The weekend is here! If you’re looking for something to watch, we’ve rounded up some of the best titles from several major streaming services. See a sample from our roundups below. Want even more recommendations? Gather them from our list of The 100 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century, which we’ll begin rolling out on Monday. Every day next week, you’ll get highlights from each new batch of 20, including excerpts from celebrity interviews, delivered to your inbox. STREAMING ON NETFLIX ‘Sleepless in Seattle’
The writer and director Nora Ephron recaptured the box office magic of “When Harry Met Sally” (which she wrote for the director Rob Reiner) with this sparklingly romantic and sweetly funny riff on “An Affair to Remember” (and its own various remakes and iterations). Tom Hanks stars as a single father and recent widower whose searching call to a late-night radio talk show goes the mid-90s equivalent of viral; Meg Ryan is a soon-to-be-wed journalist who falls for this voice in the night and pursues his affections, against all odds (and her better judgment). These are the 50 best movies on Netflix.STREAMING ON NETFLIX ‘Best Medicine’
Josh Charles plays Dr. Martin Best in this amiable medical comedy, based on the long-running British series “Doc Martin.” Formerly a surgeon at one of Boston’s best hospitals, Martin shakes up his life and takes over a general practitioner’s office in a small Maine fishing village after he develops a paralyzing aversion to the sight of blood. “Best Medicine” is about how this brilliant but difficult man adjusts to living in a town filled with kooky folks who need his help — but who are used to their family physicians being much more friendly. Here are 30 great TV shows on Netflix.STREAMING ON HULU ‘All of Us Strangers’
The writer and director Andrew Haigh loosely adapts Taichi Yamada’s spare novel “Strangers” into a lyrical, elegiac and frequently erotic story of love, loss and letting go. Andrew Scott (“Fleabag”) is spectacular as a lonely screenwriter who embarks on a casual relationship with a younger, wilder neighbor (Paul Mescal) just as he’s beginning work on a script inspired by his youth — which comes to life in altogether unexpected ways. Haigh steers his story from straightforward realism into mythical recollection without losing control of his delicate tone, and the central relationship is delightfully tender and lived-in. Our critic Alissa Wilkinson advises viewers to “just feel your way through, letting it roll over you.” Here are Hulu’s best movies and TV shows.STREAMING ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO ‘Riotsville USA’
In 2024, as news outlets reported on police clashing with protesters on college campuses, some necessary historical context was available via this documentary account of how our government addressed similar civil unrest in the late 1960s. The title comes from a government training facility, a fake town built for riot training exercises, and the director Sierra Pettengill uncovered archival footage of those exercises. This is a fierce, angry film — the kind of documentary where historical overview blurs uncomfortably into contemporary commentary. Here are a bunch of great movies on Amazon.STREAMING ON HBO MAX ‘Contagion’
Though the global pandemic that rips through “Contagion” has a more apocalyptic mortality rate than Covid-19, it’s fascinating to see how uncannily Steven Soderbergh’s film anticipates the scientific and cultural ramifications of a virus that reorders society. Starting with an American (Gwyneth Paltrow) who contracts a mysterious illness on a Hong Kong business trip and dies shortly after returning to Minneapolis, the film meticulously tracks the spread of the disease and the response from public health officials, who scramble for a solution as the death toll mounts and the fabric of everyday life is torn asunder. Manohla Dargis called it a “smart, spooky thriller about a thicket of contemporary plagues.” See more great movies streaming on HBO Max.STREAMING ON DISNEY+ ‘Hoppers’
When a popular big-city mayor (Jon Hamm) wants to build a piece of highway to ease morning commutes, nothing can stand in the way of progress, save maybe an idealistic young activist (Piper Curda) whose consciousness has been melded with a robotic beaver avatar. That sounds like an absurdly convoluted premise for an animated comedy, but Pixar’s “Hoppers” swiftly establishes the funny dynamic of the human-beaver desperately rallying various pond animals to rebuild their lost Eden. Along with its zany metaphysics, the film carries a surprising optimism over both interspecies relationships and municipal compromise. Alissa Wilkinson wrote that the film “possesses that certain charm that comes with pudgy beavers and dastardly caterpillars, and a touch of weird humor beside.” The 50 best things to watch on Disney+ right now.
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