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Oldboy.
Photo: Tartan Films
This article will be updated as movies move on and off streaming services. An asterisk indicates a new addition to the list.
Don’t we all deserve to watch something that’s actually great? Too often, the competing streaming algorithms at Netflix, Max, and Amazon Prime Video push a smattering of undifferentiated piffle. So many of the major services seemingly just want to highlight their own latest acquisition or buzzy project. But we at Vulture have no horse in the streaming race: Our job is to help you figure out what to watch by recommending the best movies each of these services has to offer at any given time.
To that end, we have gone over the must-see titles on each platform and winnowed them down to the list below. It could easily be 100 movies long, but we tried to keep it manageable — a tight 30! — and if you come back every month, you can expect to see it updated with new selections. Read on to jump to a streaming service and find something to watch, starting with this week’s critic’s pick.
Jump to a streaming service:
Netflix | Amazon Prime Video | Max | Hulu | Apple TV+ | Peacock | Disney+ | Paramount+ | The Criterion Channel
Year: 2003
Runtime: 2h
Director: Park Chan-wook
It’s hard to explain to people how this movie moved through the film-loving world before Film Twitter was a thing. Recently restored for its 20th anniversary, Oldboy has now been dropped on Netflix again, and it’s lost none of its searing power. It’s the tale of a man who is kidnapped, and its genius is that it’s not a whodunit as much as a whydunit, forcing viewers and protagonists to wonder about a truly grisly motive until the final unforgettable act.
Year: 2023
Runtime: 2h 5m
Director: Takashi Yamazaki
Netflix stunned people when they stealthily dropped this worldwide hit on their service on June 1st, making a movie that wasn’t even on VOD finally available at home. The winner of the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, Godzilla Minus One is a masterful blend of action and social commentary, considered by many to be among the best in this generations-spanning franchise.
Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 57m
Director: Todd Haynes
Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman star in the latest from Carol and Far from Heaven director Todd Haynes, a stunning character study of an actress who discovers that some people are impossible to figure out. Portman plays a star who tries to get under the skin of Moore’s character, a woman who raped a child when she was a teacher, and later married that young man. Charles Melton is phenomenal as the now-grown victim, stuck in perpetual adolescence.
Year: 2006
Runtime: 2h 12m
Director: Michael Mann
Just over 20 years after the premiere of the hit series that introduced the world to Crockett and Tubbs, Michael Mann returned to Florida for this stylized adaptation starring Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. Divisive on its release because it’s not exactly a traditional blockbuster, Miami Vice has developed a loyal following over the years for its gorgeous cinematography and intoxicating style.
Year: 1975
Runtime: 1h 29m
Director: Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones
During a hiatus between the third and fourth seasons of Monty Python’s Family Circus, the gang of mega-talented comedians decided to make movie history. Inspired by the King Arthur legend, Holy Grail is a timeless comedy, the rare kind of film that will still be making people laugh hundreds of years from now. And while the Monty Python boys were already famous, this film took them to another level, cementing their place in movie history.
Year: 2023
Runtime: 2h 20m
Director: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson
This is how you do a big-budget blockbuster sequel, developing the themes of the first movie and setting up the stake for what now appears will be one of the best trilogies in superhero history. Packed with so much detail and creativity, it’s a film you’ll want to watch over and over again.
Year: 1981
Runtime: 1h 47m
Director: Brian De Palma
Brian De Palma’s best film stars John Travolta as a sound effects technician who is out recording sounds one night when he thinks he hears something terrifying. De Palma’s films often riff on Hitchcock, and this is his Rear Window, taking the voyeuristic elements of that film and applying them to a deeply cynical but brilliant study of violence, politics, and sex in the early 1980s.
Year: 2023
Runtime: 2h 13m
Director: Alexander Payne
Paul Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy Randolph won Golden Globes, and Randolph won an Oscars, for this phenomenal holiday comedy, exclusive to Peacock. The ‘70s-set story of a boarding school over holiday break already feels like a comedy classic, a movie that people will be watching, especially around the end of the year, for generations to come.
Year: 2014
Runtime: 2h 49m
Director: Christopher Nolan
The most underrated film from the director of The Dark Knight and Oppenheimer remains this 2014 sci-fi epic, a film that’s better if you approach it as an emotional journey instead of a physical one. Matthew McConaughey gives one of the best performances of his career as an astronaut searching for a new home for mankind, and realizing all that he left behind to do so. It’s a technical marvel with some of the most striking visuals and best sound design of Nolan’s career.
Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 55m
Director: Greta Gerwig
One of the biggest films of 2023 has landed on Max. Greta Gerwig’s daring blockbuster is a comedy that works both as a reminder of the power imagination and the fight for equality. Anyone who thinks this movie is anti-male isn’t paying any attention. The theme of the movie is that no one — not even Barbie or Ken — should be defined by traditional roles. We should all be free to play however we want. It’s a wonderful film that will truly stand the test of time.
Year: 2021, 2024
Runtime: 2h 36m, 2h 46m
Director: Denis Villeneuve
You can now watch the entire Dune saga to date on Max, the exclusive home to the highest grossing film of 2024 so far. The second half of Villeneuve’s saga fulfills the promise of the first, turning the set-up of the 2021 film into a full-blooded action tale of a new messiah. Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya lead an all-star cast in a film that understands both scope and character. It may not play quite as well at home as it did in theaters, but it still rocks.
Year: 2003
Runtime: 1h 42m
Director: Sofia Coppola
Sofia Coppola exploded onto the filmmaking scene with her second film, this dramedy about a fading movie star who meets an American girl in Tokyo and both of their lives change. Bill Murray does career-best work in the film (and should have won an Oscar), and he’s matched by Scarlett Johansson, but Lost in Translation really is Coppola’s film, a tender, brilliant character study with personal resonance.
Year: 2019
Runtime: 1h 50m
Director: Robert Eggers
Is this the best COVID lockdown movie? Sure, it came out the year before, but a lot of people watched it on streaming while they were going crazy with people with whom they were stuck. Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are fearless in Robert Eggers’ black-and-white nightmare about two New England lighthouse keepers who learn that nothing is scarier than being trapped with someone unbearable. It’s a twisted gem.
Year: 2019
Runtime: 2h 12m
Director: Bong Joon-ho
Remember not that long ago before the world changed, and we could all rally around a South Korean film becoming the first foreign flick ever to win the Oscar for Best Picture? It really was a crazy time. At one point Hulu was the only place you’ll find Bong Joon-ho’s hysterical and thrilling study of class conflict for a long time, but the beloved thriller is now on Max, too.
Year: 2001
Runtime: 2h 4m
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Almost all of the Studio Ghibli films are on Max, the exclusive home to them when it comes to streaming. The truth is that we could write thousands of words about the impact of Hayao Miyazaki and his colleagues (and we have: here’s a ranking of the entire output of the most important modern animation studio in the world), but for now we’ll recommend starting with Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, and Castle in the Sky. You won’t stop.
Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 45m
Director: Andrew Haigh
One of the best films of 2023 is exclusively available on Hulu thanks to the relationship between the company and Fox Searchlight—both owned by Disney, essentially. Andrew Scott is stunning as a man who essentially travels in time to visit the parents (Jamie Bell and Claire Foy) who died when he was young, all while starting a relationship with one of his neighbors (Paul Mescal). Imagine getting to say what you never could to those you lost and allowing them a chance to see how you’ve changed too. It’s a beautiful, moving piece of work.
Year: 2023
Runtime: 2h 31m
Director: Justine Triet
The latest Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay is already exclusively on Hulu thanks to their relationship with Neon. The great Sandra Huller stars as a woman whose husband dies from a fall at their home. Was it suicide or murder? More than a mere courtroom drama, this is a dissection of a marriage that’s raw, brutal, and real.
Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 48m
Director: Chloe Zhao
The Oscar winner for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress, this 2020 drama is one of the most moving films of the young decade so far, and it’s exclusively on Hulu thanks to the company’s relationship with Searchlight (they’re both owned by Disney). Frances McDormand stars as Fern, a woman displaced by the loss of her husband and job, sending her out on the road. Blending non-fiction filmmaking choices like the use of non-actors telling their own stories with a deep sense of character-building, this is a phenomenal film.
Year: 2019
Runtime: 2h 42m
Director: Quentin Tarantino
It’s hard to believe it’s already been almost a half-decade since Quentin Tarantino’s last movie, one of the last greats of the 2010s. Wildly misunderstood during production (and even a bit after release), it’s way more than just a reclamation of the Sharon Tate murders, it’s a funny, scary, smart alternate version of Hollywood history with some of the career-best performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, and Oscar winner Brad Pitt.
Year: 2023
Runtime: 3h 26m
Director: Martin Scorsese
One of the most acclaimed films of the 2020s is now exclusively available for subscribers of Apple TV+. Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone, and Robert De Niro star in an epic drama that’s about nothing less than the violent formation of this country. When the Osage people became the richest per capita in the country, the white power figures in the region did everything they could to take it from them. As well-made as any streaming original of all time, it’s not only the best film on Apple TV+, it’s one of the best films you could watch on any streaming service, anywhere.
Year: 2020
Runtime: 1h 43m
Directors: Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart
Wolfwalkers should have won the Oscar in early 2021. It’s a lyrical and gorgeous final act to Cartoon Saloon’s “Irish Folklore Trilogy,” the story of a girl named Robyn Goodfellowe, whose father has been hired to hunt wolves. Robyn befriends a shapeshifter, a girl who is both wolf and human, in a story that incorporates modern storytelling with Irish folklore and inspired visual style.
Year: 1989
Runtime: 1h 59m
Director: Spike Lee
Over 35 years after its release, Spike Lee’s masterpiece feels as urgent and current as the day it was released. After the unrest in early 2020, many people seemed to revisit this classic, to discover it’s lost none of its power. In fact, every viewing of Do the Right Thing feels fresh and new again. It’s one of the best films ever made.
Year: 1974
Runtime: 2h 10m
Director: Roman Polanski
Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown. One of the best movies of the ’70s, this Best Picture nominee (and Best Screenplay winner) tells the story of Jake Gittes, played unforgettably by Jack Nicholson, as he investigates an adulterer and finds something much more insidious under the surface of Los Angeles. It’s a must-see, as important as almost any film from its era.
Year: 1972
Runtime: 2h 55m
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
It’s only the film that made Al Pacino a star and kicked Francis Ford Coppola’s career into the stratosphere — maybe you’ve heard of it? In all seriousness, the entire Godfather trilogy is available on Paramount+, including the superior recent cut of the third film. You could then slide from some of the best filmmaking of all time into the streaming service’s original series The Offer, about the making of Coppola’s masterpiece.
Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 45m
Director: Celine Song
This phenomenal Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay nominee isn’t on any of the other streamers. It stars the excellent Greta Lee and Teo Yoo as a couple who were close as children but reunite years later after she immigrated to the United States. It’s as much a story of what people leave behind when they change their entire lives as it is a traditional story of unrequited love. It’s beautiful and unforgettable.
Year: 1994
Runtime: 1h 33m
Director: Roger Allers, Rob Minkoff
A key part of the Disney Renaissance, this animated classic is one of the most beloved Disney films in the history of the company. It’s one of the Disney movies that became more than just a movie, inspiring sequels, theme park attractions, and even a massive hit Broadway show. People keep returning to the story of Simba as it gets passed down from generation to generation, probably earning a new fan somewhere in the world every single day.
Year: 1952
Runtime: 2h 23m
Director: Akira Kurosawa
Even if Criterion had only a handful of Kurosawa films, it would still be difficult to choose between The Seven Samurai, Rashomon, and Ran, to name a few. So why Ikiru? Well, it’s an unqualified masterpiece, about a man with stomach cancer coming to terms with the end of his life. It’s hard to believe Kurosawa made it when he was just over 40.
Year: 2000
Runtime: 1h 38m
Director: Wong Kar-wai
Movies don’t get more hypnotic than this, a story of love and longing set in Hong Kong in 1962. Gorgeously shot by cinematographers Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping-bin, In the Mood for Love also features career-defining performances by Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Maggie Cheung Man-yuk. The two play neighbors who develop an attraction to one another in a way that feels both deeply cinematic and completely human.
Year: 1975
Runtime: 3h 21m
Director: Chantal Akerman
The 2022 Sight & Sound critics poll named Chantal Akerman’s masterpiece the best film of all time, and it’s sitting on the Criterion Channel waiting for you to find out why. This 1975 examination of the gradual breakdown of the routines of an ordinary life turns everyday detail into something unforgettable, even transcendent. Critics have loved this film for decades and now it’s had an incredible resurgence almost six decades after its release.
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