Best Movies of 2024 Streaming on Netflix, Hulu, Max, and More

‘The Beast’ (Criterion Channel)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich: “Compelling evidence that every major arthouse director should be required to make their own ‘Cloud Atlas’ before they die, Bertrand Bonello’s sweeping, romantic, and ravishingly strange ‘The Beast’ finds the French director broadening — and in some cases challenging — the core obsessions of his previous films into a sci-fi epic about the fear of falling in love. Split into three lightly intercut parts that trace the connection between two star-crossed souls (embodied by Léa Seydoux and George MacKay) from 1910 to 2044, Bonello’s latest and most accessible movie begins by literalizing the same basic premise that has undergirded previous work like ‘House of Tolerance’ and ‘Zombi Child’: The past is always present (a dialectic explored here with the help of a machine that encourages people to purify their DNA by purging themselves of any emotion left over from their past lives).”

‘Between the Temples’ (Netflix)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich: “No film this side of “A Serious Man” has confronted that specific fear as directly as Nathan Silver’s ‘Between the Temples,’ a spiky, hilarious, and thoroughly unorthodox screwball comedy about a grief-stricken cantor who loses his voice, only to find that he’s surrounded by a chorus of well-intentioned people who are happy to speak for him. Played by a note-perfect Jason Schwartzman (the ‘Asteroid City’ star delivering another fumblingly wistful performance as a widower trying to make sense of his pain, this one inspired by the music of David Berman), Ben Gottlieb has never been sadder than he is at the start of this story. Needless to say, he’s also never been closer to his moms.”

‘Bird’ (Mubi)

From IndieWire’s review by Ryan Lattanzio: “Andrea Arnold’s latest film ‘Bird,’ continuing a tradition for one-word titles centered around animalia Arnold started in 2001 with her short film ‘Dog’ and more recently with the documentary ‘Cow,’ is a departure for Arnold in a key way: This sensitively drawn if opaque coming-of-age fable about 12-year-old Bailey (newcomer Nykiya Adams) uses, I think, the most CGI of any movie in Arnold’s oeuvre. That’s not to say it’s unsubtly deployed, but ‘Bird’ features more surreal flights of fantasy than we’re used to seeing from the ordinarily stripped-down, Academy ratio-shooting filmmaker. There’s an eager fox that wanders into the wedding reception of Bailey’s father Bug (an inked-up, working-class Barry Keoghan), a crow that steals a handwritten missive out of Bailey’s hands, and an unexpected sequence of anthropomorphic transformation that thrusts ‘Bird’ into a briefly weird direction.”

‘Blink Twice’ (MGM+, Amazon Prime)

From IndieWire’s review by Kate Erbland: “Simply described as something of a #MeToo thriller (or, perhaps a bit more cattily speaking, a sterling example of if ‘Don’t Worry, Darling’ was twice as smart and three times as entertaining), [Zoë] Kravitz’s film doesn’t just interrogate the possibilities of the sub-genre, but utterly redefines it with class and style. Mostly, Kravitz (who co-wrote the script with her ‘High Fidelity’ compatriot E.T. Feigenbaum) delights in working double-time: ‘Blink Twice’ is cunningly funny and high-spirited, but not at the expense of having plenty to say about what it means to be a woman in a distinctly man’s world. Especially if that man is embattled business genius Slater King (Channing Tatum), and his world is a lush tropical island populated entirely to his specifications (drugs, Christian Slater, sushi-grade fish).”

‘Challengers’ (Prime Video)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich: “Here is a glistening, red-blooded, semi-American sports film where nobody wants to win at love because victory itself runs a distant second to the psychosexual ecstasy of having something worthwhile to play for, a reward that ultimately proves even more valuable than a USTA championship or Zendaya’s phone number. If orgasms are little deaths, then it’s fitting that nobody in ‘Challengers’ ever has one on screen. These competitors only feel alive when they’re bound together by the mutual intimacy of being edged to the break points of their desire, and Guadagnino’s deliriously enjoyable movie doesn’t let any of its characters get off until even the most sophisticated Hawk-Eye line-calling technology on Earth would be unable to pinpoint the exact spot where tennis ends and sex begins.”

‘Crossing’ (Mubi)

From IndieWire’s review by Ryan Lattanzio: “In ‘Crossing,’ the new film from ‘And Then We Danced’ director Levan Akin, the earthy spirit of Italian icon Anna Magnani is channeled by not one but two actresses who resemble her. There’s Mzia Arabuli as Lia, a retired schoolteacher on a journey from Batumi in Georgia to Istanbul in Turkey to find her missing trans niece, and Deniz Dumanli as Evrim, the trans NGO lawyer the movie dupes us into thinking is Lia’s niece. The two women are as far apart on the joie de vivre spectrum as any pair could be — Lia has calcified into an emotionless stone who gives away nothing, while Evrim lives freely and sexually liberated in an otherwise LGBTQ-challenged country — yet ‘Crossing’ movingly bridges the space between them as Lia gets closer to locating her niece with the help a Gen Z Georgian teenager named Achi (Lucas Kankava).”

‘Dahomey’ (Mubi)

From IndieWire’s list of the Best Documentaries of 2024, by Wilson Chapman: “At barely over an hour long, Mati Diop’s ‘Dahomey’ feels more like a hazy dream than a full-fledged documentary. A curious mix of nonfiction and narrative storytelling, the documentary dramatizes the return of 26 historic artifacts hailing from the Kingdom of Dahomey to Benin after hundreds of years in French possession, primarily telling the story through the artifacts themselves. Narration tells of these artifacts’ journey home, giving these inanimate objects a voice in a way that sheds insight into the gnawing sense of displacement and the cultural scars that colonialism lingers on a populace. Still, Diop’s film isn’t just a pure mood piece: an extended depiction of a forum debate over the artifacts’ return, in which students express joy at their return and dissatisfaction at it as an incomplete gesture, is a fascinating moment of nonfiction storytelling that never takes sides or leans into any one direction as it considers the issues in total.”

‘Daughters’ (Netflix)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich: “An enormously moving documentary made all the more effective by co-directors Angela Patton and Natalie Rae’s steadfast refusal to settle for easy sentiment in the face of difficult outcomes, ‘Daughters’ has as much ugly-cry potential as any film in recent memory. But the most lasting power of this film about a unique father-daughter dance for D.C.-area Black girls whose fathers are in jail comes in a final act that wipes those tears away to examine the hurt they leave behind. “

‘Dìdi’ (Peacock)

From IndieWire’s review by Wilson Chapman: “Anybody who’s suffered through the experience of being a 13-year-old probably knew a boy who acted like Chris Wang (Izaac Wang). A braces-faced edgelord fresh out of middle school, Chris spends the summer of 2008 before freshman year tossing around casually sexist and homophobic jokes with his friends, surfing the web on his bulky PC, and generally acting like a self-destructive brat towards everyone around him. He’s horrifically unappreciative of his mother Chungsing (a wonderful Joan Chen) who’s left to look after her kids while her husband works in Taiwan, an outright demon to his college-bound older sister Vivian (Shirley Chen), and quick to push away and ignore his friends. But his bark doesn’t translate to any real bite; like many kids his age, all that bluster belies a sweet, extremely insecure heart.”

‘A Different Man’ (Amazon Prime, Apple TV)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich: “A caustically funny cosmic joke of a film about an insecure actor who finds a miracle cure for his facial disfigurement, only to be upstaged by a stranger who oozes self-confidence despite (still) having the exact same condition the main character had once allowed to hold him back, Aaron Schimberg’s ruthless and Escher-like ‘A Different Man’ might have felt cruel if not for how cleverly it complicates its punchline.”

‘Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World’ (Mubi)

From IndieWire’s review by Sophie Monks Kaufman: “It takes flair to concoct visual-gag-after-visual-gag within episodic riffs on the raw deals suffered by the gig-economy-classes in modern day Bucharest. Radu Jude blends absurdist humor with keen social integrity, like a sharper Romanian riposte to Ruben Östlund, as the trials of a dangerously overworked production assistant named Ange (Ilinca Manolache, sensational) builds to a 40-minute final shot in which tragicomedy is heaped upon tragicomedy to unbearably brilliant effect.”

‘Evil Does Not Exist’ (Criterion Channel)

From IndieWire’s review by Ryan Lattanzio: “‘Evil Does Not Exist,’ the title of the latest film from “Drive My Car” director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, is a bold statement to make in the year 2023. As it turns out in this eerie and elusive ecological tone poem about man, nature, and man’s nature, the statement is not necessarily something the Japanese filmmaker believes. This made-in-secret and gently lilting film set in a bucolic village on the outskirts of Tokyo seems like a call for compassion on the surface — it centers on how the village’s inhabitants tangle with a corporation trying to set up a glamping site in their forest, only for the two opposing sides to eventually find common ground. But that entente proves a foil for a much darker twist Hamaguchi pulls in the film’s last act.”

‘The First Omen’ (Hulu)

From IndieWire’s review by Alison Foreman: “What to expect when you’re expecting … the Antichrist? Filmmaker Arkasha Stevenson delivers her gleefully gruesome answer to that increasingly popular question in 20th Century’s terrifying and triumphant ‘The First Omen.’ It’s a nominally named soft franchise reboot and the vastly superior (if accidental) answer to Neon’s ‘Immaculate’ with Sydney Sweeney … Yes, both horror films explore what happens when a child of Christ is involuntarily forced to carry a demon baby to term. And yes, both movies have some merit; trite but true, Damien just doesn’t have that ‘Cassie from “Euphoria”‘ pull. But only Stevenson’s spin on ‘The Omen’ can tie its borderline NC-17 terror to a multi-decade genre legacy suddenly feasting on noticeably improved visual artistry and a narratively satisfying revamp of stale IP.”

‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ (Max)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich: “Inveterate madman George Miller has followed the most spectacular action movie of the 21st century not with a sequel that continues where ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ left off (though he hopes to make one of those someday), but rather with a prequel that paves the way to where it began. By the same token, it also stands to reason that Miller hasn’t tried to outdo the orgiastic mayhem that brought his Ozploitation franchise screaming into the 21st century all shiny and chrome — the guy might be insane, but he isn’t stupid.”

‘Green Border’ (Kino Film Collection)

From IndieWire’s review by Adam Solomons: “If you’ve seen ‘Europa Europa,’ the real-life story of a Jewish boy who escapes a Nazi concentration camp and joins the German army, you’ll know that the Polish director Agnieszka Holland knows how to make films about people wriggling their way through life. Her latest film, which is in competition at Venice, tells several interlinked stories in and around the swampy forest border region between Poland and Belarus. We meet border guards, activists, and refugees themselves. Despite biting off a bit more than it can chew, it’s an affecting introduction to a little-known crisis and the latest case of a master filmmaker showing us they can still do it.”

‘His Three Daughters’ (Netflix)

From IndieWire’s review by Kate Erbland: “[Azazel] Jacobs’ stellar casting instantly belies the care that goes into the entire film, and as he allows each of his stars to further melt into their roles, ‘His Three Daughters’ doesn’t just grow, it grows more generous. As the trio — plus the various caregivers who cycle in and out of the apartment, from the no-nonsense nurse who still radiates energy to the hospice worker who can only say so much about what’s to come, plus a gobsmacking appearance from Rachel’s boyfriend, played by an incandescent Jovan Adepo — orbit each other in the apartment, it’s only natural that emotions will get heated. Not everyone’s coping mechanisms work: Katie’s need to control everything certainly doesn’t, but neither does Rachel’s weed-soaked avoidance. Christina? She’s off in a corner, doing yoga.”

‘I Saw the TV Glow’ (Max)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich: “[Jane] Schoenbrun’s astonishing second feature manages to retain the seductive fear of their micro-budget debut and deepen its thrilling wounds of discovery even while examining them at a much larger scale. If ‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair’ was a 360p snapshot of dysphoria in motion, ‘I Saw the TV Glow’ is an intimate landscape shot with the ultra-vivid resolution of a recurring dream; it marries the queer radicality of a Gregg Araki film with the lush intoxication of a Gregory Crewdson photo, and finds Schoenbrun holding on to every inch of their vision as they make the leap from outsider artist to A24-stamped auteur. This is a movie that knows it will be seen (or was at least financed with that expectation), and yet, to an even greater degree than Schoenbrun’s debut, it’s also a movie about how the things people watch can have the power to see them in return. Even the parts of themselves they might be hiding from. Even the parts of themselves they aren’t ready to name yet.”

‘Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell’ (Kino Film Collection)

From IndieWire’s review by Josh Slater-Williams: “An intimate three-hour epic of deliberate pacing, Vietnamese writer-director Thien An Pham’s debut feature, ‘Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell,’ is a spellbinding tale of the soul’s unfathomable desire for the other-worldly, that does itself border on transcendental in its filmmaking and gradual blurring of apparent truth and suggested fantasy.”

‘Janet Planet’ (Max)

From IndieWire’s review by Esther Zuckerman: “‘Janet Planet’ is gloriously packed with the carefully observed details of the lives of its central characters, who are embodied with warmth and endearing strangeness by [Zoe] Ziegler, an incredible discovery, and the typically fantastic Nicholson, who gives one of her finest performances to date. It also marks [Annie] Baker’s transition from heralded playwright into major cinematic voice.”

‘Juror #2’ (Max)

From IndieWire’s review by Christian Zilko: “Opening with broad strokes of patriotism that paint the American legal system in a euphoric light, it descends into a study of the ways that an imperfect system can be made even less perfect by the mortals tasked with running it. Yet it’s more interested in giving everyone the benefit of the doubt than casting blame on any individual person or group. Even in the film’s darkest moments, [director Clint] Eastwood and screenwriter Jonathan Abrams beg us to consider the possibility that our enemies are doing their best to get through the day without veering too far from their own definition of a good person, only to remind us how short of those ideals we’re each capable of falling. ‘Juror #2’ argues that nobody should be defined by their mistakes, but we can’t move on from them without admitting to ourselves that we’ll never be fully liberated from our pasts.”

‘Kinds of Kindness’ (Hulu)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich: “Shot ‘on a budget’ during the long post-production process for [Yorgos] Lanthimos’ extravagant, Oscar-winning ‘Poor Things,’ the happily inhospitable ‘Kinds of Kindness’ can’t help but feel like an allergic reaction to the mainstream success he’s enjoyed — or at least capitalized upon — since pivoting from Greek to English with ‘The Lobster’ in 2015. Always interesting, seldom enjoyable, and somehow both smothered and excessive at the same time (and at all times), this nearly three-hour bonfire of Searchlight Pictures’ annual budget is a towering monument to human love that betrays almost zero interest in actually being liked.”

‘Last Summer’ (Criterion Channel)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich: “Nothing in this sick, sad world is simpler or more complicated than sex, a principle that helps to explain why the ever-provocative Catherine Breillat — whose films so often consecrate female desire by rendering it violently indefinable — was drawn to remake a 2019 Danish movie about a middle-aged lawyer who dedicates her life to defending young rape victims, only to begin a torrid affair with her own 17-year-old stepson. May el-Toukhy’s ‘Queen of Hearts’ spun that stark hypocrisy into a melodrama ridden with shame and secret darkness. Breillat’s ‘Last Summer’ is much lighter in every way, and all the more revealing as a result; it leverages the same premise into a rich exploration of the inadequate judgment such a premise exists to invite.”

‘Love Lies Bleeding’ (Max)

From IndieWire’s review by Kate Erbland: “It’s [Kristen Stewart and Katy O’Brian’s] crackling chemistry — which Glass funnels into a series of genuinely hot sex scenes that more than prove the necessity for such sequences in films that hinge on actual human romantic relationships — that drives ‘Love Lies Bleeding,’ an alternately alluring and excruciating crime thriller that also smacks of body horror and midnight movie thrills. Glass, who previously earned scads of instant fans with her ‘Saint Maud,’ again tackles the human body as a vessel for pain, pleasure, and so much more, though the brutally blunt imagery that comes to dominate the film loses its power over time.”

‘Maria’ (Netflix)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich: “The last and least familiar chapter in his trilogy of cloistered biopics, Pablo Larraín’s ‘Maria’ is — like ‘Spencer’ before it — a beautifully designed but sparsely furnished mind palace of a movie about a famous 20th century woman struggling to see herself through the inescapable glare of history’s spotlight. Where the opera star Maria Callas differs from Princess Diana or First Lady Jackie Kennedy in Larraín’s conception is that she desperately wants to be on (or return to) the public stage; her most authentic self is only complete with a loving audience. “

‘My First Film’ (Mubi)

From IndieWire’s review by Natalia Winkelman: “A self-reflexive origin story about creation, growth, and the myth of the lone artist, ‘My First Film’ announces a bold, disruptive new talent in American cinema. But if the film’s release is anything like Zia Anger’s experience in the film world thus far, it will elicit a maddening whimper where it should have made a bang. That’s because Anger, who writes and directs with fierce emotion and sincerity, has had terrible luck (if you want to call it that) on the film scene. Despite directing evocative music videos for artists like Mitski and Angel Olsen, Anger has been consistently overlooked by Hollywood, and has struggled to secure financing. Her first feature, shot on a shoestring budget with support from family and friends, was rejected from every film festival.”

‘The People’s Joker’ (Mubi)

From IndieWire’s review by Jude Dry: “Coming out as a bold filmmaker with a fearless voice, prolific alt comedy editor Vera Drew’s mixed media dystopia is an experimental trans coming of age story wrapped in a scathing critique and confident rebuke of mainstream comedy. Fiercely original and deeply personal, it’s too damn good not to be seen.”

‘Red Rooms’ (Amazon Prime)

From IndieWire’s interview with director Pascal Plante by Ryan Lattanzio: “With a great command of style, writer/director Pascal Plante‘s moody and morbid thriller puts you in the eyes and ears of Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy), a hacker and seemingly sociopathic woman obsessed with a serial killer currently on trial — and for alleged staging and distributing snuff films of his adolescent-age female victims’ grisly deaths. Kelly-Anne is a model on the side, addicted to exercise and self-discipline to the nth degree, but her full-time job is an addiction to internet poker and a parasocial attachment to Ludovic Chevalier (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos), the supposed murderer encased in a glass box while his alleged victims’ mothers are forced to watch said snuff films in a packed courtroom.”

‘The Remarkable Life of Ibelin’ (Netflix)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich: “[‘The Remarkable Life of Ibelin’ is] a clever and heartfelt tribute to someone [director Benjamin] Ree knew as a child — before Mats Steen’s all too brief existence was defined by the muscular dystrophy syndrome that seemingly deprived him of the chance to meet friends, fall in love, and otherwise make a lasting impression on the people outside of his immediate family. When the 25-year-old Steen died in 2014, however, nobody was more surprised than his parents to discover the full extent of the legacy their son had managed to leave behind. That’s why he bequeathed them the password to his blog: So that his parents could post news of his death, and see from the onslaught of loving replies that Mats’ life was so much bigger than they had ever dared to imagine. It was so much bigger than his body was ever thought to allow.”

‘Smile 2’ (Paramount Plus)

From IndieWire’s review by Christian Zilko: “It’s a joy to watch [director Parker] Finn build bigger sets and choreograph more complex shots — a privilege that’s clearly afforded to a sophomore filmmaker who earned more toys after his debut feature grossed $200 million on a $17 million budget. And [star Naomi] Scott’s excellent take on a spiraling pop star — which feels particularly timely in a year filled with high-profile performance cancellations — would be entertaining enough on its own, even without the horror twist. A film about suicide observers who go on to commit suicide is always destined to be a bleak endeavor, but Scott and Finn’s ability to lean into the campy silliness of their premise without sacrificing character moments provides a bit of balance that was missing from the original film.”

‘Stress Positions’ (Hulu)

From IndieWire’s review by Ryan Lattanzio: “‘Stress Positions’ mines the gap between the dark bookend of events that shaped millennial lives — September 11 and the pandemic — and that between liberal-posturing millennials and a Gen Z with a less fussy, more hopeful worldview. [Director Theda] Hammel’s muses and emissaries on either side of the dichotomy in a comedy swirling with ideas are comedian John Early as a gay soon-to-be-divorcee and Qaher Harhash as his nephew, a 19-year-old Moroccan model with identity-shifting questions of his own. Here is a movie that sees a hapless set of self-obsessed millennials who came of age out of liberal arts colleges and the internet for who they really are.”

‘The Substance’ (Mubi)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich: “An immensely, unstoppably, ecstatically demented fairy tale about female self-hatred, Coralie Fargeat’s ‘The Substance’ will stop at nothing — and I mean nothing — to explode the ruthless beauty standards that society has inflicted upon women for thousands of years, a burden this camp-adjacent instant classic aspires to cast off with some of the most spectacularly disgusting body horror this side of ‘The Fly’ or the final minutes of ‘Akira.’”

‘Sugarcane’ (Hulu, Disney+)

From IndieWire’s review by Esther Zuckerman: “The film from directors Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie is a stunning and brutal look at the lasting trauma of the St. Joseph’s Mission Residential School, a government-funded institution run by the Catholic Church where indigenous children were sent with the aim of stripping them of the connection to their culture. The abuses that took place at St. Joseph’s and the places around North America like it were innumerable — though much of the evidence of wrongdoing is, devastatingly, lost to time. But as NoiseCat and Kassie’s film shows, the legacy of harm has echoed throughout generations as the survivors reckon with what they saw and endured, keeping some of their experiences, too painful to fully grasp, buried.”

‘Thelma’ (Hulu)

From IndieWire’s review by Alison Foreman: “Writer/director Josh Margolin squeezes surprisingly funny freshness from the musty themes of aging, death, and lost autonomy in his poignantly written ‘Thelma,’ a seriocomic ‘Mission Impossible’ remix that casts June Squibb as the titular action hero in a slow-moving but still quietly epic revenge flick about elder fraud.”

‘Union’ (Streaming via the Film’s Website)

From IndieWire’s review by David Ehrlich: “Stephen Maing and Brett Story’s tough and gripping new film about the fight to unionize the workers of an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island might be an observational documentary at heart, but this in-the-trenches portrait of grassroots organizing doesn’t leave any doubt as to whose side it’s on. Indeed, few movies have ever screamed ‘fuck you, pay me!’ louder than ‘Union’ does with its opening frames, which use footage of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos blasting into space aboard his self-financed — and unmistakably phallic — rocketship to set the stage for the struggle he’s avoiding back on Earth. Watching a mega-billionaire overcompensate on an interstellar scale would be damning regardless, but in this context it makes it that much easier to appreciate how cruelly his business empire is undercompensating all of the people who keep it in the black.”

Stream it via “Union’s” official site here.

‘Will & Harper’ (Netflix)

From IndieWire’s review by Lauren Wissot: “Director Josh Greenbaum was known as a documentary filmmaker before he shifted gears for ‘Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar,’ and with ‘Will & Harper’ — a nonfiction buddy comedy in which Will Ferrell drives across the country with a beloved colleague — he returns to his nonfiction roots in order to confront a series of questions that seem as far from his comfort zone as they are from Ferrell’s. Questions like: How does a straight cis male of a certain age come to terms with the fact that one of his oldest friends has just come out as trans? And what will happen to their friendship when said trans woman refuses to stop for donuts? (Spoiler alert: Ferrell has a comic meltdown, declaring the whole trip ‘stupid’ if he doesn’t get his Dunkin’).”