10 new movies to watch this weekend on Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney Plus (June 27-28)

When it comes to movie watching, we’ve got you covered. As we near the end of June and enter the second half of the year, there are plenty of movies to stream from the comfort of your home. This weekend there’s a festival darling on Netflix, some thrillers on VOD, and one of the biggest films ever made, now streaming on Disney.

In the Hand of Dante, starring Oscar Isaac, is an epic that spans centuries, following a writer who, under the threat of the mob, is tasked with verifying the authenticity of a manuscript for Dante’s Inferno. It also follows the character of Dante Alighieri centuries earlier during his political exile from Florence. Avatar: Fire and Ash is available on Disney, allowing you to complete the Avatar trilogy this weekend as you wait for the final two movies that are expected to round out the franchise in the coming decade.

We’ve included a few horror gems that came out this year: Forbidden Fruits, which follows a group of snarky witches in a mall in Texas, and Undertone, trailing a skeptic host of a paranormal podcast who starts to experience some spooky activities of her own when she moves back home to care for her ailing mother. Enjoy.

10

In the Hand of Dante

Streaming on Netflix
Genre: Thriller/Historical
Run time: 2h 33m
Director: Julian Schnabel
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Gerard Butler, Gal Gadot, Al Pacino, Martin Scorsese, John Malkovich.

Directed by Julian Schnabel, In the Hand of Dante follows two timelines: a contemporary one, involving a writer (Oscar Isaac) targeted by the mob to verify the accuracy of a retrieved manuscript, and a historical one, following Dante Alighieri, the author of the Divine Comedy, during his political exile from Florence.

9

Strung

Image: Peacock

Streaming on Peacock
Genre: Horror
Run time: 1h 59m
Director: Malcolm D. Lee
Cast: Chloe Bailey, Coco Jones, Lucien Laviscount

Strung follows a talented violinist (Chloe Bailey) who finds a well-paying job tutoring a young girl from a wealthy family. The problem is that the little girl wears a creepy mask that she never takes off.

8

Forbidden Fruits

Four fashionably cloaked young women (Alexandra Shipp, Victoria Pedretti, Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung) hold candles facing the camera in a scene from the horror-comedy Forbidden Fruits.

Streaming on Shudder
Genre: Horror
Run time: 1h 43m
Director: Meredith Alloway
Cast: Lili Reinhart, Lola Tung, Victoria Pedretti, Alexandra Shipp, and Emma Chamberlain.

Forbidden Fruits was one of the best surprises this year, blending comedy and horror in inventive ways. Directed by Meredith Alloway and produced by Diablo Cody, the story follows Pumpkin (Lola Tung), a salesgirl in a mall in Texas whose life gets uprooted when she gets hired at a fancy clothing store run by a coven of witches who claim sisterhood whenever it suits them.

7

Undertone

Evy (Nina Kiri), a young woman with dark hair and can headphones, leans over a flatscreen TV displaying a red-lit image of a screaming woman with blacked-out eyes in Undertone

Streaming on Shudder
Genre: Horror
Run time: 1h 34m
Director: Ian Tuason
Cast: Nina Kiri, Michelle Duquet

Written and directed by Ian Tuason, Undertone follows Ivy, a woman who hosts a paranormal podcast where she treats all stories with skepticism. When her mother gets sick, she moves back home to care for her, starting to work on a new case that leaves her feeling paranoid. It’s a simple story that works well due to its restraint and impressive sound design.

6

Avatar: Fire and Ash

Image: 20th Century Studios

Streaming on Disney Plus
Genre: Action/Sci-fi
Run time: 3h 15m
Director: James Cameron
Cast: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Oona Chaplin.

Avatar: Fire and Ash is finally available to stream on Disney. The film marks the third in the Avatar franchise, and the end of the story that began with Avatar: The Way of Water, with the Sully family in exile. With a whopping runtime of 3 plus hours, Fire and Ash is overflowing with ideas, action sequences, gorgeous animals, drama, and the introduction of one of the franchise’s best villains, Varang (Oona Chaplin). While there’s more story to come, the film serves as a fitting closure to the franchise’s original characters and themes.

In Polygon’s review of the film, Matt Patches writes:

Fire and Ash has big finale energy, whether it’s all over or just the closing of a trilogy. There’s healing, permadeath, closure, and even a portal/beam setpiece that puts Marvel’s 800 other portal/beam setpieces to shame. Nothing in this movie is entirely novel (The Last of the Mohicans still feels like a major touchpoint) and, yet for the first time in this series, I cared deeply about where the actual story of Avatar was going, and felt satisfied over how Cameron landed his personal leonopteryx.

5

The Sheep Detectives

The Sheep Detectives screenshot showing Hugh Jackman looking satisfied while holding a book

Streaming on Prime Video
Genre: Detective
Run time: 1h 49m
Director: Kyle Balda
Cast: Hugh Jackman, Nicholas Braun, Emma Thompson, Hong Chao, Molly Gordon, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Bella Ramsey, Regina Hall.

Written by Craig Mazin, of The Last of Us fame, Sheep Detectives takes the viewer on a whole different journey. The story follows George (Hugh Jackman), a shepherd who reads detective novels to his sheep, inspiring them to take the lead and solve a mystery when an incident disrupts farm life.

4

Carolina Caroline

Available to rent digitally
Genre: Thriller
Run time: 1h 47m
Director: Adam Carter Rehmeir
Cast: Samara Weaving, Kyle Gallner

Carolina Caroline is a riff on Bonnie and Clyde, following a woman in West Texas working at a gas station. When a handsome guy pulls a scam where she works, she decides to leave town with him instead of turning him in, beginning a volatile love story and her education as a hustler.

3

Savage House

A woman and a man embrace in Savage House

Available to rent digitally
Genre: Black comedy
Run time: 1h 53m
Director: Peter Glanz
Cast: Claire Foy, Richard E. Grant, Bel Powley

Set in England in the 18th century, Savage House follows a couple of decaying aristocrats who find the perfect opportunity to revitalize their status when the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire need a place to stay following an outbreak of pox.

2

Hungry

A woman about to be a attacked by a hippo from the movie Hungry

Available to rent digitally
Genre: Survival horror
Run time: 1h 33m
Director: James Nunn
Cast: Madison Davenport, Joaquim de Almeida, Michel Curiel

It’s never a bad time for an inventive monster movie, especially when the monster is random. Hungry follows a group of young and dumb tourists vacationing in the Louisiana swamplands. While on a tour to see alligators in the bayou, the group falls prey to a massive and determined hippo.

1

Tuner

Available to rent digitally
Genre: Thriller
Run time: 1h 49m
Director: Daniel Roher
Cast: Leo Woodall, Dustin Hoffman, Havana Rose Liu

Tuner came out this year, but it feels like a thriller of the past. Directed by Daniel Roher, a documentarian who won an Oscar for Navalny, Tuner marks his first narrative feature, following Niki (Leo Woodall), a former piano prodigy who works as a piano tuner. When his mentor (Dustin Hoffman) falls ill and is swamped with medical debts, Niki begins cracking safes with the help of his perfect pitch, throwing his life into disarray.