Glen Powell is great at portraying a fake hitman in Richard Linklater’s Hit Man (now streaming on Netflix). He’s also a great sport who knows when to trust Sydney Sweeney’s intuition, and who knows, he might be great at wrangling tornadoes in Twister too.

He’s also an entertaining storyteller, but did Glen Powell unknowingly repeat an urban legend while speaking with Jake Shane on the Therapuss podcast in late May? It sure feels like that’s the case (at the 22:00 mark ^^^ in the above video), but the “crazy story” (as Glen begins the tale) is now going viral:

Glen related an account that sounds like it belongs in Fresh (the movie starring Sebastian Stan as a cannibal who kidnaps Daisy Edgar-Jones). The account apparently came from his sister, who “was friends with a girl who went on a date with a guy.” She went to his apartment, and he offered to give her a massage. Then this “black market lotion” scenario arrived from Glen’s mouth:

“He starts massaging her shoulders. Everything just feels odd. She’s like, ‘I gotta get out of here.’ It’s a little weird … she leaves. Her skin starts itching like crazy the next day. She goes to the doctor … it turns out it’s a black market lotion that breaks down skin for human consumption. This man was rubbing lotion on her body to eat her. The doctor is like you have to give me this person’s address and you should call the police. They go to this guy’s house, and he had several bodies in the house.”

Yup, that’s enough to freak people out. A few examples:

So, real or not real? Skepticism also arose from Buzzfeed, and it sure sounds like this is a variant on an urban legend that Snopes deemed false.

In all likelihood, Glen was simply relaying a story that knocked him down, and people are reacting accordingly. Of course it’s really bad idea to go back home with a stranger and then accept a massage, but this probably did not happen, and it almost certainly did not happen without making national news. Or so you’d think! (Watch out for secret cannibals, y’all.)

Every single week, our TV and film experts will list the most important ten streaming selections for you to pop into your queues. We’re not strictly operating upon reviews or accrued streaming clicks (although yes, we’ve scoured the streaming site charts) but, instead, upon those selections that are really worth noticing amid the churning sea of content. There’s a lot out there, after all, and your time is valuable.

10. Your Honor (Showtime series streaming on Netflix)

If you caught this show years ago — and who doesn’t love a good Panic Cranston face? — you might be wondering why it appears on this list. Well, the Netflix audience has discovered this tension-fueled show in which Bryan Cranston simply cannot stop breaking bad, this time as a judge who spirals into corruption in an attempt to save his son. Fine performances exist across the board here even if the show is not exactly easy, breezy, or well-paced viewing material. Again here, Cranston is a sort-of everyman, who tangos with the criminal underworld after making an incredibly bad decision that quickly leads to an impressive series of even worse decisions.

9. Star Wars: The Acolyte (Disney+ series)

These stories of a galaxy far, far away never finish for good, and this series actually takes place a century before the Empire ascends to power when the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic are peacefully co-existing. Get ready for things to get police-procedural like, however, when a crime spree brings a dangerous warrior back from a Jedi Master’s past. The series stars Dafne Keen, Amanda Stenberg, Carrie-Anne Moss, Charlie Barnett, Manny Jacinto, Margarita Levieva, and Rebecca Henderson.

8. Bad Boys for Life (Sony Pictures movie streaming on Hulu)

With Bad Boys: Ride Or Die in theaters this weekend, it’s only natural that people are catching up with the third film before heading into the movie that, yes, does nod at the Oscars slap. The threquel, however, released in 2020 in the midst of another mess and follows Will Smith and Martin Lawrence’s wisecracking buddy cops dealing with a vengeful Mexican drug cartel while also learning to coexist with their new colleagues on the scene.

7. Baby Reindeer (Netflix series)

Surely, creator, writer, and star Richard Gadd never expected to land on the all-time Top 10 list, which is due to happen pretty damn soon. In other words, watch out Bridgerton, Stranger Things, and Wednesday. Meanwhile, Gadd is moving past the trauma of his past to work on his next project, Lions, in which he will not star but will still no doubt compel viewers. If you haven’t caught Baby Reindeer yet, know that it’s an intense and stressful watch, and it’s not exactly a true-crime series, but the public’s fascination with the based-on-personal-experiences story could arguably qualify it as such.

6. Hacks (Max series)

After that cliffhanger finale, you might wonder if we will see a resolution in a fourth season? Fortunately, that answer is “yes.” Max knows what the people want after this series hit its highest viewership numbers over the past month, and Ava gave Deborah a taste of her own cutthroat medicine, and yes, it sure looks like the student has become the teacher. Did Deborah create a monster? No way, Ava was messy already, but she’s stepping up in a way that wasn’t expected, and their dynamic is truly upside down now. Delicious viewing material, indeed.

5. Civil War (A24 movie on VOD & Amazon)

Multiplex theaters are struggling right now, but home theaters have never been both hotter and cooler. This will be Alex Garland’s final stint in the directors seat for awhile while he heads back into screenwriting mode, and he went out with a doozy. This A24 movie will eventually stream on Max but is still in the VOD phase at present to large success. Cailee Spaeny (Priscilla, Alien: Romulus) is popping through every genre these days, and the film also stars Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, and a brief but unsettling Jesse Plemons.

4. Tires (Netflix series)

Netflix is also hitting every quadrant these days, and not everything is Bridgerton, Baby Reindeer, and years-old shows suddenly seeing a burst of renewed interest. Here, Shane Gillis stars in a very differently-located workplace comedy as a comedian and thorn in the side of Will (Steven Gerben), who has inherited his father’s auto-repair business and is struggling to make it work. A second season is already on the way.

3. Bridgerton (Netflix series)

The second half of this season will be coming next week, and the first half is still causing swooning attacks across the Internet. Thus far, the first half of the season has delivered on the Carriage Scene promise, but what will come in the next four episodes? Shondaland will not disappoint viewers who adore seeing Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton together, but the Lady Whistledown secret could ruin everything. [Cue dramatic whispers.]

2. Hit Man (Netflix movie)

Glen Powell — he is everywhere right now, and that’s more than alright. He portrays a dramatized version of real-life undercover officer Gary Johnson in this Richard Linklater film that takes inspiration from Skip Hollandsworth’s 2001 Texas Monthly article that detailed Johnson’s life as an undercover/fake killer for hire. Disguises are embellished for the sake of cinema, but Powell’s charisma shines through during even the most darkly humorous moments. He’ll soon be seen in Twisters, where the Austinite actor hopefully does not actually attempt to ride a tornado like he’s on a bull.

1. Godzilla Minus One (Toho Studios movie streaming on Netflix)

The first Godzilla movie to win an Oscar received a semi-surprise streaming release so that those who didn’t make it into theaters can see what all the (justified) fuss is about. The low-budget movie turned into a blockbuster hit, and the nuclear lizard is having quite a few years with his Kong team-up and Apple TV+ show, too. It’s no wonder that he needed a Nap City trip after all that excitement. Seriously though, this film emotionally resonates while doling out the frightful angry-monster goods, too.

Glen Powell may be the headliner of Richard Linklater’s killer Netflix rom-com, Hit Man, but Adria Arjona is it’s secret weapon. While her co-star tries on caricatures like clothes, swapping wigs and accents, donning fake teeth and artificial scars to earn his “last great movie star” status (he does and is, by the way), she’s got the more difficult job. As Madison Masters, an alluring young woman trapped in an abusive marriage, Arjona slyly winks at that most recognizable of noir tropes: the femme fatale. She’s not the first bloodthirsty client to enlist the services of Powell’s Gary Johnson, a philosophy-teacher-turned-undercover-fake-hitman, but she is the most hopeless amongst the line-up, so sympathetic and morally grey that audiences will likely spend the near-two-hour film questioning her true motives.

“I wanted her to be this woman that you didn’t really know what she was going to do next,” Arjona tells UPROXX. “When we first meet her, she’s in this really dark place. She doesn’t really know where she stands or who she really is.”

It’s that ambiguity that makes Arjona’s scenes with Powell so electric. Well that, and the pair’s undeniable on-screen chemistry. Once Gary – who dons the suave exterior and deep V-necked uniform of a hit man named Ron for his first meeting with Maddy – convinces his mark to give up the murder-for-hire business and simply cut ties with her toxic ex, lines are quickly crossed. Meet-cutes turn into smoldering hook-up montages that singe the screen and bare-bodied bathtub soaks that double as romantic confessionals. Every seduction is tinged with deception, no one’s motives are completely pure. And yet, while it’s easy to root for Gary (and Gary-as-Ron) because the veil has already been pulled back on his id and ego, Maddy is a glaring unknown. She see-saws between desperation, terror, and a morbid curiosity about her new boyfriend’s chosen profession.

“She’s constantly reinventing herself and creating a fantasy, for herself and also for Ron,” Arjona explains. “She’s like, ‘I wonder what he likes.’ I think that makes her very unpredictable because that can shift, you know? When you read someone, you’re like, ‘Oh, he doesn’t like that, he likes this.’ It’s not stemming from a place of security, it’s very dependent on somebody else, and it just made it so much more fun to film as well.”

Arjona isn’t new to the expectations of Hollywood. She’s enjoyed the highs and lows that come with starring in everything from star-studded heist flicks – Triple Frontier and 6 Underground – to Marvel bombs (Morbius) and Star Wars success stories (Andor). She judges every potential project based on how nervous it leaves her. The more she questions if she can do a thing, the greater the possibility she’ll say yes. Whether it was a coffee meeting that went hours overlong or simply the thrill of working with one of her idols in Linklater, the actress was drawn to the questions the Netflix comedy mulls. Are our personalities set in stone? How well do you really know a person, or even, yourself? It’s something Arjona’s faced often, in her life and line of work. When she was younger, she traveled constantly with her dad, Guatemalan singer-songwriter Ricardo Arjona, growing up in Mexico and Miami, staying close to her mother’s Puerto Rican roots before moving to New York.

“You’re constantly sort of shifting,” she says. “When I go home to Puerto Rico, it’s very different than when I go home to Guatemala. It is a different accent. Your body moves differently. You do have to sort of mold yourself. I am so grateful that I had the childhood that I did. I think it’s the reason why I’m an actress. I got the gift of being able to meet and have memories and experiences with so many different people from all over the world, different social classes and economic backgrounds and different languages. That really helped me.”

Maddy is a bit of a chameleon as well, soft, meek, and scared one minute, urging her lover to gun-down her ex in the middle of the street the next. She’s flawed, maybe even a bit unhinged, and when Gary begins to suspect her ulterior motives, Arjona’s comedic timing is unleashed. Powell might ooze charisma, smoothly commanding the screen, but Arjona is a live-wire, constantly throwing curveballs with her facial expressions and physical mannerisms that hint at the wild animal caged behind the persona Maddie’s presenting – to Ron, to the police, and maybe even to herself. These two, as Twitter would tell you, match each other’s freak, an easy thing to do when you’re acting opposite Powell.

“You just want to watch him,” she says of her co-star. “He’s incredibly talented and charming. He’s a writer, he’s a producer, he’s smart, he’s intentional. He shape-shifts and creates different characters and they’re all believable. I think looking at him, people think, ‘Oh, this is who Glen Powell is,’ and everybody is so wrong. He could be just about anything. I really don’t think there’s anything Glen Powell can’t do.”

She quickly amends that statement though, pointing out a gag early in the film that pokes fun at his character’s fashion sense.

“I do know. Wear jean shorts. Not his thing”

Hit Man is streaming on Netflix now.

There are two types of celebrity fast food meals. Some bring something genuinely new or interesting to the table, and then there are the blatant cash grabs. The former is always a welcome addition to the menu, especially because you don’t necessarily have to be a fan of the celebrity in question to enjoy said meal. The latter drives me up a wall. Fast food is getting greedy, and while there is an argument to be made that in some cases the scale and consistency of fast food can sometimes justify its rising price point, that argument rarely applies to celebrity meals.

These so-called celebrity meals usually consist of combinations of already existing foods, repackaged and sold with some promotional artwork and an inflated price. It’s not rocket science.

So when we heard Jack in the Box was launching a new Ice Cube-themed Munchie Meal, it gave us pause — mostly because of the price, $12. This year, more and more people are opting to eat at restaurants or higher-end fast-casual chains instead of the classic fast food chains because for a few dollars more you get more bang for your buck. So any fast food chain that has the audacity to sell us an expensive celebrity-themed meal better come bringing the goods.

While we’re skeptical, we’re cautiously optimistic considering we loved Jack in the Box’s Snoop Dogg Munchie Meal. The Snoop Dogg Munchie Meal was so well-thought-out that we named it the best fast food celebrity collab during last year’s annual Uproxx Golden Bag Awards. Will the Ice Cube Munchie Meal live up to its predecessor? We tasted it so you don’t have to. Here are our thoughts.

Ice Cube Munchie Meal

Like the Snoop Dogg Munchie Meal, this thing is huge, there is enough food to share with another person, you’ll just have to fight over who gets what. Inside you’ve got a Chick-N-Tater Melt, a Jack Taco, seasoned curly fries, Mini Churros, and a small Spite. Each meal is also supposed to come with an Ice Cube Emoji sticker — mine, unfortunately, did not.

What made the Snoop Dogg Munchie Meal work for me was its connection to the artist. Snoop Dogg is music’s biggest pothead, weed gives you the munchies; the meal came with a brownie, weed brownies are a thing — you see what I’m getting at here. The Munchie Meal felt like a tribute to Snoop Dogg before he even teamed up with Jack in the Box, so a meal with his co-sign just feels right. The Munchie Meal line’s connection to Ice Cube is a bit less elegant.

Which is to say, there is no connection. Ice Cube has a song called “Jack N The Box” with this gem of a line “Ice Cube/ Motherf*cking head so big they call him ‘Jack ’n the box.’” But whatever, we’re not mad at JiB for reaching out to Ice Cube over this throwaway line. If JiB wants to represent West Coast So-Cal rappers, who am I to stop them? As a fellow native of Los Angeles, I’m hardwired to like this stuff.

That said, ultimately all that matters is the food.

The centerpiece of the Ice Cube Munchie Meal is the Chick-N-Tater Melt. The sandwich consists of a fried chicken patty topped with shredded cheddar cheese, Swiss-style cheese, bacon, white cheddar sauce, ranch, and a hashbrown all stuffed into a croissant-style bun. I know this sandwich is a fan favorite, and it’s been over a year since the Chick-N-Tater melt was last on the menu, but… I’m not seeing the appeal here.

The sandwich is a medley of salty and buttery flavors, but it lacks balance. Its weakest aspect is the protein. The bacon is thin and lifeless, and the chicken patty is so heavily processed that at times I wondered if I was eating chicken at all. Luckily, there are aspects of this sandwich that work. The crunchy texture of the hashbrown and its buttery flavor pair well with the salty mix of cheeses, while the ranch provides a rich savory finish. But that’s not enough to make a sandwich work in my opinion, so while I wouldn’t go as far as calling this sandwich “bad,” I can’t call it “good” either.

In addition to the sandwich, you’ve got curly fries, which are always good and feature a wonderfully addictive flavor that combines onion powder, black pepper, and garlic. A Jack Taco, which isn’t going to win any blind taste tests, but it hits the spot when you’re under the influence. And for dessert, you’ve got Mini Churros, which taste like, well, you know, churros. I’m not mad at any of the sides in this dish, it’s the sandwich that failed to win me over.

The Bottom Line:

The Ice Cube Munchie Meal is… fine. As a Cube and West Coast hip hop fan I wanted it to be better, but for me, it failed to deliver and live up to last year’s Snoop Dogg Munchie Meal. If you’re already a super fan of Jack in the Box, particularly the Chick-N-Tater Melt, I’d say this is worth the pickup. But if you haven’t been to JiB in a while, the Ice Cube Munchie Meal isn’t a reason to go.

Zendaya has already starred in two major blockbusters this year alone, and it’s only June. But while the actress’ major success over the past few years might make it seem like she is on top of the world, she’s just like one of us regular folks and sometimes gets afraid to leave the house! Who among us can’t relate?

The Challengers star opened up to Vogue about misconceptions people have about her. “I think sometimes people assume that because of what they see of me, maybe I’m a certain way,” she began.

But despite her impeccable work ethic, the actress revealed that she also struggles with anxiety. “But when I’m not working, I tend to isolate myself. My therapist, family, and friends will tell me, ‘You need to get up and get out,’ and I never want to—but when I make myself do it, I realize it’s actually kind of nice. I’m less anxious. I have to really be intentional about taking care of myself. I’m learning to be more responsible for myself and for my own body and looking after it all.”

When asked about how she copes, the actress revealed that walking her dog and taking things one step at a time has helped her the most. “Sometimes it’s just getting out of bed, telling myself, ‘We’re facing the day: we’re taking a shower, we’re putting on real clothes, we’re seeing some sunshine.’ I try to set little challenges for myself.” These challengers are very unlike the ones shown in Challengers, but that’s for the best!

For now, Zendaya says she’s shifting her focus to breathwork to help cope with her hectic life. “I’m just learning the importance of breathwork and meditation now. I’ve been living on a set and working since I was a kid, but it’s never been something that was accessible to me. I was just going, going, going, going, going. I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for a very long time.”

She’s not the first actress to get real about anxiety in the spotlight: her boyfriend Tom Holland has been open about his mental health struggles and often takes social media breaks to protect himself against “spiraling.” Both superheroes and tennis stars need a break sometimes.

(Via Vogue)

Richard Linklater‘s latest film Hit Man lands on Netflix this week after a brief stint in theaters that was paired with Glen Powell being disgustingly charming in various promotional interviews.

In Hit Man, Powell portrays Gary Johnson, a part-time police staffer who begins to work undercover to catch the real criminals. The film is very loosely based on Skip Hollandsworth’s 2001 Texas Monthly article of the same name in which the real life Gary Johnson worked undercover as a hitman in Houston.

While the story is inspired by Johnson, Linklater told Netflix that much of the plot is a fictional, exaggerated version of the story. The director said, “The real Gary did slight disguises, but not to the extent that we see in the film. I was like, ‘Should we really do a Russian accent?’ But Glen just pushed all of that to the max, and I love how it came out.”

When it comes to the real Gary, Linklater managed to meet with him a few times while writing the film. “He was just the most nonplussed guy,” Linklater told Vanity Fair. “We would talk about baseball or something, but he was a man of few words actually.” In 2022, when the film was nearing the end of production, Linklater reached out to Johnson again, before learning that he had died.

Linklater also wants it to be known that unlike the Powell’s character, the real Gary did not actually kill anyone. Let’s keep his legacy clean.

Hit Man is now on Netflix.

Fortnite‘s grip on popular culture is honestly pretty impressive. From stealing popular dances for in-game emotes to featuring some of the biggest stars in entertainment as character skins and even hosting virtual concerts from the likes of Billie Eilish and The Weeknd, the game has ingrained itself into music — especially hip-hop — as both a valuable tool for reaching a young audience and a favored pastime of the artists themselves — albeit, a sometimes frustrating one.

The next artist to team up with Epic Games is Don Toliver, who will be the focus of the special game Hardstone. Toliver teased the game/event with a trailer showing off some of the game’s environments, skins, and weapons, which will all revolve around the biker gang theme of his upcoming album, Hardstone Psycho. The collaboration is fitting, considering it was Toliver’s mentor Travis Scott who performed one of Fortnite‘s first-ever virtual concerts, breaking streaming records for the game in the process.

Since Travis’ proof-of-concept success, in-game performers have included Young Thug, Dominic Fike, J Balvin, Ariana Grande, Eminem, and more.

Hardstone will be a “8v8 turf war between two rival biker gangs (Hardstone & Wolves M.C.)… featuring music from Don Toliver’s new album, a fully custom map, immersive gameplay, & more.” You can play the game free on June 10th in Fortnite, by logging onto Fortnite and searching for “Hardstone” from the main menu.

When the Earth crumbles and humanity disappears, it should at least comfort you to know that Shrek will always be there for you just like he was for Will Smith in I Am Legend. The post-pandemic outbreak zombie movie follows Smith as one of the few survivors in a desolate New York City, where his only company is a dog, Fred the mannequin, and Shrek. But it looks like he’s finally getting some more friends for a sequel!

In 2022, it was announced that Smith (currently starring in Bad Boys 4) would return as Robert Neville in a sequel to the 2007 movie, which was based on the Richard Matheson book of the same name. Michael B. Jordan is attached to both star and co-produce with Smith.

Jordan recently confirmed that the movie is indeed on the way. He told People, “We’re still working on the script and getting that up to par,” he continued. “It doesn’t have a release date or anything like that. I’m not sure exactly where we’re going to be filming that one, but I’m really excited to get in front of the camera with him [Smith].” He added, “I’ve looked up to [Will] for a really long time, [so] to be able to work with Will is something I’m really looking forward to. I’m really excited.”

So, there’s not information available, but it’s definitely in the works, and this time, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman says that will be taking inspiration from the controversial alternate ending. “We trace back to the original Matheson book, and the alternate ending as opposed to the released ending in the original film,” Goldsman said last year. “What Matheson was talking about was that man’s time on the planet as the dominant species had come to an end. That’s a really interesting thing we’re going to get to explore. There will be a little more fidelity to the original text.”

Smith is also ready to jump back into the story with a fresh story. “We had a couple weeks together about a month ago. I think it’s looking good,” Smith recently told Entertainment Tonight. “[We have some] really solid ideas… I think we’re going to make it on screen together.”

Hopefully by the sequel, Smith’s character has found a copy of the Shrek 2 DVD, for his own sanity.

It’s not the end for Panem after all! Or at least not if we go back in time a few years.

This week, it was announced that not only will there be another book in the Hunger Games franchise, but that book will also make it to the big screen.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping is the upcoming prequel from Suzanne Collins which hits bookshelves on March 18th, 2025. The movie adaptation is aiming for a November 20th, 2026 release date, though that could always be shifted around.

The upcoming installment will tell the story of the Second Quarter Quell, which took place 24 years before Katniss took part in The Hunger Games. The story will follow a young Haymitch Abernathy, who becomes a tribute from District 12. By the time he meets Katniss, Haymitch is a grumpy middle-aged man, but as a tribute, he was described as a quick-thinker who outsmarted the games and eventually wins.

“With Sunrise on the Reaping, I was inspired by David Hume’s idea of implicit submission and, in his words, ‘the easiness with which the many are governed by the few,'” Collins said in a statement. “The story also lent itself to a deeper dive into the use of propaganda and the power of those who control the narrative. The question ‘Real or not real?’ seems more pressing to me every day.”

The announcement comes just months after the Rachel Zelger-led prequel The Hunger Games: Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes hit theaters and became a modest box office hit. The prequel was also based on the novel of the same name, which was released in 2020, and takes place roughly 40 years before the events of Sunrise on the Reaping .

The good news about those fun Hunger Games is that there were over 70 of them, which could in turn become 70 movies. Just a thought!

Netflix’s Baby Reindeer hung onto the top of the streaming charts for over a month while people were transfixed by creator, writer, and star Richard Gadd’s confessional adaptation of his personal experience with trauma and being stalked. The experience of watching the show can be triggering, but the package (and gripping performances, especially from Jessica Gunning as Martha and Gadd as Donny) compelled to such a degree that people couldn’t wait to hear what Gadd would create for his next project after taking weird plane rides and seeing his whole life transformed.

That series, Lions, is currently in the works. However, Gadd already completed an acting stint in a short film that will arrive this month for streaming. Let’s have a quick chat about this abbreviated project while acknowledging that even a tiny amount of Gadd content is better than none.

Plot

Oliver Shuster wrote the script that revolves around a housewarming party gone bad, according to the logline: “When ugly truths start to emerge, chaos reigns and threatens the relationships of old friends.” Yup, somebody (Gadd’s Jimi, maybe) dropped a mysterious drug into the mix. Via Variety‘s first-on-the-scene reporting on the project, “Gadd’s character of Jimi is friends with the host couple; he is described as a ‘liability’ whose ‘self-destructive behavior masks deep self-loathing and a secret that’s not ready to come out.'”

Yep, Truth Serum (directed by Vika Evdokimenko) revolves around Gadd’s character, who appears to have few things in common with Donny of Baby Reindeer. That would include a taste for drugs, and in Jimi’s case, he seems more gleefully chaotic during the experience, but that is apparently not the entire truth, which does come out for better (and mostly) worse.

Cast

Gadd leads the project with his costars: Olivia Vinall, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Umi Myers, Killian Kyle, Danny Ashok, and Miranda Beinart-Smith.

Release Date

Truth Serum will stream on the Omeleto YouTube channel beginning on June 17.

Trailer

Please don’t test out substances from random droppers, but dammit, this does look like fascinating viewing material.

It has been almost 20 years since the first Fantastic Four movie, and almost 10 years since the rebooted Fantastic Four movie, so why not try it again, but this time with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Disney on its side?

The Fantastic Four comic follows a group of scientists who venture to space and develop superpowers that alter their entire existence. The popular comic series has been adapted into various forms of media, but now Disney is ready to dig its Mickey Mouse claws into the IP.

The 2005 adaptation stars Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis, who also returned for the 2007 sequel, Rise Of The Silver Surfer. After disappointing box office numbers, the third installment was canceled. But wait! There’s more: Fox then opted to reboot the story in with Miles Teller, Jamie Bell and Michael B. Jordan in 2015, which was also met with disappointing box office numbers.

Following Disney’s acquisition of Fox Studios, The Fantastic Four was mentioned in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness when John Krasinski briefly appeared as an iteration of Reed Richards a.k.a Mr. Fantastic before being brutally murdered by Wanda Maximoff. These guys have not had a very good time.

Finally, The MCU is ready to properly take on the foursome with The Fantastic Four, slated to hit theaters next year. WandaVision director Matt Shakman is set to direct. Clearly, the legacy of a giant rock man cannot be destroyed. Here is everything we know about the highly anticipated reboot. Hopefully this one sticks!

Plot

As with most MCU/Disney endeavors, the plot is largely unknown, but we can piece together some clues. The upcoming installment will lead the sixth phase of the MCU. Kevin Feige promises a fresh take on the very familiar story, “A lot of people know this origin story. A lot of people know the basics. How do we take that and bring something that they’ve never seen before?” Feige explained in 2022.

There has been major speculation from fans that the flick will take place in the ’60s, thanks to clues from the announcement image, but that has not been confirmed. All we know is that the film will bring together the infamous Fantastic Four and alter the MCU timelines forever.

We also know that Julia Garner is set to play an iteration of the Silver Surfer known as Shalla-Bal, who was also featured in the 2007 sequel as the mysterious antagonist.

Cast

Contrary to what you might think, there are more than four people in this movie. The cast was announced in February, with Pedro Pascal leading the pack as Mister Fantastic/Reed Richards. Vanessa Kirby will play Sue Storm, Joseph Quinn will play Johnny Storm, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach will play Ben Grimm/The Thing. Beyond our fearsome foursome will be Julia Garner as Shalla-Bal, plus Natasha Lyonne, John Malkovich, Paul Walter Hauser, and Ralph Ineson. While John Krasinski played a version of Richards, he is not expected to appear in the film.

Meanwhile, Howard Stern might have accidentally let it slip that he was in talks to portray Dr. Doom but everyone sort of forgot, so just keep that in mind.

Release Date

The film is set to hit theaters on July 25, 2025.

Trailer

Filming is set to begin this summer in London, so there is not a trailer just yet, but you can get a gist of the story by watching Fantastic Four (2005). Or just skip to all the clobbering scenes. That’s cinema.

Leave it to Pharrell to find the cure to the musical biopic overload Hollywood is currently suffering from. Today, the pioneering producer shared the first trailer for Piece By Piece, his biographical movie that is one part traditional biopic, one part documentary, and one part animated Lego adventure.

Wait, what?

Yep, you read that right. Look, there’s just no way the man who fronted The Neptunes and N.E.R.D., who made “Happy” and “Get Lucky,” and who can’t be stopped from wearing those big-ass hats would ever just hire some good-looking actor to recreate his come-up. Instead, Piece By Piece is a colorful, animated feature directed by Morgan Neville in which Pharrell is rendered as a minifigure whose imagination blurs the lines of reality — along with a cast that includes some of the biggest names in music, from Justin Timberlake and Snoop Dogg to Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar. I’m buying a ticket just to see Lego Jay-Z give his signature chuckle. (Lego, if you’re reading this… You know what to do. We NEED IT.)

The release of the trailer reverses a string of … well, awkward headlines for the musical genius. Up ’til now, he’s seen a string of legal actions filed against him by collaborators including his Neptunes partner Chad Hugo and singer Pink to block him from copyrighting certain brand names and capitalizing from his work with them.

On the bright side, his work at Louis Vuitton — particularly a recent collab with Tyler The Creator — has been well received and he’s got a fun single with Miley Cyrus called “Doctor (Work It Out).” You can watch the Piece by Piece trailer above.

The Bikeriders almost got pulled from zooming into theaters this summer, but fortunately, the cinematic stars aligned — courtesy of Focus Features and Universal Pictures — to propel the star-studded biker drama into theaters on June 21.

The project should be a blast, too. Tom Hardy will be doing a Brando voice in a Jeff Nichols-directed movie that looks like Martin Scorsese had a lovechild with Kurt Sutter’sSons of Anarchy. In other words, you will soon be able to see Hardy and Austin Butler roaring across highways and cornfields and through cities on bikes and tossing punches. Norman Reed’s will also be there, looking rougher than The Walking Dead‘s Daryl Dixon after not bathing for years. Good times.

If you are looking forward to this film, we encourage you to head to theaters to see the adaptation of photojournalist Danny Lyon’s iconic black-and-white photo book, as compiled after he embedded with a real-life 1960s biker club. Yet if you are in a streaming frame of mind, that will eventually happen, too.

When Will The Bikeriders Be On Streaming?

This movie will surely hit the VOD circuit near the conclusion of its theatrical run, but streaming is on the horizon, too. Since it’s a Universal Pictures-distributed movie, that means that the movie will stream first on Peacock. A precise date hasn’t been announced, but if it follows the Oppenheimer pattern (about six months), that would put the movie on Peacock in the late fall. In other words, if you are jonesing for some biker action — also co-starring Boyd Holbrook, Michael Shannon, Damon Herriman, Karl Glusman, Beau Knapp, Mike Fast, Toby Wallace, and Happy Anderson — ride into theaters on June 21.

Perhaps you have already spent five nights at Freddy’s and thought, “that’s not too bad, what’s another five nights?” And you are not alone! Five Nights At Freddy’s, the wildly popular video game franchise, was adapted to the big screen last year, and those five nights were not enough, apparently, as a sequel is currently in the works.

The Five Nights At Freddy’s game was first released in 2014 and followed a security guard working at an abandoned theme pizza restaurant (similar to our friend Chuck E. Cheese’s place) where the animatronics become possessed by the spirits of dead children.

A film adaptation from Blumhouse, also titled Five Nights At Freddy’s, was released last fall starring Josh Hutcherson, Matthew Lillard and a bunch of creepy animatronics from Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. Thanks to its box office success, Five Nights At Freddy’s 2 is on track to shoot this summer, with Hutcherson and Lillard both back to star.

As of right now, the highly anticipated sequel is slated for a December 5th, 2025 release date, assuming everything goes smoothly and none of the animatronics attempt to murder the crew.

Earlier this year, Hutcherson revealed that a sequel was already on the way. “I know they’re in the process right now of nailing down the story, and they want to get going as soon as possible,” he told Variety. “Obviously, the fans are amazing and die hard. For me to be a part of it was so cool and phenomenal.” There is something just so cool and phenomenal about deadly robots wearing cuddly fur skin trying to kill you!

June 4th was National Cognac Day! And… we missed it (cognac hangover work as an excuse?). Anyyyyyway, The distilled grape spirit, which originated in the Charente region of Southwest France, has a history dating back to the 16th century. The mother of invention — necessity — gave birth to the nascent category with some help from Dutch traders at the time. Those tradespeople developed a taste for French wine but began distilling it to preserve the liquid on their journey home. After a little tinkering courtesy of the French locals, it was discovered that double-distilling the wine made for a more refined product and what we know today as brandy was born.

Later, in the 17th century, French distillers created the Charentaise distillation process and helped standardize the specifications we still utilize today for designating Cognac. Some of the most important things to know about cognac are the following:

• Cognac must be made from grapes in one of the 6 designated growth areas, or “crus”, in Cognac: Bois Ordinaires, Bon Bois, Borderies, Fins Bois, Grande Champagne, and Petite Champagne.
• Cognac’s regulatory board, known as the Bureau National Interprofessionnel du Cognac, protects the category and enforces the rules surrounding the spirit.
• Cognac must be made from a specific selection of grapes, with Collombard, Folle Blanche, and Ugni Blanc comprising at least 90% of the blend. The final 10% includes Blanc Rame, Folignon, Jurancon blanc, Montils, and Semillon.
• There are several distinct designations in Cognac, such as Grand Champagne and Petite Champagne as well as a distinct system for categorizing the spirit based on its time spent in a cask. With regards to age, it begins at V.S. which is aged for a minimum of two years, all the way up to XXO which has spent at least 14 years maturing.

While most people are familiar with the world’s largest Cognac house, Hennessy, which makes a plethora of quality products throughout their lineup, the other big houses like Rémy Martin and Courvoisier, along with smaller producers, are truly expanding the category and sparking a greater interest in new consumers. Simply put, these last days of spring are as great a time as any to explore cognac. Maybe you’ve been enjoying premium Cognac for decades, or perhaps you’re just now discovering the delights it offers. In any case, who doesn’t enjoy an excuse to both drink and learn more?

So, to help you celebrate properly we’ve put together this list of 5 Cognacs that deserve your attention and will help you to gain a new appreciation for the category. Grab your nearest snifter and have a seat, these are the best Cognacs to enjoy on National Cognac Day and beyond.

Martingale Cognac

ABV: 40%
Average Price: $118

The Cognac:

Martingale, named after the French word for doubling down, comes to us from the Thomas family which has been making Cognac for over a century and until now their eaux-de-vie has been made only for undisclosed prestigious houses. Now, proudly producing Cognac for themselves, this inaugural release from the brand was first released in 2023.

Tasting Notes:

Nose: Sugary, with golden raisins and crisp apple notes jumping from the glass at the outset. Honeycomb sweetness begins to emerge along with a slightly vegetal note. That vegetal aspect, reminiscent of celery seed, is fleeting but it adds nuance.

Palate: Notes of sugary golden raisins lead the way, with specks of celery seed and black pepper adding intrigue, before it turns honey-like which persists through the finish with a touch of lemon zest.

Finish: As mentioned the finish is bursting with light and refreshing notes like honey and citrus fruit and it concludes succinctly but not abruptly, allowing the mellow sweet notes to gently fade away, awaiting you to beckon your next sip.

Bottom Line: With a sweet, light, and overall approachable flavor profile Martingale Cognac would make a great highball, but it also does very well on its own making it an excellent entry-level option into the category.

Hine Rare VSOP Cognac The Original

ABV: 40%
Average Price: $73

The Cognac:

This Fine Champagne Cognac (made with at least 50% of its grapes from Grand Champagne and the remainder from Petite Champagne) comes from the House of Hine. Hine, founded in 1763, is most notable for being the exclusive Cognac supplier to Queen Elizabeth II.

Tasting Notes:

Nose: The aromas of warm fig newtons, lemon zest, and custard begin emanating out of the glass at first. From there, notes of undercooked apple pie begin to blossom with the doughiness alternating in prominence with the sweet aroma of semi-cooked apples.

Palate: Lots of brown sugar and fig inform the palate as it immediately comes across as deep without displaying an overwhelming depth. Make no mistake, this is a good thing. The complexity is restrained but the notes of dark sweetness — think chocolate chunks accented by allspice and earthiness — are impressively refined, making this an ideal treat for neat sipping.

Finish: The finish adds a bit of oak and toffee, again well-refined. These complementary notes push the richness to a new degree, and their moderate length allows plenty of leeway for you to enjoy those flavors.

Bottom Line: This straightforward but sumptuous Cognac from the House of Hine does a bang-up job of representing the entire category. Hine Rare is well-developed without veering into decadence and showcases a wonderful melange of prototypical Cognac notes. Consider enjoying this pour on its own, on the rocks, or in a Fine à l’eau to appreciate how the rich flavors it contains can evolve with the introduction of water.

A. de Fussigny Grande Champagne VSOP Cognac

ABV: 40%
Average Price: $70

The Cognac:

A. de Fussigny has been produced since 1814 but they were long missing on U.S. liquor store shelves. As a Grand Champagne, this expression is made exclusively with grapes grown in the Grand Champagne cru and as a VSOP (Very Superior Old Pale) it is aged for at least four years.

Tasting Notes:

Nose: The aroma of dates and dark chocolate effuses out of the glass to greet the senses along with a surprisingly bright pop of nectarines and clementine. After allowing it some space to settle, there are notes of caramel and clove that develop on the nose in addition to some significant allspice.

Palate: The flavor of dates leads the way on the palate, it then blossoms. Beautifully introducing dark chocolate, a slightly floral note, coconut, and even a bit of caramel. The texture of the Cognac is slick, it delightfully coats your palate which allows you to pick up further tertiary notes like lime zest and vanilla pod.

Finish: The finish is oak-laden, but the flavor of date syrup persists along with some sticky toffee providing balance. Sufficiently lengthy, the finish on this Cognac serves to enhance the experience by offering new notes and furthering the overall complexity of this nuanced pour.

Bottom Line: The layers of complexity found in A. de Fussigny’s Grande Champagne are an absolute pleasure to unpack. This Grande Champagne Cognac from A. de Fussigny has a dense texture that does an admirable job of laying a foundation for the well-refined flavors to truly reach their potential. Whether you’re an experienced appreciator of Cognac or a newcomer to the category, this is an expression you will want to savor on its own.

Rémy Martin Coupe Cognac 300th Anniversary Limited Edition

ABV: 40%
Average Price: $2,750

The Cognac:

To mark the occasion of their historic 300th anniversary, the House of Rémy Martin released Coupe, which is comprised of eaux-de-vie exclusively from the Grande Champagne appellation. The bespoke glass is coupled with its bespoke wooden case, a numbered certificate of authenticity, and a unique QR code that offers access to exclusive digital content.

Tasting Notes:

Nose: Stewed peaches, star anise, and dark chocolate waft out of the glass. The first impression of this pour can be summed up as singularly decadent. With allspice and wood varnish soon joining the party along with glacé grapes and sugared pie crust, the senses are appropriately primed to acknowledge that this will be an involute imbibing experience.

Palate: A flavorful burst of lush, golden raisins and stewed peaches opens the door for butterscotch, cedar, allspice, and nectarines. Take a beat and compute it all after your first sip. As you return for a second sip, you’ll notice that each of the aforementioned notes is refined and they’re soon accented by chocolate mousse, white pepper, and glacé blueberries. Its chimeric complexity can be found in each sip.

Finish: The finish is slightly burdened by oak, as it becomes dry, but that doesn’t curtail the evolution of flavors with stewed stone fruits continuing to shift and morph alongside the flavor of aged oak, toasted almonds, and coconut.

Bottom Line:
There is so much to unpack in this rich, multilayered experience that it beckons for return visits and repeat sips. Savor it slowly, absent of any ice or other obstructions like less-than-ideal company, and you’ll reap the fullest benefits without bankrupting both yourself and your bottle. Rémy Martin La Coupe Cognac 300th Anniversary Limited Edition is a masterpiece.

Grand Marnier Grande Cuvée Révélation Cognac Liqueur

ABV: 40%
Average Price: $760

The Cognac:

Part of the Grand Marnier Exceptional Range, Cuvée Révélation is an attempt to elevate the brand’s award-winning blend by using 68 XXO Cognac (the most premium age bracket) eaux-de-vie along with a dash of orange essence. Housed in an elegant and unique bottle, this expression is the most Cognac-forward in Grand Marnier’s lineup.

Tasting Notes:

Nose: Robust candied orange peel provides a deeper sweetness while a brighter orange oil note adds nuance to the nose. Caramel, tobacco leaf, oak, and vanilla extract further bolster this decadent bouquet of aromas which are well-served by the XXO Cognac at its base.

Palate: On the palate the orange notes are a multi-layered experience unto themselves but they’re buoyed by vanilla extract and a wealth of sugary sweetness. Most impressive is the mouthfeel as the different orange accents light up different parts of the palate — at times offering a dark sweetness that’s almost syrupy, and in other places offering a piquancy bordering on tartness that prods your palate urging you to explore more.

Finish: The finish is undeniably full of gentle oak tones, vanilla, and candied orange sweetness but it fades away gently leaving a mellow impression after all the pizazz upfront. Think of it as a big, blowout party that someone else is cleaning up afterward — you can enjoy it all guilt-free.

Bottom Line: While most folks are familiar with garden variety Grand Marnier, this Révélation expression lives up to its name by leaning heavily into well-aged Cognac as its base spirit. The richness found in this expression makes it an incredible liqueur to experience by sipping neat, as the layers of complexity wrought by its XXO cognac blend will leave a lasting impression. For the ne plus ultra digestif experience, Grand Marnier’s Révélation is the way to go.

Spirit award competitions aren’t perfect… but they are a great resource when it comes to being pointed in the direction of some truly delicious booze. Now that we’re hitting the summertime, the results from some of our favorite annual spirits are beginning to pour out. Just last month the TAG Global Spirits Awards dropped its list of the top bottles across all of the major booze categories, and our eyes took us straight toward the tequila results, where five bottles snagged TAG’s coveted Best In Show award.

We’ve tried four of the five bottles on the Best In Show list and from what we’ve tried we can cosign the TAG results, these are great bottles that deserve your liquor shelf real estate. Before we get into the results (plus our personal tasting notes where applicable) let’s talk about how exactly the TAG judging process works, because it’s pretty thorough.

Each spirit at the TAG awards goes through three rounds of judging with an international panel of experts, including a blind taste test portion, a super panel where experts for each respective spirit taste the best of the best and determine whether a bottle should be considered for the Best In Show category, and a final round where the TAG judges come together to evaluate which deserve the Best In Show designation.

On top of all the judging, each pour is served in a special glass made in partnership between TAG and renowned crystalline glassware manufacturer RONA, which is constructed to be the ideal serving glass for all spirits, from Whiskey, to rum, to tequila. Everything is considered in the construction of the glass, from the bowl diameter to the height, to the foot and stem. That’s the kind of nerdy attention-to-detail that we love here at Uproxx, whether it is actually the ideal glass for every spirit remains to be seen (send us one please TAG, or better yet, invite us next time!)

That’s enough talking about it, let’s get straight to the best bottles of tequila according to the 2024 TAG Global Spirits Awards.

AMNA Tequila Cristalino Añejo — 92 Points

ABV: 40%
Average Price: $99

The Tequila:

AMNA’s Tequila Cristalino is the only bottle to receive Best In Show that we haven’t tried personally and the only Cristalino to make the list. Cristalinos have a mixed reception amongst tequila fans, so we’re surprised a bottle was able to snag TAG’s highest award. We look forward to trying it one day!

Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of information out there about AMNA’s production process, which is concerning. What we do know is that the tequila is produced at NOM 1545, Hacienda Capellania, home to nearly 20 brands, and overseen by master distiller Hector Dávalos.

The cristalino is made from añejo tequila aged in American oak and French oak barrels for 14 months and is filtered through activated carbon and plate filtration.

Tasting Notes (According To TAG Global Spirits Awards)

Bright, light amber color. The aromatics are very intense, giving scents of agave, baking spices, and oak with supporting notes of citrus, vanilla bean, and quince. The palate echoes the nose delivering an agave-driven core with flavors reminiscent of citrus, gingerbread, and nutmeg. The finish is long and lingering. Medium-bodied and ideally balanced with a juicy texture.

The Bottom Line:

Given its high honors, AMNA probably serves as a good introduction to the Cristalino category of tequila. We look forward to trying this bottle.

Cabo Wabo Reposado — 95 Points

ABV: 40%
Average Price: $48.99

The Tequila:

Cabo Wabo, a relatively inexpensive brand made with additives making TAG’s Best In Show is proof that when you put tequila to a blind taste test, the supposed valley between additive vs. additive-free tequila narrows (though you’ll find the higher-ranked bottles are additive-free).

Cabo Wabo is produced at NOM 1440, Campari Mexico, and is made from tequila cooked in a low-pressure autoclave and roller mill extracted. It is then fermented in Stainless steel tanks, and twice distilled through a stainless pot with a copper coil.

To reach the repo state, Cabo Wabo is aged for two months in American Oak barrels.

Our Tasting:

Nose: It tickles the nose with a mix of zesty citrus notes and crushed black pepper.

Palate: Sweet and buttery with a strong roasted agave character, more of that black pepper from the nose, a bit of vanilla, and butterscotch candies. Strangely, all of that citrus zest on the nose is missing on the palate.

Finish: There is an oily quality to the finish with a slight kiss of oak.

The Bottom Line:

Truly surprised to see Cabo Wabo make this list. It’s a fine tequila but lacks a deep and rich character that you could fall in love with. I can’t see this being anyone’s favorite.

Siete Leguas Añejo — 96 Points

ABV: 38%
Average Price: $62.99

The Tequila:

Siete Leguas getting Best In Show is something I can get behind! This additive-free añejo is produced at NOM 1120, Tequila Siete Leguas. A distillery that shares its name with the product is usually a good sign. The agave here is cooked low and slow in stone ovens before being crushed by a tahona, made with natural spring water, and open-air fermented in stainless steel tanks before being twice distilled in a copper pot.

The tequila is then aged in American white oak barrels for 24 months.

Our Tasting Notes:

Nose: A really delicate, gently spice nose. I’m getting a gentle waft of cinnamon, caramel, and oak, all hovering over a rich roasted agave base.

Palate: Surprisingly fruity with tones of rich plum, juicy ripened citrus, a bit of coffee bitterness, and a bright white peach vibe.

Finish: The barrel comes out on the finish, I’m tasting oak, more of that cinnamon from the nose, and a slight hint of grassiness.

The Bottom Line:

A showcase for what makes additive-free tequila so great. There are so many flavors to latch onto and get lost in.

Siete Leguas D’Antaño Extra Añejo — 96 Points

ABV: 38%
Average Price: $299

The Tequila:

Siete Leguas’s D’Antaño is one of the brand’s premium products. The preparation process is the same, it’s produced at NOM 1120, stone cooked, tahona extracted, and is still made with no additives, but it’s aged for a long five years in American white oak barrels.

That extra barrel time brings forth a lot of fruity and sweet characteristics, with a long silky finish that makes this a true joy to sip.

Our Tasting Notes:

Nose: Right off the bat, you’re going to get a lot of oak here. In addition to the wood, I’m getting green apple skin, dark cherries, cinnamon, and vanilla.

Palate: A mix of vanilla, caramel, and cinnamon hit the palate first before shifting into fruity territory.

Finish: A wonderful bouquet of cinnamon, roasted agave, oak, and maple syrup. A single sip seeps into your tastebuds, allowing you to savor the flavor. A little goes a long way here.

The Bottom Line:

A premium top-shelf tequila from one of the best brands in the game. Having said that, as much as I love the luxury on display here, I think Siete Leguas’ stock añejo covers a lot of the same ground here.

Tequila Ocho Plata — 96 Points

ABV: 40%
Average Price: $37.99

The Tequila:

We’re giving our full co-sign to TAG naming Tequila Ocho Plata one of its Best In Show. This is one of our favorite tequilas right now, and a bottle of this stuff has a permanent spot on my bar cart. This tequila is made from agave that is hand-harvested between 7-10 years of maturity and is slow cooked in brick ovens for 48 hours, rested for 24, and then crushed by a roller mill. The juice is then fermented in wood vats and twice distilled.

It is completely additive-free and has a palpable silky and luxurious quality that tastes like it should cost more.

Our Tasting Notes:

Nose: Fresh-peeled orange rind and roasted agave dance on the nose in equal parts.

Palate: Zesty and earthy, I’m getting cracked black pepper and a rush of fresh herbal flavors. It’s almost cilantro-like, which is something to consider if you find the herb off-putting.

Finish: Mint and pepper with a gentle spice that builds on the aftertaste.

The Bottom Line:

You’ll find a lot of natural sweetness and fruity character here, much more than you’d expect for its price point. This is simply one of the greatest unaged tequilas on the market right now. Pick up a bottle if you haven’t already.

Each week our staff of film and television experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish shows available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.

15. Fallout (Prime Video)

Fallout is an adaptation of Bethesda’s behemoth franchise, a story set within the retro-futuristic world that’s captivated console users for years and years. Yes, there are delightful little nods to in-game storylines – Pip-Boys and Nuka-Cola and Radaway, but they either serve a larger purpose or don’t linger for too long, ensuring that the show stands on its own two feet. Long-time gamers should have little to gripe about while those craving better genre fare amidst the streaming glut should come away satisfied. Whether you know its history or not, Fallout is a f*cking blast of a sci-fi show that defies expectations in the most unconventional of ways (and turned Walton Goggins into a sex symbol).

Watch it on Prime Video

14. Doctor Who (Disney Plus)

Doctor Who is separated into two eras: the original run from 1963 to 1989 and the current relaunch, which began in 2005. The new season is the 14th since it was revived, but it’s officially referred to as “Doctor Who Season One.” Got all that? If you’re a Doctor Who fan, of course you do. But to everyone else who is probably very confused, it’s never been easier to watch the iconic British series now that it’s on Disney Plus with Ncuti Gatwa as the Doctor and Millie Gibson as his companion, the wonderfully-named Ruby Sunday. Is it too soon to dream of a TARDIS at Disney World? (It’s not!)

Watch it on Disney Plus

13. Outer Range (Prime Video)

Season 1 of Outer Range careened down an illogical hill with abandon, but it did so gracefully. It’s such a delicate balance that I wondered if a second season could maintain that same feat. Fortunately, my worries were unfounded. Outer Range is still kind-of a mess and sometimes feels like a full-on identity crisis, but the package is skillfully combined. It also considers enormous questions about human existence but doesn’t take itself seriously by claiming to have every answer (you can our full review here).

Watch it on Prime Video

12. Gaga Chromatica Ball (Max)

Lady Gaga’s The Chromatica Ball tour was only 20 shows long (compared to over 150 for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour), so if you weren’t able to experience Mother Monster sing the hell out of “Born This Way” in person, Max has you covered. Gaga Chromatica Ball is a filmed performance of one of Gaga’s sold-out Dodger Stadium concerts from 2022. She performed many of her greatest hits, including “Shallow,” “Bad Romance,” and “Rain on Me.” There’s no “Hair” (my personal favorite Gaga song; please do not ask me to defend why, it just is), but I won’t hold that against the future Harley Quinn.

Watch it on Max

11. Evil (Paramount Plus)

Evil does not exist – or at least the show Evil won’t after this season. This is the final season of the Robert and Michelle King-created series, which made the successful leap from CBS to Paramount Plus. Evil is frequently called the “best show you’re not watching,” and it’s got a The X-Files-ish premise to back that up: “A skeptical female psychologist joins a priest-in-training and a contractor as they investigate the Church’s backlog of unexplained mysteries, including supposed miracles, demonic possessions and hauntings. Is there a logical explanation, or is something truly supernatural at work?”

Watch it on Paramount Plus

10. Mayor of Kingstown (Paramount Plus)

Following a near-death experience, Jeremy Renner is back for season 3 of Taylor Sheridan’s Mayor of Kingstown. When the town of Kingstown, Michigan, is overrun by a Russian mobster and drugs, it’s up to Mike McLusky (Renner) to keep things under control, but “things get complicated when a familiar face from his incarcerated past threatens to undermine the Mayor’s attempts to keep the peace among all factions.” That’s nothing compared to what Renner went through in real life.

Watch it on Paramount Plus

9. Dune: Part Two (Max)

Let Dune: Part Two lead you to paradise. The highest-grossing movie of 2024 so far makes its streaming debut on Max, where you can watch Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya ride sandworms as many times as you want. The Denis Villeneuve-directed sequel takes everything great about 2021’s Dune and makes it, well, just as great. But now with more Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Christopher Walken, and Léa Seydoux (although sadly less Oscar Isaac and Stephen McKinley Henderson). In short: Dune: Part Two rules.

Watch it on Max

8. Jim Henson Idea Man (Disney Plus)

It’s time to play the music. It’s time to light the lights. It’s time to watch Jim Henson: Idea Man tonight (well, May 31 when it premieres on Disney Plus). The documentary explores the life and career of the Muppets creator, including “never-before-seen personal archival home movies, photographs, sketches, and Henson’s personal diaries, as well as interviews with those who knew him best.” Prepare to cry.

Watch it on Disney Plus

7. The First Omen (Hulu)

“Oh great, another unnecessary horror prequel,” right? Wrong! Directed by Arkasha Stevenson, The First Omen is one of the most visually striking horror movies in recent memory. Nell Tiger Free (Myrcella Baratheon from Game of Thrones) gives a stellar lead performance as an American who gets sent to Rome to work with the church. But once she arrives, “she encounters a darkness that causes her to question her own faith and uncovers a terrifying conspiracy that hopes to bring about the birth of evil incarnate.” Hate it when that happens. But you won’t hate watching The First Omen. 

Watch it on Hulu

6. Am I OK? (Max)

Comedian Tig Notaro’s directorial debut Am I OK? premiered to strong reviews at the Sundance Film Festival back in 2022. The film stars Dakota Johnson and Sonoya Mizuno (who’s having a big month with House of the Dragon dropping next week) as Lucy and Jane, two best friends who think they know everything there is to know about each other until Lucy drops a secret: she’s a lesbian. “As Jane tries to help Lucy, their friendship is thrown into chaos,” the synopsis reads. Am I OK? I will be after watching Am I OK?

Watch it on Max

5. Godzilla Minus One (Netflix)

The American Godzilla movies like Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire are fun, but the recent Japanese Godzilla movies are masterpieces. 2016’s Shin Godzilla was the best entry in the franchise since the 1954 original, while Godzilla Minus One was a sensation. The Takashi Yamazaki-directed film grossed over $100 million at the worldwide box office and won an Oscar, both firsts for a Godzilla movie released by Toho Studios. If you missed out, Godzilla Minus One is now streaming on Netflix.

Watch it on Netflix

4. We Are Lady Parts (Peacock)

We Are Lady Parts is the kind of show that makes a streaming service worth the cost of subscription. If you don’t have Peacock, you should sign up for creator Nida Manzoor’s rowdy, Peabody Award-winning comedy about an all-female Muslim punk band in the UK. The cast — led by Lady Parts members Anjana Vasan (guitarist Amina), Sarah Kameela Impey (singer Saira), Juliette Motamed (drummer Ayesha), and Faith Omole (bassist Bisma) — is great, and the soundtrack rips. Have a taste with “Bashir With the Good Beard.”

Watch it on Peacock

3. Perfect Days (Hulu)

To paraphrase Lou Reed: Oh, it’s such a perfect day / I’m glad I spent it with Perfect Days. The latest film from Paris, Texas director Wim Wenders follows Hirayama (played by Koji Yakusho), a man living by himself who cleans public bathrooms in Tokyo for a living. When he’s not working, he’s listening to music, reading, and taking photos of trees. Perfect Days doesn’t have the most exciting plot, but it’s an incredible, Oscar-nominated film about what it means to be human. After all, what is life if not finding pride in your work and the minor distractions that keep you going?

Watch it on Hulu

2. The Acolyte (Disney Plus)

Yes, it’s another Star Wars show. But The Acolyte has a lot going for it. For one thing, there’s a Wookiee Jedi. All my 10-year-old Star Wars dreams are coming true. Also, the series is created by Russian Doll’s Leslye Headland and the cast, including Amandla Stenberg, Lee Jung-jae, Charlie Barnett, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Manny Jacinto (Jason from The Good Place!), is solid. The Acolyte takes place long before the prequels, so there will be no stops on Tatooine or mentions of the name “Skywalker.” That alone makes it worth a watch.

Watch it on Disney Plus

1. Hit Man (Netflix)

Hit Man is funny, sexy, thrilling, charming, and a crowd pleaser. So why did it barely get a theatrical release? “I don’t know,” director Richard Linklater told Decider about the lack of studio interest in his film. “Everybody’s scared. [The movie] was not one thing. It’s not a hit man movie.” Maybe if Hit Man — which stars the impossibly hot duo of Glen Powell and Adria Arjona — becomes a big enough, well, hit on Netflix, we’ll get a sequel that plays in 4,000 screens. Or better yet, sequels.

Watch it on Netflix

There is only one thing that James Cameron loves more than water, and that is a sequel. What happens when you combine the two? You get Avatar: The Way Of Water. Add in a couple billion bucks and then you have the currently untitled Avatar 3.

Cameron has been working on the third installment in the sci-fi franchise seemingly forever, though filming for the second and third movies took place simultaneously beginning in 2017. In September 2020, Cameron confirmed that the third film was “95% done” and revealed earlier this year that it’s “in the can.”

“We’re shooting pick-ups on 3, which is just filling in the last 2 or 3%, and we’ve also got live-action pick-ups in June, that’s another couple percent,” he told Screen Rant. Even though his math is a little off, he’s still optimistic. “We’ve got about a quarter of movie 4 in the can. We’re post on 3 and now doing the VFX, which is an enormous job. I’ll need every second between now and then to get it done.” It only took about four years to get the rest of the 4% done!! By this rate, we’ll get Avatar 4 by 2065. To Cameron’s credit, a lot of thees delays were not his fault.

Now that the movie is coming to life, here is everything you need to know about the upcoming sequel, which is NOT called The Seed Bearer, by the way.

Plot

The first two movies in the Avatar universe introduce fans to the lush world of Pandora, which is being threatened by humans who want to use the planet and its resources. In the second film, Sully has fully leaned into his Avatar life and raises his three children alongside Neytiri as they venture to the Metkayina oceanic clan in order to escape The Research Development Administration, aka the RDA, a.k.a. the humans of Earth.

The third film will explore the universe even more by showcasing the various cultures of Pandora — and not all of them are good. Cameron told French publication 20 Minutes that the film will explore “different cultures from those I have already shown. The fire will be represented by the ‘Ash People.’ I want to show the Na’vi from another angle because, so far, I have only shown their good sides.”

The film will also give Sully’s son Lo’ak a more prominent voice in the series. Cameron confirmed that there will be multiple narrators in the next movie. “I think it could be intriguing for people to think about what’s coming. Jake was our voiceover narrator for movie 1 and movie 2, and we have a different narrator for each of the subsequent films. We see it through the eyes of a different character, and movie 3 is through Lo’ak’s eyes.”

Cast

The main crew will be returning, including Sam Worthington as Jake Sully, Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri, Sigourney Weaver as Kiri, Stephen Lang as Colonel Miles Quaritch, Kate Winslet as Ronal, and Giovanni Ribisi as Parker Selfridge.

As for newbies, David Thewlis will portray a new character named Peylak, while Michelle Yeoh has signed on as Dr. Karina Mogue, a human scientist. Oona Chaplin will portray Varang, the leader of the “Ash People” clan.

Release Date

After nine (!!!) changed release dates, the current release date is December 19th 2025, but that could change.

Trailer

While we don’t have a trailer quite yet, James Cameron has confirmed that the film is basically done, so he could potentially drop footage any day now, but we probably won’t be seeing anything until later in the year.

Here is the trailer for the second installment, which is now on Disney+.

Once again, the rumor train has left the (shining time) station with some fun casting news that should be taken with a grain of salt, because we all know how fickle these tips can be.

According to Jeff Sneider’s newsletter, director Sam Mendes is eyeing an in-demand group of actors to star in his upcoming quartet of Beatles biopics.

The rumored casting will feature Paul Mescal (Aftersun) as Paul McCartney, Barry Keoghan (Saltburn) as Ringo Starr, Charlie Rowe (Never Let Me Go) as George Harrison, and Harris Dickinson (The Iron Claw) as John Lennon. Sneider stressed that there is no confirmation just yet, but that didn’t stop him from sharing the tip!

Announced earlier this year, the four Beatles movies “will intersect to tell the astonishing story of the greatest band in history.” This will reportedly be the first time The Beatles “have granted full life story and music rights for a scripted film.”

Mendes confirmed the news back in February. “I’m honored to be telling the story of the greatest rock band of all time, and excited to challenge the notion of what constitutes a trip to the movies,” he said. This honor was not given to the most recent season of Doctor Who.

Since the cast has not yet been confirmed, this will give Keoghan time to perfect his vocal chops, which are basically nonexistent at the moment.

(Via The Insneider)

The initial plot of 2022’s M3GAN is pretty straightforward: a robotic doll becomes increasingly sentient and befriends a vulnerable tween before going on a murderous rampage. Seems pretty standard! But it became so much more.

What started as a standalone off horror flick became a cultural movement thanks to the toy doll and her impressive dance moves. Once producer Jason Blum saw the final cut, he knew a sequel had to happen.

“After I first saw the movie, we had a good sense that a sequel might really work,” Blum told Variety last year. “So, we broke our cardinal rule and we started talking about a sequel before the movie was released. I felt so bullish that we started entertaining a sequel earlier than we usually do.” The sequel was announced shortly after M3gan hit theaters in January 2022.

And now that sequel is in full swing! M3GAN 2.0 is currently in the works, so here is everything to know about the upcoming sequel. Start practicing your dance moves now.

Plot

While the plot is being kept under wraps, there are some clues as to where to story will go from here. For a refresh, here is the plot of the first installment:

M3GAN is a marvel of artificial intelligence, a life-like doll programmed to be a child’s greatest companion and a parent’s greatest ally. Designed by brilliant toy-company roboticist Gemma (Get Out‘s Allison Williams), M3GAN can listen and watch and learn as she becomes friend and teacher, playmate, and protector for the child she is bonded to. When Gemma suddenly becomes the caretaker of her orphaned 8-year-old niece, Cady (Violet McGraw, The Haunting Of Hill House), Gemma’s unsure and unprepared to be a parent. Under intense pressure at work, Gemma decides to pair her M3GAN prototype with Cady in an attempt to resolve both problems — a decision that will have unimaginable consequences.

At the end of M3GAN, the doll is destroyed, but not before her AI processing system was transferred to a different device, meaning that M3gan can (and will) return in other forms. This is likely how the second installment will bring M3gan back, perhaps even in different robotic bodies. Or dolls! M3gan might be looking to get revenge on Gemma and Cady for abandoning her, or maybe they will have to team up and go against another killer doll. There are so many ways this can go.

Cast

Allison Williams will return as Gemma, a toy maker who gifted M3gan to her niece Cady after the death of her parents. Violet McGraw will also reprise her role of Cady. Ahsoka‘s Ivanna Sakhno is also attached to star in a currently undisclosed role.

Release Date

The movie is set to hit theaters on May 16th, 2025. Since it’s a Universal flick, it will likely land on Peacock after its theatrical release, just like the first installment.

Trailer

There is no trailer just yet, as production begins this summer. But here is M3gan’s calming rendition of Sia’s “Titanium” to calm you down while you wait.

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that causes mass walkouts and even in-theater vomiting, and that’s how you know a new horror classic is upon us. Stephen King sure thinks so!

In A Violent Nature is the upcoming slasher that takes the typical killer formula and adds in a few curveballs. The film made its debut earlier this year at Sundance, where it was described as an “ambient slasher” due to its lack of score and all of that slashing. Oh, and it tells the story through the point of view of the slasher himself. Everyone deserves a chance to have their perspectives shown, even undead serial killers.

The film has been getting a lot of buzz, and that’s not just because of all those pesky lake mosquitos. Here is everything to know about the bloody thriller.

Plot

Not that slashers of such a nature need a plot, but this one actually does provide some backstory, and of course it starts with some teens who unknowingly resurrect a deadly killer who stalks his prey in the woods. Think Jason Voorhees but without mommy issues (presumably). Here is the official synopsis:

When a group of teens takes a locket from a collapsed fire tower in the woods, they unwittingly resurrect the rotting corpse of Johnny, a vengeful spirit spurred on by a horrific 60-year old crime. The undead killer soon embarks on a bloody rampage to retrieve the stolen locket, methodically slaughtering anyone who gets in his way..

Cast

The story stars Ry Barrett, Andrea Pavlovic, Cameron Love, Reece Presley, Liam Leone and Charlotte Creaghan, but they weren’t all on board at first.

The making of the film could have been a horror story in itself. In the fall of 2021, the movie was shot with an entirely different cast before production difficulties required them to rework the film, according to producer Stephanie Hanmer.

“We’d shot well over 50 percent of the film with our original Johnny, and then he had to go to the hospital and was forbidden to come back to set,” Hanmer told The Daily Beast.

She continued, “So it’s 11 a.m., and I lost my lead actor. I had a huge safety team waiting. We had a scuba team ready to shoot underwater. We had our most expensive rental for the camera. It was the most expensive day of the whole shoot, and our actor’s missing.” The crew took an extended break and began filming again in 2022.

Release Date

Shudder picked up streaming rights for In a Violent Nature back in January, before it was granted an initial release. The movie hit theaters on May 31 for those of you who can watch such a film in public. It seems like a lot of people did: the movie raked up $2.1 million in its opening weekend with 1,426 screens, becoming IFC’s widest opening ever.

If you’re not feeling that adventurous, In A Violent Nature will land on Shudder this summer.

Trailer

Check out the trailer below:

This Independence Day weekend, spend time with an adult film star trying to make it big in Hollywood. What’s more American than that? A24 has released a new trailer for MaXXXine, the third film in director Ti West’s X trilogy.

The trailer begins with Maxine (played by Mia Goth) getting blood on her hands — literally — on the set of a low-budget indie horror movie. Later, she’s worried she’s being pursued by the “the devil,” a.k.a. the Night Stalker, a real-life serial killer who terrorized Californians in the mid-1980s. You can watch it above.

“I see MaXXXine as a superhero movie – that’s how I read the script,” Goth told SFX Magazine last year. “Maxine, as a character, has come a long way. She’s a survivor, she’s gone through a lot. When we meet her again, in this new world that she’s in, she’s really fought for everything that she has, and she’s not about to give that up. She’s going to fight for what she has. She’s a badass… And she’s a really proactive, determined, focused woman. She goes after what she wants, and she’s not really going to take no for an answer.”

Here’s the official synopsis:

In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past.

MaXXXine, which also stars Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, and Kevin Bacon, opens in theaters on July 5.

Haven’t been able to experience Eric Cartman’s favorite restaurant Casa Bonita for yourself? Here’s the next best thing: ¡CASA BONITA MI AMOR!, a documentary that chronicles the “the rise, fall, and revival” of the Colorado landmark that South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker dedicated an entire episode of the animated series to, will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival on Friday, June 7. It will also stream on Paramount+ later this year.

¡CASA BONITA MI AMOR! is directed by Arthur Bradford, who said in a statement, “I think people will be surprised to see the level of hands-on devotion Matt and Trey poured into this place. Trey was fueled by a Wonka-like passion to bring back the Casa Bonita of his youth.”

Following the Tribeca Film Festival premiere, Watch What Happens Live host Andy Cohen will moderate a conversation with Parker, Stone, and Bradford (you can find more information here).

The South Park creators used their many millions of dollars to renovate Casa Bonita “like a piece of art,” Stone said. Parker added, “It would be way cheaper if we just went hang gliding over volcanoes.” If only all rich people used their money on restoring the “Disneyland of Mexican restaurants,” with its cliff divers and pirate caves, not making the world’s ugliest car.

Casa Bonita is open now in Lakewood, Colorado (assuming you can score a reservation).

Both dragons and giant lizards might be having a moment lately, but in 2025, dinosaurs will be making a comeback! Again!

It was announced earlier this year that another Jurassic Park movie is on the way, just two years after Jurassic World Dominion rounded out the rebooted series. Life…..always finds a way. Just like movies.

David Koepp, the original screenwriter of the first three flicks, is set to pen the currently untitled sequel. The Fall Guy‘s David Leitch was initially in talks to direct, but he was replaced with Gareth Edwards, director of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and 2014’s Godzilla remake, so he definitely knows how to direct a big, scaly guy looking menacing on screen.

Edwards told Collider that he dropped everything to join the movie. “I was about to take a break and I started writing my next idea for a film and this is the only movie that would make me drop everything like a stone and dive right in,” he said, adding, “to work with Frank Marshall and Universal and David Koepp, who’s writing the script, I think they’re all legends. So I’m just very excited.”

Steven Spielberg will still serve as executive producer, because he really did bring dinosaurs to an entire generation of moviegoers. Here is everything else we know about the upcoming installment.

Plot

The plot is being kept under wraps, but we can make some assumptions! First: there will definitely be dinosaurs somewhere in the story. That is a given.

Aside from that, we don’t really know where the story will shape up. It’s possible that the new installment will continue where Jurassic World: Dominion left off in 2022 now that dinos and humans co-exist. Or, the entire story could be rebooted and remade using the original novel as a guideline. We likely won’t know for a while.

In 2022, Producer Frank Marshall told Slash Film that there are many places that the story can develop from here. “We obviously want to make quality, good movies with great storytelling, great writers and directors, but we’re definitely looking to do more in the Jurassic World.”

Cast

The Hollywood Reporter first reported that Scarlett Johanson is in talks to lead the film, though it has yet to be officially confirmed. Oscar winner Mahershala Ali is also eying a role in the franchise. Meanwhile, Bridgerton breakout star Jonathan Bailey is reportedly attached to star, along with Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Rupert Friend. And a bunch of dinosaurs, hopefully.

Since there will be a whole new crew of dino hunters, it doesn’t seem like any of the original Jurassic Park icons will return. Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Chris Pratt, and Bryce Dallas Howard are not expected to reprise their roles in the upcoming sequel, though things can always change if Jeff Goldblum becomes too tired of doing all of those Apartment.com ads.

Release Date

Right now, the expected release date for the upcoming Jurassic Park is July 2nd, 2025, which feels quick. Filming is slated to take place this summer in Malta and early fall in London. Barring any complications or delays, it could be the blockbuster hit of next summer.

Trailer

There is no trailer just yet, but you can check out the animated series Jurassic World: Chaos Theory now on Netflix.

For Variety’s Actors on Actors series, Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm sat down to discuss their various roles, including Wiig’s series Palm Royale and Hamm’s stint on Fargo and The Morning Show. But the conversation quickly turned into them talking about being naked together, fake nipples, and a “junk sock” so there is a lot of unpack here.

The two actors just appeared alongside each other on an episode of Saturday Night Live last month, and Hamm reflected on the fast-paced world of a quick change for live television. “The fun part of SNL…one time I was hosting, and we both had quick changes next to each other,” he began. “And you’re like, ‘Get ready,’ and then we’re both naked. They’re literally tearing clothes off of you. You just have to go with it.” This is not the first time the two have been naked around each other, though they must be used to it.

Wiig then went into detail about her last quick change:

WIIG: The last time I was back, I had a quick change. They were stripping me, and I looked over, and Kenan [Thompson] was doing the same thing. I was like, “Oh, we’ve seen each other.”

HAMM: All of the parts. It’s fine. It’s only awkward because you have to submit to it. You’re a total mannequin.

WIIG: The “in-between sketches” is the most interesting — it’s such a beautiful dance.

HAMM: And you never see the seams. My first time hosting was right in the middle of [your time]. And then I hosted three times, and we worked together so much. And then I was at your last show, which was so awesome and fun and, I’m sure, tremendously emotional for you.

Isn’t that the beauty of a live broadcast? At any given moment, there is someone two seconds away from being nude on live television. And that person could be Jon Hamm.

Meanwhile, Hamm had a fun time being nude on both Fargo and The Morning Show, so a quick little SNL wardrobe change is nothing for him!

You can watch the full interview below:

Ahead of Lost being added to Netflix, star Evangeline Lilly announced that she’s “stepping away” from her acting career.

“I am so filled with joy and contentment today as I live out my vision. Praise God, I feel so grateful for my blessings. Stepping away from what seems like the obvious choice (wealth and fame) can feel scary at times, but stepping into your dharma replaces the fear with fulfillment,” the actress, who played Kate on Lost and The Wasp in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, wrote on Instagram. “I might return to Hollywood one day, but, for now, this is where I belong. A new season has arrived, and I AM READY… and I AM HAPPY.”

Along with the caption, Lilly, who reportedly refused to self-isolate during the pandemic (she also attended an anti-vax rally), shared a video that was filmed during the Lost years where she discussed where she saw herself in 10 years.

“I am terrified to admit this to the rest of the acting world, but ideally ten years from now I’d like to be a retired actress, and I would like to have a family, and I’d like to be writing,” Lilly said at the time. “And potentially maybe influencing people’s lives in a more humanitarian way.”

(Via the New York Post)

A previous Alien: Romulus teaser trailer set up the atmosphere that we expect from Fede Álvarez, who has already scared the pants off audiences with maddeningly quiet moments in Don’t Breathe, and now, he’s in space, where (as the iconic tagline goes) “no one can hear you scream.” With that said, Álvarez is also the guy you want when you need skilled hands on an existing movie franchise, as with 2013’s Evil Dead, and he’s here to do justice to what the original Alien movie (from Ridley Scott) did best: use the spaceship’s confines to help craft merciless terror.

This film goes back to the franchise’s late 1970s/early 1980s roots (and blue-collar beginnings) with an official interquel that takes place in between Scott’s Alien (which occurred in 2090-ish) and James Cameron’s Aliens (which happened in 2179). As this trailer shows, group of young-adult scavengers find themselves being hunted on a ship, and there are plentiful callbacks on display like the water scene (you can still hear Newt’s piercing scream from Aliens, right?), and oh god, Álvarez really wants us to see the penetration action from the facehuggers as they move in to plant the eggs.

The simple synopsis of this movie reads, “Young people on a distant world find themselves confronting the most terrifying life-form in the universe.” The story stands separate (although obviously in the same universe) from FX’s upcoming Alien series from Noah Hawley, and if you were wondering whether Álvarez prefers Alien or Aliens, he wisely will not go there. There is, however, a taste of Alien 3 mixed into the end of this trailer when Cailee Spaeny’s Ripley-esque character finds herself corned by a xenomorph. Eek.

Spaeny will be accompanied by Isabela Merced, Archie Renaux, David Johnson, Aileen Wu, and Spike Feam. Please enjoy this poster because it goes seriously hard. Lots of Evil Dead flavor here, too:

Alien: Romulus arrives in theaters on August 16.

In a Violent Nature has Stephen King‘s seal of approval.

The author reviewed the “ambient slasher” from director Chris Nash, which is told nearly entirely from the perspective of the killer. “IN A VIOLENT NATURE: If you need a slasher movie, this one will do the job,” King wrote on X. “It’s leisurely, almost languorous, but when the blood flows, it flows in buckets. The killer in his mask looks like the world’s most terrifying Minion.”

OK, but which Minion? Not all Minions look the same, Stephen.

See? Kevin is built very differently than Bob.

But I’m getting big Stuart energy from the In a Violent Nature killer.

“I think it falls right into the path that every other slasher has already burned through the cinematic landscape,” Nash told Time about his film. “We’re not doing anything new. We just moved the camera to a different spot. We didn’t want to make this a mockery or a satire of what a slasher traditionally is. We wanted to pay homage to those films.”

In a Violent Nature — which reportedly made people shriek and puke during a screening — is out in theaters now and will be released on Shudder later this year. Make it a double feature with Despicable Me 4.

When we previously checked in with Benoit Blanc, Netflix had just scooped up the rights to the then-untitled Knives Out sequels, and Rian Johnson was ready to expand the universe beyond just the normal knives we’ve come to know and love.

Johnson’s Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery hit the streamer in 2022, and now that Blanc has recovered from Edward Norton’s shenanigans, he’s off to solve another case with a fresh new cast of characters (and suspects).

The third installment in the mystery franchise will be titled Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, and the film is swiftly coming together. It feels like every day we wake up with a brand new cast announcement of a potential murder suspect or comic relief sidekick.

There are a lot of things to keep track of when it comes to this movie, so here is everything we know so far about the highly anticipated sequel. Get your knife sharpener ready.

Plot

Just like the two installments before, the plot is shrouded in mystery, but will follow the same formula. According to Netflix, the installment will be a “brand-new murder mystery in an as-yet-undisclosed setting, surrounded by a new colorful cast of suspects.” It’s not giving much to go on, but that’s the mystery of it all.

We do know that Johnson looks to classic whodunits for inspiration. Earlier this year, Johnson posted about working on the third film. “I love everything about whodunnits, but one of the things I love most is how malleable the genre is. There’s a whole tonal spectrum from Carr to Christie, and getting to explore that range is one of the most exciting things about making Benoit Blanc movies.” As always, there will be some red herrings and twists, so who knows what to expect.

Cast

The Knives Out franchise has adopted a reputation for having a cast jam-packed with fan-favorites. Daniel Craig will return as Benoit Blanc, the world-famous investigator who somehow finds himself surrounded by murder suspects. So far, Wake Up Dead Man includes Thanos himself Josh Brolin, Tortured Man Andrew Scott, That ’70s and That ’90s Show‘s Mila Kunis, tennis hopeful Josh O’Conner, Civil War‘s Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, Kerry Washington, and former Cruella, Glenn Close. There’s also a good chance that more stars will be added to the cast before the production begins this summer. Also plan to see a slew of impressive cameos.

It was also revealed that Jeremy Renner has joined the cast, though it’s not clear if he will portray a new character or himself, who already exists in Benoit Blanc’s world in the form of hot sauce.

Finally, we can at least hope for the return of Hugh Grant as Benoit’s possible romantic partner who loves to bake.

Release Date

Netflix is giving a very generous release date of “2025” so it could really be any time next year. But filming begins this summer and will likely wrap by the fall, so it’s likely that the third Knives Out will be released some time next summer or early fall.

You might remember that Glass Onion had a limited theatrical release a month before landing on Netflix, but due to its massive success, Netflix might opt for a longer release, though it has not been confirmed.

Trailer

Still no trailer quite yet, but feel free to study this clip for clues:

You can catch Glass Onion on Netflix, while the first Knives Out is available to rent on demand.

After years of killing it as an actor, Dev Patel got to kill it — and kill some bad guys — as a director.

Monkey Man is the Oscar nominee’s directorial debut. And what a debut! The action movie stars Patel as an unnamed man living in India who wears a gorilla mask in underground fights, befriends a dog, and gets revenge on the corrupt figures who killed his mom. There’s even a shirtless training montage in a hijra community. Soon you’ll be able to enjoy all that on streaming.

Monkey Man makes its streaming debut on Peacock on June 14.

Here’s the official synopsis:

Inspired by the legend of Hanuman, an icon embodying strength and courage, Monkey Man stars Patel as Kid, an anonymous young man who ekes out a meager living in an underground fight club where, night after night, wearing a gorilla mask, he is beaten bloody by more popular fighters for cash. After years of suppressed rage, Kid discovers a way to infiltrate the enclave of the city’s sinister elite. As his childhood trauma boils over, his scarred hands unleash an explosive campaign of retribution to settle the score with the men who took everything from him.

You can watch the trailer for Monkey Man below.

Mike Flanagan recently wrapped up his time with Netflix to move onto other projects including an Amazon TV deal. This closes the door on an incredible streaming TV run (including The Haunting Of Hill House, Midnight Mass, and The Fall Of The House Of Usher) and — as was the hope for fans of Flanagan’s ongoing Stephen King adaptation list — opened the door for a long-desired and worthy TV series adaptation of The Dark Tower.

Or not? Flanagan has already unveiled his vision for that series’ opening shot, and horror audiences know that he consistently delivers at or above expectations. Also, there is no shortage of Reddit threads in which fans of both King and Flanagan hope that The Dark Tower will happen sooner rather than later, but it sure does not look like the Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep director will have the free time to hop on more King in the near future (although The Life Of Chuck has finished filming and should soon reveal a release date).

Yup, The Dark Tower appears to be on the shelf again because Flanagan has signed on to revamp The Exorcist franchise for Blumhouse. Let’s talk about what we can expect from this collaboration:

Plot

Expect something different than what you’ve seen before, not only where The Exorcist is concerned by also on a Flanagan-trademark note. Obviously, more than 50 years after the release of the 1973 classic starring Linda Blair, Flanagan wants to add to the franchise rather than be a rehash. That adds up to a new story instead of redoing events that have unfolded already in the six existing films (including David Gordon Green’s 2023 effort, The Exorcist: Believer) or the short-lived TV series.

We can also rest assured — and The Fall Of The House Of Usher is the most recent example of this success — that Flanagan is a master at reimagining source material in ways that we never knew that we needed. Additionally, some of the plans revealed by Flanagan at this past weekend’s ATX Festival give hints of how this will be different from his usual vibe in a key way.

As relayed by Indiewire, do not expect heavy, Flanagan-esque monologuing or an easter-egg-filled approach in his The Exorcist reimagining:

“Part of what I said to Blumhouse and Universal when we were discussing this was I don’t think this is a monologue project. The ritual itself is something of a monologue, but we’ve seen that. We’ve seen somebody shout prayers at somebody. That was scary 50 years ago, I don’t see that working here.

“Younger audiences drive horror. That’s a fact. A lot of the audiences who will come see this likely haven’t seen the original, and aren’t going to be impressed by any allusions to that. So this isn’t really where you want to do the long monologues about religion.”

What else? Flanagan reminded the audience that he got his sermon-heavy show “out of my system” already with Midnight Mass, and for The Exorcist, “This should just be really scary.”

A few weeks ago, Flanagan also told Variety that his “radical new take” would not take any form of a sequel, and he’s “terrified” because he loves this franchise but will leap headfirst into this project:

“‘The Exorcist’ is one of the reasons I became a filmmaker, and it is an honor to have the chance to try something fresh, bold, and terrifying within its universe. Reuniting with my friends at Blumhouse, with whom I’ve made some of my favorite pieces of work, only makes this more exciting.”

Jason Blum feels likewise, and he declared, “Mike’s voice and vision are indispensable for horror fans and we are excited to welcome him back to Blumhouse. I immediately responded to Mike’s new take on the world of ‘The Exorcist’ and can’t wait for audiences to experience it.”

Cast

Zero concrete casting news has surfaced yet, but Flanagan has worked with an enormous rotation of frequent collaborators. So, there’s gotta be a role for Carla Gugino in this overhauled franchise. It’s also likely that we could see Kate Siegel, Mark Harmon, Annabeth Gish, Rahul Kohli, Samantha Sloyan, and/or Katie Parker. Oooh, let’s have some Willa Fitzgerald in this franchise, please? And do not sleep on how well Hamish Linklater can do the priest thing.

Release Date

Blumhouse hasn’t forecast a release date yet, but there appears to be no reason that Flanagan — who seems to deliver something spooky every damn Halloween season — couldn’t have a film ready by fall 2025.

Trailer

No dice yet! But last year, 1973’s The Exorcist received a 4K release, preceded by the below trailer.

What do you need these days in order to make a successful blockbuster film? It’s not an award-winning cast or billions of dollars. In order to get people to see your movie in theaters, it needs to star at least one freaky little guy, who is often not little.

For Dune, it was the worms. In Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, it was, obviously, Godzilla himself. And now, the worm and Zilly are joined by VENOM HORSE, the next great movie star of 2024.

The trailer for Venom: The Last Dance dropped today, and it features Venom (the voice of Tom Hardy) back and better than ever, living in harmony alongside Eddie Brock (the body of Tom Hardy), but their time together might be nearing its end.

In addition to the action-packed first look (and Hardy wearing both crocs and cowboy boots), the trailer also shows the debut of Venom Horse, a new iteration of the alien, featuring his signature long tongue. It’s enough to make this movie worth it no matter what it’s about.

Obviously, the people are loving Venom Horse:

Just wait until the eventual spinoff, Venom Dog!

Here’s more on Venom: The Last Dance:

In Venom: The Last Dance, Tom Hardy returns as Venom, one of Marvel’s greatest and most complex characters, for the final film in the trilogy. Eddie and Venom are on the run. Hunted by both of their worlds and with the net closing in, the duo are forced into a devastating decision that will bring the curtains down on Venom and Eddie’s last dance.

Venom: The Last Dance hits theaters on October 25th. Check out the trailer below.

If Ryan Murphy makes another season of Feud, it should be about Tom Hanks and Henry Winkler. The actors, who fall into the rare category of Celebrities Who Seem Like Decent People (along with Keanu Reeves and Dolly Parton), haven’t gotten along since the 1980s. We’ve gotten bits and pieces of what happened over the years, but on a recent episode of the How to Fail podcast, Winker offered some more details about the feud.

Winkler was the original choice to direct Turner & Hooch, the 1989 buddy cop comedy starring “Pops” and this good boy. But he was fired and replaced by Roger Spottiswoode 13 days into production. “I did 11 weeks of preparation,” the Barry actor said, according to the New York Post. “I knew this dog, this slobbery mastiff and I became friends. The star did not become my friend.” When asked if he meant Hanks, Winkler added, “I probably do.”

So what the heck happened?

Before he was fired from the film, Winkler and Hanks had an interaction with a fan that Winkler believes caused a strain on their relationship.

“We were in Carmel, this little seaside wonderful town on the coast of California, looking for a location,” he said, “and a woman comes, honest to God, comes running out of a shop and says ‘Henry, Fonz! Oh, my god!’ and I say, ‘And of course you know Tom Hanks.’ The director of photography, when I was fired 13 days into filming said, ‘I knew that this was going to happen, on that day in Carmel.'”

The feud has supposedly been buried like a dog’s bone in the backyard, but I won’t believe it until Hanks casts Winkler in Toy Story 5. If he voices the villain, then we’ll know they’re still at it.

You can listen to the podcast below.

(Via the New York Post)

There was a time before Robert Downey Jr. was a former Marvel icon-turned Oscar winner, if you can even believe it. The actor has starred in plenty of movies over the years, but none of them highlight the beauty of dysfunctional families quite like Jodie Foster‘s Home For The Holidays.

Foster directed the classic 1995 family drama, which starred a young RDJ as Holly Hunter’s younger brother Jack and Dylan McDermott as Jack’s friend Leo who arrives for the holidays. In Variety‘s recent “Actors on Actors” series, the two colleagues chatted about their on-set experience 30+ years ago.

The Iron Man actor asked Foster if she remembers putting the two young actors “in check” during rehearsals, which Downey described as “so out of control.” She didn’t, but that’s because she’s a professional!

Foster explained, “I don’t [remember]. But I was used to working with children, so that’s something I do well. I say to them, ‘If you move, I’m going to step on your foot really hard.'” There is nothing like the light threat of violence to ensure child actors that they do their jobs. The best part is that Downey Jr was actually 29 at the time, a full-grown adult. But that’s showbiz!

She continued, “You have a big mouth and a crazy mind that loves the freedom of being in the moment, which is not who I am, but who I wish to be—somebody that’s free like you.”

Despite his on-set behavior, Downey still had a great experience with Foster. At the time, he was in his late twenties and was no stranger to Hollywood. “I was pretty out of my mind the whole time we were shooting, but I remember it feeling like one of the most relaxed performances in the history of cinema,” he said. It’s a stark contrast (get it??) to his most recent role as the least-relaxed man in the history of the world.

(Via Variety)

USA Network’s Suits aired its last episode in September 2019. Nearly four years later, the Meghan Markle-starring series became a streaming sensation on Netflix, which will finally soon be including the show’s ninth season in its back library. Additionally, a continuation series, Suits LA, has been fast-tracked by NBCUniversal with a new cast and entirely unfamiliar crop of characters. Now, however, viewers also want to know whether a movie will happen with the original cast, and it sounds like they are game.

At least, Patrick J. Adams (who portrayed Mike Ross) indicated as much when quizzed during this last week’s ATX Television Festival. Adams admitted that he “has no power or authority” over whether a movie might happen, but if it does, then “yes,” he is totally “down.” He continued via Entertainment Weekly:

“Obviously there’s the Suits: LA show that is being made, that is the focus of Aaron, I think he would agree, but it’s definitely something he’s interested in doing in trying to get the band back together. It’s going to depend on a million things if that can happen, but is it possible? I think it is possible.”

Well, the audience would be there, and several of Adams’ ex-co-stars (including Sarah Rafferty, Amanda Schull, Dulé Hill, Abigail Spencer) were also on hand and presumably game. No Gabriel Macht in attendance? That’s right. However, Adams can also soon be seen in an upcoming Netflix series called Lockerbie, which is described as follows (via Deadline):

Lockerbie will focus on the investigation into the crash on both sides of the Atlantic and the devastating effect it had on the small town and the families who lost loved ones. From the initial exhaustive search for evidence on the ground in Scotland, via the U.S. and Malta to the trial at Camp Zeist in 2000, the drama takes us right up to the most recent indictment at the end of 2022.

Lockerbie doesn’t have a release date yet, but 2025 is likely.

(Via EW)

Spock would never. Zachary Quinto (Heroes, NOS4A2, Star Trek franchise) has been told not to return to a trendy eatery after allegedly pulling a James Corden. Manita, a self-described “mediterranean-ish bistro” in Toronto, straight-up tagged Quinto following a Sunday encounter that apparently turned brunch into a tear-fest.

“Zachary Quinto — an amazing Spock, but a terrible customer,” the restaurant posted in an Instagram story. “Yelled at our staff like an entitled child after he didn’t reply to two texts to inform him that his table was ready and refused to believe the empty tables in the dining room weren’t available for him despite being politely informed they were spoken for.”

The incident reportedly grew tense and emotional: “Made our host cry and the rest of our brunch diners uncomfortable. Mr. Quinto, take your bad vibes somewhere else, we have many lovely celebrities join us at Manita but you are NOT one of them.”

On Monday morning, Manita’s social media team decided to immortalize the fleeting “story” moment in a full-on Instagram post, too.

Quinto hasn’t yet publicly commented on the accusations. He did, however, celebrate his 47th birthday on Sunday while allegedly being a total grump. And there’s no way that he did so while eating the below shakshuka. That’s the face of a god in a skillet right there. Grumping is simply not possible while enjoying this, but reportedly (and on a more serious note), Quinto will not be indulging in this heavenly Manita dish in the future.

(Via Manita on Instagram)

If Miley Cyrus never acts again, her big-screen filmography will be bookended by movies directed by Tim Burton (Big Fish) and one of the Coen brothers (Drive-Away Dolls). Not many people can say that! But the former Hannah Montana star, who was living the best of both worlds (acting and singing) until she decided to focus on the latter, is interested in returning to Hollywood.

“I would like to act again,” Miley told W Magazine. “But the role would really need to be right, since it’s kind of hard for people to see past me and buy into a character. The character would either need to be an extension of myself, or someone — or something — with a personality that can conquer my own. I would need a character that is bigger than me.”

So… probably not a sequel to LOL (IJBOL?)

Cyrus also discussed a fax she received from her godmother Dolly Parton. “I literally have to access my lawyer’s office, because the lawyer is the only person who can still receive a fax,” she said. “Dolly wrote to me to say: ‘How much do I love you? As much as my heart can hold and as far as my arms can reach.’ It gets me choked up. I just love her so much. Last Christmas, she gave me a whole mannequin, done in her proportions and wearing her outfit. It’s so major.” A 9 to 5 remake starring Miley Cyrus isn’t the worst idea, actually.

(Via W Magazine)

Godzilla Minus One, one of the best movies of 2023 (and maybe the best Godzilla movie since the 1954 original), is now streaming on Netflix.

The streaming release came with no advance notice on Saturday which IndieWire notes is “very unusual” for Netflix: “That suggests the contractual agreement between Toho and Legendary Pictures (the producers of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire), which called for delayed availability for the Japanese title, specifically set June 1 as the earliest for home release.”

We’re living in a golden age of ‘Zilla.

Godzilla Minus One, which is directed Takashi Yamazaki and stars Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Yuki Yamada, Munetaka Aoki, Hidetaka Yoshioka, Sakura Ando, and Kuranosuke Sasaki, was a surprise box office sensation, earning over $115 million worldwide on a reported $15 million budget. It’s also the first Godzilla film to win an Oscar, taking home Best Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards. He even wore a little bowtie.

“We looked at a lot of different Godzillas throughout the years and as a team we wanted to get the essence of what we thought most actually represented what Godzilla is about,” Yamazaki said at the ceremony. “Godzilla, if you trace back to its origins, is a symbol of terror, war and nuclear power. I wanted to make sure that when audiences saw Godzilla, that fear would be instilled on them.”

Godzilla Minus One is streaming on Netflix now.

Every single week, our TV and film experts will list the most important ten streaming selections for you to pop into your queues. We’re not strictly operating upon reviews or accrued streaming clicks (although yes, we’ve scoured the streaming site charts) but, instead, upon those selections that are really worth noticing amid the churning sea of content. There’s a lot out there, after all, and your time is valuable.

10. Challengers (MGM movie on VOD & Amazon)

Luca Guadagnino excels at serving up sensual subject matter that stokes several varieties of tension at once (that poor peach) while masterfully declining to deliver the expected outcome of those tantalizing teases. This intense sports drama did, intentionally of course, earn the reputation of being Zendaya’s “threesome” movie although the movie doesn’t actually contain a threesome scene. The cast, however, is phenomenal with the leading trio including Art (Mike Faist), whose rivalry with Patrick (Josh O’Connor) is reignited after the former gets the lady. That lady would be Tashi, who is a force of controlling nature and suffers the most gut-wrenching tennis injury shown onscreen but doesn’t let that dampen her explosive potential.

9. Outer Range (Prime Video/Amazon series)

Josh Brolin has returned to the role that his entire career has been building towards: Royal Abbott, the grumpy-ass, time-traveling rancher whose little world got shaken up by the arrival of the mysterious Autumn (Imogen Poots), but is she good or bad chaotic? You will see. Meanwhile, Deputy Sheriff Joy (Tamara Podemski)’s entire worldview gets turned upside down as she becomes a larger piece of this mystical puzzle woven by that Void. The season ends with even more questions than which it began, so here’s to hoping for a third-season renewal.

8. Civil War (A24 movie on VOD & Amazon)

Alex Garland’s final directorial effort (for the foreseeable future) scored well for A24 at the box office and is popping on the VOD charts, too. Eventually, the movie will hit Max as part of the streamer’s agreement with the indie production house, but perhaps a certain set of trending subjects on Twitter/X will send this frightening movie — starring Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, and an unsettling Jesse Plemons — into even more home theaters over the next few weeks. Stay tuned there.

7. Bodkin (Netflix series)

Will Forte headlines in this series that got steamrolled (attention wise) by Baby Reindeer and Bridgerton‘s popularity, but this first dramatic TV series effort from Higher Ground (Michelle and Barack Obama’s production house) deserves a circle-back approach if you have the viewing bandwidth. Those who adore Only Murders In The Building will love this Irish spin on podcasters taking on detective roles in this series created by Jen Scharf. The show will never displace Only Murders, but this new show crackles with dark humor and also stars Siobhán Cullen and Robyn Cara.

6. Baby Reindeer (Netflix series)

This show simply will not stop riding the top of Netflix’s charts, and surely, creator, writer, and star Richard Gadd never expected to land on the all-time Top 10 list, which is due to happen pretty damn soon. In other words, watch out Bridgerton, Stranger Things, and Wednesday. Meanwhile, Gadd is moving past the trauma of his past to work on his next project, Lions, in which he will not star but will still no doubt compel viewers. If you haven’t caught Baby Reindeer yet, know that it’s an intense and stressful watch, and it’s not exactly a true-crime series, but the public’s fascination with the based-on-real-life story could arguably qualify it as such.

5. Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies, And Scandal (Netflix documentary)

Nine years ago, a still-unidentified group known as the Impact Team hacked the infamous cheating website and released the email addresses and personal information of millions of subscribers. The collateral damage was immense, and that includes plenty of divorces and even a death as detailed in this series. The most heavily featured case of this season involves married Christian vlogging couple Sam and Nia Rader, who found their lives upended a number of times due to an unending supply of lies by Sam, and they’re one of the “luckier” pairs among the hacking subjects.

4. Under The Bridge ( Hulu series)

Riley Keough unpacked the finale of this limited series for UPROXX this week, and this series also lands on our list of Best True Crime shows. The limited series adapts Rebecca Godfrey’s (portrayed by Keough) book about her efforts to track down a murder whose heinous acts wreaked havoc on a small Canadian town. Lily Gladstone portrays a cop also on the search for justice for a missing girl’s family. A little bit of True Detective vibes adds more fuel for a show with heavy subject matter that propels itself like the two lead investigators do: with dogged determination.

3. Tires (Netflix series)

A second season is already on the way for this very differently-located workplace comedy starring Shane Gillis. The comedian portrays a cousin, coworker, and thorn in the side of Will (Steven Gerben), who has inherited his father’s auto-repair business and is struggling to make it work. The show somehow managed to stand out as an example of counterprogramming amid a sea of Bridgerton seasons dominating Netflix at present.

2. Bridgerton (Netflix series)

Somehow, this series has never been hotter with Netflix racking up endless rewatches of the first two seasons and the Queen Charlotte spin off. Thus far, the first half of the season has delivered on the Carriage Scene promise, but what will come in the next four episodes? Shondaland will not disappoint viewers who adore seeing Penelope Featherington and Colin Bridgerton together, but the Lady Whistledown secret lingers over the entire show.

1. Hacks (Max series)

The tables have truly turned between Ava and Deborah after the final moments of the season showed that the 20-something writer has learned the best and worst methods of her mentor. Max already renewed for a fourth season after this series hit its highest viewership numbers over the past month, and Deborah has suddenly been informed that Ava is really and truly her match. Let the delicious chaos and fallout flow.

Netflix’s streaming service is a content library filled with blockbusters and indie darlings, but a good amount of those come courtesy of the streaming giant itself. Netflix’s original films are stacked with sci-fi action epics and sports comedies, and Oscar-winning aueteur entries. So, to whittle down the smorgasbord of choices, we’ve rounded up the best Netflix feature-length creations that deserve to be added to your queue.

You can see the full list of the best Netflix original movies below:

Last updated on May 31, 2024.

30: TIE. Luther: The Fallen Sun

Year: 2023
Cast: Idris Elba, Cynthia Erivo, Andy Serkis
Genre: Crime, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 129 minutes
Director: Jamie Payne
Trailer: Watch here

Idris Elba returns as the brilliant but troubled copper, John Luther, in this thrilling mystery from Netflix. Would it help to know Luther’s disgraced-detective origins via the BBC drama? Sure. But just jumping straight into this cat-and-mouse game between the on-the-run anti-hero and Andy Serkis’ twisted serial killer might also be a hell of a lot of fun.

Watch it on Netflix

30: TIE. Set It Up

Year: 2018
Cast: Glen Powell, Zoey Deutch
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Rating: TV-14
Runtime: 105 minutes
Director: Claire Scanlon
Trailer: Watch here

Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell star in this office rom-com with a bit of a twist. Instead of the two young co-stars falling in love, it’s Deutch and Powell who try to set up their overbearing, workaholic bosses with each other so that they can get a break from their demanding jobs. Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs play the employers from hell, and Deutch and Powell put themselves through the paces to make the pair fall in love, and to make us laugh. It’s superficial, it’s cute, and it’s proof that Glen Powell has always been charming.

Watch it on Netflix

29. Spaceman

Year: 2024
Cast: Adam Sandler, Carey Mulligan
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 108 minutes
Director: Johan Renck
Trailer: Watch here

Adam Sandler’s Netflix partnership keeps taking new turns, even if we still haven’t seen a Hubie Halloween 2. The humanity! However, this film takes Sandler back into dramatic mode as an astronaut who is attempting to fix his marriage from the depths of the solar system, and somehow, a creature hiding inside his ship decides to help him. Wait, what? The story is based upon Spaceman of Bohemia, the novel by Jaroslav Kalfař. Additionally, Carey Mulligan portrays Sandler’s movie wife, and Paul Dano voices the creature. Yes, it’s bizarre, but that’s part of why this film works.

Watch it on Netflix

28. Leave The World Behind

Year: 2023
Cast: Julia Roberts, Mahershala Ali, Ethan Hawke
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 138 minutes
Director: Sam Esmail
Trailer: Watch here

Directed by Mr. Robot creator Sam Esmail and starring everyone from Julia Roberts and Mahershala Ali to Ethan Hawke and Kevin Bacon, this mind-bending sci-fi flick — adapted from a best-selling novel of the same name — poses an eerily realistic what-if scenario that follows two families reckoning with a societal collapse. A white couple from New York City (Roberts and Hawke) rent a gorgeous home on Long Island only for their vacation to be interrupted by their Air BnB’s Black owners, who arrive just as strange events begin to wreak havoc on their idyllic paradise.

Watch it on Netflix

27. Eurovision Song Contest: A Song of Ice and Fire

Year: 2020
Cast: Rachel McAdams, Will Ferrell, Dan Stevens
Genre: Comedy, Musical
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 123 minutes
Director: David Dobkin
Trailer: Watch here

Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams take on the planet’s most-watched singing competition with this campy comedy about an Icelandic duo named Fire Saga, who are set on achieving glory on the world’s biggest stage. Ferrell and McAdams play Lars Erickssong and Sigrit Ericksdottir, artists chosen to represent their nation in the Eurovision Song Contest, a real competition that features musicians from all over the world, who are often performing in wild get-ups. Dan Stevens almost steals the show while Pierce Brosnan and Demi Lovato make appearances. We’re calling it now: “Volcano Man” is going to be a bop for the ages.

Watch it on Netflix

26. Good Grief

Year: 2023
Cast: Dan Levy, Ruth Negga, Himesh Patel
Genre: Drama, Romance
Rating: R
Runtime: 100 minutes
Director: Dan Levy
Trailer: Watch here

Schitt’s Creek creator Dan Levy writes, directs, and stars in this melancholoy drama of love lost that’s as far removed from his cult Canadian comedy as you can get. Here, Levy plays Marc, an artist whose author-husband (Luke Evans) unexpectedly dies, forcing Marc to confront some harsh hidden truths about their relationship. It will either make you want to cry, or make you want to go to Paris. Probably both.

Watch it on Netflix

25. The Old Guard

Year: 2020
Cast: Charlize Theron, Kiki Layne, Marwan Kenzari
Genre: Action, Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 125 minutes
Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood
Trailer: Watch here

Charlize Theron heads up this inventive action flick based on a best-selling graphic novel. Theron plays Andy, the leader of a covert group of immortal mercenaries who’ve lived centuries in the shadows, fighting off the worst of humankind. When they’re group is exposed, and their abilities come to light, Theron and her team face a new threat, one hoping to weaponize their powers for their own gain. In case you needed any more proof that Theron is one of the best action stars of a generation, her fairly wild fight scenes here should leave you convinced.

Watch it on Netflix

24. Damsel

Year: 2024
Cast: Millie Bobby Brown
Genre: Drama, Fantasy
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 109 minutes
Director: Juan Carlos Fresnadillo
Trailer: Watch here

Another Netflix fave, Millie Bobby Brown, kicks some dragon (and royalty) ass after discovering that she’s marrying a prince whose family decides to sacrifice her to a dragon as part of an enormously screwed-up ritual. This twisted fairy tale arrives in conjunction with Evelyn Skye’s novel (based on the film), and both prioritize world building, even if being slightly predictable while doing so.

Watch it on Netflix

23. Do Revenge

Year: 2022
Cast: Maya Hawke, Camila Mendes, Austin Abrams
Genre: Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: 118 minutes
Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
Trailer: Watch here

Maya Hawke and Camila Mendes star in this teen comedy filled with cheeky winks to the genre’s early aughts classics. Mendes plays Drea, a popular student at an elite private school whose reputation is trashed after her boyfriend (Euphoria’s Austin Abrams) leaks an intimate video of her. She seeks revenge and enlists the help of the school’s new girl Eleanor (Hawke) who undergoes a makeover to infiltrate the popular clique Drea once belonged to and destroy them from the inside. Come for the “Glenn-ergy” of it all, stay for the plot twist near the film’s end.

Watch it on Netflix

22. May December

Year: 2023
Cast: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 117 minutes
Director: Todd Haynes
Trailer: Watch here

Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore tensely circle each other for nearly two hours in this drama based on the real-life scandal of a teacher who abused, then married, her underaged student. Moore plays the educator, now wife to Charles Melton’s emotionally stunted Joe while Portman plays an actress, visiting the couple in order to better understand her character — who is modeled after Moore’s. It’s all very meta with some bizarrely timed musical interludes, but it’s a fascinating watch all the same.

Watch it on Netflix

21. Pain Hustlers

Year: 2023
Cast: Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Andy Garcia, Catherine O’Hara
Genre: Crime, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 143 minutes
Director: David Yates
Trailer: Watch here

Between Hulu’s Dopesick and Netflix’s Painkillers, audiences are well-versed in the beginnings of the opioid epidemic — at least, on screen. But this account, based on another true story of a pharma company gone corrupt boasts a spectacular performance by Emily Blunt that excuses its predictable ending. Blunt plays a struggling single mom who’s offered a drug rep job by Evans’ smarmy pharmaceutical exec. The two are so good at peddling their bullsh*t, that they’re able to convince doctors to write enough prescriptions for a new fast-acting opioid that ends up saving the company and making them rich. But when people start dying and her bosses start cutting corners, Blunt’s Liza Drake becomes so disillusioned with the get-rich-quick scheme, that she decides to burn it down from the inside.

Watch it on Netflix

20. The Good Nurse

Year: 2022
Cast: Jessica Chastain, Eddie Redmayne
Genre:Drama, Crime
Rating: R
Runtime: 121 minutes
Director: Tobias Lindholm
Trailer: Watch here

This unnerving drama, based on the true story of a serial killing nurse, will leave you wary of ever stepping foot inside a hospital, but the trade-off is some fantastic performances from Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne. Chastain plays a single mom with a heart condition trying to hide her illness while on the clock. Redmayne plays her fellow nurse, a shy, soft-spoken man with a shady past who looks out for her, even as he’s murdering perfectly health patients in their sleep.

Watch it on Netflix

19. Windfall

Year: 2022
Cast: Jesse Plemons, Jason Segel, Lily Collins
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 92 minutes
Director: Charlie McDowell
Trailer: Watch here

Jason Segel plays a bumbling burglar in this twisty thriller starring Lily Collins and Jesse Plemons. Plemons plays a wealthy tech CEO, Collins his unhappy wife. The two make a last-minute trip to their vacation home where they encounter Segel’s character who’s in the process of robbing it. He decides to hold them for ransom and, while waiting for the money to be delivered, extracts harsh truths from both. It’s a ridiculous, tense ride that hinges on Plemons being totally unlikable (he is here) and Collins being the unexpected MVP of the story.

Watch it on Netflix

18. The Platform

Year: 2019
Cast: Ivan Massagué, Zorion Eguileor, Antonia San Juan
Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: 94 minutes
Director: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia
Trailer: Watch here

This Spanish-language sci-fi flick is all kinds of f*cked up, but in the best way. The film is set in a large, tower-style “Vertical Self-Management Center” where the residents, who are periodically switched at random between floors, are fed by a platform, initially filled with food, that gradually descends through the levels. Conflicts arise when inmates at the top begin eating all the food, leaving the people lower down to fight for survival.

Watch it on Netflix

17. Gerald’s Game

Year: 2017
Cast: Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood
Genre: Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 103 minutes
Director: Mike Flanagan
Trailer: Watch here

Stephen King’s 1992 novel transpires mostly in one isolated lake house’s bedroom where its protagonist, Jessie, lies bound to a bed after her husband dies in the midst of a sex game. That makes it a tough story to film, which may explain why it took 25 years to get turned into a movie. But the wait was worth it: director Mike Flanagan delivers a resourceful, disturbing adaptation anchored by a great Carla Gugino performance (with some fine supporting work from Bruce Greenwood). Forced to find a way out of her situation, while confronting her own past, Gugino’s Jessie is made to go to extremes, which leads to, among other things, one of the squirmiest scenes in recent memory.

Watch it on Netflix

16. The Devil All The Time

Year: 2020
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, Sebastian Stan,
Genre: Crime, Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 138 minutes
Director: Antonio Campos
Trailer: Watch here

This time-hopping drama set in the backwoods of West Virginia is basically an excuse for director Antonio Campos to assemble his own Avengers-style squad of Hollywood A-listers. Seriously, everyone’s in this movie: Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Bill Skarsgård, Eliza Scanlen, Sebastian Stan, Mia Wasikowska, Riley Keough, Jason Clarke, Haley Bennett, that kid who played Dudley in the Harry Potter franchise. The whole gang’s living in shacks and picking up hitchhikers, only to murder them later and speaking in tongues and falling victim to generational trauma. It’s a heavy watch, and there’s not really a happy ending, but boy does Pattinson deliver a batsh*t crazy turn as a perverted preacher.

Watch it on Netflix

15. The Killer

Year: 2023
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton
Genre: Thriller, Crime
Rating: R
Runtime: 118 minutes
Director: David Fincher
Trailer: Watch here

David Fincher directs this understated crime drama which sees a stoic Michael Fassbender playing a professional hitman off his game. Fassbender’s killer is methodical when it comes to his job, obsessive about his routines and clean with his executions but a near-miss throws his carefully-cultivated existence into chaos, forcing him to battle his shadowy bosses in order to stay alive.

Watch it on Netflix

14. Hunger

Year: 2023
Cast: Nopachai Chaiyanam, Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying, Gunn Svasti Na Ayudhya
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: 146 minutes
Director: Sitisiri Mongkolsiri
Trailer: Watch here

Thai filmmaker Sitisiri Mongkolsiri gives us his version of The Menu with this deliciously tense, inexplicably-eerie restaurant thriller. Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying plays Ayo, a young woman working at her family’s noodle shop who dreams of more. She gets it after scoring a job with a dictator-like food auteur in Nopachai Chaiyanam’s Chef Paul. Paul is uncompromising and abusive and Ayo subjects herself to that abuse in order to climb an imaginary ladder but, once she reaches the top, the view looks grim.

Watch it on Netflix

13. Okja

Year: 2017
Cast: Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Jake Gyllenhaal
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: 120 minutes
Director: Bong Joon Ho
Trailer: Watch here

Bong Joon-Ho’s send-up of corporate farming and environmental abuses isn’t subtle. Tilda Swinton goes all-out as the CEO of an evil corporation only to be outdone by Jake Gyllenhaal’s broad turn as an unstable TV host. But its tale of an endearing, genetically modified “super pig” and the girl who loves him is effective and contains both some terrific action set pieces and the most affecting child/strange beast relationship this side of E.T.

Watch it on Netflix

12. Hustle

Year: 2022
Cast: Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah, Ben Foster, Juancho Hernangómez
Genre: Sports, Comedy
Rating: R
Runtime: 117 minutes
Director: Jeremiah Zagar
Trailer: Watch here

Adam Sandler has plenty of comedy favorites housed on Netflix, but we’re highlighting this one because Sandler gets to channel his everyman charm in a sports story that lets his comedic sensibilities control the game. He plays Stanley Sugerman, an aging 76ers scout, who discovers a potential NBA star during a pick-up game in Spain. Stanley risks his career and his family’s future to back the unknown player, eventually squaring off against his old boss and confronting his own troubled past to help someone else achieve their dreams on the court.

Watch it on Netflix

11. The King

Year: 2021
Cast: Timothee Chalamet, Joel Edgerton, Robert Pattinson
Genre: Historical, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 140 minutes
Director: Joel Edgerton
Trailer: Watch here

Timothee Chalamet is everywhere right now so really, are you that surprised he’s playing a boyish, rebellious King Henry V in this big-budget Shakespeare adaptation from Joel Edgerton? Chalamet and his bowl-cut bring Hal to life, the wayward prince forced to assume the throne after his father’s death. Hal has to grow up quickly to lead his men into battle against a bloodthirsty French foe (Robert Pattinson having too much fun with his overdramatic accent) and preserve England’s reign. It’s all medieval warfare and political intrigue and it’s held up by Chalamet who stands out — even amongst a stellar supporting cast.

Watch it on Netflix

10. I’m Thinking of Ending Things

Year: 2020
Cast: Jessie Buckley, Jesse Plemons, David Thewlis, Toni Collette
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 134 minutes
Director: Charlie Kaufman
Trailer: Watch here

Charlie Kaufman’s latest film is based on a book of the same name and stars Chernobyl’s Jessie Buckley as a young woman meeting her boyfriend’s parents for the first time — which normally would be a happy event except she’s secretly been planning to break up the with the guy. That guy is Jesse Plemons, who seems to be in everything these days, and along with Toni Collette and David Thewlis who play his parents, they make for hellish dinner mates. There’s a sinister vibe permeating everything about this straightforward plot so if you think you know how this ends, let us be the first to tell you: You don’t have a clue.

Watch it on Netflix

9. Bo Burnham: Inside

Year: 2021
Cast: Bo Burnham
Genre: Comedy, Music
Rating: TV-MA
Runtime: 86 minutes
Director: Bo Burnham
Trailer: Watch here

Bo Burnham distills our collective quarantined experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, writing, directing, starring in, composing, and editing this bleak-yet-hilarious bit of performance art that might be the most exciting, inventive thing we’ve seen yet. Is it a movie, a stand-up routine, or a comedy special? We really don’t know, but it’s damn funny so we’re putting it on this list. The self-deprecating humor and catchy tunes are here of course, but Burnham goes darker, crafting complete bangers about everything from the white savior complex to cancel culture, toxic masculinity, depression, and global economic inequality.

Watch it on Netflix

8. Triple Frontier

Year: 2019
Cast: Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Pedro Pascal, Charlie Hunnam
Genre: Action, Crime
Rating: R
Runtime: 125 minutes
Director: J.C. Chandor
Trailer: Watch here

This Netflix original heist thriller stars a whos-who of Hollywood hunks. Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, and Pedro Pascal play a group of former special ops bros who reunite to take down an infamous cartel kingpin and steal his profits in the process. Isaac and Affleck look to be the leaders of the team, two men fed up with risking their necks for a country that doesn’t look after them once they’re back on home soil, and Isaac’s A Most Violent Year director J.C. Chandor is at the helm, which means a couple of plot twists and some high stakes action are in store.

Watch it on Netflix

7. Society of the Snow

Year: 2023
Cast: Enzo Vogrincic, Agustín Pardella, Esteban Bigliardi
Genre: Drama, Biography
Rating: R
Runtime: 144 minutes
Director: J.A. Bayona
Trailer: Watch here

This Oscar-nominated survival drama tells the true story of a Uruguayan rugby football team on their way to a match in Chile before their flight crash-landed in the Andes mountains. The group, cut off from civilization with no hope of rescue, fights to survive the arctic conditions of the winter months — a seemingly impossible tasks that pushes each player to the limits of their own humanity.

Watch it on Netflix

6. Da 5 Bloods

Year: 2020
Cast: Delroy Lindo, Chadwick Boseman, Jonathan Majors
Genre: War, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 154 minutes
Director: Spike Lee
Trailer: Watch here

Any Spike Lee joint is worth a watch, but this genre-bending thriller about a group of black Vietnam War vets returning to the battlefield decades later feels especially timely. That’s because Lee manages to shed light on a little-known part of our shared history: the way our country treated Black soldiers returning from the war, but he also raises the stakes with a subplot that includes a buried treasure hunt and a heartwrenching mission to retrieve the remains of a fallen comrade. The cast, which includes Black Panther’s Chadwick Boseman in one of his final roles, is brilliant, the story is gripping, and the direction is top notch.

Watch it on Netflix

5. Extraction 2

Year: 2023
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Adam Bessa, Golshifteh Farahani
Genre: Action, Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 122 minutes
Director: Sam Hargrave
Trailer: Watch here

Chris Hemsworth returns as retired mercenary Tyler Rake in this sequel that ramps up the action to unbelievable — and frankly, dangerous — new levels. After barely surviving his last mission, Rake is tasked with extracting the sister of his ex-wife, along with her two children, from a high-security prison. Things go awry, naturally, leading to violent mob showdowns and explosions and helicopters landing on top of high-speed trains. It’s nerve-frying stuff and it all proves that Hemsworth really is the best action hero of his generation.

Watch it on Netflix

4. Roma

Year: 2018
Cast: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 135 minutes
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Trailer: Watch here

Academy Award-winning writer/director Alfonso Cuaron delivers what may be his most personal film to date. The stunningly-shot black-and-white film is an ode to Cuaron’s childhood and a love letter to the women who raised him. Following the journey of a domestic worker in 1970s Mexico City named Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), the movie interweaves tales of personal tragedy and triumph amidst a backdrop of political upheaval and unrest.

Watch it on Netflix

3. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Year: 2022
Cast: Daniel Craig, Kathryn Hahn, Janelle Monae, Dave Bautista, Edward Norton
Genre: Comedy, Mystery, Crime
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 140 minutes
Director: Rian Johnson
Trailer: Watch here

Rian Johnson delivers a deliriously fun follow-up to his breakout 2019 murder mystery with Daniel Craig returning to play famed detective Benoit Blanc. This time around, Blanc, equipped with a colorful new wardrobe and his same slow, Southern drawl, heads to Greece to investigate a murder amongst a group of friends reuniting for an island holiday. Most of the culprits are out-of-touch elites — to the nth degree — with stars like Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, and Edward Norton playing supermodels, Twitch streamers, politicians, and tech moguls who are as ridiculous as they are corrupt.

Watch it on Netflix

2. The Irishman

Year: 2019
Cast: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci
Genre: Biography, Crime
Rating: R
Runtime: 209 minutes
Director: Martin Scorsese
Trailer: Watch here

Martin Scorsese delivers another cinematic triumph, this time for Netflix and with the help of some familiar faces. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino team up (again) for this crime drama mostly based on a true story. De Niro plays Frank Sheeran a World War II vet who finds work as a hitman for the mob. Pacino plays notorious Teamster Jimmy Hoffa, a man who frequently found himself on the wrong side of the law and the criminals he worked with. The film charts the pair’s partnership over the years while injecting some historical milestones for context. It’s heavy and impressively cast and everything you’d expect a Scorsese passion project to be, with some interesting de-aging CGI that does its best to show the scope of Scorsese’s storytelling.

Watch it on Netflix

1. All Quiet on the Western Front

Year: 2022
Cast: Daniel Brühl, Felix Kammerer, Albrecht Schuch
Genre: War, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 148 minutes
Director: Edward Berger
Trailer: Watch here

Sometimes the best argument against war is to show it fully, in all its brutality and heartbreak, and inevitable devastation. That’s what this film does well, following the story of a young, idealistic German boy who enlists to serve his country during World War I — and its nine Oscar nominations are proof of that. Instead of finding glory and honor on the battlefield, he and his friends witness unimaginable horrors while struggling to survive in a wasteland created by man’s greed and insatiable appetite for violence.

Watch it on Netflix

Everyone knows that Snoop Dogg’s best friend is Martha Stewart since they do just about everything together. But Martha has been busy with her other friends lately, so now Matthew McConaughey is using this pre-Yellowstone time to swoop in on Snoop to re-establish their friendship…by making himself look cool in front of his son.

McConaughey posted a video to Instagram showing off his new Death Row Records chain that his pal Snoop Dogg gave him. While it’s not the same type of chain that his dog counterpart named Bow wears, but it’pretty close!

In the video, McConaughey is seen showing off his new look while in front of a Snoop record. “Snoop, I mean are you reading my mail or am I reading yours?” He said. Reading someone else’s mail is a federal offense, by the way. But it’s fine.

While it might seem like an unlikely pair (not as unlikely as his other friendships), the two became fast friends after starring together in 2019’s stoner comedy The Beach Bum, and the rapper has had nothing but kind words to say about the actor.

“It’s magic,” Mr. Dogg told Jimmy Kimmel in 2019. “I think certain people in life are meant for each other. I think me and Matthew were meant for each other. It’s supposed to be,” Snoop added. Martha Stewart could not be reached for comment.

(Via Billboard)

Let me transport you back to the year of 2015. Mad Max: Fury Road just revved the engines of action fans everywhere, revitalizing the once long-dormant franchise. There’s excitement about the world and characters from mastermind director George Miller and fans can’t wait for more. Fast forward a bit to September 1st, 2015 and fans are eagerly lining up to buy their blu-ray copies of Fury Road (trust me, I was one of them) and a hot new open-world video game that released on the same day:Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. The rest was history.

There was another video game that released that day though. One that flew under many people’s radar, including my own. That video game was Mad Max from Avalanche Studios, makers of the Just Cause franchise.

The game set out to immerse players into the revitalized world of Fury Road and presented a story that acted as a prequel of sorts to the film. Players would take control of Max Rockatansky, the last of the V8 interceptors, as he comes face to face with Scrotus, the son of warlord Immortan Joe from Fury Road. Left out in the wasteland for dead and without his trusty vehicle, players would guide Max and his companion Chumbucket through the open-world and build the “Magnum Opus”, a new deathbringer vehicle. Players would get to visit iconic locations from the series such as Gastown and The Bullet Farm, and even come into contact with characters that would appear in both Fury Road and Furiosa.

Mad Max stood out from other open world games at the time and allowed players to fully customize their car with various upgrades and defenses. Sure there was hand to hand combat evocative of the Batman: Arkham games, but Mad Max shined the brightest when it focused on vehicle combat. (The player vehicle “Deathbringer” allowed users to take out some of the game’s toughest enemies without ever leaving the driver’s seat.) But, even when you had to leave the Magnum Opus, the game was an absolute blast to play, scouring a barren wasteland for water and gasoline while laying waste to any unfortunate raider that got in your way.

Not only did the game give players the chance to live out all their wasteland fantasies but the game’s story also tied into Fury Road and Furiosa in meaningful ways. Avalanche Studios worked with series creator George Miller, using his input to make the game as authentic to the series as possible. As revealed in Blood, Sweat, and Chrome, a book about the making of Fury Road, Miller has a series bible of sorts about locations and characters and even had the story for Furiosa planned out from an early stage. Taking place before the events of Fury Road, the game explains Scrotus’ absence in that film as a result of his run-in with Max. The game also makes mention of the 40-day wasteland war that resulted in the death of Dementus, the tyrant that ran Gastown and attempted to conquer the entire wasteland. (This event would go on to be depicted in a pivotal segment of Furiosa, though it would play out a tad differently.) In fact, Furiosa even contains depictions of the characters Scrotus and Chumbucket (who gives Furiosa a shell of a vehicle that could have possibly been a proto-Magnum Opus).

So if the game sought to provide an authentic Mad Max experience with involvement from its creator, why has it been mostly forgotten, made effectively non-canon by the release of Furiosa? Why has George Miller gone on to say “It wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be?”

Many factors are at play here. For starters: the release date. Publisher Warner Bros. Interactive made the baffling decision to release it the same date as Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, the latest outing from video game auteur Hideo Kojima and the beloved Metal Gear series. This effectively buried Mad Max from many potential buyers. Avalanche Studios co-founder Christofer Sundberg said last week of the situation that “it was a hell of a great game, but released in a terrible release window, which we could not convince the publisher to do otherwise.”

Sundberg went on to elaborate that Mad Max featured a somewhat tumultuous development also saying “After the first year of development they realized that they had forced us to make a linear experience rather than the open world game we pitched. We threw away a year of work.” According to Sundberg then, there was an entirely different version of the game that fans never saw and that the publisher was unhappy with.

But the real irony of the whole situation is reflected in George Miller’s recent comments. In a recent interview he said that he would want to revisit a Mad Max video game if a creator such as Hideo Kojima would take on the project (though he goes on to admit he would never ask). Miller also expressed his disappointment in the 2015 game despite his team’s involvement. This interview feels like the punctuation point in the long saga of why Mad Max didn’t hit the mark.

Mad Max was a video game pulled in many different directions. A product from a studio that cut their teeth on open world experiences, a game that the publisher never seemed to want in the first place, and an external addition to a series by one of filmmaking’s greatest creators. Between conflicting visions and a release date going up against one of the most anticipated games of all time, it’s no surprise that Mad Max has been mostly forgotten by the gaming public. It’s a real shame though, because it adds depth to one of the greatest film franchises of all time, has some of the most exciting vehicular combat of any video game in recent memory, and features a unique barren wasteland not seen in many other post-apocalyptic games from a developer that knew what they were doing. Mad Max is everything great about Fury Road and Furiosa in video game form.

What is supposed to happen when you really want to resurrect a commercially successful action movie, but you already made a sequel? Turn it into a TV show, of course! It’s the next trend in television, and soon we will see TV adaptations of Dune, Legally Blonde and now Zack Snyder is using this fool-proof method to revisit the 2006 historical epic 300. This means we are just one step closer to a Sucker Punch reboot.

According to Variety, Snyder is set to direct and executive produce a new prequel series set before the events of 300. Deborah Snyder, who also served as an executive producer on the film, will also return. There is no streamer or network attached to the project just yet.

300 was based on the graphic novel of the same name by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley and starred a very sweaty Gerard Butler as King Leonidas I, who leads 300 Spartans into battle against 300,000 Persians. You can infer how they got the name from here.

The cast of the original movie included Lena Headey, David Wenham, and Dominic West, though none of them are expected to be involved. Snyder co-wrote the sequel 300: Rise Of An Empire in 2014, which much of the cast returned for.

While 300 was adapted from a book series, the plot is based on a real battle in the Greco-Persian Wars, so there are many adjacent stories to be told, perhaps one about 400 or maybe even 500 people. The options are virtually limitless.

(Via Variety)

With Memorial Day behind us and summer coming, we’re officially in grilling season, and no food brings as much joy as a delicious homemade burger. Yes, you can make the argument for carne asada or hot dogs but, you’d be wrong, burgers for the win! If you’ve attended any backyard BBQs, we’re willing to bet you’ve encountered a few bad burgers. Despite being one of the simplest foods to make, it’s incredibly easy to f*ck up a homemade burger.

Considering food prices are high and there are only so many excuses in the summer to get together with friends or family to grill, we don’t want you to have a bad burger. So to guide you into the absolute best way to grill a burger we tapped an absolute burger master, Chef Mike Johnson, for some tips.

Mike Johnson is the founder and main chef behind St. Louis Missouri’s Hi-Pointe Drive-In and has appeared on screen on a number of cooking-based shows, from Travel Channel’s Food Paradise to Beat Bobby Flay, and TLC’s BBQ Pitmaster. He’s also a certified burger champion, winning the World’s Best Burger award at the 2021 World Food Championship and has competed in several international burger and barbecue competitions around the world.

If that isn’t enough to convince you of Johnson’s bonafides, he has also fed Snoop Dogg bacon-wrapped mac and cheese blunts — need we say more? Dudes a master of good eats.

We talked to Chef Johnson about the best way to grill a burger (both on a flat top and over grates) and covered some of the best toppings, sides, and techniques to elevate your burger game.

Just to start off I wanted to ask a little bit about your story and about Hi-Pointe Drive-In. What’s the philosophy of the restaurant?

I used to be a fine dining chef and then that did it for years. I worked in LA for a little bit, a long time ago, but it didn’t work out. So 12 years ago I started opening barbecue restaurants. We got about 15 of those called Sugarfire, and we had a smash burger there and we kept winning Best Burger in Missouri and Best Burger in St. Louis. So the idea for Hi-Pointe came up maybe seven or eight years ago.

It’s in the Hi-Pointe neighborhood, that’s why it’s called the Hi-Pointe and it was perfect for a burger spot. So we just did that same burger. We’re already winning the Best burger in Missouri with Hi-Pointe. So the philosophy is chef inspired smash burgers. It’s still cheap. A burger is still six bucks at Hi-Pointe.

It’s just a basic smash patty with a really good bun and really good condiments. And then we do some bun specials and honestly, a lot of the specials have a marijuana kind of nuance to them. Not in it, but just the names and stuff just because we’re just playing on the term Hi-Pointe.

So do you hold the smash patties above all other burger forms?

I like all kinds of burgers. I’ll eat any kind of burger. I try to eat a burger a day, but I prefer smashed because I like to get a really high quality beef like we get and I like that crispy crust. I love grilled. I know somebody last year came out and said “grilled burgers suck,” I think it was David Chang. But I love grilled burgers, if you do them properly.

I’m an ambassador for a big charcoal company, Royal Oak Charcoal. I think we’re the second-biggest charcoal company. I do a lot of burgers on live fire grills with their charcoal. It just depends on what I’m the mood for really. But mostly I guess I’m in the mood for a smash burger, but I’ll eat them anyway.

To start, I’m just guessing here but I’m willing to bet you prefer charcoal over propane?

Charcoal. I just love the flavor. It’s a more dense woody smoke flavor. It’s really just most of the charcoal from the US, the stuff that’s not shipped in from out of the country is grown here in Missouri where I live in The Ozarks and I go down there and visit. I see the quality of the product. I think the charcoal gives a much higher heat than propane can ever give, which enables a better crust on it, which I think is very important for a burger.

And it also gives that good char flavor and smoke flavor too that you’re never going to get from propane.

 

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Let’s dive in a little bit into the specifics of how to make a good grilled burger. Let’s start with meat ratio. What’s the best ratio and why?

I don’t use Wagyu, it’s a little fatty for me. We use what’s called Creekstone beef. It’s like a prime beef. Our ratio, and we worked on this for a long time, is 50% chuck and that provides the body I would say in the chew. It’s more of just the density of the meat and the bite in your mouth. We use 25% brisket, that’s fat content. And then we use 25% short rib meat because to me that’s the real beef. That’s the beefiest flavor on a cow so we use a 50-25-25 ratio. 80-20 fat blend is what we try to — I’m sorry, 85-15 is what we try and achieve because if it gets a little fattier than that, you start to lose too much on your grill so that’s our blend right there.

Interesting. So you say 80 is just a little too fatty?

Yeah, I mean it’s funny because we test them all the time and we’re always trying new products and stuff. It seems like once you start dipping below 85 especially, we have these really big fancy high-end flat top grills, and if you got a little bit too much fat in there, you lose them on the grill.

I don’t know if you’ve ever done a smash burger before, but they kind of stretch out too far and there’s holes everywhere and stuff. And then the grill’s messy and it’s just too hard to do, especially when you’re trying to pump out a lot of them, if that makes sense. I mean some places are just so crazy all day there’ll be 25 patties going at once, nonstop popping them off. And when you’re pushing them out like that and there’s grease everywhere, it’s not good.

What’s something you should never do when you’re making a grilled burger?

I would say the main mistake is don’t season too much. I say if you’re doing anything more than salt and pepper, you’re making meatloaf. So I just like good fresh ground white or black pepper. And I like to use ground sea salt and I really try and make sure I blend them 50/50.

We have this other saying in barbecue, if you’re looking, you’re not cooking. I like to let it sit on the grill, on the flat top, smash it down, and then don’t fuck with it. Don’t sit there and jiggle it around or flip it and check it. You know and I cook it on one side until I can almost see that it’s cooked all the way through because I’m trying to get that good crust on there.

So when it comes to grilled burgers, are you using a flat top in that situation?

Oh are we talking about outdoor grilled burgers? I use grates. So let me back up a little bit. So in that case, yeah, I would definitely use 80. I’m sorry, I talk about our burgers at Hi-Pointe so much those are on flat top grills. So on the grill, yes, 100%.

You can even creep it up into a 90-10 blend is what I even do so there’s not too much drip coming down. Because when the oil hits the charcoal and it really kind of burns, it leaves an unpleasant flavor for a little bit. I use grates, but you can do them cast iron. I’ve done cast iron skillets. If you really want a smash burger on an outdoor grill, I mean by all means throw a cast iron on there. I even throw the cast iron right in the coals sometimes.

And that’s seasoned the same way, just salt and pepper?

Some people try might put a little powdered garlic or something there, but I just like to go with the classic and let the beef really taste like beef. I’m not trying to make it taste like anything else. I just think it should taste beefy and cheesy really.

Is that both sides seasoning or just one side?

I do a little on both. Without over salting.

Do you have a patty forming technique?

Well, we do balls. At work we have a machine that’s called Patti-O-Matic. We grind the meat and it just pumps up. But at home I prefer a ball. And then I let that ball sit out and I have them cold in the fridge in balls. And when I’m doing a grill with the outdoor grill, with the charcoal, you can’t really smash them down beforehand. So I like to make the patties a little bit bigger than my burger bun. And I do them thicker than maybe about I would say 3/8 of an inch thick, a little less than 1/2 an inch thick on the grill because you can’t smash it down on the grill, it just disappears. So I just form them ahead of time into I would say pucks. Some people have these lid things and they kind of smash them in there and flip them out. I haven’t really done that.

So you’re doing it just by hand?

A hand patty, yep. And I don’t mind if they’re ugly.

You mentioned having the meat chilled, so I want to talk a little bit about temperature. Do you want those burgers to hit the grill cold?

Yeah, cold. That’s how I do it. That’s the way, plus I’m always scared about food poisoning. I do some of these steak contests sometimes and everybody in the steak gets their steak hot. I mean 100 degrees hot. They let it kind of sit in a warm place before they cook it and I don’t really understand why they do that. I’m not scientist. I don’t know, but I like to go on cold. I don’t know why.

I mean, you’re a burger champion, so don’t question the method.

I don’t know why I do that. It just feels like it might stick a little easier on the grill. When you have it on these hot outdoor grills with the grates, I don’t want it to stick.

So I’ll have the charcoal pile on say half the grill and I’ll start the burger away from the direct heat so it’s not dripping and getting burnt. And then at some point when I figure out it’s not going to stick to the grill, then I’ll move it over for char because you don’t want it to get all stuck on the grates.

So is this just a one flip kind of situation?

No, I usually end up flipping them a bunch when I’m outside. I don’t really care about grill marks because I would personally never eat a burger without American cheese on it because that’d be Communist.

I don’t really care about if you’re looking for marks, some people think that’s cool, I don’t know. It might be cool, but no, I’ll flip it and then I’ll flip it again and then make sure it doesn’t stick and then I’ll move it around on the heat. It just depends on what temp, and however whoever I’m cooking for likes it. I like a burger medium, unless I’m eating a really delicious, crazy fresh kind of wagyu burger or something, micro medium rare or something but I pretty much do all my burgers medium.

 

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As we’re approaching grill season, can you walk us through how to make the best grilled burger that we’ll ever have? How are we preparing it? What’s on it? Be as detailed as possible.

Okay, I’m going to sound probably like a psycho with all the detail. The first thing is you need a good bun and I think a potato roll is the perfect softness ratio. I don’t like a bun that’s too doughy and I don’t like a bun that’s too big. My favorite bun is a Martin’s Potato Roll. I don’t know if you guys can get those in LA, but it’s a company out of Pennsylvania. They make the best burger bun of all the time.

That’s almost just as important to me as everything else. I think the bun needs to be butter toasted. So I’ll butter toast that and I don’t do it on the grill. I want the whole thing crispy. I’ll do it in a cast iron on the side or on some kind of a flat surface because the crust, it provides crunch so it’s like a textural thing. And it also protects that bun from getting soggy.

So when people don’t toast their buns, it makes me think they’re lazy and I don’t like them anymore. I really judge. It’s like my judgiest thing about a burger is if you’re not toasting a bun, I’m already like, “I’m done with you.” I mean, I’ll still eat it, but I’ll be upset. So you got to have that bun really golden brown toasted on both sides.

I prefer a yellow onion, very thin slice, one layer. And that’s the one thing that I put on the bottom bun below the burger. Because it not only protects that bottom bun from getting soggy, but it also soaks up the juices from the burger really well. And that’s another textural thing for me that I really enjoy. So I’ve got that butter toasted bun on the bottom, very thin shaved one thin slice of onion. I mean it can cover the bun if you want, but I don’t like a lot of stuff on there like tomato.

So then I would go burger and cheese, American cheese, obviously. I think American cheese is the best. I mean obviously people can do whatever they want. I do shredded iceberg lettuce only. And I like to just cut that paper thin, like julienne style and I’ll put that on top with one slice of tomato.

The tomato doesn’t have to cover the whole burger, it just needs to be on there. And I prefer that thinner than… Some people like a thick tomato on there. But tomato to me — that’s the worst part of the burger, but it needs to be on there. And so I do a really thin sliced tomato, one tomato only, that’s it. And then pickles, I prefer a really good crunchy fresh dill pickle and I like to cut them oblong, oval-shaped.

I don’t know why. I just like those and I’ll put just two of those, nothing crazy.

Personally, I like Duke’s Mayo on there. To me that’s the ultimate burger, very simple. Duke’s Mayo and you might get some heat for this but I also love a little Heinz 57 on there. That’s just for me personally. I wouldn’t do that to everybody, but this is always the way I’ve eaten my favorite burger. I’ll put a little bit of Heinz 57 or even make a little Heinz 57 mayo with the Duke’s. So I’ll do one part Heinz 57, three parts Duke’s. And to me that really sets it off and that’s pretty much it.

How do you feel about brioche?

Yeah, it’s my second favorite. If I can’t find potato rolls, I go to brioche every time.

You mentioned Sugarfire and I know you did some barbecue competitions and you gave Snoop Dogg some bacon wrapped mac and cheese blunts. So I just wanted you to hit us with the perfect side for the burger you just created.

Oh, fries, crinkle cut fries. And they’re impossible to make yourself. I’ve been trying in the restaurants for years. There’s one machine that can make them and it’s 50,000 bucks. But we buy really top quality fries and then this is even going to sound crazier. I work in Australia a lot and in Australia, every french fry in Australia… Have you ever been to Australia?

 

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No, I wish.

You got to go. You’re in LA. You just pop down. There’s flights there all day long.

18-hour flight.

I know, brutal. I mean I’ve been working there probably three, four times a year for seven, eight years. They love barbecue down there. So I go down and do these barbecue kind of festival things with them. But the one thing I brought back from Australia was chicken salt. Have you heard of chicken salt?

No.

Every french fry in Australia goes out with this stuff called chicken salt on it and it’s a really umami kind of like you know ramen seasoning kind of a salt that they put on the french fries and no one would ever make it in the States so I brought some home a few years ago. We have a fried chicken small chain called Chicken Out and we sell it out of there. It’s amazing. I shake that in those crinkle cut fries and it’s the best fry you’ve ever had. I’m sure somebody in LA has it somewhere. All the hipsters out there making their fancy food. But you know what? Give me your address. I’ll send you a bottle.

All right, I’ll take it!

Okay, I’m going to get a chicken salt out there. It’s going to blow your mind.

Oh, dude, I put it on pasta. And the funny thing is we just made it for our little chicken chain and now all the famous barbecue guys that win the World Championship Barbecue shit whenever they do chicken, they shake a little bit on the edge of their chicken so when the judge bites it, their first bite is chicken salt. It’s pretty funny.

As my last question to close out, and you’ve kind of hinted at this already, and I’m right there with you. Make the case for why American cheese is the best burger cheese over cheddar.

It’s the flavor. It’s the melting. It melts better. It sticks. It’s the way it sticks in your teeth. I think when you put cheddar on the burger, you’re tasting cheddar more. When you taste American cheese, it’s like the cheese and burger come together. I’m more crazy about burgers than other people, but to me it’s just a magical ingredient. I can’t imagine having a burger and not having cheese. That’s the other way I judge people is if they don’t want cheese on their burger.

But I mean I’ll eat a cheddar burger. If somebody gives me one I’m like, “Okay.”

I was at my neighbor’s house grilling, he asked me to come grill some stuff for his family the other day. We’re hanging out and he had American cheese in the fridge and he had cheddar cheese out and I went in the fridge and I got American cheese. He was like, “What are you doing?” I’m like, “Dude, I’m putting American cheese on the burger.” He’s like, “Why? I got this really nice cheddar.” And so I’m never going over there again.

That’s how I feel about people who put cheddar on their burger. It’s like, “What are you doing?

Yeah, dude, why would you do that?

My brother prefers cheddar.

No. Your ex-brother. He’s not family.

What happens when we die? What is the meaning of life? Why can’t every restaurant carry Coke products instead of Pepsi? These are some of the toughest questions we ask ourselves, none more difficult than: Alien or Aliens? It’s something that director Fede Álvarez considered while working on his new film, Alien: Romulus, before landing on the correct answer: both.

“To ask an Alien fan to choose between them is a perverse question,” he told Empire. “So I thought, how do I do both?”

Based on the trailer for the film, Alien: Romulus successfully combines the haunted house-in-space eeriness of Ridley Scott’s original film with James Cameron’s blockbuster sequel. “There’s a moment where the characters are walking around areas familiar from the Nostromo,” Álvarez teased. “Then they cross through that building and on the other side: boom! You’re in a hallway that looks like Hadley’s Hope [from Aliens].”

There will presumably be fewer nods to Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem.

Alien: Romulus, which follows a group of space colonizers who come face to face with “the most terrifying life form in the universe” while scavenging a derelict space station, stars Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Archie Renaux, Isabela Merced, Spike Fearn, and Aileen Wu. Also, some xenomorphs.

Alien: Romulus bursts into theaters on August 16.

There are two types of Starbucks drinkers. You’re either one of those people who pull up to your local Starbucks and order the same drink, the same way, at the same time every day. You know, a psychopath. Or you’re the occasional drinker, who every once in a while feels an urge for something intensely sweet and knows Starbucks is always going to deliver on that front. No matter what type best describes you, we’re willing to bet you’re hit with a bit of panic whenever Starbucks drops a flight of new drinks.

Do you go with your tried and true go-to drink or mix it up and try something brand new and untested? We’re living in an expensive world, and sometimes the risk of trying a new drink completely blind just costs too much. Well, good news — we’re willing to take the hit for you.

In the past, we’ve tried and ranked every Starbucks iced coffee and Frappuccino on the menu, so we know the menu pretty deeply. So read our reviews and know what to expect the next time you step into a Starbucks. Let’s dive in, starting with our least favorite of the three variations.

Summer-Berry Refresher

Thoughts & Tasting Notes:

The Summer-Berry Refresher is the foundation by which the other two drinks are built, and because of that, this is by far the weakest of the three. The drink features a mix of raspberry, blueberry and blackberry flavors shaken with ice and cut with water, the result is a sweet vaguely berry flavored drink that comes across as watery and muted.

The boba-like pearls are less gummy and chewy than what you’d find with actual boba — tapioca balls — instead what you get here are light plastic-y bubbles that pop in your mouth and give an extra dose of raspberry flavor.

The drink is very much a delivery device for the pearls, which feature all the flavor.

The Bottom Line:

Muted and watery. The worst of the Summer-Berry Refresher line. Completely skippable.

Summer Skies Drink

Thoughts & Tasting Notes:

On appearance alone, this is the drink I had the highest hopes for. That’s probably because of the three, this looks most like a traditional Boba milk tea, and build-wise, it comes pretty close. The drink features the Summer-Berry Refresher base cut with creamy coconut milk.

The drink has a creamy tropical flavor with hints of vanilla over a base of berry flavors. That creamy and berry-rich blend pair nicely with the raspberry pearls.

It’s not quite as decadent or indulgent as the type of milk tea you’d find at a boba shop (these are usually made with non-dairy creamer, which give a much sweeter flavor and a thicker texture), but it is refreshing without coming across as heavy.

As much as I like that, it wouldn’t hurt if Starbucks made a more indulgent version of this drink. We’d love to see a blended version!

The Bottom Line:

The closest thing to boba milk tea Starbucks has ever made. Creamy and sweet without being heavy or too indulgent.

Summer-Berry Lemonade Refresher

Thoughts & Tasting Notes:

As much as I liked the Summer Skies (appearance, name, flavor, it’s got everything) I have to give it up to the Summer-Berry Lemonade Refresher. This drink features the berry blend base cut with lemonade, shaken with ice, and poured over the raspberry pearls.

The way the tart and citrusy lemonade interacts with the berry-base just tastes right — as if Starbucks formulated this drink before all the others. But where it really shines is the way it elevates the raspberry pearls. Complementing the mix of citrus and berry-rich flavors, each burst of flavor from the pearl serves as a counterbalance for the tart quality of the lemonade.

Not only does the flavor of the drink dunk on the other two variations, it serves as the perfect showcase for the raspberry pearl gimmick, and because of that, it’s the ultimate iteration of this drink.

The Bottom Line:

If you’re curious about the pearls and this line of drinks, start here. It’s the ultimate iteration of this flavor gimmick and the best showcase for the pearls.

Most people would jump at the chance to work with Tom Cruise due to his generous cake-giving nature, but Jeremy Renner is not most people: He literally defied death. But when it came to the sixth Mission Impossible film, Renner decided to sit the movie out, much to the surprise of fans. Who knows if he still got a coconut cake?

Renner portrayed intelligence analyst William Brandt in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, but he didn’t return for the 2018 follow-up Mission Impossible: Fallout.

The actor recently revealed to Collider that he took a step back in order to spend time with his family. “Yeah. I had to leave that. I was supposed to do more with them. I love those guys. I love Tom [Cruise] so much,” he said, clearly still campaigning to remain on the cake list. “We had so much fun, and I love that character a lot. It requires a lot of time away. It’s all in London. I had to go be a dad. It just wasn’t gonna work out then,” he added.

Though he didn’t return for the most recent installments, Renner isn’t opposed to teaming up with Cruise again. “Maybe now that my daughter is older that could happen. I’d always jump into a Mission: Impossible anytime and back into Brandt. It’s great,” he added. It’s almost as great as a certain slice of cake.

While the next Mission Impossible flick is still in the works, Renner’s next venture will be appearing in the Knives Out universe as someone other than a bottle of hot sauce. He will appear in the third installment of Rian Johnson’s murder mystery franchise alongside Daniel Craig, Andrew Scott, Mila Kunis and others. Hopefully Rian Johnson has learned how to bake a cake.

(Via Collider)

Our best movies on HBO Max list has been updated for the month of April, and it features 50 titles that include everything from Martin Scorsese classics, Steven Spielberg blockbusters, horror movies, to cinematic gems from the early days of Hollywood. There are even a few superheroes and anime titles in the mix, so basically, something for everyone on the streaming service. Together with our list of the best movies on Max, you’ll find a handy link to each title you can stream on Max, so you can start watching right away or save some for later. Your call. No pressure.

So let’s get into it. Here are the 50 best movies on HBO Max right now:

Last updated on May 31st, 2024.

1. Avatar: The Way of Water

Year: 2022
Starring: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Kate Winslet
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy & Sci-Fi
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 193 minutes
Director: James Cameron
Trailer: Watch here

In this sequel to the groundbreaking smash hit, Avatar, director James Cameron once again delivers a stunning visual experience on the alien world of Pandora. Set 16 years later, The Way of Water catches up with Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) who are now parents to a sizable family of biological and adopted children. After being forced to move to a new region of Pandora, the family encounters an ancient threat that puts them on the path to war with the humans, who have not ceased their efforts to strip the planet of its resources.

Watch it on HBO Max

2. Parasite

Year: 2019
Cast: Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, and Jang Hye-jin
Genre:Thriller, Mystery, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 132 minutes
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Trailer: Watch here

Winner of just about any major award you can name, Bong’s twisting drama features a poor family that infiltrates a wealthy one by pushing out their staff and replacing them until they’re living a borrowed high life. Superbly acted and brilliantly devised, it’s a darkly entertaining story as much about deception as it is about the gigantic, un-jumpable gap between the Haves and Have Nots. You’d expect nothing less from the visionary behind Snowpiercer. As a bonus, this prestige Best Picture winner also doubles as a ram-don recipe.

Watch it on HBO Max

3. Barbie

Year: 2023
Cast: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Will Ferrell
Genre: Comedy
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 114 minutes
Director: Greta Gerwig
Trailer: Watch here

The summer blockbuster that launched a worldwide shortage of the color pink is streaming on Max with plenty of BTS extras for fans who want more Barbie, more Ken, and more musical numbers. Margot Robbie plays the blonde icon on a journey of self-discovery who realizes life in the real world is not so fantastic while Ryan Gosling plays her underappreciated sidekick, pining for her affections in his Mojo Dojo Casa House of sadness. Watch the theatrical version, Greta Gerwig’s commentary, the signed edition, or all three.

Watch it on HBO Max

4. 2001: A Space Odyssey

Year: 1968
Starring: Keir Dullea, Gary Lockwood, William Sylvester
Genre: Sci-Fi, Adventure
Rating: G
Runtime: 145 minutes
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Trailer: Watch here

Before Star Wars exploded the sci-fi genre on the big screen, there was Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. The 1968 film, based on the Arthur C. Clarke novel, tells the tale of a monolith found buried on the moon and its mysterious connections to humanity’s past, present, and future. After unlocking a secret message from the monolith, astronauts David Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) set off on a mission guided by the powerful and ominous computer system known as HAL-9000. As HAL begins to malfunction, the mission goes dangerously awry and the search for answers to humanity’s greatest questions becomes entangled in a battle with a seemingly rogue intelligence.

Watch it on HBO Max

5. Pulp Fiction

Year: 1994
Starring: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Harvey Keitel, Ving Rhames, Bruce Willis
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 155 minutes
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Trailer: Watch here

In the star-studded Pulp Fiction, writer/director Quentin Tarantino weaves together several darkly hilarious crime stories unfolding all across Los Angeles. Featuring Samuel L. Jackson in one of his career-defining roles, the film cemented Tarantino as a true cinematic auteur as the writer/director showcased his knack for building a sprawling drama with an impeccable cast that was unlike anything Hollywood had seen before.

Watch it on HBO Max

6. Batman

Year: 1989
Starring: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy & Sci-FI
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 127 minutes
Director: Tim Burton
Trailer: Watch here

After previously collaborating on Beetlejuice, director Tim Burton tapped Michael Keaton as an unlikely choice to play the lead in this Batman movie, a gothic new take on the Caped Crusader who was best known at the time for the campy Adam West TV series from the ’60s. Burton’s casting choice proved to be dynamite as well as his choice for The Joker: Jack Nicholson, who delivered one of his most iconic performances in the now-classic film. Every superhero movie has been chasing the high (and box office success) of Burton’s Batman ever since. This is the one that started it all.

Watch it on HBO Max

7. Dune: Part Two

Year: 2024
Starring: Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Austin Butler
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 166 minutes
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Trailer: Watch here

Director Denis Villeneuve did the impossoble with the epic follow-up to his critically-praised 2021 adaptation: he made a sequel that improved upon its predecessor in every way. Chalamet sports even more confidence this time around, playing Paul Atreides as a would-be messiah hell-bent on revenge who sacrifices everything to sit the throne while Rebecca Ferguson plays his scheming mother, Lady Jessica, who cleverly maneuvers her son into becoming a diety for an oppressed people desperate for hope. But the true standouts are Zendaya, who’s given much more to do as Chani, Paul’s lover and a leader of the Fremen, and Austin Butler, who gives a chilling turn as Feyd-Rautha, a rival would-be emperor.

Watch it on HBO Max

8. The Green Knight

Year: 2021
Starring: Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Barry Keoghan
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure
Rating: R
Runtime: 130 minutes
Director: David Lowery
Trailer: Watch here

A twisted, hauntingly beautiful take on Arthurian legend, David Lowery’s The Green Knight gives Dev Patel an axe, a talking fox, and a date with death as he plays Gawain, a young knight in search of glory. After taking the head of the mysterious Green Knight, he’s forced to fulfill a bargain that sees him traipsing across England, fending off thieves and sinister lords so that he can face his destiny.

Watch it on HBO Max

9. Spirited Away

Year: 2001
Starring: Daveigh Chase, Suzanne Pleshette, Jason Marsden
Genre: Anime, Fantasy, Mystery
Rating: PG
Runtime: 122 minutes
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Trailer: Watch here

In this delightful Academy Award-winning masterpiece from Studio Ghibli and beloved Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki, young Chihiro (Daveigh Chase) is separated from her parents by the powerful sorceress Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette). Trapped inside a seemingly abandoned amusement park in the secret world of Kami, Chihiro must slave away for Yubaba alongside an assortment of supernatural beings. Using her wits and cunning, Chihiro concocts a plan to rescue her parents from the spell that’s turned them into pigs and return to the human world. Released in 2001, Spirited Away helped spark a worldwide obsession with Miyazaki’s films thanks to its captivating story, unforgettable characters, and signature animation style.

Watch it on HBO Max

10. Good Will Hunting

Year: 1997
Starring: Robin Williams, Matt Damon, Stellan Skarsgård, Minnie Driver
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 127 minutes
Director: Gus Van Sant
Trailer: Watch here

In this Oscar-winning film written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, Damon stars as Will Hunting, a mathematical genius working as a janitor at MIT. When Will’s potential is discovered by a professor (Stellan Skarsgård), he works to get the troubled youth out of trouble with the law by pairing him with therapist Sean Maguire played by Robin Williams in one of the beloved actors’ most iconic roles. Look for Affleck to pop up as Will’s childhood pal, mirroring the two writer/actors own Boston-based friendship.

Watch it on HBO Max

11. Mad Max: Fury Road

Year: 2015
Starring: Charlize Theron, Tom Hardy, Nicholas Hoult, Zoe Kravitz
Genre: Action, Adventure
Rating: R
Runtime: 120 minutes
Director: George Miller
Trailer: Watch here

George Miller proved no one can do action quite like him with this apocalyptic chase through desert lands that doubles as an allegory on climate change. Here, Tom Hardy plays the gruff, grunting road warrior but the true hero is Charlize Theron’s Furiosa, a war general motivated by a strong moral code who hopes to simply escape the suffocating rule of a water-hogging despot and ends up leading a revolution.

Watch it on HBO Max

12. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Year: 2001
Starring: Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Ian McKellen
Genre: Action, Fantasy
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 178 minutes
Director: Peter Jackson
Trailer: Watch here

This is where it all started. Before The Fellowship of the Ring stormed into theaters, The Lord of the Rings were just some musty old books for nerds. That perception quickly changed when director Peter Jackson delivered the mother of all fantasy epics and turned LOTR into the blockbuster franchise it is today. Often considered the best film of the series, The Fellowship of the Ring welcomed audiences into the world of Middle-Earth as stunning visuals and a captivating cast set the stage for an all-consuming war between good and evil. In the midst of the conflict, a quest unfolds that will test the strength and friendship of two tiny unlikely heroes.

Also, Viggo Mortensen owns in this movie. Just rules from start to finish.

Watch it on HBO Max

13. Midsommar

Year: 2019
Cast: Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Rating: R
Runtime: 148 minutes
Director: Ari Aster
Trailer: Watch here

Nauseating. Disturbing. A total mindf*ck. These are all ways one could describe Ari Aster’s sophomore genre outing that gleefully embraces the very worst of humanity. It’s a horror story, sure, but it’s a relationship drama at its core, flavored with pagan rituals, brutal killings, unsettling imagery, and all-consuming grief. Florence Pugh gives a career-defining performance as Dani, a young woman reeling from a terrible familial tragedy who accompanies her distant, disinterested boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor) and his college bros to a small Swedish village to celebrate the summer solstice. When unsettling things begin to happen to their group, Dani must make a choice that might not leave everyone breathing.

Watch it on HBO Max

14. The Dark Knight

Year: 2008
Starring: Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman
Genre: Action, Crime
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 152 minutes
Director: Christopher Nolan
Trailer: Watch here

It’s nearly impossible to overstate the influence Christopher Nolan’s follow-up Batman film has had on superhero movies. For better (and often, for worse) his somber, sobering, hyper-realistic take on the cowled vigilante is a formula DC has been chasing for over a decade. From the stunning set design to the awe-inspiring stunt sequences, the villainous turns of Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart, the troubled righteousness of Christian Bale’s Bruce Wayne, and the anarchic chaos caused by a storyline that doubles as a Faustian mirror for our own societal shortcomings, every element of this movie is firing on all cylinders.

Watch it on HBO Max

15. Ex Machina

Year: 2014
Starring: Oscar Isaac, Alicia Vikander, Domnhall Gleeson
Genre: Sci-Fi
Rating: R
Runtime: 108 minutes
Director: Alex Garland
Trailer: Watch Here

Alex Garland’s sci-fi thriller breathed new life into the tired A.I. trope when it landed in theaters years ago. The film focuses on a naïve young programmer (Domhnall Gleeson) who’s selected amongst a pool of applicants to evaluate a new A.I. lifeform. The poor kid is whisked away to a remote villa to spend time with the eerily-human-looking robot, Ava (Alicia Vikander), and her eccentric, often cruel creator Nathan (Oscar Isaac), a genius with an ego to match his talent. The film takes some twists you don’t expect, and Isaac gives cinema one of its greatest dance sequences, in case you need more reason to watch.

Watch it on HBO Max

16. Eraserhead

Year: 1977
Cast: Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Allen Joseph, Jeane Bates, and Judith Roberts
Genre: Surrealism, Body Horror, David Lynch
Rating: R
Runtime: 89 minutes
Director: David Lynch
Trailer: Watch here

Plot synopsis? Huh. Well. Alright. There’s this strange guy who starts taking care of a “baby,” has some odd visions, and there’s a guy in the middle of a planet pulling levers. Naturally, this one defies any simple plot constraints. David Lynch’s first feature film is a wonder of beautiful weirdness. An art film’s art film, cares a lot more about its visuals and symbolism than it does about whether you’re eating popcorn or not. None of the critics understood it the way Lynch intended, so maybe you’ll be the one to crack the code. Or just let it wash over you, with or without popcorn.

Watch it on HBO Max

17. Joker

Year: 2019
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Zazie Beetz, Robert De Niro
Genre: Drama, Crime
Rating: R
Runtime: 121 minutes
Director: Todd Phillips
Trailer: Watch here

The Hangover director Todd Phillips delivered a surprising home run with an intense character study on an infamous Batman villain. While the Dark Knight is nowhere to be found in this movie, the film tracks Arthur Fleck, a disturbed comedian, as he descends into madness and becomes the Joker. More Taxi Driver than Batman Begins, the gritty crime drama takes several cues from Martin Scorsese as Joaquin Phoenix delivers a brutal and unrelenting Oscar-winning performance. Robert De Niro also makes an appearance to really lock in those Scorsese vibes and set Joker apart from the comic book genre.

Watch it on HBO Max

18. Dune (2021)

Year: 2021
Starring: Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Jason Momoa, Zendaya
Genre: Sci-Fi
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 155 minutes
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Trailer: Watch here

After delivering stunning sci-fi films like Arrival and Blade Runner: 2049, visionary director Denis Villeneuve took an ambitious stab at the mother of all sci-fi series, Dune. Starring Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides, the first Dune tackles the opening salvo of the sprawling epic by capturing the early beginnings of Paul’s messianic journey on the desert planet Arrakis. Featuring a fully stacked cast as the members of House Atreides, Dune delivers a jarringly beautiful and photorealistic experience as Villeneuve brings his signature visual style to a story that George Lucas would heavily mine for his own little sci-fi adventure. With a sequel already en route, Dune sets the stage for a wild intergalactic clash featuring massive sandworms, levitating space emperors, and Zendaya. Gotta have Zendaya.

Watch it on HBO Max

19. Lost In Translation

Year: 2003
Starring: Bill Murray, Scarlett Johansson
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 102 minutes
Director: Sofia Coppola
Trailer: Watch here

Bill Murray plays a fading movie star who befriends a jaded philosophy grad (Scarlett Johansson) in this understated Sofia Coppola Oscar-winner. Murray’s Bob is in the midst of a mid-life crisis, watching his marriage fail as he takes a lucrative advertising opp in Tokyo. Johansson’s Charlotte is questioning her own marriage as her photographer husbands brings her along on a work trip. The pair meet in the hotel bar and share cultural experiences with one another as they contemplate their respective futures, forming an intense friendship neither expected.

Watch it on HBO Max

20. The Social Network

Year: 2010
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 120 minutes
Director: David Fincher
Trailer: Watch here

It’s hard not to watch this Aaron Sorkin-penned, David Fincher-directed masterpiece and have your viewing experience colored by Facebook, and founder Mark Zuckerberg’s, many political misdealings. Jesse Eisenberg plays the boy genius, an outcast whose brainchild is the product of a bad breakup and sexism. He partners with Andrew Garfield’s business-minded Eduardo Saverin and the two create the famous social networking site before Zuckerberg outs his friend and alienates himself. The story isn’t new but watching it play out is still thrilling, mostly because Eisenberg is just so damn good at being a dick.

Watch it on HBO Max

21. I, Tonya

Year: 2017
Cast: Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Julianne Nicholson, Bobby Cannavale, and Allison Janney
Genre: Biopic, Dark Comedy, Mockumentary
Rating: R
Runtime: 120 minutes
Director: Craig Gillespie
Trailer: Watch here

Everyone who was alive in the 1990s knows the story of Tonya Harding. The skating, the kneecapping, the busted laces. Except we’re all wrong. Gillespie’s biopic of the controversial figure skater is a mash-up of different tones and styles that all weave together pristinely to form a hugely entertaining, emotionally devastating portrait of a real human being instead of a tabloid punchline. That doesn’t mean she’s an angel, and Robbie certainly doesn’t play her as one, but at least we get three dimensions (alongside a goofy conspiracy perpetrated by hilarious morons).

Watch it on HBO Max

22. The Devil Wears Prada

Year: 2006
Cast: Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 109 minutes
Director: David Frankel
Trailer: Watch here

Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway face off in this dramedy that dives stilettos first into the cutthroat world of high fashion editorials. Hathaway plays Andy, a very serious-minded journalist in New York City who has absolutely no time for frivolous concerns like dressing well and appearing presentable in public. She lands an assistant job at a Vogue-like magazine hoping it’ll help her make connections, quickly realizing her ruthless boss, Miranda Priestly (Streep) can, and very well might, break her. Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, they all give memorable supporting turns but the draw here is Street and her meme-able Anna Wintour impersonation

23. Hereditary

Year: 2018
Starring: Toni Collette, Gabriel Byrne, Alex Wolff
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Runtime: 127 minutes
Director: Ari Aster
Trailer: Watch here

Toni Collette plays a grieving mother on the edge of a hellish breakdown in this screamfest from horror maestro Ari Aster. After tragedy strikes her family, Collette’s Annie discovers some strange, occult secrets have been passed down her bloodline. Haunted by spirits and with a husband marked as a potential demon host, Annie tries to save what’s left of her life before it’s too late.

Watch it on HBO Max

24. Zola

Year: 2020
Starring: Taylour Paige, Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun
Genre: Comedy, Crime
Rating: R
Runtime: 86 minutes
Director: Janicza Bravo
Trailer: Watch here

Based on the wildest Twitter thread the internet has ever seen, this darkly comedic crime drama is equal parts disturbing and hilarious — all thanks to the performances of its main leads, Taylour Paige and Riley Keough. While Paige plays the titular Zola, a street-smart exotic dancer on a mission to make some money in Florida, Keough plays her new friend Stefani, an unhinged sex worker who hopes to rope Zola into her schemes.

Watch it on HBO Max

25. Shiva Baby

Year: 2020
Cast: Rachel Sennott, Molly Gordon, Fred Melamed
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Rating: Not Rated
Runtime: 117 minutes
Director: Emma Seligman
Trailer: Watch here

This feature film debut from director/writer Emma Seligman combines the hilarious familial tension of a millennial woman sitting shiva alongside her parents and sugar daddy with the kind of erratic, emotional whiplash of a Safdie brothers’ production. It’s nausea-inducing in the best way possible and it all hinges on Danielle (Sennott), a college senior in a relationship with an older man who joins her family for the religious ritual and is quickly confronted by the reality of her messy personal life. Not only does Danielle face off against the traditional expectations of her strictly Jewish parents, but she also runs into an old flame doing enviously well in her new life and she must contend with the arrival of her sugar daddy’s surprise family. It’s cringemaking comedy at its finest.

Watch it on HBO Max

26. Deadpool

Year: 2016
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein
Genre: Action, Comedy
Rating: R
Runtime: 108 minutes
Director: Tim Miller
Trailer: Watch here

Ryan Reynolds and director Tim Reynolds found a new way to explore the superhero universe with this foul-mouthed entry that follows a professional assassin and mercenary who gets a bit of a bad break – first with a terminal illness, then with some government experimenting gone wrong. Reynolds plays the titular anti-hero, a wise-cracking opportunist dealt a pretty ugly hand who ends up saving the day … kind of. Even if you’re suffering from a case of superhero fatigue, the big swings this movie takes makes strapping into a spandex suit again worth it.

Watch it on HBO Max

27. The Iron Claw

Year: 2023
Starring: Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Lily James
Genre: Sport, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 132 minutes
Director: Sean Durkin
Trailer: Watch here

This sports biopic felw under the radar during awards season, failing to net any nominations for its stellar cast. A real shame because the film is a masterpiece in how to build a character drama infused with enough action to keep things interesting. Zac Efron, Jeremy Allen White, Harris Dickinson, and Stanley Simons plays the Von Erich brothers, a group of beefed-up athletes determined to put wrestling on the map in the early 80s. They’re pushed by an abusive father and driven by their own demons, a lethal combination that leads to success in the ring, and tragedy outside of it.

Watch it on HBO Max

28. Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Year: 2008
Starring: Jason Segel, Mila Kunis, Paul Rudd
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Rating: R
Runtime: 111 minutes
Director: Nicholas Stoller
Trailer: Watch here

Terrible breakups are a universal experience and Jason Segel manages to tap into the deep yet hilarious insecurity that plagues us all in the aftermath. When he’s dumped by his movie star girlfriend, Peter goes on vacation to forget his sorrows (and also cry a lot). Along the way, he discovers a little self-worth, a new lease on life, and love — even as he embarrasses himself by stalking his ex and performing bizarre puppet musical numbers.

Watch it on HBO Max

29. The Killing Of A Sacred Deer

Year: 2017
Starring: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Barry Keoghan
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 121 minutes
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Trailer: Watch here

The concept of cosmic justice is what fuels most of the dread-inducing action in this tense thriller starring Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, and Barry Keoghan. Pulling from Greek mythos, Lanthimos tells the story of Dr. Steven Murphy (Farrell), a cardiovascular surgeon living a somewhat sterile, though, by all appearances happy, life with his wife (Kidman) and two children. When he strikes up a friendship with a fatherless young man named Martin (Keoghan), his comfortable existence is upended.

Watch it on HBO Max

30. Fargo

Year: 1996
Starring: Frances McDormand, William H. Macy, Steve Buscemi
Genre: Crime, Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 98 minutes
Director: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Trailer: Watch here

Before FX gave us a spectacular follow-up formatted for TV, the Coen brothers introduced us to the cold, weirdly-accented world of murder and cover-up in Fargo, a thriller that continues to stand the test of time. The premise is probably familiar by now: a criminal mastermind’s plan goes awry thanks to the ineptitude and bungling of his henchman and the persistence of a dogged policewoman (the unfairly talented Frances McDormand). Still, it’s worth a rewatch.

Watch it on HBO Max

31. The Color Purple

Year: 2023
Starring: Danielle Brooks, Fantasia Barrino, Taraji P. Henson, Colman Domingo
Genre: Drama, Musical
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 141 minutes
Director: Blitz Bazawule
Trailer: Watch here

The second adaptation of Alice Walker’s pivotal novel, this iteration is based on the stage musical that’s been nominated for dozens of Tony Awards over the years. Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and Fantasia Barrino all lend their voices to the timeless tale of sisterhood and defying the odds, but they do it with sweeping musical numbers and gorgeous cinematography this time around.

Watch it on HBO Max

32. Lawless

Year: 2012
Cast: Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, Shia LaBeouf, Jason Clarke
Genre: Drama, Crime
Rating: R
Runtime: 116 minutes
Director: John Hillcoat
Trailer: Watch here

Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, and Shia LaBeouf star in this period gangster drama about a family of moonshiners who go up against a deranged lawman. Hardy plays Forrest, the eldest Bondurant, who operates an illegal liquor delivery service during prohibition times. His brothers Jack (LaBeouf) and Howard (Jason Clarke) provide the muscle, but when a dogged special deputy Guy Pierce) comes to town to shut the business down, things get bloody, quick.

Watch it on HBO Max

33. Reality

Year: 2023
Cast: Sydney Sweeney, Josh Hamilton, and Marchant Davis
Genre: Crime Drama, Biographical
Rating: R
Runtime: 82 minutes
Director: Tina Satter
Trailer: Watch here

In May 2019, a classified document was leaked from the National Security Agency. Months later, two FBI agents showed up at NSA contractor Reality Winner’s home to search and interrogate her about the leak, and the resulting recording formed the basis of this unique drama. It’s a gripping, vice-like experience with a complicated mess of right and wrong muddled at its center. Sweeney is one of the most interesting young actors out there, and her performance here is profoundly mesmerizing, particularly because of how intimate and exposed it is.

Watch it on HBO Max

34. Silver Linings Playbook

Year: 2012
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 122 minutes
Director: David O. Russell
Trailer: Watch here

Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence star in this drama that’s equal parts rom-com and a harrowing look at mental illness. Cooper plays Pat Solitano, a former high school teacher who recently completed a stint at a mental institution. Things aren’t going well for Pat, he’s moved back in with his overbearing parents (a wickedly-funny Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver), his now ex-wife cheated on him, he doesn’t get along with his therapist, and he’s operating under the delusion that if he gets fit and gets his sh*t together, he can get his wife back. Lawrence plays Tiffany, a young woman with problems of her own. She’s depressed after the death of her husband and prefers sex with strangers to drown the pain. The two strike up a friendship that pushes both to their mental and emotional limits. It’s a messy, complicated love story that makes for a nice change of pace if sappy-sweet rom-coms just aren’t doing it for you.

Watch it on HBO Max

35. Man of Steel

Year: 2013
Starring: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Russell Crowe
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy & Sci-Fi
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 143 minutes
Director: Zack Snyder
Trailer: Watch here

While Henry Cavill’s time as Superman may be over, his superhero debut in Man of Steel showcases why DC Comics fans are still clinging to hope that the actor could reprise his role as the classic Kryptonian. Taking the more grounded, realistic approach seen in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Man of Steel delivers a more aggressive take on the classic hero as director Zack Snyder goes heavy on the bombastic action sequences to deliver a Kal-El who’s more brawler than Christopher Reeves and Brandon Routh’s prior takes on the character. This is a Superman who throws down and will do whatever it takes to protect his new world from Michael Shannon’s menacing General Zod.

Watch it on HBO Max

36. The Zone Of Interest

Year: 2023
Starring: Christian Friedel, Sandra Huller
Genre: History, War
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 105 minutes
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Trailer: Watch here

This controversy-courting Oscar winner targets the Holocaust from a wholly new angle — by zooming in on the mundane lives of some of its most monstrous masterminds.Friedel plays Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss, a cruelly apathetic man while Huller plays his wife Hedwig. The two try to build an idyllic life right next to the concentration camp her husband oversees and Glazer mines that jarring contrast for all its worth over the course of an hour and some change.

Watch it on HBO Max

37. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Year: 2014
Starring: Andy Serkis, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman, Keri Russell
Genre: Fantasy & Sci-Fi, Action
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 131 minutes
Director: Matt Reeves
Trailer: Watch here

In this sequel to Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Matt Reeves takes the reins of the reboot franchise and turns it into a modern cinema masterpiece. Set 10 years after the Simian Flu wiped out most of humanity, Caeser (Andy Serkis) is faced with a difficult decision to trust a nearby settlement of humans, which could cost him the trust of his burgeoning ape society. Caesar’s choice will soon have drastic repercussions for man and ape alike as both sides struggle to stave off war, resulting in a showdown that will determine the fate of the planet.

Watch it on HBO Max

38. Black Swan

Year: 2010
Starring: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 108 minutes
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Trailer: Watch here

Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis star in this psychological thriller about a talented ballerina who begins to unravel when she lands the lead role in a production of Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake.” Portman plays Nina, a disciplined dancer whose hard work pays off when she’s cast as the Swan Queen by her demanding choreographer but her mind quickly deteriorates under the pressure of the spotlight as another ballerina, Lilly (Kunis ) comes for her crown.

Watch it on HBO Max

39. It Comes At Night

Year: 2017
Starring: Joel Edgerton, Christopher Abbott, Riley Keough
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Runtime: 91 minutes
Director: Trey Edward Shults
Trailer: Watch here

After an unknown illness has wiped out most of civilization, a number of threats — both seen and unseen — come for a family held up in their home out in the wilderness. It’s a subtle, nightmarish tale that stars Joel Edgerton and Christopher Abbot as two patriarchs intent on keeping their families safe, no matter the cost.

Watch it on HBO Max

40. Moonlight

Year: 2016
Starring: Mahershala Ali, Trevante Rhodes, Andre Holland
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 111 minutes
Director: Barry Jenkins
Trailer: Watch here

Barry Jenkins’ Moonlight will always be remembered for winning the Academy Award for Best Picture after a mix-up that initially named La La Land as the winner. But that’s just an asterisk attached to a momentous coming-of-age story set over three eras in a young man’s life as he grows up in Miami, grappling with the sexuality he feels will make him even more of an outcast while searching for guidance that his drug-addicted mother (Naomie Harris) can’t provide. The film is both lyrical and moving and won justifiable acclaim for its talented cast, including a Best Supporting Actor award for Mahershala Ali as a sympathetic drug dealer.

Watch it on HBO Max

41. Judas and the Black Messiah

Year: 2021
Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, LaKeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons, Dominique Fishback, Aston Sanders, and Martin Sheen
Genre:Biopic, Crime Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 126 minutes
Director: Shaka King
Trailer: Watch here

Based on the real-life assassination of Illinois Black Panther Party leader Fred Hampton, King’s explosive biopic is a fierce two-hander where Kaluuya plays the torrential orator and organizer while Stanfield plays the petty criminal dragooned into being an informant for the FBI. The twin narratives follow Hampton’s rise in popularity, his founding of the Rainbow Coalition, and his romantic personal life as well as William O’Neal’s harried and reluctant work for the FBI to keep tabs on Hampton, and, eventually, assassinate him. A hit at Sundance and 5-time Oscar nominee, it’s a stunning artistic achievement and vitally important history.

Watch it on HBO Max

42. Princess Mononoke

Year: 1997
Starring: Gillian Anderson, Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver
Genre: Anime, Action, Drama
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 133 minutes
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Trailer: Watch here

Before Spirited Away made audiences fall in love with Studio Ghibli, there was Princess Mononoke, the stirring action epic from famed Japanese animation director Hiyao Miyasaki. Boasting an all-star voice cast for the English translation, the anime film follows a cursed warrior as he stumbles across a girl raised by wolves. Struggling to defended her forest home from the people of Iron Town, Princess Mononoke unveils an epic clash of nature versus mankind with all the artistic splendor that Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli have to offer.

Watch it on HBO Max

43. The Batman

Year: 2022
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Colin Farrell
Genre: Action, Superhero, Thriller
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 176 minutes
Director: Matt Reeves
Trailer: Watch here

With Warner Bros. looking to put a new take on the iconic character after Ben Affleck hung up his cape, director Matt Reeves stepped in with a bold new version of the Dark Knight that blends the comics with a hefty dash of Se7en for a taut thriller starring Robert Pattinson, who nailed the role of Bruce Wayne. The Batman also introduced a brand new spin on The Riddler (Paul Dano) as well as a knockout performance by Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman. Set amidst a more gothic backdrop than the Christopher Nolan films, The Batman still delivers a full-on action spectacle and easily one of the best Batmobile scenes of all time. When that thing fires up, it is on.

Watch it on HBO Max

44. Good Time

Year: 2017
Starring: Robert Pattinson, Benny Safdie
Genre: Crime, Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 102 minutes
Director: Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie
Trailer: Watch here

This gritty crime drama from the Safdie brothers transforms star Robert Pattinson into a bleach-blonde sh*t-stirrer from Queens desperate to break his developmentally disabled brother out of prison. Pattinson plays Connie, a street hustler and bank robber with grand plans to escape his urban neighborhood while Benny Safdie plays his brother Nick, who gets roped into his schemes. When Nick is sent to Ryker’s Island for a job gone wrong, Connie goes on a downward spiral to get him back. Pattinson’s manic energy carries this thing and there are plenty of police run-ins, shootouts, and heists (however botched) to keep the adrenaline pumping.

Watch it on HBO Max

45. Godzilla Vs. Kong

Year: 2021
Starring: Millie Bobby Brown, Alexander Skarsgard, Rebecca Hall
Genre: Action, Sci-Fi
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 113 minutes
Director: Adam Wingard
Trailer: Watch here

Godzilla vs. Kong is the ultimate Monsterverse movie, an action-packed clash of two sci-fi titans that’s equal parts ridiculous and mesmerizing. The storyline is fairly simple: humans are trying to rid the planet of city-destroying giant beasts and they’re using the centuries-old feud between an oversized gorilla and an atomic-breathing lizard to do it. But don’t focus on that, focus on the colossal fight scenes between two perpetually grumpy sentient behemoths wielding shipping containers like baseball bats. It’s the best.

Watch it on HBO Max

46. The Suicide Squad

Year: 2021
Starring: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman
Genre: Action, Superhero
Rating: R
Runtime: 132 minutes
Director: James Gunn
Trailer: Watch here

In The Suicide Squad, writer/director James Gunn puts his spin on the supervillain team introduced to movie audiences in 2017’s Suicide Squad. Part sequel, part reboot, the film brings back Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn while introducing new characters like John Cena’s Peacemaker, who went on to star in a breakout spinoff series. In the madcap sequel that channels Gunn’s energy from the Guardians of the Galaxy films, Task Force X is once again hauled out of prison and forced to complete an impossible mission or have their heads exploded. Literally. There are bombs in their brains. Gunn’s take on the classic supervillain squad was so well-received that he’s now in charge of DC Studios.

Watch it on HBO Max

47. Beauty and the Beast

Year: 1946
Starring: Jean Marias, Josette Day
Genre: Drama, Romance
Rating: G
Runtime: 93 minutes
Director: Jean Cocteau

We know what you’re thinking: What’s a Disney movie doing on a HBO Max list? Well, that’s because this isn’t the Disney movie(s). Released in 1946, the original cinematic version of Beauty and the Beast brought the timeless classic to life in a gorgeously shot French romance from director Jean Cocteau. Praised by Roger Ebert and others for its rich visuals that pushed the boundaries of 1940s filmmaking, this take on the love story that dates all the way back to 1757 is a piece of cinema history that should entice fans of the beloved Disney version. Not to mention, if you’re tired of CGI visuals, the 1946 version of Beauty and the Beast goes in the completely opposite direction. The Beast’s costume is a marvel of practical effects.

Watch it on HBO Max

48. The Witch

Year: 2015
Starring: Anya Taylor Joy, Ralph Ineson
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Runtime: 92 minutes
Director: Robert Eggers
Trailer: Watch here

In what would be the first of their many collabs, Robert Eggers and Anya Taylor-Joy team up for this thrilling period piece filled with Satanic ghosts, dead babies, and plenty of horror tropes. Joy plays Thomasin, a young woman whose family is cast out of their Puritan community. They build a new home on the edge of a dark forest and begin suffering through strange occurrences — missing children, dead goats, and violent hallucinations. Thomasin’s connection to the malevolent spirit plaguing her family only deepens when a witch sets her sights on her.

Watch it on HBO Max

49. The Lobster

Year: 2015
Cast: Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 119 minutes
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Trailer: Watch here

Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz star in this dark, absurdist comedy about a man searching for love under some very strange circumstances. Farrell plays David, a man whose wife recently left him. David is sent to a hotel where he’s told he must find a mate within 45 days or be turned into an animal. While there, David witnesses strange rituals and must follow strict rules in order to find love, but it’s not until he ventures into the woods, where the “loners” live, that he pairs up with a woman (Weisz) who may be his soulmate. It’s weird, eccentric, and the perfect Farrell-starring vehicle.

Watch it on HBO Max

50. No Sudden Move

Year: 2021
Cast: Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, David Harbour, Jon Hamm, Amy Seimetz, Brendan Fraser, Kieran Culkin, Noah Jupe, Julia Fox, Frankie Shaw, Ray Liotta, and Bill Duke
Genre:Crime Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 115 minutes
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Trailer: Watch here

It’s 1954. Gangster Curt Goynes needs a little more cash before leaving Detroit, so he takes a job holding a family hostage while their beloved husband and father retrieves valuable documents from his boss’s safe under duress. Fortunately, everything goes to plan, and the movie’s really short! Just kidding. Absolutely nothing goes to plan, there are double crosses, unknown masterplans, and throughout it all, Goynes stays in the mix just so he can break free. It’s an excellent caper, and it’s directed by Soderbergh with a knockout cast.

Watch it on HBO Max

The greatest irony of the filthy popcorn bucket (and we were warned) for Deadpool & Wolverine is that there’s no way that Hugh Jackman was adding butter to anything while bulking up for his role. He was eating the blandest of food, and a ton of it, and that was the hardest part of gearing up to release the claws again. That was more difficult, it seems, than frequenting the gym to encourage his muscles to be jacked, like so:

Obviously, the process of becoming Wolverine again is a highly physical one, but what was the worst part? The food was what did Jackman’s “head in,” as he told People for a new feature interview:

“When I came back to it, it was really fun and I was thrilled. My body was a little sore at the beginning, but I was thrilled that my body was still responding. And I realized how good it is for your brain. But the hardest bit… the food … I have to eat a lot. For me, for my body type, I’m naturally skinny. To get the size on, that’s the hardest bit. That’s the bit that does my head in.”

Ryan Reynolds chimed in to add that this is “not like the type of food that you would really necessarily enjoy.” In addition to gobbling that bland, unseasoned chicken and unbuttered popcorn, however, Jackman also had to get into fight-choreography mode again. That part looked relatively easy from the viewpoint of Reynolds, who issued some rare praise for his co-star:

And particularly the physicality — that ability, the dance and that background — really came in because you would do stuff where I was convinced when you were coming at me a few times, there is no way this guy’s pulling his punch,” he says with a laugh. “I will be decapitated by Hugh Jackman, and that will be his f—ing cross to bear, not mine.”

It appears that the two stars did finish the film without any decapitations (whew!), so soon, we’ll be able to see the final product on screens. Deadpool & Wolverine whips up that chimichanga on July 26.

(Via People)

Late August isn’t generally considered the spookiest time of year. But maybe it should be. It’s when kids are preparing to go back to school, if they aren’t already waking up unfathomably early to catch the bus. It’s also post-blockbuster, pre-awards season, so there aren’t even any movies to look forward to. Scary! But there’s another reason why late August is so spooky: it’s the beginning of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios.

Halloween Horror Nights at the Orlando, Florida-based theme park kicks off on August 30 and runs on select nights through November 3 (HHN also occurs in Universal Studios Hollywood). This year’s attractions are still being rolled out and announced, but there will be 10 haunted houses (2023 had The Last of Us and Stranger Things, among others) and five scare zones “filled with hordes of menacing creatures and outrageous live entertainment.”

Lines to get into the houses can be long, so if you don’t feel like waiting (and spending a little extra money), Universal Studios is offering a “Premium Scream Night event” on Thursday, August 29. The perks include exploring HHN before it “officially” opens, limited capacity, staggered entry by group, all-you-can-eat food, and access to select attractions in the park.

Halloween Horror Nights Premium Scream Night event tickets go on sale on June 6 and cost $350 (or $325 for Universal passholders). Tickets for all other nights are on sale now on Universal’s website.

Here are the houses that have been announced so far:

Slaughter Sinema 2

Goblin’s Feast

Major Sweets Candy Factory

The Museum: Deadly Exhibit

Monstruos: The Monsters of Latin America

Triplets of Terror

Stay spooky out there.