sure, it’s crazy long and the back half wobbles a bit, but it’s a movie cinephiles will still be talking about decades from now. 

Watch The Brutalist on Max starting May 16

Mountainhead

Succession creator Jesse Armstrong makes his directorial debut with a satire about four tech billionaires – Steve Carrell, Ramy Youssef, Jason Schwartzman and Cory Michael Smith – who come together in a mountain chalet to ‘solve’ an ongoing global financial crisis. Surely, Armstrong will treat the 1 percent with the respect and dignity they deserve. Surely! 

Watch Mountainhead on Max starting May 31

Black Bag

Monogamy has never looked hotter than in this sleek Steven Soderbergh spy thriller. Michael Fassbender is the Wife Guy version of James Bond, a covert operative simultaneously investigating suspicions his fellow secret agent spouse (Cate Blanchett) has sold out her country while working to clear her name by any means necessary. 

Watch Black Bag now on Peacock

Love Hurts

Ke Huy Quan’s follow-up to his improbable Oscar-winning comeback in Everything Everywhere All At Once isn’t the best showcase of his talents, but he and costar Ariana DeBose make for a charming twosome in this romantic action-comedy. He’s a former assassin turned real estate agent whose old life – and an old flame – comes back to haunt him. 

Watch Love Hurts on Peacock starting May 9

Lisa Frankenstein

A decade after Jennifer’s Body failed to find the audience it deserved, writer Diablo Cody returned to horror-comedy in this flesh-eating romance – which was then promptly ignored once again. Still, certain viewers are sure to fall hard for it. Set in the ’80s, it stars Kathryn Newton as a lonely goth girl who finds true love in the form of a reanimated corpse from the Victorian era.

Watch Lisa Frankenstein on Peacock starting May 29

Gladiator II

Paul Mescal steps into Russell Crowe’s sandals in Ridley Scott’s long-awaited sequel to his 2000 Oscar-winning epic. It’s Denzel Washington, though, who ends up stealing the whole thing as the flamboyantly villainous would-be emperor Macrinus.

Watch Gladiator II on Paramount+ starting May 12

Hard Truths

Director Mike Leigh reunites with his Secret & Lies star Marianne Jean-Baptiste in this riveting study of an extremely difficult woman. She portrays Pansy, a depressed, angry wife and mother perpetually bubbling with vitriol. That’s honestly the whole story, but Leigh is one of the masters of complex human narratives – and Jean-Baptiste is absolutely remarkable in the role. The fact she didn’t get an Oscar nom is genuinely upsetting.

Watch Hard Truths on Paramount+ starting May 12

Transformers One

Who needs Megan Fox, Shia LeBeouf and whoever was in the more recent sequels? This animated origin story, going all the way back to the youth of Optimus Prime and Megatron, is arguably better than any of the live-action movies, and boasts an impressive voice cast, including Chris Hemsworth, Brian Tyree Henry, Scarlett Johansson, Keegan-Michael Key, Steve Buscemi, Laurence Fishburne and Jon Hamm.

Watch Transformers One on Paramount+ starting May 23

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s animated Spider-films continue to be the best Marvel-related movies since Endgame. In the second instalment, from 2023, Miles Morales – the teenage heir to Peter Parker’s arachnid powers – and Gwen Stacy, aka Spider-Woman, travels across the Spider-Verse (cue Leonardo Dicaprio pointing meme) for assistance in dealing with a new threat called the Spot.

Watch Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse now on Disney+

Paul Feig’s brazenly campy mommy-blogger thriller was one of the leftfield hits of 2018. In the inevitable sequel, murderous con artist Emily Nelson (Blake Lively) is newly freed from jail and about to marry an Italian crime boss – and her arch frenemy Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) simply can’t turn down her invitation to the wedding.

Watch Another Simple Favour now on Prime

Fountain of Youth

John Krasinki and Natalie Portman are estranged siblings who reunite on a journey to find – you guessed it – the fabled fountain of youth in this Guy Ritchie-directed adventure. All those big names can’t disguise that this looks like a National Treasure knockoff, but those are some pretty big names, so it has a fighting chance to turn out better than it appears.

Watch Fountain of Youth on Apple TV+ starting May 23

Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018)

Prepare for Ethan Hunt’s final mission by revisiting arguably the best entry in the series – although the entire franchise is now on Hulu, so you might as well make a marathon of it.

Streaming on Hulu and Paramount+

Point Break

Easily the greatest zen-surfing, bankrobbing, parachuteless skydiving, beach-football-playing, double-meatball-sub-eating, pitbull-tossing action-thriller ever made.

Streaming on Paramount+

Police Story (1985)

Jackie Chan’s daring stunt work reached new levels of insanity in this franchise-starter about a cop framed for murder – see his climatic three-storey freefall at a shopping mall. 

Streaming on Max

See Time Out’s full list of the Best Action Movies of All-Time

The Jerk (1979)

Steve Martin launched his movie career with this masterpiece of stupidity, starring as an adopted simpleton who leaves home to discover his ‘special purpose’.

Streaming on Netflix

Three Amigos! (1986)

Steve Martin, Martin Short and Chevy Chase riff on Seven Samurai as vainglorious silent-film stars who accidentally become the protectors of a small village in Mexico. It’s gleeful silliness of the highest order.

Streaming on Hulu

Withnail & I (1987)

A seminal British cult classic following two down-and-out actors (Richard E Grant and Paul McGann) to the English countryside, where things only get worse – and weirder – for the both of them. 

Streaming on Max and Hulu

See Time Out’s full list of the Best Comedy Movies of All-Time

Attack the Block (2011)

Teenage hoodlums band together to save their South London tower block from an alien invasion in the movie that insta-launched John Boyega as a movie star.  

Streaming on Hulu

The Endless (2017)

Two escapees from a UFO death cult return years later seeking answers, only to fall into a vortex of all-new mysteries. A top-shelf example of low-budget ingenuity.

Streaming on Peacock

Dune (2021)

Denis Villeneuve cracks the code on Frank Herbert’s highly influential yet seemingly unadaptable 1965 novel with this operatic, eye-popping rendering. Each platform has Part Two available to stream as well, so make sure to carve out about five and a half hours. 

Streaming on Max and Hulu

See Time Out’s full list of the Best Science Fiction Movies of All-Time

See Time Out's full list of the Best Fantasy Movies of All-Time

Get Out (2017)

Sketch comedian Jordan Peele came out of nowhere to establish himself as a modern master of popcorn horror with this ‘social thriller’ about a young African-American man who travels to meet his white girlfriend’s parents and discovers something truly heinous lurking in the suburbs.

Streaming on Peacock

Les Diaboliques (1955)

The wife and mistress of a cruel boarding-school headmaster collaborate on his murder, which goes swimmingly – until his body disappears. From Henri-Georges Clouzot, aka the French Hitchcock, this classic is playful and frightful in equal measure.

Streaming on Max

It Follows (2014)

Horror has a long history of demonising sex, none more literally than in this unnerving chiller, starring Longlegs’ Maika Monroe as a teenager haunted by a sexually transmitted curse. 

Streaming on Max and Hulu

See Time Out’s full list of the Best Horror Movies of All-Time

Past Lives (2023)

Celine Song made a powerful debut as a writer-director with this calmly pulverising drama following two childhood friends across decades and continents as they try, vainly, to manifest their feelings for each other.

Streaming on Netflix and Hulu

Something Wild (1986)

Melanie Griffith is the wild thing of the title, a dream girl less manic than maniacal, who ‘kidnaps’ a buttoned-down yuppie (Jeff Daniels) and brings him home to mom. Jonathan Demme’s screwball romcom has mad energy, great music and a star-making turn from Ray Liotta in cackling psycho mode.  

Streaming on Prime

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)

Jacques Demy’s candy-colored confection is the musical even the most ardent musical haters can’t resist – which is saying something, since every word in the movie is sung.

Stream on Max and Hulu

See Time Out’s full list of the Best Romantic Movies of All-Time

See Time Out’s full list of the Best Romantic Comedies of All-Time

Flow (2025)

An anonymous cat must work together with several other animals to survive a flood in this wordless wonder from Latvia, which upset several major studios at the Oscars to take home the Best Animated Feature prize.

Streaming on Max and Hulu

Jumanji (1995)

Did your kids love A Minecraft Movie? Show them this classic, also about a man (Robin Williams, the Jack Black of an earlier generation) trapped inside a game.

Streaming on Disney+

The Princess Bride (1987)

Few films boast the cross-generational appeal of Rob Reiner’s swashbuckling crowd-pleaser, which is at once a send-up of classic fairy tales and a genuinely exciting adventure on its own.

Streaming on Hulu and Max

See Time Out’s full list of the Best Family Movies of All-Time