You may be taking it easy in the final week of 2024, but that doesn’t mean our list of the best movies to stream on Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, Max (HBO), and other services does. Well, it’s kind of taking it easy, as there are only two new notable titles this week, and none is on the level of December’s biggest highlight, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
This week, just two streamers add new movies, as Hulu serves up Kate Winslet in Lee and MGM+ delivers Naomie Harris in The Wasp. Read on for the updates.
We also have guides to the best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Hulu, the best movies on Amazon Prime Video, the best movies on Max, and the best movies on Disney+.
Hulu
Lee (2024)
62%American war correspondent and photographer Elizabeth “Lee” Miller became one of the country’s most acclaimed photojournalists after depicting the savagery of World War II for Vogue. This film portrays the most pivotal decade of Miller’s (Kate Winslet) life, as she transitioned from a fashion model to a war photographer.
Lee depicts Miller’s profound understanding and empathy for victims of war and her desperate attempt to provide a voice for the voiceless. But in her headstrong pursuit of truth, she ultimately pays a tremendous personal price, and is forced to confront a deeply buried trauma from her childhood.
Cuckoo (2024)
62%Tilman Singer wrote and directed Cuckoo, an American/German co-production about a young woman who reluctantly relocates from America to join her father in the German Alps. Seventeen-year-old Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) isn’t exactly thrilled to be cohabitating with her father’s new family, but she doesn’t have much of a choice.
As her father’s boss, Mr. König (Dan Stevens), takes a strange liking to Gretchen’s mute half-sister, Alma, things begin to feel weird in this tranquil vacation paradise. Soon, Gretchen is haunted by strange noises and bloody visions, leading her to a dark secret that impacts her family.
Sugarcane (2024)
90%One of the year’s most provocative documentaries, this National Geographic production investigates the abuse of the missing children at a Canadian Indian residential school.
The investigation soon sparks a reckoning among the survivors and descendants, spilling over onto the nearby Sugarcane Reserve. Sugarcane premiered at Sundance this year and won the Grand Jury Award for directing. This gripping watch is not for the faint of heart.
Summer Camp (2024)
41%This is another kind of weird one to land on streaming in December, but if you’re looking for a winter warmer, this Golden Girls-esque comedy will fit the bill. Nora (Diane Keaton), Ginny (Kathy Bates), and Mary (Alfre Woodard) have been best friends since they met at summer camp 50 years ago. But as they’ve gotten older, they’ve seen each other less and less.
So when an opportunity arises for a summer camp reunion, they jump right back in the saddle. While it’s a little rocky at first, the three women soon remember the magic of camp and rediscover how much they need one another.
MGM+
The Wasp (2024)
69%Naomie Harris and Natalie Dormer star as estranged friends in this thriller. Carla (Dormer) and Heather (Harris) reunite over tea years after they’ve last spoken. It seems like no time has passed at all as Heather immediately presents Carla with a dangerous and deceptive proposition that could forever alter both their lives.
Each navigates one another’s web of secrets and unspoken agendas as the true nature of this supposedly chance meeting comes to light, and both realize that they’re in imminent, great danger.
Max (formerly HBO and HBO Max)
Juror #2 (2024)
72%As it’s thought to be Clint Eastwood’s last movie, it’s a bit confusing that Juror #2 didn’t receive a wider theatrical release. Critics have raved about this quiet drama, so it will hopefully find a wider audience now that it has landed on Max.
Nicholas Hoult plays Justin Kemp, a family man selected to serve as a juror in a high-profile murder trial. Soon after sitting in court, he realizes he has a serious moral dilemma that should have precluded him from being selected. Now he has a card to play to sway the jury one way or the other. Will he use it?
Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)
45%Nobody wanted or needed a sequel to Todd Phillips’ Oscar-nominated Joker, but Warner Bros. made one anyway. The results weren’t pretty. Nonetheless, it’s a recent, highly talked-about movie, so it makes this list for now.
In the second edition, Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is institutionalized at Arkham Asylum while awaiting trial for his crimes as Joker. As he struggles with his dual identity, Fleck stumbles into love with an admirer, Lee Quinzel (Lady Gaga), and discovers that there has always been music inside him. Yes, Joker 2 is a musical.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
62%Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is one of the strangest sequels going, and yet, the strangest thing about this movie might be just how incredibly fast it’s made it to streaming. After a September 6, 2024, theatrical release, it was exactly three months before it landed on Max. Just in time for Christmas!
Tim Burton is back behind the camera, Michael Keaton returns in the titular role, and Winona Ryder’s Lydia still has nightmares of Beetlejuice. But after an unexpected family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River, where Lydia’s teenage daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), discovers the mysterious model of the town in the attic, accidentally reopening the portal to the afterlife. Now, there’s trouble brewing in both realms and somebody, at some point, is going to have to say that name three times.
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (2024)
77%
8.1/10Sweethearts (2024)
62%Netflix
Between the Temples (2024)
83%If you’re looking for a thoughtful indie comedy starring Jason Schwartzman, Between the Temples feels like a spiritual successor to the movie that made Schwartzman famous, Rushmore. Ben Gottlieb (Schwartzman) is a Jewish cantor experiencing a crisis of faith when his grade school music teacher, Carla Kessler (Carol Kane), suddenly reenters his life as his new adult Bat Mitzvah student.
As Ben loses his faith, Carla is seeking faith to establish some meaning in her life. Although contemplating opposite solutions, Ben and Carla experience a spiritual crisis and find a special connection with one another.
The Six Triple Eight (2024)
57%Inspired by the first and only Women’s Army Corps unit of color to serve overseas in World War II, Tyler Perry’s The Six Triple Eight tells the story of their extraordinary non-combat mission. Tasked with sorting through a three-year backlog of more than 17 million pieces of undelivered mail, the unit is expected to finish the project within six months.
Despite being set up to fail, the unit nonetheless bands together to show the determination and grit necessary to get the job done. Kerry Washington, Susan Sarandon, and Oprah Winfrey headline a strong cast.
It Ends with Us (2024)
53%It Ends with Us might be better known for Blake Lively’s disastrous press tour in which she came off as condescending and oddly dismissive of women suffering from domestic violence. Nonetheless, adapted from a Colleen Hoover novel, It Ends with Us found an audience and now lands on Netflix.
Lively plays Lily Bloom, a woman who overcomes her traumatic childhood to open a business and start a new life in Boston. When she meets charming neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni), the two spark a deep connection. However, Lily soon sees sides of Ryle that trigger memories of her parents’ abusive relationship. When her first love, Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar), suddenly reenters her life, everything is thrown into disarray.
Maria (2024)
63%From Spanish director Pablo Larraín (El Conde), Maria tells the story of Maria Callas, the world’s greatest female opera singer, in her final days in 1970s Paris. Angelina Jolie plays Maria with grace as the singer relives and reimagines her life as she faces her mortality.
This Netflix original has received strong reviews, and Jolie has earned praise for one of her best performances in recent memory.
That Christmas (2024)
59%In the mood for a Christmas movie for the whole family? That Christmas is a new Netflix Original based on Richard Curtis’s trilogy of award-winning children’s books. The vignette-style animated film follows several entwined stories about family and friends, love and loneliness, and Santa Claus being fallible in the town of Wellington-on-Sea.
When the worst snowstorm in history hits, it’s an unusual Christmas holiday for everybody. Curtis — famous for films like Love Actually and Four Weddings and a Funeral — makes his first foray into animation.
Disney+
Blink (2024)
Beatles '64 (2024)
80%Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
56%Disney+ is now the streaming home to the summer’s two top movies: Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine. The third film in the Deadpool series finds Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) living listlessly in civilian life, retired from his days as the mercenary Deadpool.
As tends to happen in these movies, however, the planet soon faces an existential threat, forcing Deadpool to don the suit once again. But this time, he’s looking for reinforcements in the form of Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). Except this isn’t his Wolverine. Instead, Deadpool has to use Cable’s time travel device to rope in another Wolverine from another timeline.
Inside Out 2 (2024)
73%Amazon Prime Video
Red One (2024)
34%What would you get if you crossed The Santa Clause with Mission: Impossible? Well, you’d get Red One and you might wonder why you ever thought of this idea in the first place. Regardless, it’s the biggest-budget Christmas movie of all time and is arriving on Prime Video less than a month after it’s theatrical release.
So, buckle up and follow E.L.F. (Extremely Large and Formidable) operative Callum Drift (Dwayne Johnson) and the world’s greatest tracker, Jack O’Malley (Chris Evans), as they chase down a villain who has kidnapped Santa (J.K. Simmons) to try and stop Christmas.
My Old Ass (2024)
74%Canary Black (2024)
Brothers (2024)
Challengers (2024)
Peacock
Conclave (2024)
79%Based on Robert Harris’ bestselling novel of the same name, Conclave goes behind the scenes of one of the world’s most secret, ancient traditions: selecting a new pope. Ralph Fiennes stars as Cardinal Lawrence, the man tasked with running this covert process after the beloved Pope’s unexpected death.
When the Catholic Church’s most powerful leaders gather from around the world, they’re locked together in the Vatican halls. That’s when Lawrence realizes he’s at the center of a conspiracy that could destroy the Church.
Speak No Evil (2024)
66%An American remake of the 2022 Danish horror film of the same name, Speak No Evil is Blumhouse at its best. When an American family befriends a charming British family on vacation, they can’t pass up the invitation to rendezvous at their new friends’ idyllic country estate.
What begins as a dream weekend soon warps into a psychological nightmare as the Americans realize they’re not the first to be invited to this estate. Instead, they’ll have to try to be the first to leave alive. James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, and Scoot McNairy lead a strong cast.
Twisters (2024)
65%About a year ago, you might have asked yourself if anyone really wanted a sequel to the 1996 disaster flick Twister. Now, one question remains: Why didn’t they do it sooner? After racking up more than $370 million at the box office, Twisters was the summer’s fourth-biggest movie, and the second if you remove the two kids’ movies on this list.
In the standalone sequel, Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Kate Carter, a former storm chaser still haunted by a horrific tornado encounter in college. Although she studies storm patterns on screens in New York City, she’s lured back into the field by her friend, Javi (Anthony Ramos), to test a groundbreaking new system. There, she meets social media storm-chasing superstar Tyler Owens (Glen Powell), who offers to test the system in the field. But what starts as an ordinary test soon turns perilous as the crew finds themselves in the path of multiple converging storm systems in central Oklahoma.
Paramount+
Smile 2 (2024)
66%The Smile horror franchise has taken off like a shot, with the second film already landing on Paramount+ just two short years after the theatrical release of the first one. Smile 2 gets even messier and gorier as global pop sensation Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) begins to experience increasingly horrifying and unexplainable events.
Believing they’re at least in some part related to the pressures of her tour and her fame, Skye is forced to face a very dark past to regain control of her life. Yet, she’s being haunted by something relentless.
Dear Santa (2024)
34%Dear Santa has a pretty ridiculous premise, and, depending on how you react to that, you can probably decide whether or not it’s your kind of Christmas movie. When a sixth-grader named Liam writes to Santa asking him to prove his existence, his dyslexia causes a minor issue.
Instead of addressing the letter to Santa, he sends it to Satan by mistake. As such, Satan (Jack Black) shows up at Liam’s front door pretending to be Santa and eager to take a sneaky little piece of Liam’s soul. Dear Santa has Jack Black being Jack Black, jokes about kids with dyslexia, and Christmas chaos. Do with that what you will!
Apple TV+
Fly Me to the Moon (2024)
53%The rare film to be made by another studio and get a theatrical release before landing on Apple TV+, Fly Me to the Moon had some modest box office success this summer. Marketing pro Kelly Jones (Scarlett Johansson) is brought in to fix NASA’s public image problems as the agency prepares for its most important mission to date: putting a man on the moon.
All this messaging wreaks havoc on launch director Cole Davis’ (Channing Tatum) worksite. When the White House deems the mission too important to fail, suddenly both Jones and Davis have another job. They must stage a fake moon landing, just in case the real one doesn’t pan out.
Blitz (2024)
71%Shudder
Black Cab (2024)
The Exorcism (2024)
46%
