The weekend is here! If you’re looking for something to watch, we can help. We’ve dug through Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max and Disney+ to find some of the best titles on each service. STREAMING ON NETFLIX ‘Take This Waltz’
Sarah Polley spent the 1990s turning in lively and exciting performances in indies like “The Sweet Hereafter” and “Guinevere,” and she’d easily be one of our most compelling contemporary actors had she continued down that road. Instead, she went behind the camera, crafting a series of keenly observed and emotionally overwhelming efforts. This was her sophomore effort, an “honest, sure-footed, emotionally generous” drama in which Michelle Williams (at her delicate but forceful best) stars as a young wife who feels the irresistible tingle of a new attraction, and must decide how to grapple with it. Polley carefully eschews predictable conflicts or easy outcomes, and tells a story packed with the hard truths of real life and real love. These are the 50 best movies on Netflix.STREAMING ON NETFLIX ‘Glitter & Gold: Ice Dancing’
The sport of ice dancing is especially well-suited to the documentary treatment, given how much time the teams spend on building their routines: from costuming to choreography to fine-tuning every single lift and spin. The three-part “Glitter & Gold” follows three of the world’s best pairs as they prepare to compete in the 2026 Milan Olympics: the Americans Madison Chock and Evan Bates, the Canadians Piper Gilles and Paul Poirier, and the French Guillaume Cizeron and Laurence Fournier Beaudry. Created by some of the team behind Netflix’s “Simone Biles Rising,” the series captures the hard work that goes into the most pressure-packed moments of these athletes’ lives. Here are 30 great TV shows on Netflix.STREAMING ON HULU ‘Miracle’
Kurt Russell first came to fame starring in a series of live-action Disney films in the late 1960s and early 1970s, so there’s a wonderful circularity to his appearance in this Disney sports drama. It tells the true story of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, a scrappy crew of amateurs and underdogs that unexpectedly (and, at that frigid moment in the Cold War, inspirationally) toppled the highly favored Soviet team. There’s not much suspense in such a well-known story, but the director, Gavin O’Connor (“The Way Back”), digs out the interpersonal dynamics that make the story compelling. Russell’s finely tuned performance turns the tough-as-nails coach archetype into a real, complicated character. Here are Hulu’s best movies and TV shows.STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO ‘About a Boy’
This adaptation of the novel by Nick Hornby (who also wrote “High Fidelity”) beautifully captures his wit and melancholic edge, which keeps it from becoming yet another story about an overgrown man-child who finally gets his act together. Much of the film’s success is because of Hugh Grant, who slyly turns his signature rakish charm inside out. Nicholas Hoult (who went on to star in “Mad Max: Fury Road”) is an excellent foil as the young boy, and his relationship with Grant’s character evolves from one of convenience to genuine affection and protection. Chris and Paul Weitz (“American Pie”) direct the film with a sweetness that never turns saccharine. Here are a bunch of great movies on Amazon.STREAMING ON HBO MAX ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’
Channeling the windswept romantic tragedy of Jane Campion’s “The Piano” and countless fiction about doomed or forbidden love, Céline Sciamma’s beautiful period piece is about women carving out their own timeless terrain. Commissioned to paint the official wedding portrait of Héloise (Adéle Haenel), a petulant young woman residing on a Brittany island in the 18th century, Marianne (Noémie Merlant) strikes up a relationship with her that thrives in an isolated place where the rules of society don’t apply. In the most recent Sight & Sound film poll, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” placed higher than any new entry in the past decade, and A.O. Scott was among its admirers, calling it “a subtle and thrilling love story.” See more great movies streaming on HBO Max.STREAMING ON DISNEY+ ‘Spider-Man 2’
The 21st century already has three different Spider-Man series with Tobey Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland each squeezing into the Spidey suit. But Maguire and the director Sam Raimi’s trilogy remains the gold standard. “Spider-Man 2” stands out for the ambivalence Peter Parker feels about his double life as a broke college student and overburdened crime-fighter, and for a terrific villain in “Doc Ock” (Alfred Molina), a scientist whose experiment in an alternative energy source goes horribly awry. A.O. Scott called the film a reminder of “what vibrant, intelligent and sincere popular filmmaking looks like.” The 50 best things to watch on Disney+ right now.
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