Sign up for The Queue
Discover the best movies and TV shows streaming now, with handpicked recommendations from Boston.com.
Here’s your July 4th streaming guide
From new movies streaming on Netflix to the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular on TV, here's everything to know for the long weekend.
You’re reading The Queue, Boston.com’s guide to streaming. Sign up to get the latest industry news, free streaming movie and TV recommendations, and more in your inbox every week.
I’m back from vacation, fully recovered from the ten days of excitement provided by our Boston/Massachusetts movie bracket. Congratulations once more to “Good Will Hunting” for emerging victorious. It may not have been Seth Meyers’ personal pick, but Matt and Ben’s Oscar-winning drama was a thoroughly deserving winner.
With the Fourth of July falling on a Friday this year, everyone should be able to enjoy a nice long weekend. That mostly means beaches, barbecues, and July 4 fireworks.
But unlike previous years, the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular is only viewable on actual TV (locally on WHDH, nationally on the CW), with no official streaming partner for 2025. That means cord cutters will have to rely on these streaming recommendations to provide some onscreen fireworks instead.
Advertisement:
On that note, it’s the beginning of a new month, which means it’s time for another all-recommendations edition of The Queue.
This week, we have new movies arriving on Netflix, some in-person movie suggestions (both indoors and outdoors), and my personal take on the New York Times’ recent list of the 100 best movies of the 21st century.
New on Netflix
While I usually try to spread recommendations across several streaming platforms, Netflix has an especially strong crop of films arriving in July. Here are three to queue up this weekend. (Already seen these? Here’s an updated list of some of the best movies on Netflix.)
Advertisement:
“Happy Gilmore” (1996): Before “Happy Gilmore 2” drives down the fairway (and into Netflix subscribers’ homes) on July 25, it’s worth revisiting the sports comedy that cemented Adam Sandler’s legacy as one of the most — if not the most — successful movie star comedians of all time, at least financially. Almost 30 years later, the longtime New Hampshire resident is still introducing new audiences to his ill-tempered, baby-talking id. (Netflix)
“Mission: Impossible” (1996): The first edition of this long-running film franchise isn’t the best Mission: Impossible movie — that’s 2018’s “Mission: Impossible — Fallout.” But this is the one that started it all, and the one that’s most unlike the rest of the franchise. Brian De Palma’s film prioritizes the cerebral over the sensational, even though the action scenes in this film are top-notch and set the template for Tom Cruise’s escapades over the next 30 years. The suspense of the laser room scene remains second to none. (Netflix)
“Parasite” (2019): The New York Times recently named this 2019 Best Picture winner the best movie of the 21st century, polling 500+ actors, directors, critics, and other assorted Hollywood movers and shakers. While choosing a single film to encapsulate a quarter-century of cinema is an impossible task, Bong Joon Ho’s dark comedy certainly belongs in the conversation. A scathing satire that links two families of vastly different means, the film’s stars thinly smile through the indignities and social faux pas before a climactic and inevitable eruption of violence. (Netflix)
The New York Times’ big movie list
Normally I wouldn’t devote precious newsletter space to promoting a competitor. But as I mentioned above, I have to hand it to the New York Times for its recent 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century list.
Advertisement:
Boiling works of art into digestible and authoritative rankings can be a fraught exercise. But the paper’s project is a big-tent celebration of the last 25 years of cinema.
It’s not just the fact that the paper gave readers a list of 100 great movies to watch — it also includes a nifty checklist feature for subscribers to keep track of their viewing. They also recommended three similar movies to watch for each of the 100 entries, not necessarily from the last quarter-century. (I’m planning to finally watch Humphrey Bogart in 1948’s “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” thanks to NYT recommending it alongside one of my favorite films, 2007’s “There Will Be Blood.”)
Add in the 75 individual ballots the paper published of celebrity voters’ 10 favorite films, the NYT readers’ choice list, and the ability for every subscriber to generate their own top 10 list, and you’re left with hundreds of great movies and a groundswell of people recommending their favorite films to each other – which is what this newsletter is all about.
For the record, here’s my ten (listed in chronological order), including two films recently featured in our Massachusetts Movie Madness bracket.
Movies to watch outside the house
The latest weather forecast for Fourth of July weekend is looking excellent, which hopefully means you won’t be spending too much time cooped up inside. But if you’re looking to cool down in an air-conditioned multiplex, there’s some fantastic movies currently out in theaters. (You could also split the difference and put one of the 93 free outdoor movie screenings in the Boston area catalogued by our producer Kelly Chan on your calendar.)
Advertisement:
Here are three movies I haven’t reviewed in full for Boston.com that I wholeheartedly recommend. (You can also read my full review of “Materialists,” the Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal romantic drama.)
“28 Years Later”: Danny Boyle’s long-awaited sequel is tonally different but no less gut-wrenching than 2002’s “28 Days Later,” and features a revelatory performance from child actor Alfie Williams as a 12-year-old going through the ceremonial rite of his first zombie hunt alongside his father (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).
“F1”: Following up on the success of “Top Gun: Maverick,” director Joseph Kosinski once again enlists an aging screen icon (Brad Pitt) for a white-knuckle thrill ride, putting the actor behind the wheel of a Formula 1 race car, where he takes turns fighting and tutoring his young teammate (Damson Idris).
“Sorry, Baby”: Filmed in Ipswich, this is a remarkably self-assured directorial debut from comedian Eva Victor. Their screenplay, about an academic working through a traumatic event with humor and grace, is full of lines still rattling around in my brain months later. Hilarious, heartbreaking, and life-affirming.
End Credits
That’s a wrap on this edition of The Queue. Thank you so much for playing along with my movie bracket – I hope you had as much fun voting as I did making it!
Until next time, good stream hunting, everyone!
— Kevin
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com