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  • The 16 Best Holiday Movies to Stream This Season: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Disney+

    The 16 Best Holiday Movies to Stream This Season: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Disney+

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    A lot has changed in the past few years when it comes to holiday traditions. Yet one thing hasn’t: gathering around the TV to watch new and classic movies with family and friends. The problem, if it can be called a problem, is that with each new streaming service comes a shift in which streamers offer what films. We’re here to help—and give you a quick and handy guide to a few holiday gems you may never have seen before. Below are 15 titles sure to get even the grinchiest of revelers into the holiday spirit.

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    Hot Frosty

    Yes, Hallmark Channel is the premiere destination for holiday rom-coms about people who in quaint towns who find love and drink from giant mugs at the holidays. Still, one should never discount Netflix’s ability to eke out a new niche in a market already saturated with cozy movies starring Lacey Chabert. That niche? A little something we like to call Too Horny for Hallmark. In Hot Frosty, Chabert plays a widow and diner owner who throws her scarf around a, uh, very well-sculpted snowman (Dustin Milligan), bringing him to life. Naturally, he falls in love with her and the film becomes a race to see whether she can return his affections before he melts (?) or gets apprehended by the local sheriff (Craig Robinson), who believes he’s responsible for some very small crimes around town. Think of it as a new way to Netflix and chill.

    Carol

    It’s hard to argue Todd Haynes’ heartbreaking 2015 film is strictly a Christmas movie—it’s about a young woman named Therese (Rooney Mara) who begins an intense relationship with Carol (Cate Blanchett), an elegant woman who shops at the store where she works—but it is set during one Christmas in the 1950s, and that’s good enough. Based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Price of Salt, the film lays out what happens to Therese and Carol when they embark on a road trip and draw suspicion from the man Carol is attempting to divorce. Both lush and subdued, it’s wrenching right up to its gut-punch finale.

    Home for the Holidays

    If you’re feeling guilty that you won’t make it to your parents’ for Thanksgiving this year, this ode to dysfunctional family gatherings—directed by Jodie Foster—might serve as an all-too-realistic reminder of what it’s really like when your relatives reassemble under one roof. Holly Hunter plays a recently unemployed single mom who heads from Chicago to Baltimore to spend Thanksgiving with her family—only to immediately regret the decision. (Yes, we’ve all been there.) Hunter’s character might summarize the feeling best when she asks, “When you go home, do you look around and wonder: Who are these people? Where did I even come from?” A very pre–Iron Man Robert Downey Jr. costars.

    Happiest Season

    Given the increased output of original products that the major streaming networks like Netflix and Amazon Prime are releasing, it was only a matter of time before they all caught the Christmas bug. Last year, that honor went to Hulu, which assembled an impressive cast of actors you wouldn’t necessarily expect to see in a holiday rom-com (see: Kristen Stewart) for Happiest Season. When Harper (Halt and Catch Fire’s Mackenzie Davis) invites her girlfriend Abby (Stewart) home for Christmas, she neglects to tell her one thing: Harper has never told her ultra-conservative family that she’s gay. Though it’s a setup that sounds like it could easily reach Three’s Company levels of slapstick and double entendres, the earnestness with which it’s played by its stellar cast—which includes Dan Levy, Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, and Mary Steenburgen—pushes it neatly into that enjoyable space between farce and family drama.

    The Best Man Holiday

    Broadly speaking, the holidays are just the backdrop for Best Man Holiday, but when a movie features Taye Diggs, Terrence Howard, Harold Perrineau, and Morris Chestnut doing a New Edition dance and lip-sync number, does it matter? Nearly 15 years after they all gathered for Lance’s (Chestnut) wedding (and nearly 15 years after the release of The Best Man), a group of old friends gathers in New York to celebrate Christmas together. As with all friend reunions, everyone simultaneously remembers their closeness and long-simmering issues. No need to spoil it here, but suffice it to say the laughs are heartfelt and the drama—cancer diagnoses, pregnancies, marriages—is high. The perfect film for your Friendsgiving.

    Miracle on 34th Street

    Natalie Wood is the epitome of precocious as Susan Walker, the wise-beyond-her-years daughter of Doris Walker (Maureen O’Hara), a straight-shooting single mom executive at Macy’s who has always discouraged her daughter from buying into make-believe. But when a Santa Claus look-alike (legally) named Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) comes into their lives, he challenges their shared distaste for fairy tales—for the better.

    The Preacher’s Wife

    This remake of the 1947 film The Bishop’s Wife, directed by Penny Marshall, stars Denzel Washington as an angel named Dudley sent to help a pastor (Courtney B. Vance) who is struggling to keep his New York City church afloat. What happens, though, is that he ends up crushing on, yes, the preacher’s wife, a one-time nightclub singer turned choir star, played by Whitney Houston. Comedy and heartbreak and, ultimately, redemption ensue. If all that heartwarming content isn’t enough, it also features a fair bit of Houston’s forever impeccable voice.

    The Nightmare Before Christmas

    No, Tim Burton didn’t direct The Nightmare Before Christmas (Henry Selick did). But he did come up with the stories and characters and produced it, and his stop-motion-animation-loving fingerprints are all over this masterpiece, which works just as well as a Halloween movie as it does a Christmas film. When Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloweentown, accidentally discovers Christmastown—a place that’s less about scaring people and more about comfort and joy—he concocts a plan to kidnap Santa Claus and bring him back to Halloweentown so that his fellow townspeople can experience yuletide joy. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the caper doesn’t pan out as Jack had hoped. Even today, nearly 30 years after its original release, The Nightmare Before Christmas remains a masterful work that shows the true magic of stop-motion animation.

    Home Alone

    By now, there are few people who don’t know the Home Alone story, but we’ll give you the rundown anyway: The night before the McCallister family is headed to France to spend the holidays in Paris, Kevin—annoyed that he has to share a room with his bed-wetting cousin, not to mention that someone ate his pizza—wishes his family would just disappear. While that’s not exactly what happens (they just sort of forget he’s sleeping up in the attic when they wake up late for their flight), it does mean that an 8-year-old is left to his own devices at Christmastime. Among the issues he’s forced to confront? A neighbor he believes might be a serial killer and two bumbling burglars who are set on ransacking his family’s home. Lucky for Kevin, he’s got a seriously sadistic side that allows him to come up with all sorts of inventive ways to nearly murder these intruders as he learns to appreciate his family a little bit more. (Same goes for them.)

    If you want to see what happens when a family leaves their young son alone a second time, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is also streaming on Disney+.

    White Christmas

    If contemporary stresses have you wishing for a kinder, gentler time, few movies (holiday-themed or otherwise) are as saccharine as White Christmas. That’s not a slight, just a very upfront warning that if you’re looking for even a drop of cynicism, you’d better look elsewhere. This holiday romp—which features Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen, and some of the fakest snow ever seen on camera—is shamelessly sentimental, which is part of its charm. What is it about? Two WWII buddies turned big-time showmen putting on a Christmas spectacular to help their former commanding officer, whose Vermont snow lodge is about to go under.

    The Man Who Invented Christmas

    In 2012, Dan Stevens ruined Christmas for millions of Downton Abbey fans when his beloved character, Matthew Crawley, met an untimely—and rather bloody—ending. Five years later, in what might have been an attempt to make up for that heartbreak, he became The Man Who Invented Christmas. In this meta-ish take on A Christmas Carol, Stevens plays Charles Dickens, who hasn’t had a hit book since Oliver Twist. With the Christmas season playing out all around him, inspiration strikes in the form of what will become A Christmas Carol, as the characters reveal themselves to Dickens, and real life and the fictional world merge into one.

    The Muppet Christmas Carol

    Speaking of A Christmas Carol: There have been dozens of adaptations of Dickens’ book over the years in virtually every medium. Among the best takes are the 1951 version starring Alastair Sim (which you can rent from Amazon Prime), Richard Donner’s Scrooged with Bill Murray (which you can also rent on Prime), and The Muppet Christmas Carol, directed by Jim Henson’s son Brian (in his directorial debut). While it’s as Muppet-y as you can imagine, with Gonzo taking on the role of Charles Dickens and Kermit as Bob Cratchit, the film also stars Michael Caine as Ebenezer Scrooge and features some pretty complicated puppetry.

    Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas

    If you grew up with HBO in the ’80s, you no doubt have long considered Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas one of Jim Henson’s best movies. For anyone else, it’s only in recent years that the film has made its way back to the masses with sold-out theatrical screenings nationwide and a new Blu-ray edition in 2018. If you still haven’t seen it, or have never even heard of it, it’s time to rectify that horrible wrong. A Muppet-fied take on The Gift of the Magi, the story is about the widowed Ma Otter and her son Emmet, who are struggling to pay their bills but do what they can by picking up odd jobs. When they hear about a talent competition happening in a nearby town with a grand prize of $50, they each—unbeknownst to each other—make a major sacrifice in the hopes of being able to win and give each other a much-wanted gift for Christmas. Then the Riverbottom Nightmare Band shows up. Emmet Otter may be more than 40 years old, and sure, you can see the puppets’ strings, but that’s just part of its charm. And the soundtrack still slaps.

    It’s a Wonderful Life

    Frank Capra was a filmmaker who loved a Hollywood ending—and he delivered a big one in It’s a Wonderful Life. While the film’s final moments may be kind of sappy (even if they do make you tear up), the bulk of the movie’s running time is actually pretty dark. George Bailey (James Stewart) is a beloved member of the Bedford Falls community with a lovely home, an adoring wife (Donna Reed), and four beautiful children. But George is sick and tired of being “the dependable one” in his family. For years his own dream has been to see the world beyond his hometown, but each time he tries, a new tragedy seems to strike that keeps him there. But Christmas Eve proves to be the breaking point, and George, drunk and suicidal, wishes he had never been born. Sort of like A Christmas Carol, an angel named Clarence (Henry Travers) shows George what his life—and the lives of those he loves—would be like had he never existed. Cue the waterworks.

    Elf

    While a fresh crop of holiday movies seems to pop up every year, it takes a special kind of movie to become a true Christmas classic. Elf began spreading its Christmas cheer almost immediately after arriving in theaters, and it has only grown more popular in the nearly two decades since. Jon Favreau’s direction and David Berenbaum’s script deserve much of the credit. But it’s Will Ferrell who steals the show with his endearing performance as Buddy the Elf—a syrup-loving human who, after being raised in the North Pole among Santa and his elves, travels to New York to find his biological father (James Caan). Though Buddy and the Big Apple don’t get off on the right foot, his childlike charm eventually gets the best of those around. Well, most of them. Though audiences have been clamoring for a sequel, Ferrell has said no way.

    Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale

    Not everyone wants their holiday fare sugar-coated and sweet. For those people, there’s Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. Something strange is happening in the mountains of northern Finland, where kids are disappearing and reindeer are being murdered. Two young boys—Pietari (Onni Tommila) and Juuso (Ilmari Järvenpää)—think they know what’s going on: A group of local drillers has uncovered the tomb of Santa Claus. But the man they eventually capture hasn’t got a jolly bone in his body.

    If you want more holiday horror, be sure to check out Bob Clark’s Black Christmas—the original, 1974 version only. Though it’s less well known than John Carpenter’s Halloween, it’s the movie that inspired it—and pretty much all slasher movies that followed. It also doesn’t hold back on its scares or gore, so it’s best for an adults-only evening. Fun fact: Nine years after Black Christmas, director Bob Clark made yet another holiday classic with 1983’s A Christmas Story. Talk about range!

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  • The 16 Sci-Fi Movies You Need to Watch Before You Die

    The 16 Sci-Fi Movies You Need to Watch Before You Die

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    Chest-bursting aliens. Time-traveling DeLoreans. Dystopian futures. Galaxies far, far away. Science fiction is full of characters, set pieces, and scenarios that few other genres could ever get away with. Due to its often speculative nature, the most accomplished sci-fi movies can sometimes require a bit of work on the part of the viewer. Yet as fans of the genre understand, when it’s done right, a great sci-fi film is well worth the mental gymnastics that watching it might demand.

    Speaking of sci-fi done right: Whether you’re a lifelong genre devotee or have never even sat through a Star Wars movie to the end, a little guidance can go a long way—and that’s exactly what we’ve got for you. When you’re ready to take your mind on a cinematic journey, check out any one (or all) of our picks for the very best science fiction movies you can watch right now.

    If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more.

    Dune and Dune: Part Two

    “Tell them a messiah will come. They’ll wait. For centuries.” Chani (Zendaya) speaks those words early on in Dune: Part Two. She’s speaking about the prophecy that a savior will arrive to help her and her fellow Fremen, and whether or not Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) will be that messiah. She could also be talking about the wait for a truly epic adaptation of Frank Herbert’s award-winning sci-fi novel. Yes, David Lynch made one in the 1980s, and it’s a camp classic, but it is director Denis Villeneuve’s pair of films that truly bring Herbert’s story to life. Lushly designed, action-packed, and understandable even to people who’ve never touched the book, these Dunes are the real deal. If you know anything about the lore, you know there’s far too much to really get into it here, but let it be known: Villeneueve’s adaptations aren’t just mind-blowing sci-fi—they’re monumental works of art.

    Arrival

    While Denis Villeneuve has dabbled in a variety of genres since beginning his filmmaking career in the mid-1990s, a sci-fi milieu seems to suit him best. As if Enemy (2014) or his pair of Dune movies didn’t make that obvious, consider this: The man dared to make a sequel worthy of Ridley Scott’s genre-defining Blade Runner—and succeeded! Then there’s Arrival, which is basically a linguistics lesson wrapped in a sci-fi feature and all the more engrossing because of it. After the unexpected arrival of an alien species on Earth, linguist Louise Banks (Amy Adams) is tasked with creating a universal language that will allow humans to speak with them, and vice versa. But she quickly comes to realize that effectively communicating with her human colleagues—who want results now—might be the bigger challenge. It’s a stark, and all too timely, reminder that progress takes time, and as such requires patience.

    RoboCop

    Any cursory attempt to recreate the ’80s usually goes straight for the popped collars and neon-colored everything. But a quick review of some of the decade’s most popular movies reveals a deep sense of disillusionment. Case in point: In the same year that Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) was declaring “greed is good” in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, Paul Verhoeven was unleashing one of cinema’s most subversive sci-fi flicks, which sees the mayor of Detroit hand over control of the city to the evil Omni Consumer Products (OCP), which promptly turns Motor City into a testing ground for its latest technologies. One of those creations is RoboCop (Peter Weller), a law-enforcing cyborg who is programmed with the sole intent of eradicating the city’s crime problem—until memories of his human existence find their way back into his head. Hey, it happens. Especially when you recycle the corpse of a police officer murdered in the line of duty in order to make your robot cop thing work. The film’s extreme violence initially earned it the dreaded X rating, which Verhoeven skirted with some clever editing. But the real scares are in its statement on capitalism and the power that corporations wield, which is as true today as it was nearly 40 years ago.

    Inception

    Anyone who has ever seen Inception knows that you probably need at least a second go-around—or 20—to fully understand its many complexities. If that is even possible. The less you know about the details of the story going into it the better, but the basics are this: Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an “extractor”—a talented thief who steals his targets’ secrets by infiltrating their dreams with his trusty team of colleagues, which includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Elliot Page, and Tom Hardy. People still debate what happened in the film’s ending, which is just the kind of mindfuckery Christopher Nolan seems to revel in.

    Star Wars V: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back

    There are only a handful of movie sequels that have somehow managed to be better than the film that spawned then, and The Empire Strikes Back is near the top of the list. The film reunites Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), and Han Solo (Harrison Ford)—the fearless threesome who made A New Hope an instant smash hit—as they yet again do their best to keep their world safe from the dastardly Darth Vader. While A New Hope dazzled with its ahead-of-its-time visual effects, The Empire Strikes Back was just as impressive—but took the Star Wars universe in a decidedly darker, and more adult, direction.

    The Matrix

    Today, The Matrix is part of an enormously popular franchise that includes movies, video games, and even an animated feature (The Animatrix). While all those additional pieces of the puzzle may have diluted the impact of the original film, its one-of-a-kindness still stands. In a dystopian future (really, is there any other kind?), the world is living in a simulated reality without even realizing it—until a top-notch hacker named Neo (Keanu Reeves) sees what’s happening and works to separate fact from AI-created fiction. The Wachowskis’ visionary directing, thought-provoking script, and mind-bending action sequences still have the ability to make viewers’ jaws drop. Audiences haven’t looked at spoons—or Keanu Reeves—the same way since.

    The Terminator

    In a different world, the studio could have won a casting argument with James Cameron, and The Terminator would star O.J. Simpson instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Through a fortuitous and circuitous turn of events, Cameron met with Schwarzenegger to pretend to consider him for the role of Kyle Reese in The Terminator and walked away knowing he had just found their eponymous cyborg, who time-travels from 2029 to 1984 in order to murder Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), a waitress and future mom to the kid who will save the world. Fortunately, she’s got Reese (Michael Biehn)—another time traveler—on her side. On paper, it may sound preposterous, but 40 years later The Terminator still manages to impress—and is still spawning new content.

    Terminator 2: Judgment Day

    If The Terminator raised the bar for sci-fi films, Terminator 2: Judgment Day smashed it to pieces. Like so many cyborg movies that preceded it—including its 1984 parent film—T2 is as much a commentary on what it means to be human as it is a declaration of just how far is “too far” in the development of intelligent technology. If only early ’90s James Cameron knew what would lie ahead. The plot of this sequel essentially follows the same pattern as the original film: a Terminator (Robert Patrick) is sent to Los Angeles to kill John Connor (Edward Furlong), son of Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), before he can lead the human resistance. Once again, the Connors have a guardian angel—only this time it’s a kinder, gentler, familiar old Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who is sent to protect John. Where T2 managed to supplant its predecessor is in its VFX. As he has done so many times throughout his career, Cameron essentially had to create new technology in order to see his vision to fruition and, in doing so, led the transition from practical effects to CGI (for better or worse). Even by today’s standards, T2’s liquid metal shots are incredible to witness.

    Escape From New York

    John Carpenter may be better known as a master of horror, but he’s no slouch in the sci-fi department. Set in the then future year of 1997, Escape From New York offers a version of America where the country is one big war zone and the island of Manhattan is one giant maximum security prison. That’s unfortunate for the president (Donald Pleasence), as New York City is exactly where Air Force One crash-lands after an attempted hijacking, and POTUS is taken hostage by one of the country’s most dangerous crime bosses. In order to ensure the president’s safe return, the government has no choice but to enlist the help of Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), a soldier-turned-criminal who might just be the only person who can save the country from total anarchy. Are there synth scores? You betcha. Carpenter would double down on his sci-fi prowess and reteam with Russell again, just one year later, with his equally awesome The Thing (1982).

    Ex Machina

    While the 1980s were undoubtedly a very good time for sci-fi, the new millennium has proven that there are still plenty of wholly unique stories to be told—and Ex Machina is one of them. Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson) is a programmer who is invited to the remote home of an eccentric tech billionaire (Oscar Isaac) for what he thinks is a gig helping to develop a truly groundbreaking humanoid robot. But when Caleb meets Ava (Alicia Vikander), the robot in question, it becomes clear that it is she, not the humans, who is in control. With its A-list cast, stellar directing, all-too-relevant storyline, and synchronized dance scene, Ex Machina just might be this millennium’s Blade Runner.

    Back to the Future

    Yes, Back to the Future is a comedy. And a family film too. Not to mention an ’80s classic. But at its heart, the time-traveling adventure of Marty McFly is sci-fi through and through. Marty (Michael J. Fox) is a cool ’80s teen who has a hot girlfriend yet somehow manages to spend most of his time hanging out with a middle-aged mad scientist (Christopher Lloyd), who turns a sweet DeLorean into a time machine. Hijinks ensue, as does a bizarre plotline involving Libyan terrorists, all of which land Marty back in 1955, where he meets the teen versions of his parents and desperately thwarts his mom’s attempts to seduce him. (That storyline could be its own movie, really.) But by interfering with the past, Marty is putting his own future at risk. Forcing him to find a way to get back to 1985—but not before inventing rock ’n’ roll as we know it.

    Alien

    Ridley Scott has dabbled in virtually every genre, but the bars he has set in the sci-fi world are undeniable. Two years after making his feature directorial debut with the period film The Duellists, Scott changed the science fiction game with Alien. The film follows the crew of the spacecraft Nostromo, including warrant officer Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), who respond to a distress call as they’re making their way home to Earth. This turns out to be their first mistake—especially when they realize that they’re being stalked by an unknown alien species that seems determined to make sure none of the crewmembers ever leave the planetoid. Alien introduced audiences to an array of terrifying creatures—Xenomorphs and face-huggers and chestbursters, oh my—and kicked off a notable movie franchise that will continue later this year with Alien: Romulus.

    Close Encounters of the Third Kind

    Two years after inventing the “summer blockbuster” with Jaws, Steven Spielberg made a quick pivot from vengeful sharks to mysterious extraterrestrials—a theme he would revisit again a few years later—with Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The film reunited the director with Richard Dreyfuss, who here plays a loving husband and father whose unexpected run-in with a UFO turns into an obsession that threatens to ruin the life he has built for himself. Nearly a half-century later, it remains one of the most smartly made alien movies Hollywood has ever seen by doing away with the “extra-terrestrial invasion” trope and instead focusing on the challenges that would come with the discovery of an alien life-form.

    2001: A Space Odyssey

    Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is the sci-fi movie to end all sci-fi movies, with every genre flick that has followed owing the auteur a debt of gratitude. With its epic scope, gorgeous cinematography, and its somewhat prophetic—and deeply dystopian—narrative about the potential dangers of relying too much on technology, the film is as relevant today as it was upon its initial release nearly 60 years ago. Particularly with its main storyline, which focuses on a group of men taking part in a space mission with the help of HAL 9000, a piece of AI technology that decides to go rogue. It’s not a short film, and every one of its 189 minutes is packed with prescient storytelling and ahead-of-its-time technology, making it stand out as one of the most accomplished films in cinema history.

    Blade Runner

    Between The Last Duel (2021) and Napoleon (2023), Ridley Scott has been on more of a historical epic kick lately. But no amount of time away from the sci-fi world could ever threaten his place as a preeminent master of the genre. While he made his name with Alien, he achieved icon status with Blade Runner. The setting: Los Angeles, 2019. (Stick with us here.) Flying cars are a thing, as are bioengineered humanoids known as replicants, and that’s a bad thing. Which is why there are so-called “blade runners” like Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), whose job is to find and kill these nonhuman threats to society. But when everyone looks and often acts human, where do you draw the line? Blade Runner’s complex storyline led to Scott and Ford being forced to record and attach a voice-over, which they both hated, to the film’s original release. The film has subsequently been rereleased, both theatrically and in home versions, a number of times and in different iterations. In 1992, Scott finally got to release a director’s cut of the film, which did away with the voiceover (and other elements he didn’t love), but even he didn’t have final say over that cut. Finally, in 2007, he got the chance to be the last word on every element with Blade Runner: The Final Cut. Watch ’em all and see where you land.

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  • The 25 Best Shows on Max (aka HBO Max) Right Now

    The 25 Best Shows on Max (aka HBO Max) Right Now

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    It may not have the shine it once did, but Max (previously HBO Max) is still home to some of the best TV shows of the past 25 years, from The Sopranos and The Wire to Game of Thrones and The Leftovers.

    Max has gotten into the original content game too, with highly acclaimed series like Hacks, Station Eleven, and The Staircase (the owl did it!). So even if you’ve watched all of the HBO classics, there’s more to devour.

    Whether you’re a longtime fan of the “it’s not TV” cable network or a Max newbie trying to figure out where to start, the shows below should give you plenty on which to feast your eyes.

    Looking for more recommendations? Head to WIRED’s guide to the best TV shows on Netflix, the best TV shows on Amazon Prime, the best TV shows on Disney+, and the best TV shows on Hulu.

    If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more.

    True Detective: Night Country

    Did you take our advice and watch Deadloch and now you want more of that, but far darker and more creepy? We have just the solution: True Detective: Night Country. Truth be told, this anthology series has had a rough go. Following a wildly successful first season that crashed Max’s predecessor, HBO Go, and had everyone talking about how time is a flat circle, the series’ second and third installments failed to capture the same momentum. Night Country is a return to form. It stars Jodie Foster and Kali Reis as a pair of investigators trying to uncover a conspiracy and solve a series of bizarre murders. Mysterious symbols are also involved. Yes, that’s pretty much the plot of every season of True Detective, but as with all of those previous iterations, the less you know at the start, the better. Let it pull you in, and never let go.

    Julia

    In the nearly 20 years since her death in 2004, Julia Child has gotten the biopic treatment with Julie & Julia (2009) and was the subject of Julie Cohen and Betsy West’s documentary Julia (2021). In 2022, Happy Valley’s Sarah Lancashire stepped into Child’s toque to recount the earliest days of her career as a cookbook author and TV chef innovator, and it makes for one tasty dramedy.

    Rap Sh!t

    Insecure impresario Issa Rae is the brains behind this laugh-out-loud comedy, which follows Mia Knight (KaMillion) and Shawna Clark (Aida Osman), two former high school friends and struggling rappers trying to make it on the Miami music scene. Ultimately, they decide to join forces to form a group, double their chances of success, and use social media as their launching pad—all with mixed results. As much as the series is about music, at its heart it’s really about the unending possibilities of youthdom and the beauty of women supporting women.

    The Gilded Age

    While it hasn’t made quite the splash that Downton Abbey did, Julian Fellowes’ latest period piece is just as decadent—and has really came into its own with its second season. In this case, the drama moves stateside to document the struggle between New York City’s old-money aristocrats and the vulgar new-money types attempting to infiltrate their social circles. There’s also plenty of the Upstairs, Downstairs-type drama that Fellowes is known for, with the servants who cater to Manhattan’s elite playing a big part of the story too. Somewhere in the middle of it all is Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson), a young woman attempting to navigate a world she only belongs to by proxy. Christine Baranski, Carrie Coon, and Cynthia Nixon lead a stellar cast.

    Starstruck

    Jessie (Rose Matafeo) is a twentysomething New Zealander attempting to make ends meet as a nanny in London. One New Year’s Eve, she has a drunken one-night stand, only to sober up and realize she just slept with Tom Kapoor (Nikesh Patel), a major movie star. But what was presumably a one-off encounter turns into much more over time in this charming romcom series, which is a little bit like Notting Hill—only drunker.

    Our Flag Means Death

    Rhys Darby and Taika Waititi do what Rhys Darby and Taika Waititi do best as two very different kinds of pirates who cross paths in the 1700s. Darby plays Stede Bonnet, a fictionalized version of a very real member of the landed gentry whose version of a midlife crisis led to him abandon his family and hit the high seas for a swashbuckling adventure. Waititi, meanwhile, plays the infamous Blackbeard, who learns of Bonnet and seeks him out. What begins as a kind of mentorship eventually becomes the gay pirate action-comedy series you never knew you needed. There’s never been a better time to join the growing fandom.

    How to With John Wilson

    If Steven Wright and Nathan Fielder decided to create a YouTube channel of how-to tutorials on topics like putting up scaffolding and covering furniture in plastic, it might look a lot like How to With John Wilson. So it probably comes as no surprise that Fielder is an executive producer of the series, which follows Wilson as he attempts to uncover the secrets of such universal dilemmas as how to make small talk. Wilson’s surprising mix of earnestness and deadpan delivery make the series surprising, enlightening, and extremely strange.

    Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty

    John C. Reilly stars as Lakers owner Jerry Buss in a performance that would make Reed Rothchild, his Boogie Nights character, proud. This fast-paced period sports drama, which is based on Jeff Pearlman’s book Showtime, chronicles exactly what it promises in the title: the rise of the Los Angeles Lakers, who ruled the NBA throughout much of the ’80s—thanks in large part to owner Buss and rookie player Magic Johnson (Quincy Isaiah). Though it has been lauded by critics, Winning Time has seemed to fly oddly under the radar. This might explain why it was recently axed by HBO. But it’s still period filmmaking and high-stakes sports drama at its finest.

    Project Greenlight: A New Generation

    In 2001, just three years after Good Will Hunting made them bona fide Oscar winners, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck launched Project Greenlight, a competition that gave aspiring filmmakers the chance to make a real, live movie—which begat Project Greenlight, a reality series that chronicled the ups and downs (mostly downs) of that experience. While the competition was better known for the TV series it spawned versus the movies that it produced, it’s now more than 20 years later. And, as new mentors Issa Rae, Kumail Nanjiani, and Gina Prince-Bythewood quickly realize, it’s all still a bit of a nightmare. Gray Matter, the movie that was created from the competition’s rebirth, is also streaming on Max, so you can judge for yourself whether things are different this time around.

    Full Circle

    When a teen goes missing in New York City, the lives—and lies—of several seemingly unconnected characters find a way to intertwine in this twisty crime series from the mind of filmmaker Ed Solomon (Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure). What at first might seem like a straightforward story of two bereaved parents (Claire Danes and Timothy Olyphant) attempting to deal with the kidnapping of their son becomes much more complicated in the hands of Steven Soderbergh, who produced and directs all six episodes of this limited series, where nothing is what it seems.

    Last Call: When a Serial Killer Stalked Queer New York

    This four-part docuseries, based on Elon Green’s book Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust and Murder in Queer New York, looks at the murders of several gay men in the early 1990s. Set against the backdrop of rising homophobia during the AIDS crisis, director Anthony Coronna’s doc talks to the family members of those killed and the LGBTQ+ community advocates who pushed law enforcement to investigate the deaths happening in their community.

    The Other Two

    Chasedreams (Case Walker) is a 13-year-old internet icon whose overnight rise to global stardom has become the sole focus of his mom (Molly Shannon). Chase’s older siblings, however, are having a much harder time finding success. Brother Cary (Drew Tarver) is an aspiring actor who can’t even land the part of “Man at Party Who Smells Fart,” while sister Brooke (Heléne Yorke) is just trying to figure out who and what she wants to be. All three seasons of the series, which was cocreated by former SNL head writers Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider, are available to binge.

    Barry

    No one seemed particularly wowed when HBO announced that Bill Hader and Alec Berg were cocreating a series in which Hader would play a hitman with a conscience who attempts to go straight. But what might sound like a played-out trope has taken on new dimensions of humor, darkness, humanity, and plain old weirdness, with its recently concluded final season serving as a brilliant crescendo of all of that dark weirdness mixed in with a little time jump. Barry Berkman (Hader) is a traumatized marine whose newfound apathy toward the world and the very act of living makes him perfectly suited to work as a gun for hire. When a job takes him to Los Angeles, Barry stumbles upon an acting class led by Gene Cousineau (Henry Winkler, in what may be the role that finally supplants Fonzie as his most memorable), a failed but charismatic mentor. But transitioning back into the real world isn’t without consequences for Barry, who can spend an entire episode being hunted by a pint-size martial arts master. All four seasons of the Emmy-winning series, each one better than the next, are available to stream in full.

    Love & Death

    Elizabeth Olsen seamlessly transitions from part-time superhero to cold-blooded seductress in this retelling of the story of Candy Montgomery—a churchgoing wife and mother who turns murderous after having an affair with a fellow parishioner (the always excellent Jesse Plemons). If the plot sounds familiar, that might be because it’s based on the true story of a murder that took place in Texas in 1980. Or perhaps it’s because Hulu got there first with its own limited series, Candy, starring Jessica Biel as the femme fatale.

    Succession

    Media empires run by dysfunctional families may rise and fall, but we’ll always have Succession. The Emmy-winning series concluded its four-season run in early 2023, but its legacy as one of the most surprising pieces of prestige TV will be felt for decades to come (especially after what happened at Shiv’s wedding … then “Connor’s Wedding,” not to mention on the balcony or in the hand-hold seen ’round the world). At a time when TV shows about rich people, real or imagined, are in ample supply, Succession manages to stand out by being as bitingly funny as it is painfully tragic. The jet-black family dramedy chronicles the Roy family and the people/cronies/tall men who orbit them, all of whom seem to be angling for control of Waystar RoyCo, the family-run global media conglomerate—whether by succession (get it?) or more hostile means. Think of it as King Lear meets Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., only funny. (Unless you’re invited to play a game of Boar on the Floor.)

    The Last of Us

    The Last of Us managed to succeed where Netflix’s Resident Evil (which was canceled after one season) and other live-action TV shows based on video games failed—by being really, really good. Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) and the video game’s original director, Neil Druckmann, cocreated the post-apocalyptic drama, in which one grizzled survivor (Pedro Pascal) is tasked with smuggling a smart-mouthed teenager (Bella Ramsey) who could be the key to finding a cure for the fungal infection-fueled pandemic that has turned most of America into zombie-like creatures. Props to everyone for generating so much interest in the (very real and parasitic) Cordyceps fungus—because fungi nerds like TV, too.

    A Black Lady Sketch Show

    In 2015, Robin Thede made television history when she was named head writer for The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore—making her the first Black woman to hold the head writer position on a late-night talk show. Four years later, she revolutionized the TV landscape once again when she gathered up a group of her funniest friends—including Ashley Nicole Black, (future Abbott Elementary creator) Quinta Brunson, Gabrielle Dennis, and Skye Townsend—and created A Black Lady Sketch Show, the first sketch comedy written, produced, and starring Black women. The four-season series has brought such A-list names as Angela Bassett out as guest stars with its no-holds-barred humor, and the entire series is available to stream now.

    Rain Dogs

    Costello Jones (Daisy May Cooper) is an aspiring novelist and working-class mom who isn’t always successful at making ends meet for herself and her wise-beyond-her-years daughter, Iris (Fleur Tashjian). So Costello is regularly forced to call upon her violence-prone—but wealthy—gay best friend, Selby (Jack Farthing), to unstick them from whatever jams they’ve managed to get caught in. The series is billed as a black comedy, which it definitely is, although the moments between the levity are sometimes so dark and raw that even the frothiest bits carry weight. This darkly nuanced and sometimes surreal meditation on class, sex, dysfunction, and the varying definitions of “family” makes for a compulsively watchable series.

    Abbott Elementary

    Abbott Elementary creator/star Quinta Brunson (A Black Lady Sketch Show) has garnered all sorts of accolades with this ABC series and even managed to create streaming deals with both Max and Hulu. The surprise hit follows the lives of a group of teachers who are working at one of the most woefully underfunded public schools in America while doing their best to inspire students. Yes, it all sounds very earnest—and it is—but it’s also the kind of funny we don’t see much of on network TV anymore. The series has just two seasons under its belt but has already managed to rack up enough awards (Emmys, Critics Choice, Indie Spirit, and beyond) to fill a school trophy case.

    The White Lotus

    Knowing that Jennifer Coolidge stars in both seasons of The White Lotus (the only actor to move locations with the series) is reason enough for many people to tune in. While it was originally imagined as a one-off series from the brilliantly screwed-up mind (in a good way) of Mike White—who cocreated the sadly overlooked Enlightenment with Laura Dern, another HBO show you should check out—it has since morphed into a full-on franchise. The series dives below the surface of the seemingly fabulous lives of deep-pocketed guests who can afford to stay at one of the five-star resorts of the title’s locations (first Hawaii, then Sicily, with Thailand scheduled for season 3), and the people who trip over themselves to serve their every need. Somewhere in between, murder always seems to end up on the menu.

    I May Destroy You

    Michaela Coel is a creative force of nature who delivered on what she promised with the title of this limited series, which she created, wrote, directed, and stars in. Arabella (Coel) is a Londoner living the millennial dream with a thriving writing career, thanks in part to her celebrity as a social media influencer. But Arabella’s Insta-perfect life begins to unravel when, after a night out with friends, she begins to recall—in fragments—being sexually assaulted. Eventually, the need to piece together exactly what happened to her, and who did it, consumes her completely and the past comes knocking at her door.

    The Sex Lives of College Girls

    Mindy Kaling cocreated this Max series, which puts a new spin on the teenage sex comedy—one in which the women are fully in charge. Nerdy Kimberly (Pauline Chalamet, yes, Timothée’s sister), aspiring professional funny person Bela (Amrit Kaur), snotty Upper East Sider Leighton (Reneé Rapp), and soccer star/senator’s daughter Whitney (Alyah Chanelle Scott) are four college freshmen randomly thrown together as suitemates. But as they get to know each other, and themselves, their forced cohabitation develops into a true bond—one in which there’s no such thing as TMI and a “naked party” is just one way to unwind after a long week.

    The Rehearsal

    Good luck trying to explain what The Rehearsal is to anyone who isn’t familiar with Nathan Fielder’s mastery of uncomfortable comedy. What begins as a series in which the awkward star/comedian attempts to help people prepare for big moments in life by rehearsing them until they get it right quickly turns into a bizarre social experiment in which Fielder himself becomes one of the key players. The less you know about it ahead of time, the better. Just be aware that you’ll be encountering people who responded to a Craigslist ad to take part. For more of Fielder’s weird brilliance, all four seasons of Nathan for You—another kind of meta-comedy that will force you to repeatedly cover your eyes in vicarious embarrassment—are also streaming on Max.

    Avenue Five

    Bad timing may have led to the unfortunately early demise of Avenue 5, which had filming on its second season delayed, and delayed again, due to Covid-19. But the space-set comedy from the brilliant mind of Armando Iannucci, creator of Veep (another classic streaming on HBO Max), and its even swearier predecessor, The Thick of It, is well worth your time, if only to see what could happen when space travel inevitably goes wrong. Hugh Laurie stars as the “captain” of an interplanetary cruise ship, with Josh Gad playing the role of eccentric tech billionaire/huge baby Herman Judd, whose planned eight-week tour of the galaxy turns dire when a gravitational disaster steers the ship off course. The series gets more bonkers as it goes along, and poop plays a massive part in saving thousands of passengers and crew members. Consider yourselves warned—and feel free to laugh at the inanity of it all. Loudly.

    The Righteous Gemstones

    Danny McBride and HBO are the new Brangelina of television. First they teamed up for the hilariously offensive-for-offense’s sake Eastbound & Down; then there was Vice Principals. The Righteous Gemstones, which McBride created and stars in, is his latest effort to put forth a group of highly unlikeable people and find a way to make you like them even less but still want to keep watching. In this case, it’s a family of televangelists whose real god is greed and power. McBride assembled an all-star cast that includes John Goodman as the family’s patriarch, Adam DeVine and Edi Patterson as the Gemstone children, and national treasure Walton Goggins as Uncle Baby Billy Freeman—a child-star-turned-grifter who has given the series some of its most memorable quotes and moments.

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