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 ‘Zombieland’
In the aftermath of a raging zombie apocalypse, it is kill or be killed. And the primary pleasure of this double-barreled action comedy is the extent to which the screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have worked through the logistics of this hellscape, as articulated by the hero, an introverted college student (Jesse Eisenberg). He joins forces with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson), a gunslinging cowboy type, and the sisters Wichita (Emma Stone) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin) on a journey through the chaos. The director Ruben Fleischer keeps the laughs and gore coming at a steady clip, so thoroughly adopting the hip approach of “Ghostbusters” that Bill Murray even shows up to play along. These are the 50 best movies on Netflix.STREAMING ON NETFLIX ‘How to Get to Heaven from Belfast’
The “Derry Girls” creator Lisa McGee blends tricky mysteries with fast-talking comedy in this charming series. The story follows three middle-aged women (played by Roisin Gallagher, Sinéad Keenan and Caoilfhionn Dunne), who grew up together in a small Northern Ireland town. When they reunite for the wake of a former classmate, they suspect they are not being told the whole truth about their old friend; and investigating her death leads them to examine how much their own lives have changed. In an article about the show for The Times, Ali Watkins described its very modern take on Ireland: “Its characters are diverse in race and sexual orientation, and there are few flat caps, little tweed and hardly any Guinness.” Here are 30 great TV shows on Netflix.STREAMING ON HULU ‘The Secret Agent’
This loose-limbed thriller from the Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho (“Bacurau”) is up for four prizes at this year’s Academy Awards, including best picture, best international feature and best actor for Wagner Moura, who won that prize at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. He stars as Marcelo, a former university professor who arrives in the Brazilian city of Recife circa 1977. His aims are mysterious at first, but there’s the title of the picture to consider. Perhaps the greatest virtue of Filho’s approach is his consistent sense of surprise, throwing in unexpected narrative turns and tonal shifts to keep the audience on its toes. Melancholy and funny, subversive and emotional, our critic praised the “densely textured richness of its world.” Here are Hulu’s best movies and TV shows.STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO ‘Nickel Boys’
The documentarian RaMell Ross (“Hale County This Morning, This Evening”) makes his narrative feature debut with this heart-wrenching, lyrical adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead. Ross’s direction is thrillingly unconventional, with delicate camerawork that tells the story through the eyes of his protagonist, a promising young man who is unjustly placed in a reform school. Ross’s storytelling style is elliptical but efficient; the narrative spans decades, yet he just grabs an image or an impression, capturing the way we think back on a second of a memory, until that second becomes that memory. Even standard narrative events feel fresh, thanks to each scene’s sense of being overheard, glimpsed in the periphery, without ever softening what we see and hear. Our critic called it “a stunning achievement.” Here are a bunch of great movies on Amazon.STREAMING ON HBO MAX ‘The Shape of Water’
The love affair between a mute janitor and a humanoid amphibian creature may not sound like the stuff of a typical best picture Oscar winner, but Guillermo del Toro’s luxuriant historical fantasy makes the prospect far more seductive than it sounds. Set in 1962 during the height of Cold War paranoia, “The Shape of Water” unfolds in a top-secret government laboratory in Baltimore where a lonely cleaning woman (Sally Hawkins) stumbles upon a scaly exotic being (Doug Jones) who is of great interest to both the American military and Soviet agents. Needless to say, the obstacles to this sweet romantic pairing are formidable, but del Toro dreams around them. A.O. Scott praised its “generosity of spirit, which extends beyond the central couple.” See more great movies streaming on HBO Max.STREAMING ON DISNEY+ ‘Toy Story 4’
The inevitability of Andy growing up and Woody (Tom Hanks), Buzz (Tim Allen) and friends having to consider an uncertain future without him brought such a bittersweet note to “Toy Story 3” that the thought of another sequel seemed like a cynical cash-in. Yet “Toy Story 4” turns out to be a fun, energetic surprise, a road adventure that returns to the lighter comedy of the original “Toy Story” while introducing a delightfully absurd new character in “Forky,” a sentient piece of handcrafted plasticware that’s not as disposable as he assumes himself to be. On a journey with their new owner, Bonnie, the gang winds up reconnecting with their old friend Bo Peep (Annie Potts), which spurs a touching disagreement with Woody about what they imagine their destinies to be. The 50 best things to watch on Disney+ right now.
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