The weekend is here! If you’re looking for something to watch, we can help. We’ve dug through Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Max and Disney+ to find some of the best titles on each service. STREAMING ON NETFLIX ‘Da 5 Bloods’
Spike Lee crafts a genre-hopping combination of war movie, protest film, political thriller, character drama and graduate-level history course in which four African American Vietnam vets go back to the jungle to dig up the remains of a fallen compatriot — and, while they’re at it, a forgotten cache of stolen war gold. In other hands, it could have been a conventional back-to-’Nam picture or a “Rambo”-style action adventure (and those elements, to be clear, are thrilling). But Lee goes deeper, packing the film with historical references and subtext, explicitly drawing lines from the civil rights struggle of the period to the protests of our moment. A.O. Scott called it a “long, anguished, funny, violent excursion into a hidden chamber of the nation’s heart of darkness.” These are the 50 best movies on Netflix.STREAMING ON NETFLIX ‘Dept. Q’
Based on a series of moody mystery novels by the Danish author Jussi Adler-Olsen, this Scotland-set crime series stars Matthew Goode as Carl Morck, a prickly police detective who assembles a team of misfits to tackle cold cases. Written and directed by Scott Frank (best known for the Netflix series “The Queen’s Gambit”), “Dept. Q” is about institutional outcasts fighting to prove their use by investigating crimes that have fallen through the cracks of the system — and that sometimes were meant to stay buried. Our critic wrote, “The influence of Nordic noir on the traditional British mystery has been established for several decades now, but Frank adds some American flavor to the cocktail.” Here are 30 great TV shows on Netflix.STREAMING ON HULU ‘Dear White People’
The writer-director Justin Simien’s “clever campus comedy” is witty, wise and occasionally brutal, taking on the subjects of race, class, privilege and higher education. The dialogue is thoughtful and rich, delving into tricky topics with glee while zigzagging away from didacticism — these sound like real conversations and arguments, rather than just soapboxing. And the characters aren’t mouthpieces; they inhabit recognizable rubrics (campus radical, ingratiating jock, brainy outcast, social climber) without falling into stereotypes. Here are Hulu’s best movies and TV shows.STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO ‘No Country for Old Men’
Joel and Ethan Coen won their first Oscars for best picture and best director (and their second for best screenplay) for this gripping, moody and darkly funny adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s 2005 novel. Telling the stories of a ruthless killer (Javier Bardem, who took home an Oscar for best supporting actor), a morally flexible rancher (Josh Brolin) and a small-town sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) whose paths cross when a border drug deal goes south, the Coens construct a Western contemporary in both its setting and style, setting the table for the standard standoffs and shootouts then turning those expectations inside out. The result is a picture with genre trappings but more on its mind than gunplay and drug money. Our critic called it “pure heaven.” Here are a bunch of great movies on Amazon.STREAMING ON MAX ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’
There’s never been a time when critics and audiences haven’t loved “Meet Me in St. Louis,” a musical that combines the opulent production values of MGM with the director Vincente Minnelli and the star, Judy Garland, at the peak of their powers. The story offers a colorful bouquet of romantic entanglements, with Garland as one of four sisters in a well-to-do family in turn-of-the-century St. Louis, where the entire community awaits the opening of the World’s Fair. Their plans are upended, of course, but the plotting is enough to set the stage for a handful of memorable musical numbers, like “The Trolley Song,” “The Boy Next Door” and that seasonal classic, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” Bosley Crowther admired the family’s Technicolor buoyancy and humor, writing that “the bursting vitality of their living inspires you like vitamin A.” See more great movies streaming on Max.STREAMING ON DISNEY+ ‘Tron’
What did the future look like in 1982? This Disney science-fiction-adventure offered one distinctive vision, although not many people flocked to see it at the time. The film has endured as a cult favorite and technological curio, however, presaging inside-the-grid scenarios like “The Matrix.” It also provides a jaundiced look at corporate-controlled tech realms, pitting a computer engineer (Jeff Bridges) against the Master Control Program in a virtual environment. Our critic Janet Maslin praised its “nonstop parade of stunning computer graphics,” even if they weren’t accompanied by more “old-fashioned virtues.” The 50 best things to watch on Disney+ right now.
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