The weekend is here! If you’re looking for something to watch, we can help. We’ve dug through Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max and Disney+ to find some of the best titles on each service. STREAMING ON NETFLIX ‘Red Rocket’
The “Anora” Oscar winner Sean Baker writes and directs this razor-sharp, Texas-set comedy. The former MTV personality Simon Rex stars as Mikey, a grinning ne’er-do-well who returns to his hometown Texas City, Texas, where his estranged wife greets him with something less than open arms. Mikey spent the last several years as an adult film star, and if you think he’s come home to reform himself, well, you haven’t seen many Sean Baker movies. The director’s sprung comic rhythms are a treat, his filmmaking is energetic, and in Rex, he finds an unlikely vessel for a character that’s both loathsome and oddly empathetic. These are the 50 best movies on Netflix.STREAMING ON NETFLIX ‘The Forsyte Saga’
John Galsworthy’s novels about the fabulously rich, desperately unhappy Forsyte family have gotten multiple adaptations over the past century, including an internationally popular late-1960s TV mini-series and a similarly successful early 2000s version. In that 2000s take on “The Forsyte Saga,” Damian Lewis plays Soames, a solicitor and a shrewd businessman, whose sour relationship with his wife, Irene (Gina McKee), causes problems that ripple across the years, inspiring affairs, betrayals and vengeful financial machinations. Like “Downton Abbey” and “The Gilded Age,” the series tracks changing times and fluctuating fortunes. In 2012, our reporter wrote, “Viewed a decade later, the luxuriant sets and subtle performances still hold up.” Here are 30 great TV shows on Netflix.STREAMING ON HULU ‘The Devil Wears Prada’
Lauren Weisberger’s roman à clef was already a cultural sensation when it was adapted for the screen by the director David Frankel and the screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna; the resulting film helped complete Anne Hathaway’s transition from Disney princess to leading lady, and gave Meryl Streep one of her most memorable roles of the era. Hathaway is Andy, an idealistic journalist who feels she’s slumming it when she takes a job as a junior personal assistant to Miranda Priestly (Streep), the glamorous yet cruel editor in chief of Runway magazine. Hathaway is a charismatic protagonist, and Streep layers what could have been a caricature with her typical complexity, while Stanley Tucci and Emily Blunt steal scenes by the yard as Andy’s chief protector and rival, respectively. Here are Hulu’s best movies and TV shows.STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO ‘Get Shorty’
The crime novels of Elmore Leonard had eluded filmmakers for years, until the director Barry Sonnenfeld (“Men in Black”) and the screenwriter Scott Frank cracked the code here. In this “clever Hollywood satire with an enlightened sense of fun,” John Travolta shines as Chili Palmer, a smooth-talking Miami debt collector who finds his skills are particularly valuable in the movie business; Gene Hackman is uproariously funny as the sketchy producer who is first Palmer’s target, and then his partner. Here are a bunch of great movies on Amazon.STREAMING ON HBO MAX ‘Hidden Figures’
Tucked away in a math lab at a NASA building in Hampton, Va. in 1961, as America was in the midst of a frenzied space race with Russia, three Black women work as “human computers” who make themselves indispensable, despite gender and racial obstacles. Though this well-crafted and genuinely inspiring historical drama follows Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) as they break out into the field, “Hidden Figures” focuses heavily on Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson) as she makes calculations that ensure a safe mission for astronauts like John Glenn (Glen Powell). A.O. Scott called it “a rousing celebration of merit rewarded and perseverance repaid.” See more great movies streaming on HBO Max.STREAMING ON DISNEY+ ‘Pinocchio’
When the Italian woodworker Geppetto wishes upon a star that his marionette Pinocchio will become a real boy, a blue fairy brings the puppet to life, but that’s only the beginning of a difficult odyssey before Geppetto’s dream comes true. Modern audiences may be shocked by how dark Pinocchio’s journey becomes, particularly when he arrives at Pleasure Island, but the beauty, horror and moral simplicity of the film are still resonant. The movie bombed on initial release, but our critic praised it as Walt Disney’s “happiest event since the war.” The 50 best things to watch on Disney+ right now.
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