Streaming ain’t easy. Sure, if you’re a cinephile, practically every movie you could ever want to watch is at your fingertips. But therein lies the problem: knowing what’s out there, and where to find it, can become overwhelming. Here, we’re doing the hard work for you, by cutting through the clutter and getting straight to the best new movies available to watch right now and in the near future. Here are the five must-watch movies hitting streaming services this week.
The Friend (Paramount+)
Naomi Watts is a writer in New York whose best friend and mentor, played by Bill Murray, dies suddenly and leaves her with a 180-pound metaphor for grief: his massive Great Dane, Apollo. Mawkish? At points, sure. But the film mostly succeeds due to Watts, the lovely New York location photography and especially Bing, the dog that plays Apollo, giving the best canine performance of the year – at least until Good Boy comes out. Read our review.
Watch The Friend now on Paramount+
Wolf Man (Prime)
In 2020, director Leigh Whannell remade The Invisible Man into a shockingly effective modern thriller. Five years later, he took a shot at updating another musty horror property. Wolf Man isn’t nearly as successful, overthinking the ‘update’ part and forgetting to be, y’know, scary. But it has a few intense scenes, a standout performance from Weapons’ Julia Garner, and there’s something novel about the physiological approach it takes to the lupine transformation. Read our review.
Watch Wolf Man now on Prime
Thursday Murder Club (Netflix)
Not since the glory days of Matlock have senior sleuths been so hot! On the heels of Only Murders in the Building, Chris Columbus directs this adaptation of the 2020 Richard Osman novel, following a group of septuagenarians spending retirement solving cold cases. Meta-commentaries on culture’s true-crime obsession are getting a bit, well, old, but you can’t argue with a cast that includes Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan and Ben Kingsley. Read our review.
Watch Thursday Night Murder Club on Netflix starting Aug. 28
Hell of a Summer (Hulu)
With Stranger Things winding down, its young cast is looking at life beyond Hawkins, Indiana, and for standout Finn Wolfhard, that involves taking a stab at writing-directing – and also stabbings. Co-written with fellow twentysomething actor Billy Bryk, this horror-comedy throws back to classic summer-camp slashers like Friday the 13th and Sleepaway Camp, but with a twist of Gen Z irony. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, nor the axe or kitchen knife, but it’s delivered with enough energy to make you curious what these guys can do once they get a bit more confident behind the camera.
Watch Hell of a Summer on Hulu starting Aug. 29
Last Breath (Prime)
Even before that rich-guy submarine imploded at the bottom of the ocean, the mere thought of deep-sea diving in any capacity was enough to make most people’s hands sweaty. Dramatising the 2018 documentary of the same name, this survival thriller follows three saturation divers (Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu and Finn Cole) in a race to save one of their own. It’s a meat-and-potatoes pulse-pounder that plays on some basic human fears to well-orchestrated effect. Read our review.
Watch Last Breath on Prime starting Aug. 29
