The weekend is here! If you’re looking for something to watch, we can help. We’ve dug through Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Max and Disney+ to find some of the best titles on each service. STREAMING ON NETFLIX ‘Old Henry’
Tim Blake Nelson is the quintessential contemporary character actor, turning up in memorable supporting roles in films and shows like “The Ballad of Buster Scruggs,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou,” “Watchmen” and most recently “The Lowdown.” But he got to play something new here: the leading man. Nelson stars as a farmer and widowed father who has always been tight-lipped about his colorful past. But when he’s forced into the middle of a dispute involving an injured man, a bag of cash and a crew of outlaws (led by Stephen Dorff, in deliciously menacing, scenery-chewing form), his son (Gavin Lewis) begins to realize how dark the old man’s secrets might be. Nelson is as reliable as ever, consistently telling us everything while saying nothing, and the director Potsy Ponciroli stages the inevitable, violent showdown with thrilling, nimble skill. These are the 50 best movies on Netflix.STREAMING ON NETFLIX ‘The Amazing Digital Circus’
A group of humans becomes accidentally trapped in a virtual reality nightmare in this colorful and disturbing animated series, loosely inspired by the Harlan Ellison short story “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.” The story begins with a woman unexpectedly showing up in a jester costume in a strange circus, overseen by a bossy ringmaster named Caine, whose entire head is one big set of teeth. Given the name Pomni, the new arrival tries to help her fellow prisoners explore their world and to look for a possible escape, while joining them on increasingly bizarre adventures. Here are 30 great TV shows on Netflix.STREAMING ON HULU ‘Black Panther’
Regarded as the finest Marvel movie to date, “Black Panther” pays lip service to its own Cinematic Universe, but it also transcends the limitations of contemporary blockbusters. The director Ryan Coogler (“Sinners,” “Creed”), with his rich visual template that is steeped in the aesthetics of Afrofuturism, deserves much of the credit. And in the character of Killmonger (played with both menace and pain by Michael B. Jordan), Coogler gives us an antagonist of genuine strength and complexity. The stakes are so high and the canvas so grand that the conflict and climax carry real weight. But it is also good, old-fashioned entertainment, as indebted to Bond and blaxploitation as to its comic-book contemporaries. Here are Hulu’s best movies and TV shows.STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO ‘Hollywood Shuffle’
Robert Townsend spent much of the early 1980s struggling in Hollywood, occasionally landing a decent supporting role, but mostly auditioning for a series of infuriating stereotypes. He channeled his frustration into art, raising the low budget for this “exuberant satire,” which he not only stars in but co-writes, produces, and directs. He plays an actor much like himself, spending his days in a humiliating fast-food job and sneaking off to the occasional humiliating audition, while indulging in daydreams of the kind of roles he’d like to play. It’s less a sturdy narrative than a series of comic blackout sketches, but Townsend’s charisma and good spirit carries it through. Here are a bunch of great movies on Amazon.STREAMING ON HBO MAX ‘The Times of Harvey Milk’
More than just good supplemental material for the 2008 Gus Van Sant-directed biopic “Milk,” Rob Epstein’s Oscar-winning documentary evokes the charged political atmosphere that led to the 1978 assassination of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California. Narrated by Harvey Fierstein, “The Times of Harvey Milk” admires the passion and political instincts of the San Francisco board of supervisors member, who successfully lobbied for a bill to end discrimination based on sexual orientation before he and Mayor George Moscone, were shot by rival supervisor Dan White. The combustible drama inherent in Epstein’s documentary, Janet Maslin wrote, allows Epstein to “rely on a simple, straightforward style without lacking momentum or emotion.” See more great movies streaming on HBO Max.STREAMING ON DISNEY+ ‘Bambi’
No one can forget the trauma of watching a hunter kill a young deer’s mother. But after that notorious moment, “Bambi” is watercolor poetry, following the fawn as he learns and grows alongside his woodland friends and eventually becomes a father himself. Without spelling it out in a big production number, the film quietly teaches children about the “circle of life” in all its beauty, wonder and occasional loss. “The colors,” our critic raved, “would surprise even the spectrum itself.” The 50 best things to watch on Disney+ right now.
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