Looking to settle in with a good movie? Me too. That's why I've pored over release schedules to bring you the best original and new-to-streaming movies you can watch on Netflix, Prime, Max, Hulu, and other platforms.
I'm way outside the target market for Disney's princess-musical Descendants: Rise of the Red, but I want to entertain and enthrall the 12-year-old girl in my heart, so it's at the top of my must-watch list. Once I've indulged, it's back to feeding my inner world-weary cynic with the Criterion Channel's seedy Times Square collection, or just watching fools get eaten by sharks on HBO's Shark Week specials.
Descendants: Rise of the Red
If you, or anyone else in your life, is into princesses, Descendants: Rise of the Red is the movie for you/them. The fourth installment in Disney's Descendants series of musical-fantasy films is a stylish, modern re-imagining of Disney lore that follow the lives of the teenage children of famous Disney villains. In Rise of the Red, Red, played by Kylie Cantrall, is the daughter of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland, and she teams up with Chloe Charming (played by Malia Baker), daughter of Cinderella, to prevent a coup at Auradon Prep, the Princess school.
Where to stream: Disney+
Criterion Channel's Times Square Collection
Before it became a Disney-fied, hyper-Capitalist tourist trap, New York's Times Square was a squalid nightmare of sleaze, street-crime, and urine-scented freedom. In July, The Criterion Channel is bringing the bad old days back with a slate of grimy films that pay tribute to those lost days, including Midnight Cowboy, Shaft, God Told Me To, Taxi Driver, Times Square, and many more. "I'm walkin' heah!"
Where to stream: The Criterion Channel
Tyler Perry’s Divorce in Black
Prolific writer/director/producer Tyler Perry takes on divorce in Divorce in Black, a drama starring Meagan Good and Cory Hardrict. Good plays Ava, a bank professional, whose life is upended when her husband (Hardrict) walks out of their home. She’s set on fighting to save her marriage until she uncovers secrets that suggest her husband has a very dark side and sabotaged a past relationship with Ava’s true soulmate.
Where to stream: Prime
Shark Week
Do you like sharks? Because HBO and Max are going shark crazy in July. Shark fanciers will gorge like a great white on a defenseless porpoise with these 20 Shark Week specials produced by the Discovery Channel, including Belly of the Beast: Bigger and Bloodier, Sydney Harbor Shark Invasion, Great White Serial Killer: Sea of Blood, something called Mothersharker: Hammertime and many, many more.
Here’s the full list:
Starts streaming July 7
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Belly of the Beast: Bigger and Bloodier
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Jaws vs. Leviathan
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Makozilla
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Sydney Harbor Shark Invasion
Starts streaming July 8
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Big Shark Energy
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Bodies in the Water
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Great White Serial Killer: Sea of Blood
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Shark Frenzy: Mating Games
Starts streaming July 8
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6000-Lb Shark
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Deadliest Bite
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Monster Hammerheads: Species X
Starts streaming July 10
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Alien Sharks: Ghosts of Japan
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Expedition Unknown: Shark Wrecks of WWII
Starts streaming July 11
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Caught! When Sharks Attack
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Great White Danger Zone
Starts streaming July 12
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Shark Attack Island
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Sharks of the Dead Zone
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The Real Sharkano
Starts streaming July 13
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Mothersharker: Hammertime
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Sharktopia
Sam Morril: You've Changed
Gravel-voiced standup Sam Morril takes the stage in a standup special where he drops hot takes on everything from the worst person he's ever dated, to the challenges of aging, to the dangers of social media, all delivered in the laid-back style Morril is known for. If you like people making ha-ha jokes at you, Sam Morril: You’ve Changed will make you laugh, or at least say “heh” a few times.
Where to stream: Prime
Quad Gods
Richard, Blake, and Prentice met at a New York rehab center where they were being treated for quadriplegia. They were all hardcore gamers and formed the Quad Gods, the first all-quadriplegic esports gaming team, where they pwned noobs all over the world. More than just a fun hobby, gaming is part of their cutting edge neurological rehab process; Quad Gods tells their story and digs into the medical advancements that might come from their hobby.
Where to stream: Max
Tickled (2016)
Tickled is one of the strangest documentaries I've ever seen. Journalist David Farrier starts off hunting a quirky story about the "sport" of competitive tickling, but uncovers a strange underworld that's not funny at all. I don't want to spoil any of the twists and turns in this narrative, so I'll just urge you to watch this movie.
Where to stream: Netflix
Last week's picks
Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F
It's been almost 40 years since cop-out-of-water Axel Foley busted bad guys in Beverly Hills, and Eddie Murphy returns to the title role with some world-weariness to add to his panache. Old pals Billy Rosewood (Judge Reinhold) and Taggart (John Ashton) are on hand, but there's some new blood too: Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Axel's partner, and Taylour Paige plays his daughter, whose life is in danger until Pop F. comes to save the day. This mixture of action, comedy, and Eddie Murphy worked in the 1980s, but will it in 2024? Watch Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F to find out.
Where to stream: Netflix
Space Cadet
Remember that episode of The Simpsons where Homer is chosen to fly in a space shuttle mission? Space Cadet is like the training montage made into a fish-out-of-water comedy. It stars Emma Roberts as Tiffany “Rex” Simpson, a Florida party girl who’s always dreamed of being an astronaut. Her background is in bar-hopping instead of astrophysics, so she lies on her LinkedIn and gets into NASA’s competitive astronaut training program. Surrounded by ambitious PhDs and engineers, Simpson tries to keep up her “smart and accomplished” ruse long enough to be blasted into space. If you like female-led comedy and jokes about science, Space Cadet might be your favorite movie.
Where to stream: Prime
Jaws (1974)
Jaws is the ultimate July Fourth movie and you should make watching it a holiday tradition. The first summer blockbuster in cinema history, Jaws was a national sensation on its release, with viewers and critics and focusing on the terrifying shark. In hindsight, it's clear that the once-in-a-lifetime performances from leads Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw do way more to sell the terror than that dumb-looking rubber Great White.
Where to stream: Peacock
Sprint
Sprint: the World's Fastest Humans takes us into the world of elite sprinters so we can learn what motivates someone to devote their lives to the pursuit of speed. If you're planning to watch the track and field events at the Olympics later in the month, this is a perfect way to get to know some of the top athletes competing.
Where to stream: Netflix
The Back to the Future series
Back to the Future is a perfect movie, and the other two entries in the series are alright too. If you have a few rainy days this summer, there are a lot worse ways to spend them than gathering the family and basking in the '80s glow of this trilogy. It still works all these years later.
Where to stream: Netflix
The Beekeeper
The Beekeeper should be terrible. The premise makes you picture a slimy producer at a Hollywood development meeting saying, “It’s John Wick—but with bees!” But miraculously, The Beekeeper is not terrible. People like this Jason Statham-led action movie enough that it’s sitting at 92% audience approval at Rotten Tomatoes. Even finicky critics like The Beekeeper enough for a 71% fresh rating. It’s not going to change your life or anything, but it you’re looking for a dumb-fun action flick about a British badass who beats everyone up, The Beekeeper is for you.
Where to stream: Prime
Rocky 1-6
If you’re looking for a summertime movie binge, consider hitting play on the first five Rocky movies and following the career of the Italian Stallion from his unlikely title fight shot in 1976’s Rocky to his brief career as a trainer in 1990’s Rocky 5. The Rocky franchise follows an arc as dramatic and erratic as its main character's: It goes from a downbeat beginning about a palooka whose redemption comes through surviving a beating instead of winning a fight, to the over-amped, montage-heavy live-action cartoon Rocky IV, where Rocky KOs Ivan Drago in a battle that’s really about America-brand Freedom beating up Communist oppression. Then there’s the coda, Rocky V, where Rocky doesn’t even box.
Where to stream: Prime
Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good the Bad and the Ugly
There are few film franchises better than Sergio Leone’s “Dollars trilogy” (Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good the Bad and Ugly), Steely-eyed Clint Eastwood defines cool as a nameless antihero locked in epic struggles against black-hatted adversaries (usually played by Lee Van Cleef) in a mythic version of the the American West. These aren’t really stories about cowboys as much as legends of Gods from some unfamiliar pantheon. So watch all these movies instead of doing anything else, please.
Where to stream: Prime
Evil Dead Rise
1981’s The Evil Dead is one of the best horror movies ever made, but sadly, it’s only IFTTT
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