Streaming services offer a ton of content, but finding new releases isn’t always easy. Thankfully, we’ve rounded up the best films to add to your weekly queue.
Films on the leading streaming platforms — Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, and HBO — are constantly coming and going. It happens so frequently, it’s easy for something great to slip by unnoticed. Between new original movies hitting streamers every week and some classics quietly joining their ranks, we’ve got an eye on what’s new to stream each week. We’ve created this list to help you stay on top of the best new releases that have hit the major streamers. We update every week, so remember to check back! 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. Melissa McCarthy and Octavia Spencer star in this superhero send-up about two childhood best friends who reunite as adults to form a crime-fighting superhero duo when one of them invents a formula that gives normal people superpowers. Now, suddenly imbued with great power, will they also show great responsibility? Watch on Netflix Caleb McLaughlin ( Stranger Things) and Idris Elba star in this coming-of-age drama about the Fletcher Street Cowboys, a tight-knit Philadelphia community of Black cowboys. Cole (McLaughlin) is a rebellious teen who continues to stray from the straight-and-narrow, so he’s sent to live with his estranged father for the summer. It just so happens that his father keeps a horse in the house and is an urban cowboy. Watch on Netflix The classic legal comedy that inspired a musical and multiple sequels, Legally Blonde is one of the 21st century’s most popular comedies. Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) is a spoiled Beverly Hills rich kid who, upon graduating from UCLA, expects to marry her college beau, Warner, and live out her days as a happy housewife. But when Warner breaks up with her to attend Harvard Law, Elle makes it her mission to win him back by gaining admission to Harvard herself (what, like it’s hard?). But when she’s there, she discovers a sleeping part of herself she never knew existed. Watch on Netflix Roman Polanski’s adaptation of Wladyslaw Szpilman’s autobiography “The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man’s Survival in Warsaw,1939-1945” won him a Best Director Oscar as well as one for lead Adrien Brody. Brody plays Szpilman, a Polish Jewish radio station pianist who is forced into the Warsaw Ghetto as World War II begins. The film follows his story through his separation from his family during Operation Reinhard and his desperate evasion of Nazi forces among the ruins of Warsaw. Watch on Netflix You likely heard about the college admissions scandal that rocked the country’s elite universities, from UCLA and USC to Stanford and Harvard. In this documentary, director Chris Smith uses interviews and reenactments from wiretap and court transcripts to illustrate how wealthy parents paid hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars to get their kids into elite universities through “side doors” created by college counselor and conman Rick Singer. The moral shamelessness of the tapes is galling, but the collegiate system is the real target here. Watch on Netflix You don’t have to love baseball to fall into the blissful nostalgia of The Sandlot, one of the great movies about childhood summers. It’s a classic story about a new kid in town who joins a group of neighborhood kids down at the local sandlot and, in between trips to the community pool and theater, learns just about everything a kid needs to know about America’s pastime. Especially the most important rule, when it comes to hitting a home run into the backyard of the neighborhood monster, Hercules: You hit it, you get it. Watch on Hulu From “Vote for Pedro” to “Get yourself a dang quesadilla” to one of the worst/best dance routines in cinema history, Napoleon Dynamite is one of the most weirdly memorable films of the 21st century.
