by Summer movie season isn’t happening at the theater this year — it’s happening on your favorite streaming platforms! Warner Bros. is releasing its entire theatrical slate on HBO Max as soon as the movies hit theaters, and Netflix is releasing a new original flick every week. With brand new and classic movies hitting the major streamers all summer long, we’re staying on top of what’s coming so you don’t miss a bit. We’ve compiled the best new movies to join Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and HBO Max. Remember to check back because we update every week!
We also have guides to the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, and the best movies on HBO.
Netflix
Cat People (2021)
There are loads of movies and shows about good dogs doing exciting and heroic things, but why don’t cats get the same love? If you’ve ever asked that question, Cat People might be for you. This Netflix documentary is all about people who love cats — and no, they’re not just a bunch of spinsters with 200 cats milling about their studio apartment. Cat People is zany, thought-provoking, and sweet — much like the animals that the subjects love.
Watch on Netflix
Boogie Nights
Paul Thomas Anderson’s tale about the ’70s porn industry in the San Fernando Valley is deeply provocative and endlessly entertaining. Mark Wahlberg stars as Eddie Adams, a teenage busboy discovered by porn director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), who transforms into adult sensation Dirk Diggler. Brought into a supportive circle of other performers and creators, Dirk thrives in the hedonistic lifestyle of 1970s Los Angeles, but that lifestyle soon threatens to bring him back down.
Watch on Netflix
Snowpiercer (2013)
Bong Joon-ho’s (Parasite) first big film to hit American markets was Snowpiercer, an intense post-apocalyptic political thriller that takes place on a giant train. After an ice age forces humanity’s final survivors aboard a globe-spanning supertrain, they find that the political and social dynamics that formed the world haven’t gone anywhere. But facing extinction, one man (Chris Evans) leads a revolt for control of the engine and the world.
Watch on Netflix
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence deliver outstanding performances in this film about mentally ill people searching for connection in an insane world. After losing his job and wife and spending time in a mental institution, Pat Solatano (Cooper) is back living with his parents. Wanting to rebuild his life and win back his wife, Pat goes about doing the same rote things he did to fall off the wagon in the first place. That is, until he meets Tiffany (Lawrence), who offers to help him reconnect with his wife as long as he’ll do something for her in exchange.
Watch on Netflix
Fatherhood (2021)
Kevin Hart gets dramatic in this new original film about a father raising his baby girl after the unexpected death of his wife the day after their daughter’s birth. Hart delivers a surprisingly poignant performance in a difficult role that delivers as much charm and humor as can work while dealing with such a heavy subject.
Watch on Netflix
Hulu
Summer of Soul (2021)
While Woodstock captivated the nation and became the ultimate symbol of the turbulent ’60s, another massive music festival put the spotlight on a different community. And yet almost nobody knows it ever happened. Across six weeks during the summer of 1969, the Harlem Cultural Festival celebrated Black history, culture, music, and fashion, entertaining thousands in one of the most historic Black neighborhoods in the country. Questlove unearths incredible archival footage to relive the festival in this electric documentary.
Watch on Hulu
Leave No Trace (2018)
Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie star in this quiet, slow burn of a drama about a father and daughter who live an idyllic, mysterious existence in Forest Park, near Portland, Oregon. They rarely make contact with the world, but when a small mistake tips them off to the authorities, they’re forced to find a new place to call their own. Easier said than done.
Watch on Hulu
Bill & Ted Face the Music (2021)
Delayed due to the pandemic, Bill & Ted Face the Music is finally out, 30 years after the original excellent adventure. The boys are still best friends in adulthood and, when the ruler of the future tells them they must compose a new song to save life on Earth, it’s time once again for Wyld Stallyns to shine! Except … they don’t really want to work that hard, so they decide to time travel to steal it from their future selves instead. Simultaneously, their young daughters devise their own scheme to help their fathers succeed.
Watch on Hulu
The Terminator (1984)
One of the greatest sci-fi films of all time is available on Hulu. In 2029, humanity is on the brink of extinction at the hands of machines — until a hero arises. To prevent this, the machines send a cyborg assassin known as a Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to the year 1984 to kill the hero’s mother, Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton). The humans send back Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) to protect Connor and alert her to the coming of Skynet, an artificial intelligence system that will spark a nuclear holocaust and bring about an apocalyptic war. Now, Sarah and Kyle must escape the virtually unstoppable Terminator at all costs.
Watch on Hulu
False Positive (2021)
Broad City‘s Ilana Glazer tries her hand at horror in this Hulu Original. After months of trying and failing to get pregnant, Lucy (Glazer) and Adrian (Justin Theroux) find the fertility doctor of their dreams, Dr. Hindle (Pierce Brosnan). But when Lucy becomes pregnant with a healthy baby, she soon finds something sinister about Dr. Hindle. As she investigates the man, she soon discovers an unsettling truth about him and her own life.
Watch on Hulu
Amazon Prime Video
Surf’s Up (2007)
Sometimes, you have to keep the kids occupied over the summer, and Surf’s Up is a movie you’ll all love. Teenage penguin Cody Maverick (Shia LaBeouf) leads the ultimate surfing lifestyle. Searching for respect and fame, Cody leaves Antarctica for Pen Gu Island to compete in the Big Z Memorial Surf Off — all while followed by a documentary crew. But when he meets washed-up surfer Geek (Jeff Bridges), he learns what life is truly about.
The Tomorrow War (2021)
Amazon Prime Video takes on a big-budget blockbuster with The Tomorrow War. When a group of time travelers arrives from the year 2051 to deliver an urgent message, the world is thrown into upheaval. In the future, mankind is losing a global war against a deadly alien species, and the only hope for survival is to bring soldiers and civilians from the present into the future to join the fight. Among the chosen is high school teacher Dan Forester (Chris Pratt), who teams up with a brilliant scientist (Yvonne Strahovski) and his estranged father (J.K. Simmons) to help rewrite the fate of the planet.
Snatch (2000)
Likely Guy Ritchie’s best film, Snatch puts the director’s classic breakneck pace to excellent effect in a British gangster movie that’s as full of laughs as it is with twists. Turkish (Jason Statham) is an illegal boxing promoter who convinces gangster Brick Top (Alan Ford) to offer bets on bare-knuckle boxer Mickey (Brad Pitt) in a fixed match. But when Mickey doesn’t throw the fight, Brick Top demands another match. While Brick Top is preoccupied with the bookie, gangster Frankie Four Fingers (Benicio Del Toro) maneuvers behind him while multiple criminals converge on a stolen diamond that Frankie has come to London to sell. If it sounds like chaos, it is. And it’s amazing.
Pinnochio (2020)
The classic Italian folktale comes to life with a bit more of a sinister tone in this PG-13 live-action story. The Italian film stars Roberto Benigni as Geppetto, father of the magical puppet Pinocchio, who comes to life with dreams of becoming a real boy. An easily manipulated, docile puppet, Pinnochio soon finds himself tricked, kidnapped, and chased by bandits through a world of imaginative creatures, all while Geppetto fights valiantly to recover the puppet before it’s lost forever.
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story (2004)
Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller are at the top of their games in this raunchy competition comedy. Average Joe’s Gym isn’t doing so well. Neither is its owner, Peter La Fleur (Vaughn). The gym across the street, Globo-Gym, run by maniacal fitness freak White Goodman (Stiller) is about to run Average Joe’s out of business, and Goodman is psychotically dedicated to bringing La Fleur down. Unless Peter can raise $50,000 to keep his mortgage, he’ll lose the gym. To get that money, he resorts to a last-ditch effort: Entering a dodgeball contest with a big cash prize with a ragtag group of Average Joe’s members. But when Goodman hears about the Average Joe’s plan, he enters the competition with his own superteam.
HBO and HBO Max
Shiva Baby (2020)
Emma Seligman’s directorial debut looks like a sitcom but digs far deeper than many of its thematic inspirations. While at a Jewish funeral with her parents, a college student (Rachel Sennott) awkwardly runs into her sugar daddy. Unfortunately, her ex-girlfriend also happens to be at the funeral.
Watch on HBO Watch on HBO Max
No Sudden Move (2021)
In 1954 Detroit, a group of small-time criminals is hired to steal what they think is a basic document. But when their plan goes horribly wrong, their search for who hired them and why weaves them through a rapidly changing city torn apart by racial strife, social advancement, and economic stagnation. Don Cheadle, Brendan Fraser, Jon Hamm, and Benicio Del Toro star in this new Warner Bros. film from Steven Soderbergh.
Watch on HBO Max
The Little Things (2021)
Released earlier this year on HBO Max, The Little Things is now available for standard HBO subscribers as well. This slow-burn detective tale follows Kern County Deputy Sheriff Joe Deacon (Denzel Washington) as he travels to Los Angeles for what should be a quick evidence-gathering assignment. But Deacon has a history in the LAPD, and he soon finds himself roped into an investigation of a serial killer who is terrorizing the city.
Watch on HBO Max
The 40-Year-Old Virgin (2005)
Steve Carell stars in this ridiculous rom-com as a mild-mannered, action-figure-collecting, 40-year-old man who has just sort of casually proceeded through his life without ever having sex. Discovering this, his co-workers launch him on a misguided odyssey to lose his virginity. But while his coworkers’ advice keeps leading to disaster, the answer to his woes might just be across the street in the form of a local entrepreneur.
Watch on HBO Max
In the Heights (2021)
Before the cultural phenomenon of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda made a slightly more contained Broadway hit, In The Heights. Now, Warner Bros. has adapted the show into one of the best musical films of recent memory. In Washington Heights, New York, a tight-knit community thrives and barely scrapes by with a melting pot of dreams and problems constantly swirling around them. At the intersection of it all is a magnetic bodega owner who dreams of a better life for all.
Watch on HBO Max
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