Each week on Polygon, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.
Evil is in question this week, as Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist and James Watkins’ 2024 remake of Speak No Evil come to streaming on Criterion Channel and VOD, respectively. If you want more than evil on the mind, however, you’re in luck; there are tons of new exciting releases to choose from on streaming and VOD this week. We’ve got the highly anticipated VOD premiere of Deadpool & Wolverine, the dystopian thriller The Platform 2 on Netflix, Gary Dauberman’s adaptation of Stephen King’s ’Salem’s Lot on Max, and a whole lot more where that came from!
Here’s everything new that’s available to watch this weekend!
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Genre: Dystopian sci-fi
Run time: 1h 39m
Director: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia
Cast: Milena Smit, Natalia Tena, Óscar Jaenada, Hovik Keuchkerian
The Platform 2 is the follow-up to the 2019 Spanish dystopian thriller (which is called — you guessed it! — The Platform). Like the first movie, this one takes place in a futuristic, multi-leveled prison where the inmates are fed via a floating platform that descends from the top level to the bottom throughout the day. But this leads to a lot of conflict, as the inmates at the top get to eat more than the ones at the bottom. In the sequel, a new resident rises against this method.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Genre: Horror comedy
Run time: 1h 43m
Director: Greg Jardin
Cast: Brittany O’Grady, James Morosini, Gavin Leatherwood
A group of college friends gather for a pre-wedding reunion, which should be all fun and games. But one of the guests shows up with a mysterious high-tech gadget and hooks all the guests up to some sort of strange brain-melding machine. All their thoughts and minds blur together, and the weekend takes a turn from a fun reunion into a living nightmare.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Sony Pictures Classics
Genre: Drama
Run time: 1h 33m
Director: Minhal Baig
Cast: Blake Cameron James, Gian Knight Ramirez, S. Epatha Merkerson
Set in Chicago in the early ’90s, We Grown Now centers on the story of Malik and Eric, two young boys growing up in a housing complex who survive the mundanity of school life and the perils of their environment through the strength of their friendship. When a sudden tragedy threatens to strain their bond, Malik and Eric will have to grow up fast and make a choice between what to hold onto and what to let go of.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu
Image: Hulu
Genre: Horror thriller
Run time: 1h 34m
Directors: Karrie Crouse, Will Joines
Cast: Sarah Paulson, Amiah Miller, Alona Jane Robbins
This psychological thriller takes place in Depression-era Oklahoma, right in the middle of the Dust Bowl. A young single mother becomes increasingly convinced that something in the dust storms is stalking her family — is it a serial killer hunting nearby families, or some kind of supernatural presence that takes control of people?
Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu
Genre: Comedy
Run time: 1h 49m
Director: Pamela Adlon
Cast: Ilana Glazer, Michelle Buteau, John Carroll Lynch
A hilarious raunchy comedy that follows two best friends: one has two kids, and the other is newly pregnant from a one-night stand. Babes is unflinching about the grossness (and hilarity) of pregnancy, but it also dives into the nitty-gritty of adult friendships and shifting priorities. Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau have amazing banter and really connect in a way that feels achingly authentic.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Max
Image: Warner Bros.
Genre: Horror
Run time: 1h 53m
Director: Gary Dauberman
Cast: Lewis Pullman, Pilou Asbæk, Alfre Woodard
Director Gary Dauberman (Annabelle Comes Home) is back — this time with a new adaptation of Stephen King’s classic 1975 horror novel! Lewis Pullman (Outer Range) stars as Ben Mears, a writer who returns to his hometown of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine, in search of inspiration for his next book. What he finds, however, is a town besieged by an otherworldly creature that threatens to kill and subjugate everyone around him.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime Video
Genre: Horror
Run time: 1h 41m
Directors: Bridget Savage Cole, Danielle Krudy
Cast: Ariana DeBose, Barbie Ferreira, Marton Csokas
A chef opens up her first restaurant and must conquer her own self-doubt, typical kitchen chaos, and the turmoil of starting a new business. Oh, and also the old estate that she picks as a location may be haunted, and the previous owner was rumored to be a local witch who grew suspicious plants in her garden, among other things. Just fine culinary hijinks!
Where to watch: Available to stream on Peacock
Image: Focus Features
Genre: Coming-of-age drama
Run time: 1h 33m
Director: Sean Wang
Cast: Izaac Wang, Joan Chen, Shirley Chen
Set in the late 2000s, this coming-of-age drama follows Chris Wang (Izaac Wang), a 13-year-old boy enjoying his last summer vacation before entering high school. As he’s simultaneously enticed and intimidated by the opportunities and challenges that come with adolescence, will Chris find a way to grow up on his own terms? If you enjoyed Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade or Jonah Hill’s Mid90s, Dìdi should be right up your alley.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Tubi
Image: SRH
Genre: Slapstick comedy
Run time: 1h 48m
Director: Mike Cheslik
Cast: Ryland Brickson Cole Tews, Olivia Graves
One of the year’s most exciting, innovative, and entertaining movies, Hundreds of Beavers is a black-and-white silent comedy that is deliriously funny and a genuinely new cinematic experience.
You don’t need to be a cinema scholar or even a fan of silent comedy to appreciate Hundreds of Beavers. That’s the goofy joy of this project — while its foundation is firmly set in the classics of the genre and the medium, at its heart, it’s a laugh-a-minute thrill ride about a very silly person on a very silly quest. Sometimes, that’s just what the doctor ordered.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Starz
Image: Lionsgate
Genre: Horror
Run time: 1h 31m
Director: Renny Harlin
Cast: Madelaine Petsch, Froy Gutierrez, Gabriel Basso
Home-invasion horror movies frankly terrify me to another level, but if that’s your thing, you’ll have a great time with The Strangers: Chapter 1. Especially since it pretty much follows the plot of the original.
New on Metrograph at Home
Where to watch: Available to stream on Metrograph at Home
Image: CJ Entertainment/East Film Company
Genre: Crime drama
Run time: 1h 51m
Director: Lee Chang-dong
Cast: Han Suk-kyu, Shim Hye-jin, Moon Sung-keun
In April, Metrograph theatrically debuted restorations of Lee Chang-dong’s (Burning) first three directed features. Now, all three restorations will be seeing their streaming debuts on the theater’s streaming platform, Metrograph at Home.
Green Fish, Lee’s directorial debut, is a neo-noir crime drama about a former soldier who falls in with a gang and starts an affair with his boss’s girlfriend.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Metrograph at Home
Image: Film Movement
Genre: Drama
Run time: 2h 10m
Director: Lee Chang-dong
Cast: Sul Kyung-gu, Moon So-ri, Kim Yeo-jin
Lee followed Green Fish with Peppermint Candy, a tragedy told in reverse chronological order, starting with the protagonist’s suicide and then moving back in time to show key moments in his life. The movie won five Grand Bell Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, and Best Screenplay.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Metrograph at Home
Image: Lifesize Entertainment
Genre: Romantic drama
Run time: 2h 12m
Director: Lee Chang-dong
Cast: Sul Kyung-gu, Moon So-ri, Ahn Nae-sang
Lee reunited with the two stars of Peppermint Candy for his third feature, a romantic drama about two young disabled people who find love in a society that would rather shun them. The movie was a big hit on the festival circuit, especially at the 2002 Venice Film Festival, where it won a Silver Lion for Best Direction, won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for an emerging actor (given to Moon So-ri), and was nominated for the Golden Lion.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Metrograph at Home
Image: Good Move Movie
Genre: Drama
Run time: 1h 44m
Director: Daisuke Miyazaki
Cast: Takuma Fujie, An Ogawa, Kyoko Koizumi
This coming-of-age romance follows Jun (Takuma Fujie), an aspiring guitarist who moves to Nagoya after his shot at a recording deal falls through. While performing songs by his favorite glam rock band, Jun meets Ibuki (An Ogawa), a young woman who shares his love for the same band. The pair eventually become an item, but can their relationship withstand the pressures and mounting responsibilities that come with young adulthood?
Where to watch: Available to stream on Shudder
Genre: Horror anthology
Run time: 1h 54m
Directors: Various
Cast: Dane DiLiegro, Alanah Pearce
The latest installment in the V/H/S horror anthology franchise, V/H/S/Beyond features segments from Justin Long and the married duo Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel, among others. Like the other V/H/S films (and spinoffs), all of the short segments are in a found-footage style. V/H/S/Beyond’s shorts include (and are certainly not limited to): a sinister taxidermist, a UFO crashing into skydivers, and two paparazzi sneaking into the set of a Bollywood movie.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Criterion Channel
Image: Sideshow and Janus Films
Genre: Drama
Run time: 1h 46m
Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Cast: Hitoshi Omika, Ryo Nishikawa, Ryuji Kosaka
Ryusuke Hamaguchi returns with a follow-up to his Oscar-nominated 2021 drama Drive My Car. His latest film, Evil Does Not Exist, follows the story of a widower and his 8-year-old daughter living in a remote village whose way of life is threatened by the arrival of a company that plans to build a glamorous camping resort in the nearby area. Does evil exist, and if it does, in what ways does it take shape in our everyday life?
Evil Does Not Exist leans toward a folk-horror tradition, as Hamaguchi slowly pivots away from dispassionate naturalism, building to an impressionistic, opaque finale. The provocation of the film’s title echoes through the woods, which the film begins and ends by regarding from below. Maybe that’s what the title is getting at. Maybe it’s a whisper echoing through and from the ground itself, about how foolish it is to believe that the earth, even in its stillness and beauty, has any regard for our moral attitude toward it. Maybe we ought to tread more carefully, and be fearful in our taking. Maybe evil only matters because we’re here to think about it, and when we’re gone, it will be too.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Marvel Studios
Genre: Superhero action
Run time: 2h 8m
Director: Shawn Levy
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin
Ryan Reynolds reprises his role as Deadpool, the so-called Merc with a Mouth, in his first-ever appearance in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After being abducted by the Time Variance Authority, Deadpool embarks on a quest to recruit an alternate-universe version of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) to help prevent his own universe from being destroyed. Matthew Macfadyen (Succession) plays Mr. Paradox, a rogue member of the TVA, and Emma Corrin (A Murder at the End of the World) portrays Cassandra Nova, Professor X’s evil twin sister from an alternate universe.
Deadpool & Wolverine has made its hero the worst kind of comic book character: one who doesn’t stand for anything. It’s a terrible irony. Fans worried that Disney’s corporate control and the MCU’s rigid narrative oversight would leech away Deadpool’s edge: the swearing and the jocular violence. Turns out, that part was fine. Instead, the MCU just took his fuckin’ heart.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Utopia
Genre: Psychological thriller
Run time: 1h 58m
Director: Pascal Plante
Cast: Juliette Gariépy, Laurie Babin, Elisabeth Locas
Directed by Pascal Plante (Fake Tattoos), Red Rooms follows Kelly-Anne (Juliette Gariépy), a fashion model living in Montreal who grows obsessed with the trial of a defendant accused of broadcasting the murder of three women via a dark web livestream service known as a “red room.” As she attempts to track down a piece of evidence crucial to the case, Kelly-Anne finds herself drawn into a world far darker than anything she could’ve possibly imagined. Is her quest for the truth driven by the insatiable curiosity of a true-crime obsessive, or something more?
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Blumhouse Productions/Universal Pictures
Genre: Psychological horror
Run time: 1h 50m
Director: James Watkins
Cast: Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy, James McAvoy
James Watkins’ remake of the 2022 Danish horror film Speak No Evil stars Mackenzie Davis (Station Eleven) and Scoot McNairy (Argo) as Louise and Ben, an American couple vacationing in Italy with their daughter, Agnes. After befriending Paddy (James McAvoy) and Ciara (Aisling Franciosi), a free-spirited British couple also on vacation, Louise and Ben decide to visit the couple after being invited to their farmhouse in the countryside. It’s not long, however, before things take a turn for the worse.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Neon
Genre: Documentary
Run time: 1h 42m
Director: Jazmin Jones
Composed of interviews with artists, writers, and software designers as well as dynamic “screenlife” vignettes, this documentary chronicles the search for Renée L’Espérance, the woman whom the fictional character Mavis Beacon was originally based off of. Seeking Mavis Beacon explores the legacy its namesake subject has left behind not only in the world of computing, but in the world of online culture itself.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Magenta Light Studios/Miramax
Genre: Horror
Run time: 1h 37m
Director: JT Mollner
Cast: Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Barbara Hershey
This new horror thriller from director JT Mollner (Outlaws and Angels) chronicles a one-night stand between a man (Kyle Gallner) and a woman (Willa Fitzgerald) that spirals into a cat-and-mouse chase of murder and revenge. Told out of chronological order, Strange Darling was shot on 35mm film and premiered at 2023’s Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Lionsgate
Genre: Action comedy
Run time: 1h 44m
Director: J.J. Perry
Cast: Dave Bautista, Sofia Boutella, Terry Crews
Action director extraordinaire J.J. Perry (Day Shift) has returned with another action comedy, this time starring Dave Bautista (Knock at the Cabin) and Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service). The Killer’s Game centers on Joe Flood (Bautista), an infamous hitman who is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Rather than dying naturally, Joe decides to put a hit out on himself. After learning that his diagnosis was erroneous, Joe has to fight off an army of his assassin colleagues to protect himself and his ex-girlfriend (Boutella) from harm.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Genre: Coming-of-age comedy
Run time: 1h 28m
Director: Kevin Smith
Cast: Austin Zajur, Kate Micucci, Siena Agudong
If you’re a fan of 2016’s Everybody Wants Some!!, you should give Kevin Smith’s latest semi-autobiographical comedy a shot. Based on Smith’s experiences sneaking into movie theaters as a teenager, The 4:30 Movie centers on Brian David (Austin Zajur), a teenager in New Jersey who finally works up the nerve to ask his crush out to the movies. Just one small problem, though: He and his idiot friends get thrown out and banned for life just before the date and have to concoct a scheme in order to ensure the date goes off without a hitch.
Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Genre: Documentary
Run time: 2h 11m
Director: David Hinton
Presented and narrated by Martin Scorsese, this documentary chronicles the director’s appreciation for the cinematic partnership of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (aka The Archers), whose decades-long collaboration produced such lauded classics as Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, and A Matter of Life and Death. Scorsese pays respect to Powell in particular, who was a friend and mentor to Scorsese early on in his career as a filmmaker and was married to Thelma Schoonmaker, Scorsese’s longtime collaborator and editor.
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