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 ‘Killer Joe’
Matthew McConaughey’s unexpected comeback from a no man’s land of forgettable rom-coms and dumbed-down star vehicles was just getting underway when he took on the title role in this brutal, brilliant adaptation of the play by the Pulitzer and Tony award winner Tracy Letts. As a ruthless murderer-for-hire plunged into the disarray of a vile, trashy family, McConaughey miraculously twists his movie-star charisma and golden-boy looks into something cold, hard and frightening. The director William Friedkin (“The French Connection,” “The Exorcist”) squeezes the trailer-home setting like a vise, creating creeping dread and pitch-black humor from the bleakest of setups. These are the 50 best movies on Netflix.STREAMING ON NETFLIX ‘The Last Ship’
From 2014 to 2018 — not long before the Covid pandemic — TNT aired this oddly prescient action series, set on a massive U.S. naval vessel that is out at sea on a mission during the months when a virus kills over 80 percent of the Earth’s population. Eric Dane plays the ship’s commanding officer, while Rhona Mitra plays the scientist on board who may have what she needs to concoct a vaccine. “The Last Ship” goes through multiple big plot twists across its five seasons, as the crew of the U.S.S. Nathan James works together to help the world heal and rebuild — if the survivors will let them, that is. Our critic called it “a dystopian thriller for optimists.” Here are 30 great TV shows on Netflix.STREAMING ON HULU ‘Mamma Mia!’
The long-running Broadway jukebox musical, featuring the zippy music of the ’70s pop group Abba, was something of a punchline for New Yorkers, a go-to example of how far the Great White Way had gone in its relentless pursuit of tourist dollars. But the hit film adaptation (directed, as the stage production was, by Phyllida Lloyd) is altogether irresistible, offering up the peculiar but undeniable pleasure of heavyweight thespians like Meryl Streep, Stellan Skarsgard and Amanda Seyfried indulging their inner theater kid. It was such a hit that most of the major players returned a decade later for “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” (also streaming on Hulu), and while it doesn’t quite match the frothy pleasures of the original, it does add Cher, and that’s not nothing. Here are Hulu’s best movies and TV shows.STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO ‘The Hurt Locker’
Winner of the Oscar for best picture (and for best director), Kathryn Bigelow’s harrowing war drama concerns a team of specialists trained in on-the-ground bomb diffusion in Iraq — with a particular focus on Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner), who is a bit of a loose cannon. Bigelow mines palpable, sweaty tension from this terrifying work, but she doesn’t settle for cheap thrills; the film is most intense when dealing with James’s internal conflicts and his psychological battles with his team. Our critic called it “a viscerally exciting, adrenaline-soaked tour de force.” Here are a bunch of great movies on Amazon.STREAMING ON HBO MAX ‘The Postman Always Rings Twice’
There are few more vital literary sources for movies than James M. Cain’s novel “The Postman Always Rings Twice,” which has seeded important work from around the globe for decades, including an Italian neorealist staple (“Ossessione”) and two Hollywood adaptations. But there’s still no topping the raw emotional force of the original 1946 noir classic, starring Lana Turner as a hothouse flower wilting under her miserable husband (Cecil Kellaway) and John Garfield as the dark, charismatic drifter who strolls into their roadside diner and eventually conspires with her to knock him off. Bosley Crowther called it “a tremendously tense and dramatic show” that gave Turner and Garfield the best roles of their careers. See more great movies streaming on HBO Max.STREAMING ON DISNEY+ ‘Ghost Elephants’
Though Werner Herzog once famously described nature, during the hellish shooting of his 1982 biopic, “Fitzcarraldo,” as the “harmony of overwhelming and collective murder,” the current stretch of his career has been devoted to documentaries that approach the great outdoors with a gentler curiosity. Living up to the mythical quest suggested by its title, “Ghost Elephants” finds Herzog riding along with Steve Boyes, a South African naturalist who enlists the help of Indigenous Angolan trackers to find an undiscovered pachyderm on highland plateau. As usual, Herzog’s questions are eccentric, disarming and philosophical, in keeping with his instinct to rebuff nature-doc convention. Lisa Kennedy said the film “resides in the intersection of science and lyrical reverie.” The 50 best things to watch on Disney+ right now.
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