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5 must-watch movies & TV shows streaming right now
The best of what's new streaming on Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney Plus, and more.
Welcome to Boston.com’s weekly streaming guide. Each week, we recommend five must-watch movies and TV shows available on streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO Max, Peacock, Paramount+, and more.
Many recommendations are for new shows, while others are for under-the-radar releases you might have missed or classics that are about to depart a streaming service at the end of the month.
Have a new favorite movie or show you think we should know about? Let us know in the comments, or email [email protected]. Looking for even more great streaming options? Check out previous editions of our must-watch list here.
Movies
“Dream Scenario”
An overlooked dark comedy that snuck into theaters during the holidays last year, “Dream Scenario” is yet another film that plays with the public image of Nicolas Cage as a living meme, but in a much more interesting way than “Renfield” or “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.” Cage plays Paul Matthews, a nebbish biology professor whose life changes when he begins to appear in the dreams of thousands — and soon after, millions — of people on a nightly basis. Paul’s memetic spread into the world’s collective unconscious is a ripe subject for satire, as director Kristoffer Borgli examines the tendency of social media (and society) to build up intriguing new characters, poke them for flaws, tear them down, and move on.
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How to watch: “Dream Scenario” is streaming on Max.
“The Matrix”
This weekend marks 25 years since Keanu Reeves took the red pill and woke up in “The Matrix,” unleashing an era of bullet-time action movies that attempted (but failed) to live up to the majesty of the 1999 film. The Wachowskis’ blockbuster is already considered a classic, having been added to the National Film Registry in 2012 and showing up in “magic of the movies” montages everywhere from AMC to the Academy Awards. But given that it’s been 25 years since Neo (Reeves) discovered he was living in a simulation, it’s a good time to introduce the film to a new generation.
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How to watch: “The Matrix” is streaming on Max.
“Road House” (2024)
Your appreciation for “Road House,” the 2024 remake of the 1989 Patrick Swayze action-thriller, will depend on your enjoyment of mindless action and laughably amped-up machismo. As someone who enjoys close to 90 percent of Jason Statham’s filmography, I was pre-disposed to enjoy watching Dalton (Jake Gyllenhaal) make mincemeat of the roughneck patrons at the Road House bar. Like the original, Doug Liman’s film knows that it’s ridiculous, and the “Bourne Identity” director can choreograph the hell out of a good fight scene. Gyllenhaal is a more somber version of Swayze, and in the sidekick role, professional fighter Conor McGregor is a far cry from Sam Elliott. But as long as you’re looking for a fight (or 12) to watch over two hours, “Road House” fits the bill.
How to watch: “Road House” (2024) is streaming on Prime Video.
“3 Body Problem”
Criticisms of its final season aside, “Game of Thrones” was a generational triumph, with showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss successfully adapting one of the densest fantasy series of the last 40 years for mainstream audiences, even after author George R.R. Martin pretty much gave up on finishing his final novels. Now the duo (along with Alexander Woo of “True Blood”) are taking on “3 Body Problem,” a new Netflix show based on the first of the lauded “Remembrance of Earth’s Past” sci-fi novels by Liu Cixin.
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As a fan of the books, I was immediately drawn in by the show’s first episode, which flashes back to the Cultural Revolution in China, where a scientist, Ye Wenjie (Zine Tseng), watches her father murdered. Back in the present, the grizzled detective Da Shi (Benedict Wong) investigates a spate of suicides by scientists all across the world. In another storyline, we meet five Oxford scientists who all studied under one of the professors who has died. Like “Game of Thrones,” there are more characters to come, more stories to catch up on, and an invisible thread that tugs them toward an earth-shattering conclusion. If you have patience and accept that some of the first couple episodes are mere preludes, I highly recommend it.
How to watch: “3 Body Problem” is streaming on Netflix.
“Palm Royale”
If you were a fan of the recent FX series “Feud: Capote vs. the Swans,” Kristen Wiig offers more cattiness of a similar vintage in the new Apple TV+ series “Palm Royale.” The “SNL” vet plays Maxine Simmons, a new arrival in Palm Beach who wants nothing more than to be amongst the high society ladies of the Florida town. Similar to Carrie Coon in “The Gilded Age,” Wiig spends her way into the right country clubs and tea lunches. However, the other ladies can sense her nouveau riche desperation, especially queen bee Evelyn (Allison Janney), who is unsparing in her put-downs of Maxine. After a few episodes, the show begins to get repetitive, but there are worse ways to spend an hour than watching Ricky Martin, Leslie Bibb, Kaia Gerber, and more A-listers throw shade at each other.
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How to watch: “Palm Royale” is streaming on Apple TV+.
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