The Best Movies on Hulu Right Now
Hulu
As a streaming service, Hulu has a lot to offer. For starters, it has a great slate of original programming, including a partnership with FX that continually churns out hits (The Bear and Atlanta, anyone?). It also hosts a range of classic film and TV content that cycles regularly. The only down side to all this, though, is that it can be hard to keep up with everything on the platform. But we’re here to help.
Below are some of the best movies on Hulu, including the streamer’s own films, blockbuster hits, and cult favorites. Just a little something for the days you think there’s “nothing to watch.”
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This unorthodox entry into the Predator franchise could easily stand on its own. Set 300 years ago, it tells the story of the first Predator alien to land on earth, and how it gets its ass handed to it by a Comanche warrior it inaccurately perceives as non-threatening. The story doubles as a metaphor for colonization and the fight Indigenous tribes have been facing in America for centuries. Beyond these heavy themes, it’s also an excellent action film.
Based loosely on the Jane Austen novel Pride and Prejudice, Fire Island follows a group of queer besties on their summer holiday on the titular isle. Love is the central theme, of course, but the movie is funny and heartwarming and as much about finding your chosen family as it is about finding a summer fling.
Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz look stunning and radiate chemistry throughout this classic blockbuster action-adventure film. Though some of the CGI and concepts about Egypt are fairly dated, the first part of this trilogy (all of which are currently on Hulu) harkens back to a time when action films did not have to be borne from the Marvel Cinematic Universe to be fun. Or to get produced in the first place.
Two guests at a wedding party (Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti) meet and seem destined to enjoy a fling when things go suddenly wrong—it turns out one of them is stuck in a time loop, and the other just got sucked into it. The pair try their best to have as much fun as possible, until one them is determined to escape. This comedy is as much about the fear of moving forward as it is about the horror of being stuck in one place.
This movie starring Tom Hanks and Gena Davis is about the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League, formed durning WWII when all the boy players were at war. Funny, a little bit tragic, and an interesting slice of American history, A League of Their Own will leave you wanting to know more about a true story.
Good Luck to You, Leo Grande
Nancy Stokes (Emma Thompson) is a retired widow who lived through a very unfulfilling married life. Deciding she’s waited long enough, she hires a sex worker named Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack) to try and help her enjoy some pleasure and self-discovery, and their connection takes them both by surprise.
This is another story about the marriage between Princess Diana and Prince Charles, this time starring Kristen Stewart as the People’s Princess. It takes place over a Christmas weekend in 1991, where Diana is grappling with her decision to leave her adulterous husband and move away from the royal family. While it’s a tale we’re all familiar with, the royal family still hasn’t fully reckoned with the changes Diana started within it all those years ago, and this movie shows why.
Chloé Zhao’s Oscar-winning film is based on the 2017 nonfiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder. Frances McDormand stars as a widow in her sixties who is totally broke following the Great Recession. She starts living in a van and journeying across the South West, discovering other people who have forced to become modern-day nomads.
Directed by whimsical auteur Wes Anderson, the film is set in a fictional French city and follows journalists who are working for an American newspaper and reporting back from their outpost. More a collection of stories than one over-arching plot, the movie’s visual stimuli is practically enough satisfaction in itself.
The Worst Person In the World
Julie (Renate Reinsve) is a young woman who isn’t sure what she wants to do with herself. Her love life goes through changes as she moves from her older boyfriend Askel into the arms of a man she meets at a party, only to find out later that Askel is terminally ill. This Joachim Trier film is a meditation on connection and how people discover themselves through love and loss.
An unexpected reunion for film buddies Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, this medieval tale analyzes an accusation against a squire named Jacques Le Gris, who assaults the wife of a knight named Jean de Carrouges. After she comes forward, her life is in danger, and the conflict ends in a duel to the death.
We know all about Romeo and Juliet, but not enough people have considered the fate of Rosaline, the girl Romeo was hot for before spying his future wife on a balcony. This anachronistic retelling of Shakespeare’s play gives her perspective on the whole romantic tragedy with a wry sense of humor and modern eye.
Bong Joon-ho’s Best Picture winner is more than a meme for class warfare; it’s an excellent film that focuses on the connection between the extremely wealthy Park family and the destitute Kim family that serves them—until the tables turn.
Portrait of a Lady On Fire
A young woman is destined to be sent away from her home in France and married to a stranger, but first he needs to see a painting of her face. To avoid her fate, she destroys portrait after portrait, until a lady painter arrives. They embark on a passionate affair with a very firm expiration date.
There have been many contributions to the Spider-Man story on film, but this was the first big-budget effort to tell Peter Parker’s tale on the big screen. Directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire as a friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, this version is much more cartoony and fun than most future iterations. It will also fill in some blanks for people who have seen the most recent film and Maguire’s very important cameo.
A young girl is trying to get into her dream college for art-making, but she can’t quite push herself to make something great. That’s an issue in a lot of her life’s ambitions, including going after her long-term crush. When she joins the track team to get closer to the girl of her dreams, she finds herself being pushed towards that girl’s sister. Love is messy!
Ravi and Rita seemingly have nothing in common. Unfortunately, they are facing a pre-arranged marriage planned by their families. It seems like they might call it off, but then COVID-19 forces them into lockdown together. A lot can happen in seven days, even falling in love.
Paleontologist Mary Anning (Kate Winslet) has been living alone with her fossils for years and selling them to tourists to stay afloat and support her sick mother. One day a rich dude drops off his wife, who’s experiencing depression, in the hopes that doing some digging will cheer her up. Before long, Mary is cheering her up in an entirely different way; though they have passion for one another, Mary eventually realizes that she can’t be herself without her self-respect.
This sweet rom-com stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Eva, a divorced single parent who is worried about her daughter leaving her when she heads to college. She meets Albert, played by the late James Gandolfini, and they embark on a romance. But Eva is friend’s with Albert’s ex-wife Marianne (Catherine Keener), who doesn’t have anything nice to say about him.
Kate Beckinsale sure knows how to rock a leather outfit, and she does so admirably throughout this action-fantasy film about vampires and werewolves and the inter-species politics tearing them apart. After she rescues a young man who has been bitten by a lycanthrope, she discovers a long-hidden history of betrayal in her family lineage. This movie takes itself extremely seriously, and that’s why it’s so fun.
Based on the true story of figure skater Tonya Harding, the film follows her rise in 1991 and terrible fall in 1994, when she and her ex-husband conspire to injure her fellow figure skater and competition, Nancy Kerrigan. The movie tries to contextualize Harding’s very difficult life and the fallout from her decisions. Margot Robbie stars.
Based on a book of the same name by author Angie Thomas, this story follows 16-year-old Starr Carter, who witnesses her childhood best friend Khalil being murdered by police. Starr lives in a poor neighborhood, but attends a suburban prep school, attempting to balance both worlds. With Khalil’s death, both those worlds start to fall apart.
This film is another entry into the family Christmas dramedy oeuvre, but it centers on a lesbian couple (Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis) who are on the cusp of getting married. The only issue is that one of them still hasn’t come out to her parents, which almost demolishes their relationship during the happiest season of the year.
This WWII movie is set in May 1940, when the Allied troops were trapped on the beach in Dunkirk as Germany advanced into France. The film follows the enormous efforts put in place to evacuate 330,000 French, British, Belgian, and Dutch soldiers via every means possible.
If Beale Street Could Talk
Set in Harlem in the early ‘70s, Tish (KiKi Layne) and Fonny (Stephan James) are very much in love and planning a life together. They’ve known each other their whole lives and are on track to get married and start a family, when Fonny is arrested for a crime he did not commit. Based on a book of the same name by James Baldwin, the story is tragic and all too familiar, but is still told in an enthralling way.
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