16 Great New Movies to Watch This Weekend on Netflix, (HBO) Max, Hulu, Amazon Prime and More

Yahoo

17-05-2025

The middle of May usually means one thing — more great late 2024 and early 2025 movies are about to debut on subscription streaming services. That's certainly the case this week, with about a half-dozen premieres scheduled for Netflix, Max, Paramount+ and more.
Not all of these movies are worth watching, so Watch With Us has compiled the following list of the best movies to stream this weekend.
At the top of the list are two Oscar-winners, The Brutalist and I'm Still Here, but there's also a British drama about two sisters and an action-comedy that the Academy would never honor. All are worth checking out this weekend, so lock the doors, turn on the television and prepare yourself for some high-quality movies you won't soon forget.
Need more recommendations? Then check out the Best New Shows on Netflix, Max, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video and More, the Best Movies on Amazon Prime Video Right Now, the Best Movies on Hulu Right Now and Best Movies on Netflix Right Now.Nathan Caine (Jack Quaid) is an ordinary fellow with an extraordinary gift — he was born with a physical insensitivity to pain. He's never had to use it until he falls in love with Sherry (Amber Midthunder), a coworker at his bank, who some violent bank robbers kidnap. To get her back, Nathan will have to endure being punched, kicked, stabbed, burned and thrown every which way but loose. That's OK, though, because Nathan can't feel anything except his love for Sherry.
Novocaine has everything you'd want in a B-action movie: a likable protagonist, some gnarly fight sequences and a simple yet ingenious premise. The film doesn't pretend to be anything it's not — there are no profound statements about life or any subtext at all. It's a lighthearted action flick with graphic violence and an oddly sweet love center buried beneath its ample bloodshed.
In the early 1970s, Eunice Paiva (Fernanda Torres) lives an idyllic life with her husband, Rubens, and their five children in their beach house in Rio de Janeiro. But her picture-perfect world is shattered when Rubens is arrested and Eunice is questioned about his political activities. She denies any knowledge, and while she's released, her husband disappears while in police custody. Eunice then embarks on a long and frustrating quest to find out what happened to her husband in the vain hope of reuniting her once tight-knit family.
Nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actress, I'm Still Here is one of 2024's best movies. It's a political thriller rooted in reality (it's based on a memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva) and methodically documents one woman's experience in a time and place characterized by violent social change. The film is terrific, but it belongs to Torres, who infuses Eunice with a steely emotion that just might break you.
I'm Still Here starts streaming on May 17.
Pansy (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) is angry, and she doesn't know why. She lashes out at everyone — her husband, her adult son, even her sister, Chantelle (Michelle Austin), who takes her outbursts in stride — and she never seems happy with the life she's got. But when she visits her mother's grave, some old feelings — and yes, hard truths — rise to the surface, forcing her to confront some buried trauma that may be the cause of her discontent.
Hard Truths doesn't sound pleasant to watch, but it is, and that's due to writer-director Mike Leigh, who infuses some black humor into what would otherwise be a downer of a movie. Pansy's tirades are unhinged, but they're often very funny, and you might find yourself laughing and wincing at the same time.
László Tóth (Adrien Brody) longs to realize his dreams, and to do that, he has to leave his native Hungary and settle in America. He succeeds, and after a period of struggle, he finds work with the wealthy but garish Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce). Harrison recognizes László's talents, but he also envies them. As the years pass, László persistently fights Harrison to realize his artistic vision, which takes its toll on his career and relationships with his wife and daughter. Can art and commerce exist peacefully? Or are they constantly at odds, much like László and Harrison?
The Brutalist was nominated for 10 Academy Awards in 2025, and it deserved every one of them. It's an American epic about an intimate story involving two men who share wildly different views about Life and Art. Brody won his second Best Actor Oscar for his performance, and he's terrific as an obstinate artist who refuses to compromise, even if that means suffering years of poverty and one shocking act of violence that will change his life forever. The Brutalist is a big and bold picture, and it wears its pretentiousness like a badge of honor.
Imagine a movie with the plot structure of a fairy tale and the aesthetics of The Substance and you'd get something like The Ugly Stepsister. Retelling the Cinderella fable as a horror film, The Ugly Stepsister centers around Elvira (Lea Myren), the titular ugly duckling who can't compete with her new stepsister's natural beauty. She tries, though, and her painful attempts to beautify herself, which involve primitive plastic surgery techniques and ingesting tapeworms to lose weight, only drive her sibling into a handsome prince's arms. Can Elvira find her happy ending, or is she destined to be 'the ugly stepsister' until she dies?
Director Emilie Blichfeldt wisely bypasses Disney's squeaky-clean version of Cinderella and focuses on the gruesomeness inherent in the original Brothers Grimm story. Body horror is more popular than ever now, and it's never been used more effectively than it has here. The lengths Elvira goes to change her body, which involves breaking her own nose to make it more 'perfect,' are not only effectively scary, but also a sly commentary on the impossible beauty standards women face then and now.
And while The Ugly Stepsister is a deep, complex picture that's impeccably acted, beautiful to look at and thought-provoking, it's also a very good horror movie that gives you all the blood and viscera you want in a genre picture. Don't miss one of 2025's most surprising — and best — movies.
Joe Scaravella (Vince Vaughn) is hopelessly adrift. He just lost his mother, and his life is devoid of the meaning it once had when she was alive. Looking for a purpose, he opens an Italian restaurant on Staten Island. But it's no ordinary restaurant, though, as the cooking staff is mostly made up of retired grandmothers who can cook a mean calzone. Surrounded by these no-nonsense nonnas, can Joe regain the spark he once had?
Nonnas is exactly what you'd expect it to be — a broad comedy that frequently trades in ethnic humor and Italian stereotypes. It helps that the cast makes the slightly outdated material work as well as it does. Vaughn has his best lead film role in years as the sad-sack Joe, while Susan Sarandon, Talia Shire and Brenda Vaccaro steal the show as the titular nonnas who love trading insults as much as they cook pasta primavera. It's no Moonstruck, but Nonnas is charming enough to be worth a watch on a lazy weekend.
It's the 19th century, and a small fishing village near the Arctic is running out of food. Eva (Odessa Young) does her best to stay alive and comfort others, but even she becomes exasperated when survivors of a shipwreck threaten to consume what little food the town has left. To make matters worse, rumors of undead creatures called draugr stalking the shore begin to circulate, which causes the hungry townspeople to turn against each other.
Is the village under a supernatural curse? Or is something more sinister at play? The Damned conjures up a spooky, ambiguous atmosphere that keeps you in perpetual suspense — and continuous dread. It's incredibly unsettling, and it has one of the best twist endings so far this year. Watch it with the lights on and a full stomach.
Movie sequels are typically bigger, bolder and a little less enjoyable than their predecessors, and Another Simple Favor is no different. That's OK, though, since this breezy follow-up still has most of what made the first movie so enjoyable: crazy plot twists, luxurious homes no one could possibly afford, outlandish outfits and, of course, gin martinis.
Five years have passed since Emily (Blake Lively) went to prison for her crimes, and her former best friend, Stephanie (Anna Kendrick), thinks she'll never see her again. But one day, a now-free Emily unexpectedly shows up and wants Stephanie to be her Maid of Honor at her destination wedding in Capri. Stephanie can't trust Emily at all, but she needs some juicy source material for her next book. Can Stephanie survive doing yet another simple favor for her killer frenemy?
Some say Hollywood doesn't make movies for adults anymore. That's not exactly true — they do, it's just nobody watches them in theaters anymore. That was the case with Black Bag, a terrific thriller about married spies that came and went in theaters just two months ago. It's now on Peacock, so there's no excuse not to watch one of 2025's best movies.
George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is good at his job as an intelligence officer and in his marriage to Kathryn (Cate Blanchett). But both are soon tested when George is tasked with finding a mole within the agency who is leaking sensitive information about Severus, a top-secret software program. One of the suspects is Kathryn, who also works at the agency. Is Kathryn the mole? George has to find out fast, but is he willing to sacrifice his marriage for the safety of his country?
It's the end of the world, and for one lucky family, they feel fine. They also feel like singing, and that's what separates The End from all the other post-apocalyptic movies in the sci-fi genre. Yes, it's a musical, but it's less Wicked and more Dancer in the Dark. In other words, the songs are all staged and sung realistically and reflect the wide range of emotions each character experiences as they deal with a colossal case of survivor's guilt.
Decades after an environmental catastrophe wiped out most of humanity, one affluent family still lives in an underground bunker. The Mother (Tilda Swinton) and Father (Michael Shannon) try to bring some sense of normalcy to their extraordinary circumstance, but their 20-year-old Son (George MacKay) yearns to explore outside. When a strange Girl (Moses Ingram) arrives and falls in love with the Son, the family's tenuous bonds begin to unravel as past indiscretions rise to the surface.
This is the film that made drinking a glass of milk the height of erotic ecstasy. In Babygirl, Romy Mathis (Nicole Kidman) is a high-powered CEO happily married to a theater director and has two wonderful teenage daughters. She also has a lackluster sex life and watches porn to achieve orgasm. But when hunky intern Sam (Harris Dickinson) propositions her, Romy can't resist his charms — or his dominant behavior that give her the sexual pleasure she's been seeking all along.
Babygirl has been described as an erotic thriller, but it's really a drama about sex that intelligently explores a woman's desires. Kidman is excellent as Romy, who craves power in the boardroom and submission in the bedroom. The film has some unexpected comedic bits that work and a dance sequence set to George Michael's 'Father Figure' that's both funny and sexy. But that's Babygirl in a nutshell, and its complicated characters will make you want to watch it again and again.
If you're in the mood for an intense action movie with jaw-dropping stunts, Havoc will satisfy you. Tom Hardy stars as Walker, a jaded detective who is in a lot of trouble. A drug deal has just gone bad and he's on the run from a gun-happy crime syndicate that wants him dead and some dirty cops who don't want their criminal side hustles exposed.
To make it worse, he has to protect a crooked politician's son who was involved in the drug deal and knows more than he's letting on. Can Walker save the boy and not be killed in the process?
The plot isn't anything new, but Havoc is worth watching just for the stunts alone. The movie was directed by Gareth Evans, who made the modern action classics The Raid and Gangs of London, so there are a lot of gunshots, explosions and face-smashing fights. Hell, there's even a chase scene where someone throws a washing machine onto a pursuing cop car.
Havoc is good, silly fun, the kind of movie you're glad to watch while it's on and forget about when you finish it.
Remember way back in 2000 when Russell Crowe asked, 'Are you not entertained?' to the roaring crowds in Gladiator? Well, be prepared to answer that question again in the long-awaited sequel, Gladiator II. The Ridley Scott film isn't perfect — it doesn't match the raw, muscular power of its predecessor, and Crowe's brawny presence is sorely missed — but it's still largely entertaining, and Denzel Washington gives one of his loosest, most enjoyable performances ever.
Years after Maximus Meridius' death, his exiled son Lucius (Paul Mescal) follows in his father's footsteps and seeks revenge on the powerful people who killed his wife. But his need for vengeance will bring him back to a home he has never known and a mother (Connie Nielsen) who abandoned him to protect him. Can Lucius fulfil his destiny while also satisfying his need to honor the family he lost?
Well, the answer is kinda obvious, but the journey getting there is mostly a blast. One of Gladiator II's highlights is the brutal sword-on-sword action between Mescal and Pedro Pascal's General Acacius, who relishes playing a villain as charismatic and lethal as his Oberyn in Game of Thrones.
Movie biopics about musical legends have become a bit of a running joke over the past decade or so. Anyone who endured Bohemian Rhapsody or Back to Black will tell you that the genre has become a parody of itself. But A Complete Unknown is one of the better recent biopics because of the assured direction by James Mangold, a strong supporting cast with Oscar nominees Edward Norton and Monica Barbaro and a great lead performance by Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan.
The movie takes place during Dylan's early days as an up-and-coming singer in the early '60s New York City folk scene, where Pete Seeger (Norton) mentors him and Joan Baez (Barbaro) collaborates with him professionally and personally. Dylan soon eclipses them both in popularity, but his desire to experiment — specifically by ditching his acoustic guitar for an electric one — causes him to question his purpose as a musician and a symbol of the emerging counterculture movement.
Chalamet is an uncanny mimic, but his performance as Dylan is more than just a flattering imitation. He understands that Dylan can't really be entirely understood, and his slipperiness — his resistance to being pinned down to just one identity — is the bulk of his appeal. A Complete Unknown is nirvana for Dylan fans, but it's accessible and entertaining enough for the uninitiated, too.
In 2019, Disney ruled the box office with their live-action remake of the beloved 1994 animated movie, The Lion King. It was only a matter of time before they released the inevitable sequel — or in Mufasa's case, a prequel — and while it didn't make as much money as its predecessor, it's better and more memorable.
That's largely due to director Barry Jenkins, who brings his distinctive empathy for his characters — even photorealistic CGI ones — and eye for the odd striking visual to the origin story of Mufasa (voiced by Aaron Pierre) and Taka (voiced by Kelvin Harrison Jr.), his adoptive brother. Despite their different temperaments, the two cubs form a strong bond, and they'll need it as they flee from the dangerous Outsiders. Can the brothers hold back their enemies to reclaim the Pride Lands before it's too late?
It's time to defy gravity all over again as one of 2024's highest-grossing movies is now available to stream — Wicked! In John M. Chu's candy-colored adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, the origins of The Wizard of Oz's two witches get the feature film treatment, complete with a massive 160-minute runtime.
That's how long it takes to tell the story of Elphaba Thropp (Cynthia Erivo), a green-skinned outcast at Shiz University who strikes up an unlikely friendship with the perky, blonde and popular Galinda (Ariana Grande). But can this friendship survive the handsome Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), who pulls at Elphaba's heart, or the secret the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) is hiding from them all?
Wicked is unabashedly a musical, full of soaring ballads and power anthems about love and being free, and the filmmaking is like that, too. It's a bit exhausting, but it's also fun and easy on the eyes. Erivo is deadly serious as the proto-Wicked Witch of the West, while Grande is as bouncy and shiny as one of the bubbles she uses to fly around in.