The 50 Best Movies on Hulu Right Now, Updated for January 2024

DIRECTOR: Tamra Davis
STARS: Adam Sandler, Darren McGavin, Bridgette Wilson-Sampras
RATING: PG-13

Adam Sandler’s first starring role still ranks among the best. The Sandman has gotten plenty of mileage out of his overgrown, immature, screaming man-child archetype, but rarely does it feel so perfect for a film’s story as it does in “Billy Madison.” As the title character, Sandler plays a pea-brained hotel heir who must repeat grade school in order to inherit his father’s business. The shenanigans feel appropriately ludicrous for the premise, and over 25 years later, the silliness has not lost its shine.

Watch Billy Madison on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Clay Tarver
STARS: John Cena, Meredith Hagner, Lil Rey Howery
RATING: R

Has anyone else noticed the fact that Lil Rel Howery has been crushing it in every movie role he’s in recently? And also the fact that Lil Rel Howery has been in a lot of movie roles recently? In the year 2021 alone, he’s been the voice of a shoulder devil and angel in Tom & Jerry, pranked unsuspecting civilians with Eric Andre in Bad Trip, played Kevin Hart’s best friend in Fatherhood, played Ryan Reynolds’s best friend in Free Guy, and commentated the big game in Space Jam: A New Legacy. He stars here alongside John Cena and Meredith Hagner in a movie that’s basically Wedding Crashers meets The Hangover.

Watch Vacation Friends on Hulu

DIRECTORS: Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone
STARS: Andy Samberg, Akiva Schaffer, Jorma Taccone
RATING: R

It’s always hard to satirize an era that’s still unfolding, and it’s exceedingly rare to do it as well as the Lonely Island’s Popstar did nailing the wave of Bieber-esque superstars. In fact, they did it so well that much of their attention to detail went unnoticed by contemporaneous audiences – what precious few of them showed up to support on release. The result is that now, this pitch-perfect parody of the man-child pop sensation is emerging as a true cult classic overdue for appreciation. It’s packed to the brim with observational excellence and one-liner hilarity in equal measure.

Watch Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Aneesh Chaganty
CAST: Sarah Paulson, Kiera Allen
RATING: PG-13

Run was one of those 2020 films that got caught in the COVID-19 release/format churn. Originally scheduled for a Mother’s Day release, it eventually ended up on Hulu, to the benefit of the streaming platform, as it’s become its most successful original film. The thriller stars Sarah Paulson as Diane Sherman, mother to Chloe (Kiera Allen), a sickly high schooler with a laundry list of conditions and disorders. Diane dotes on Chloe, but it’s also pretty clear early on that all is not what it seems, and as Run unfolds, a war begins between mom and daughter to discover what’s really going on, and whether Chloe was ever really sick at all. Throw all that at the wall and add in a twist ending that’s become a phenomenon on social media, and Run is a satisfyingly twisty watch that pairs well with the latest in contemporary horror.

Watch Run on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Ben Stiller
STARS: Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Robert Downey, Jr.
RATING: R

You don’t need to have seen either Apocalypse Now or Hearts of Darkness, the documentary about its disastrous production, to appreciate Ben Stiller’s deliriously funny Hollywood satire Tropic Thunder. Sure, it’s very specifically a parody of the masochistic delusions of artists trying to make a self-important war epic. But the film splinters off into plenty of trenchant comedy about the state of the film business told in broadly recognizable strokes. (And don’t worry, no one is getting canceled for the use of blackface here.)

Watch Tropic Thunder on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Jerrod Carmichael
STARS: Jerrod Carmichael, Christopher Abbott, Tiffany Haddish
RATING: R

If a comedy about two friends making a suicide pact sounds like it could never possibly work, then you need to see Jerrod Carmichael’s On the Count of Three to prove your assumptions wrong. This astutely observed day-in-the-life story of its two leads finds the humor and the heartbreak in their situation as it winds toward what they think is its inevitable conclusion. Though Carmichael is the main reason for the film’s behind the screen, it’s Christopher Abbott’s live wire who steals On the Count of Three on screen. His car front-seat rendition of Papa Roach can heal the world.

Watch On the Count of Three on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Anne Fletcher
STARS: Katherine Heigl, James Marsden, Malin Akerman
RATING: PG-13

There is a certain type of person who loves to dump on a movie like 27 Dresses by making it the example of a type of derivative rom-com. But there’s a reason we like genre! Formula is formula for a reason: people respond to it when it’s well-done. And even if you can see the twist coming a mile away with Katherine Heigl’s perennial bridesmaid dealing with a wedding and man that might finally break her, you’d be an absolute fool not to swoon at the film’s centerpiece “Bennie and the Jets” singalong.

Watch 27 Dresses on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Paul Verhoeven
STARS: Virginie Efira, Charlotte Rampling, Lambert Wilson
RATING: Unrated

If all you see is blasphemy in Paul Verhoeven’s riotous Benedetta, look further. What initially presents as a scintillating, sensuous tale of lesbian nuns in 17th century has so much more to offer about the nature of faith, transgression, and order within religious institutional settings. This side of Scorsese, you won’t find another movie so sincere in its desire to understand why people give themselves over to divine and earthly authorities. Benedetta and her fellow nuns pledge to become one with Christ, but what does that mean for one’s burgeoning sense of self? Sparks fly as Verhoeven allows his characters to sort that out.

Watch Benedetta on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Lauren Greenfield
STARS: Jackie Siegel, David Siegel
RATING: PG

The best way to understand the Great Recession is *removes glasses, checks notes* through the eyes of an obscenely rich couple building one of the most expensive houses in America? Artist Lauren Greenfield has devoted her career to staring at the funhouse mirror of wealth in a consumerist country, and she hits the jackpot with the Siegels as their dreams of building a palatial estate come to a screeching halt thanks to the 2008 financial crisis that collapsed the housing market. It’s a “riches to rags” story that can make you cackle, cringe, and contemplate in equal measure.

Watch The Queen of Versailles on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Jed Rothstein
STARS: Adam Neumann
RATING: TV-MA

In the mood to get frothing mad about an eccentric billionaire? Then Hulu’s WeWork documentary is just the ticket. WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of A $47 Billion Unicorn is an inside look at all the messy details of the rise and fall of the trendy real estate company. And the messy individual at the center? The 41-year-old former CEO Adam Neumann. Director Jed Rothstein doesn’t hold back on the bizarre gossip he knows you’re craving, including an anecdote about how WeWork employees switched the meaning of the words “cappuccino” and “latte” rather than correct Neumann. You’ll be fascinated, horrified, amused, and most of all infuriated by Neumann’s whims, which landed thousands of employees out of the job and landed the former CEO a nearly $1.7 billion payout.

Watch WeWork: or The Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Vikram Gandhi
CAST: 6ix9ine
RATING: Not Rated

This chronicle of the meteoric rise of an ambitious, outsized young rapper from Bushwick, Brooklyn speeds by at the flickering, manic pace of contemporary social media. It tells the story of how Danny Hernandez went from being just a kid working at the bodega to becoming the flame-haired, face-tatted, Platinum-selling rap artist Tekashi 6ix9ine, with a street rep and rap sheet to go with it. But 69 also illustrates the incredible power of social platforms, everything from the short-lived Vine to the furious, chaotic immediacy of TikTok. Like any kid in the 21st century, Hernandez grew up with social media woven into his personhood, and savvily engaged with it to amplify his music and persona. This doc is a biography of the artist at its center, but it also examines the pathways to fame, and the hefty price tag on unchecked ambition.

Watch 69: The Saga of Danny Hernandez on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Marcus Dunstan
CAST: Reign Edwards, Kerr Smith, Courtney Henggeler  
RATING: TV-MA

One of the more consistently interesting corners of Hulu is its Into the Dark series, which produces feature-length horror films with the participation of horror scene heavyweight Jason Blum. In Marcus Dunstan’s Pilgrim, an overeager mother hires a group of Pilgrim re-enactors to enrich her family’s Thanksgiving experience, but as weird as that is, it gets even weirder when they build a shed in the family’s backyard, invite more of their “re-enacting” friends over, and end up putting the parents in stocks, branding them with hot pokers, and accusing them of blasphemy. It’s up to plucky oldest daughter Reign Edwards to save the day, and it all culminates in one of the more bizarre and more bloody Thanksgiving Day dinners ever put to film. “You best get to shucking!”

Watch Pilgrim on Hulu

DIRECTOR: David Mackenzie
STARS: Chris Pine, Ben Foster, Jeff Bridges
RATING: R

“Three tours in Iraq but no bailout for people like us,” reads graffiti sprayed against a wall in the opening scene of Hell or High Water, setting a powerful tone for this unique twist on the cops and robbers tale. This thrilling neo-Western follows the twinned journeys of two brothers holding up banks to save their family’s ranch and two Texas Rangers hunting them down. It’s a provocative, pulse-pounding examination of who represents and defends justice in a contemporary world.

Watch Hell or High Water on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Nathan Grossman
CAST: Greta Thunberg, Malena Ernman
RATING: TV-14

She was a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize twice and has made numerous Most Influential People lists since she came to prominence as one of the world’s foremost  — and youngest — authorities on climate activism, so it makes sense that Greta Thunberg would get her own documentary. I Am Greta opens with a stationary shot aboard ship with the young activist as she makes her 2019 sea voyage to attend climate conferences in New York City. It then rolls into a supercut of ugly weather, accompanied by the soundbites of naysayers. (“I’m from Canada, so I could use a few more degrees of warmth!” Yuk yuk yuk.) It then goes back to the beginning for Thunberg, when she would stage one-person protests outside Swedish Parliament in Stockholm, and her voiceover, delivered in the deliberate manner of speaking for which she has become well known, elaborates on her original motivation to begin pestering those in positions of power to do something, anything, about climate change. I Am Greta doesn’t reveal anything very new about Thunberg’s quest. But it serves as a sounding board for her views, and helps to humanize a young person who has perhaps been somewhat stereotyped as just an angry voice at a microphone. “Humanity sees nature as this big bag of candy,” she says in narration. “That we can just take as much as we want. And so one day, nature will probably strike back in some way.”

Watch I Am Greta on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Soleil Moon-Frye
CAST: Soleil Moon-Frye
RATING: TV-MA

Kid 90 is a documentary film that follows the actress Soleil Moon Frye from her time as a child star on Punky Brewster through her hard-partying teen years. We see her take a drag on a joint and take a slug from a bottle of Jagermeister as we hear audio from an old talk show in which she professes kids to “just say no” to drugs. She and her friends take mushrooms and cavort in a field, playing with ladybugs and philosophizing about raindrops on the windshield like Very High Teenagers. She leaves her Los Angeles home at 18 to attend college in New York, scraping by in a spartan apartment with a futon and no refrigerator, falling in with a new group of friends. The partying continued, as you might expect. You know some of her friends from both coasts: Jenny Lewis, Brian Austin Green, Sara Gilbert, Mark-Paul Gosselar, Leonardo DiCaprio (a credited producer of Kid 90), Justin Pierce, Stephen Dorff, Jonathan Brandis, David Arquette, Danny Boy O’Connor (of rap group House of Pain). She asks many of them to give their philosophy on life. Some of them are featured in new interviews, looking back; others aren’t alive to do so. This was Moon Frye’s young life, and looking back at all this, she says she’s “coming of age as an adult.”

Watch Kid 90 on Hulu

DIRECTORS: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Feris
STARS: Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carell, Alan Arkin
RATING: R

Little Miss Sunshine takes a lot of flack for inspiring over a decade of “little indies that could” which feel reverse engineered to recreate its miraculous path from Sundance to the Oscars. But don’t hold the imitators against it. This hilarious, heartwarming tale of a dysfunctional family trying to keep it together on a road trip long enough to get their youngest member to a dance competition strikes a resonant emotional chord.

Watch Little Miss Sunshine on Hulu

DIRECTORS: Nancy Lang, Peter Raymont
CAST: Margaret Atwood, Margaret Dorothy Atwood 
RATING: Not Rated

This enlightening portrait of the Canadian author and poet takes as its starting point the sweep of media attention and Emmy awards for the television adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale. It follows Atwood as she meets admirers and fans, delves into her childhood, and examines her career as both a Booker Award-winning fiction author and prolific poet. Atwood herself is an engaging interview, and she not only sits for one specific to A Word Is Power, but appears in interview footage from over the course of her life as a working writer. Periodically other writers and public figures also appear to give their own testimonials to the power and pleasure of Atwood’s work. When The Handmaid’s Tale showrunner proclaims that Atwood’s writing is a natural fit for adaptation to television, Atwood says “Here’s the secret: I’m a Victorianist. Charles Dickens wrote like a television series.” Oh, and by the way, according to Atwood, the epic poem The Odyssey is also constructed like a television series, so don’t let anyone tell you watching TV will rot your brain. 

Watch Margaret Atwood: A Word After A Word After A Word Is Power on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Jessica Earnshaw
STARS: Jacinta
RATING: TV-MA

Jacinta is a compassionate, wrenching portrait of the devastating nature of addiction and the damage it does to so many lives. It’s a documentary that may remind you a bit of Heroin(e), Tarnation, Evelyn, and even Girls Incarcerated.

Watch Jacinta on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Ben Berman
CAST: The Amazing Johnathan, Ben Berman
RATING: Not Rated

The Amazing Johnathan is a comedian, performance artist, and occasional magician who over the years has made a name for himself with frequent appearances on the Las Vegas comedy circuit, and with shows that strive for the outrageous. What’s more outrageous? A guy making a documentary about The Amazing Johnathan’s act and life who suddenly has to deal with a rival bunch of documentary filmmakers clamoring to access the same subject. That’s part of the subtext of The Amazing Johnathan Documentary, Ben Berman’s film about the comedian, who stepped away from public life in 2014 after being diagnosed with a heart ailment. Berman becomes a character of sorts in his own film, questioning his motives for making it and examining his own history even as he tracks Johnathan and interviews comedy luminaries like Penn Jillette and “Weird Al” Yankovic for their thoughts about the longtime trickster.

Watch The Amazing Johnathan Documentary on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Joe Carnahan
CAST: Frank Grillo, Mel Gibson, Naomi Watts
RATING: R

Boss Level is an explosive hoot of time loop mumbo jumbo that only cares about its temporal niceties for as long as it takes to get to the next shootout, car chase, or, yes, supercut of its hero being beheaded. It’s outrageous. Just go with it.

Watch Boss Level on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Andy Tennant
STARS: Reese Witherspoon, Josh Lucas, Patrick Dempsey
RATING: PG-13

When we look back at the illustrious career of Reese Witherspoon, Sweet Home Alabama may well be the definitive star text. It’s got all the trappings of her favorite narrative conventions – namely, a supremely qualified woman with two men fighting for her hand – but a satisfying meta layer as well. As her powerful New York fashion designer Melanie Carmichael prepares for a high-society marriage, she must return to her Alabamian roots to tie up some loose ends. She thought she could simply sever herself from the South but unexpectedly finds that she’s carried more affection for her home than initially realized … and must find a way to bridge those two worlds inside herself.

Watch Sweet Home Alabama on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Edgar Wright
STARS: Simon Pegg, Nick Frost
RATING: R

Edgar Wright’s breakout action-comedy Shaun of the Dead remains a stunning display for a master already in full command of his style. The zippy, zesty adventure following two British schlubs fighting off a zombie invasion lovingly ribs the horror genre while cribbing its pleasures liberally. If nothing else, surely you’ll at least find something to love in the inspired comic pairing of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who make for a kind of jaded Gen X equivalent of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin.

Watch Shaun of the Dead on Hulu

DIRECTOR: James Mangold
STARS: Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Jon Bernthal
RATING: PG-13

A historical tale of how scrappy American racers took on the Italian behemoth, Ford v Ferrari runs like a well-oiled machine. Though James Mangold’s sleek craftsmanship makes the engine pure, the film would be nothing without the fuel provided by the soulful performances of Matt Damon and Christian Bale as the clashing visionaries behind the foolhardy Ford project. This is peak dad-core cinema right here, folks.

Watch Ford v Ferrari on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Michael Bay
STARS: Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie
RATING: R

It’s understandable to have limited toleration for “Bayhem,” but the bombastic director finds a very fitting story for his maximalist style in Pain & Gain. As some swole bodybuilders get in way over their heads in some sketchy financial schemes, Bay’s over-the-top sensibilities perfectly convey the absurdity of these larger-than-life men. While the allegory does get a little bit muddled under all the stylistic flourishes and unfocused storytelling, there’s more than just a kernel of an interesting take on the roided-out state of the American Dream. If you want enough thoughtfulness to elevate your action movie night without overwhelming it, here’s your pick.

Watch Pain & Gain on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Thomas Bezucha
STARS: Sarah Jessica Parker, Rachel McAdams, Diane Keaton
RATING: PG-13

Going home for the holidays is always a more fraught endeavor than one imagines, but Sarah Jessica Parker’s Meredith has no idea that tinderbox she ignites when she accompanies her boyfriend (Dermot Mulroney’s Everett) to Christmas with his immediate family. Meredith’s uptight etiquette instantly clashes with the free-wheeling members of the Stone family, setting up some madcap misadventures and prolonged painful exchanges. Sure, The Family Stone gets a bit unhinged with the wild plot maneuvers it undergoes … but what’s the holiday season without a little crazy?!

Watch The Family Stone on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Bong Joon-ho
STARS: Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell
RATING: R

Before Parasite, director Bong Joon-ho was already expertly skewing inequality in genre films like Snowpiercer. With the help of brilliant meta-casting in leading man Chris Evans, the film depicts a train as a society in microcosm where the poor are stuffed in tight quarters at the back while the rich fan out across the front. This exhilaratingly rebellious race to the front peels back the layers of privilege until they are laid bare for what they are in all their absurd detail.

Watch Snowpiercer on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Roger Michell
STARS: Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant, Rhys Ifans
RATING: PG-13

Is it possible that we’ve gotten to the point where we take Julia Roberts for granted? Few working actors still exude that old-fashioned movie star charm like she does, lighting up the screen with every smile and look. There are few better showcases of her appeal than rom-com Notting Hill, where she plays … well, a movie star who discovers the complications of her status when she falls in love with a London bookseller (Hugh Grant).

Watch Notting Hill on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Alex Gibney
CAST: Alex Azar, Charlie Baker, Scott Becker
RATING: TV-14

Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney’s sobering Totally Under Control might very well prove to be the lasting document of America’s Most Terrible Year. With clear eyes, the Academy Award-winning documentarian takes 2020 at its unfortunate face value. Control tracks the discovery, spread, and eventually all-consuming specter of COVID-19, and unequivocally places the pandemic firestorm’s causal roots and mounting death toll at the feet of President Donald Trump and his coterie of bureaucratic flunkies (‘sup, Jared?) and do-nothing appointees. Through interviews with frontline medical professionals and disillusioned government officials, as well as a wealth of damning press footage of Trump, his sycophants, and other MAGA mouthpieces downplaying every sad thing that we know to be terribly serious and totally true, Totally Under Control illustrates in a narrative close to harrowing real time not only how bad 2020 got, but why it got that way in the first place.

Watch Totally Under Control on Hulu

DIRECTOR: J.J. Abrams
STARS: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana
RATING: PG-13

Here’s a Star Trek movie that’s not purely for the Trekkies. Director J.J. Abrams finds a clever way to reboot the legendary franchise (with a good plot motivation, to boot) so he can reintroduce the characters and themes of the space opera to a new generation of fans. It’s an exciting, invigorating action movie in its own right, but its real magic is to open a portal to welcome the uninitiated to boldly go back into the wide world of the series.

Watch Mrs. Doubtfire on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Woody Allen
STARS: Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard
RATING: PG-13

There’s a version of Midnight in Paris that could play like an SNL sketch of the Lost Generation doing fanfic with Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Picasso, and their contemporaries. But this clever comedy never devolves into a carousel of impersonations, remaining firmly rooted in the journey of Owen Wilson’s Gil Pender to resist the nostalgic thinking in which he indulged himself. While it’s easy to get down on the painful present, human nature is to illogically romanticize the past and forget the virtues of living for the moment. Sometimes we just need giants of literature and art to remind us.

Watch Midnight in Paris on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Frank Oz
CAST: Derek DelGaudio
RATING: TV-MA

In & Of Itself is the filmed version of a theatrical experience performed 552 times by magician/illusionist/storyteller Derek DelGaudio. At the risk of sounding like a tease, the less you know about it heading into it, the more you’ll get out of watching it. It’s not a “traditional” magic show like you might expect from David Blaine or David Copperfield; it’s more like what the late Ricky Jay and the late Spalding Gray might have come up with if their paths ever intersected. You’ll laugh, you’ll gasp, and you’ll probably even tear up. It can’t replicate the feeling of a “night on the town,” exactly, but it will definitely scratch that “experience” itch of yours.—Mark Graham

Watch Derek DelGaudio's In & Of Itself on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Andrew Ahn
STARS: Joel Kim Booster, Bowen Yang, Conrad Ricamora
RATING: R

It’s by no means required to know Pride and Prejudice to enjoy Fire Island, though it certainly wouldn’t hurt to unlock additional layers of meaning within the film. This contemporary update of Austen set in the summer sun amongst a popular tourist destination for gay men is the rare new rom-com that delivers on both components of the genre. Star Joel Kim Booster’s script is full of sizzling insights about queer men oscillating between casual sex and committed relationships, and it’s gut-busting funny. It’s a film worth sweating and swooning over.

Watch Fire Island on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Clea DuVall
CAST: Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Davis, Mary Steenburgen
RATING: PG-13

Happiest Season writer and director Clea DuVall assembled an impressively deep bench for her second feature. Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis are the couple at its core, and they’re joined by Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Mary Steenburgen, and Victor Garber (and Ana Gasteyer!). This is rom com central, and a “gathering the fam for the holidays” movie, to boot. But DuVall keeps the mood steady, and the cast is game to bring real life to the ensemble. Happiest Season also tells a story of coming out to one’s parents, and the pressure that decision can put on the people and parties involved. So in that sense, there’s a modern wrinkle to the proceedings. But even with that angle, Happiest Season is content to work within the framework of formula. Upon its initial run, the film got caught up in the COVID-19 floating release date/platform churn, but it overcame all of that with a lot of heart from the cast, and will likely offer future Christmas audiences a chance to cozy up with warm sweaters and a heartfelt group watch.

Watch Happiest Season on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Andrew Bujalski
STARS: Regina Hall, Haley Lu Richardson, Dylan Gelula
RATING: R

As the so-called #girlboss era slips from powerful to parodic, there’s never been a better time to visit (or revisit) Andrew Bujalski’s incisive workplace comedy Support the Girls. Regina Hall shines as a woman just trying to get through the workday despite all the distractions and disruptions caused by the people she serves. Without getting on any kind of polemical soapbox, he effortlessly conveys the kind of emotional labor that so often falls on the female managerial class. And what better vantage point into the wide range of humanity than a Southern “breastaurant” modeled on Hooters?

Watch Support the Girls on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Nora Ephron
STARS: Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan, Rosie O’Donnell
RATING: PG

Movies always require a certain amount of suspension of disbelief, but few stretch those boundaries quite like Nora Ephron’s Sleepless in Seattle. This analog romance asks us to believe any number of implausible occurrences between Meg Ryan’s lovelorn (but also engaged) reporter Annie and Tom Hanks’ widowed architect Sam after she hears his story on a radio call-in show. Credit to Ephron for rooting the film in such sincerity and emotionality so we buy in and swoon anyways.

Watch Sleepless in Seattle on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Luc Jacquet
CAST: Lambert Wilson, Morgan Freeman
RATING: G

As the camera comes up on an azure expanse with no horizon, and the stirring string music lifts you high up into the sky, you know you can drop the remote and stop the search: this nature doc has grabbed you. And that’s all before director Luc Jacquet’s film brings you beneath the surface of the water, to meet the penguins as they ride like ribbons of silk on the massive ocean currents. March of the Penguins 2: The Next Step is the sequel to the hit 2005 documentary March of the Penguins, and returns Morgan Freeman as the omniscient narrator. “Meet the remarkable Emperor Penguin…again,” Freeman intones, and thousands of the titular birds are depicted in their wild, windy, freezing natural habitat of Antarctica, bopping to and fro and encountering one another as if they were at some strange avian cocktail mixer. The Next Step travels 2000 feet below the surface of the Southern ocean, following one penguin as it drifts past otherworldly sea creatures and vast fields of octopi. And it tracks an infant Emperor, covered in dun peach fuzz, as it sets out from its windswept inland home “for an ocean it’s never seen.” Instinct, insight, and full immersion in a place none of us will likely ever be: March of the Penguins 2 is a journey waiting to be taken.

Watch March of the Penguins 2 on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Nicole Holofcener
STARS: Jennifer Aniston, Frances McDormand, Catherine Keener, Joan Cusack
RATING: R

If you, for some strange reason, think Jennifer Aniston is just a personality and not a performer, please allow Friends with Money to broaden your horizons and change your mind. As that one in the female friend group who hasn’t found financial or romantic stability, her listless antics are at the root of much tension in their ranks. But the empathetic lens of filmmaker Nicole Holofcener never loses sight of how money – or lack thereof – affects the trajectories of all the women. It’s an ensemble drama that takes everyone’s concerns and needs seriously without ever getting too sanctimonious.

Watch Friends with Money on Hulu

DIRECTOR: David Mckey Evans
STARS: Art La Fleur, Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar
RATING: PG

It’s hard to resist the allure of nostalgia when watching The Sandlot, a film about the uniting power of baseball and imagination in a ‘60s suburb. Do kids these days fully understand the joys of unsupervised, untethered fun in an era of omnipresent devices and helicopter parental supervision? For 100 glorious minutes, we can escape back to that mythical time of childhood.

Watch The Sandlot on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Raine Allen Miller
STARS: David Jonsson, Vivian Oparah, Charlie Knight
RATING: R

Rumors of the contemporary rom-com’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Director Raine Allen Miller shows there’s more than enough fuel in the tank with Rye Lane, a day-in-the-life story as the sparks of passion rage between South Londoners Yas (Vivian Oparah) and Dom (David Jonsson). It works as both portraiture and landscape as they amble about town chatting through their past hang-ups and future hopes. It’ll charm you to no end.

Watch Rye Lane on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Celine Sciamma
CAST: Noemie Merlant, Adele Haenel
RATING: R

“I’ve dreamt of that for years.” 

“Dying?”

“Running.” 

The cliffs and crashing sea are a constant in Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Celine Sciamma’s immersive drama about the relationship between a painter and her elusive aristocratic portrait subject in 18th century France. In a film with a certain quietness about it — the cast is limited, the setting is relatively static — it’s the roar and constant motion of the sea that agitates, and it keeps the viewer out of balance as the love story at the center of Lady on Fire‘s plot unfolds. Heloise, the aristocrat (played by Adele Haenel), dreamed of running because she was cooped up in a convent for a number of years, until her older sister committed suicide by leaping from the cliffs, and Heloise’s mother (Valeria Golino) instead bethrothed Heloise to a Milanese nobleman. As she begins to plot out her painting, starts to get to know her subject, and eventually falls in love with her, the audience discovers quite a bit about Marianne (Noeme Merlant), too, but Lady on Fire always returns to that roiling sea, and fittingly, it’s the setting for the fiery final acknowledgement of the forbidden love between these two women. Portrait of a Lady on Fire is a mighty period romance that is also furiously contemporary in its thinking on love and relationships.

Watch Portrait of a Lady On Fire on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Lone Scherfig
STARS: Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard, Alfred Molina
RATING: PG-13

Before she was the Promising Young Woman, Carey Mulligan was … erm, a promising young woman both on-screen and off it in her breakthrough work, 2009’s An Education. This coming-of-age tale features Mulligan as Jenny, a bright student seemingly headed for Oxford until an older, cultured gentleman (Peter Sarsgaard’s David) sweeps her off her feet. The resulting whirlwind romance teaches her the true value of, well, an education in ways that are startling and surprising.

Watch An Education on Hulu

DIRECTOR: Alex Ross Perry
STARS: Elisabeth Moss, Agyness Deyn, Dan Stevens
RATING: R
On its face, Alex Ross Perry’s Her Smell is not not a movie about Courtney Love. But there’s so much more to this music drama than a roman à clef. Through the female punk rocker Becky Something, brought to tempestuous life by the inimitable Elisabeth Moss, the film demonstrates the unique drama that can be wrought by self-destructive talents – and how the same community those personalities draw in can then sustain them through the inevitable crash. Shakespearean in its structure yet ‘90s to its core, Her Smell reeks of greatness.

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DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott
STARS: Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer
RATING: R

Ridley Scott gives viewers quite the value meal in The Last Duel, which is really three movies rolled up in one. The film runs through a series of events from each character’s perspective after the wife (Comer) of a French knight (Damon) accuses his rival (Driver) of raping her. With each new telling, we learn how each person’s subjectivity clouds them from seeing the reality of what happened. Small differences become deeply meaningful when magnified in such a way. Bonus: it does in fact end with a rousing duel and features an absolute bonkers supporting performance from Ben Affleck threaded throughout.

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DIRECTOR: Pablo Larraín
STARS: Kristen Stewart, Timothy Spall, Sean Harris
RATING: R

If you’d rather your royal dramas resemble The Shining than The Crown, then Spencer is the movie for you. Director Pablo Larraín builds on his incisive film Jackie to paint a portrayal of Princess Diana during a critical crucible as her marriage – and sanity – hang on by a mere thread over a holiday weekend. He’s got an incredibly cooperative partner in star Kristen Stewart, who imbues Diana with the same streak of soulfulness and shyness that runs through her own work and career. This is the cure for the common biopic.

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DIRECTOR: Will Gluck
STARS: Emma Stone, Penn Badgley, Amanda Bynes
RATING: PG-13

With respect to Mean Girls, the definitive millennial high school movie has to be Easy A. No movie better illustrated the perils and promise of a generation who grew up on screens, commenting on their adolescence while they consumed outdated images of what that life-stage should look like. We get one heck of a guide to this brave new world from Emma Stone’s whip-smart Olive Penderghast, a silver-tongued loner who unwittingly finds herself at the center of attention thanks to a seductive lie. Her adventure to set the record straight while also establishing her sense of self has humor and heart to spare.

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DIRECTOR: Thomas Vinterberg
STARS: Mads Mikkelson, Thomas Bo Larsen
RATING: R

Anyone with a penchant for indulgence will laugh, and then grimace, at Another Round, a darkly comedic examination of Danish drinking culture from director Thomas Vinterberg. Mads Mikkelsen stars as a depressed school teacher who rediscovers his love of life through an experiment in excessive drinking with his colleagues. The theory: A man is happier with a blood alcohol content of at least 0.05 at all times. The question: Will they be able to stop? Mikkelsen is exceedingly watchable, and the way his tortured apathy transforms into a manic enthusiasm is nothing less than masterful. Be sure to watch to the very end, for the most uplifting solo dance scene of 2020. (Another Round won the Oscar for Best International Feature Film at the 2021 Academy Awards.)

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DIRECTOR: Max Barbakow
CAST: Andy Samberg, Cristin Milioti
RATING: R

Equal parts fun, poignance and wackiness, Palm Springs twists the rom com setting of a destination wedding ass backward on itself, over and over again, until a cocktail of quantum physics and psilocybin mushrooms attempts to bust the time loop cycle wide open. That’s right, it’s humankind’s perpetual search for life’s meaning and love’s promise at play against the rules of temporal lock grooves as understood by the Bill Murray classic Groundhog Day. With the narrative of Palm Springs repeatedly snapping back on itself, Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti have quite a load to shoulder. They’re like Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt in Edge of Tomorrow, only with less alien invaders and more cold beers to crush. Samberg and Milioti prove ably up to the task, and get support too from a mischievous JK Simmons.

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DIRECTOR: Questlove
STARS: Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Nina Simone
RATING: PG-13

DJ, The Roots drummer/leader, and ubiquitous cultural icon Questlove makes his directorial debut in Summer Of Soul, a documentary that explores a previously overlooked moment in 60s musical history: the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. Engrossing archival footage of performers like Stevie Wonder is just one reason why the film took home several awards at the 2021 Sundance Festival.

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DIRECTOR: Olivier Assayas
STARS: Kristen Stewart
RATING: R

There’s little in the way of jump scares, gore, or violence in Olivier Assayas’ beguiling Personal Shopper. But there’s no doubt that this unique and brooding contemporary tale is a ghost story. If you’re willing to hop on the film’s deliberative wavelength, you’ll find a lot to chew on about how we convene with the spirit world through digital mediums as well as through substitutions and avatars like … well, a personal shopper. You’ll be amazed at how much the film can hold you in breathless suspense as Kristen Stewart’s Maureen texts back-and-forth with a mysteriously omniscient figure on a train ride.

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DIRECTOR: Chloe Zhao
CAST: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn
RATING: R

Nomadland puts another prestige trophy in Hulu’s case, since it snagged top awards at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival and Venice Film Festival, and followed up with Golden Globe wins for Best Picture – Drama and Best Director for Chloe Zhao (Songs My Brothers Taught Me, The Rider), who also wrote the film. Then, of course, came the 2021 Oscars, which found Nomadland taking home the Best Picture prize, as well as Zhao winning Best Director. Frances McDormand is Fern — yet another Academy Award winner here — who takes to the road after she loses her job. Roaming the American West and living in her van, Fern falls in with an assortment of fellow nomads, conscious itinerants who either live in makeshift, rootless communities of like minded folks or survive in the space where heart and mettle meets tire and asphalt. Nomadland is lyrical, unhurried; it rests with its characters, respects their decisions, and carves for them a comforting space on the fraying edge of American society. And of course, Frances McDormand is an actor perfectly-cast to exist at the center of all of this. 

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