RELATED: 6 New Shows to Watch on Netflix This Weekend. The second in the Batman trilogy helmed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale, 2008’s The Dark Knight stands out because of Heath Ledger’s much-celebrated and tragically final performance. He even won a posthumous Oscar for his take on the Joker, who foils Bruce Wayne’s plans to give up caped crimefighting in this movie. Aaron Eckhart’s Harvey Dent, known to comic book fans as Two-Face, further complicates things by going out with Bruce’s ex (Maggie Gyllenhaal, taking over for Batman Begins’ Katie Holmes). Still skeptical of dating apps? You won’t be any less so after watching this documentary. In The Tinder Swindler, a group of women who’ve all been conned by the same seemingly perfect man band together to try to take him down. Kevin James stars in this family sports comedy, which is based on a true story. In Home Team, he plays a fictionalized version of former New Orleans Saints coach, Sean Payton, who was suspended by the NFL for a year for his involvement in a “bounty” scheme, where players would be rewarded for injuring players on other teams. Instead of taking a 12-month vacation, however, Payton volunteered to coach his 12-year-old son’s middle school football team—three years after leading a pro team to a Super Bowl Championship. Anne Frank isn’t just a piece of history—she was also a young girl. And this Dutch drama focuses on pre-war innocence, as well as childhood friendship and how it can change as the years go by. My Best Friend Anne Frank looks at Frank (Aiko Beemsterboer) through the eyes of her schoolmate, Hannah Goslar (Josephine Arendsen), from the days when all they worried about was growing apart to being imprisoned in the same concentration camp. Johnny Depp stars in this 1997 crime thriller as Joseph D. Pistone, a real FBI agent who was undercover for years in the New York City mafia. Donnie Brasco takes its title from his alias and co-stars Al Pacino as a hitman who takes “Donnie” under his wing. Lines begin to blur as Pistone becomes even more immersed in the life, leaving him unsure at times whose side he’s even on. Whether it’s already in your top 10 or you’ve somehow yet to see this cult comedy classic, Caddyshack is now readily available on Netflix for your viewing pleasure. One of several collaborations between Harold Ramis and Bill Murray, the 1980 flick follows a teenage country club caddie (Michael O’Keefe) as he works through the summer, encountering some pretty colorful characters—and one un-killable gopher.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb RELATED: For more recommendations sent right to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. It’s not totally uncommon to occasionally feel like your boss is pure evil, but when it comes to Keanu Reeves’ character in 1997’s The Devil’s Advocate, he’s not wrong. Reeves plays an up-and-coming lawyer at a firm owned by a man (Al Pacino) who’s not just a shark in the courtroom but actually, literally Satan in disguise. And it’s not a coincidence that Pacino’s character goes by the name “John Milton”—there are tons of literary allusions in this horror drama, including to Milton’s Paradise Lost. The third movie in the spy series, The Bourne Ultimatum came out in 2007 and once again stars Matt Damon as the survivor of some sketchy intelligence experiments. Jason Bourne continues to roam the globe in search of more answers about his past, evading attempts on his life by those who don’t want him knowing their secrets. A undisputed horror milestone, 1973’s The Exorcist terrifyingly adapts the novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty. Ellen Burstyn (then still fairly new to audiences) stars as a desperate mother seeking an exorcism for her demonically afflicted daughter, Regan (Linda Blair). While there was some controversy about the graphic film being given an R-rating instead of the dreaded X, The Exorcist was a massive hit and became the first of its genre to be nominated for Best Picture. RELATED: The 10 Most Popular Movies on Netflix Right Now, Data Shows.
title: “9 New Movies You Can Watch On Netflix This Weekend Best Life” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-13” author: “Robin Mcbee”
Actor Maggie Gyllenhaal makes her directorial debut with The Lost Daughter, adapted from the novel by Elena Ferrante. Olivia Colman stars as Leda, a woman who becomes obsessed with a younger woman (Dakota Johnson) and her daughter during a beach vacation. The source of her fixation lies in Leda’s past, with Jessie Buckley playing the flashback version of her. RELATED: This Netflix Star Complains He’s Being “Objectified” After Breakout Role. Tim Burton’s colorful exploration of the place where fantasy and reality intersect revolves around the relationship between a father who tells tall tales and the son who wants to know what’s true before his father dies. Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, and Alison Lohman star—not to mention one very memorable field of daffodils. Girl, Interrupted—and the memoir it’s based on—goes behind the doors of a psychiatric facility for women in the ’60s. Winona Ryder leads the cast as 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen (also the author’s name), who ends up committed after a troubling event, but it was Angelina Jolie who won an Oscar for her performance as the charismatic sociopath who befriends her. Made for less than $250,000, 2007’s Paranormal Activity became a huge box office hit and launched what’s currently an eight-movie franchise. Part of the found-footage horror genre, the original movie centers on a couple who are being haunted and terrorized by a demonic force that has a history with one of them. For more recommendations sent to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. Based on the 1976 novel by literary vampire queen Anne Rice, An Interview With the Vampire stars Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt as undead companions Lestat and Louis and features a 12-year-old Kirsten Dunst in her breakout role as a child they turn. The book and the movie get their title from the story’s framing device—Louis chronicles his hundreds of years of life to a reporter in present-day San Francisco.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb You know the rules of owning an adorable mogwai: 1) Don’t expose it to light, 2) don’t get it wet, and 3) for heaven’s sake, don’t feed it after midnight! If you do, you’ll get a destructive, mischievous, and far less cute creature. The 1984 horror comedy Gremlins introduced this touchy pet to pop culture and led to a less well-received but more kid-friendly sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch. In this ultra-violent Martin Scorsese classic, Robert De Niro stars as Travis Bickle, a New York City cabbie becoming increasingly disillusioned and delusional. Struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder from the Vietnam War, he fixates first on a campaign volunteer played by Cybill Shepherd and then a child sex worker played by a young Jodie Foster, with bloody results. In this situation, “seal team” is not a military but a literal term. A Netflix original animated movie, Seal Team tells the story of a group of semiaquatic mammals who decide to fight back against the deadly sharks who have them living in fear. It features the voices of J.K. Simmons, Kristen Schaal, Dolph Lundgren, Matthew Rhys, and—as one would hope—Seal. From the writer/director of The Big Short and Vice comes Don’t Look Up, a divisive satire about climate change that’s already started quite the battle online. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence play two scientists who attempt, in vain, to get humanity to care about a life-destroying comet currently hurtling toward Earth, sending up how politicized the climate issue is in our world. And Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Timothée Chalamet, Tyler Perry, and Ariana Grande are also on hand in the Oscar contender. RELATED: 6 New Shows You Can Watch on Netflix This Weekend.
title: “9 New Movies You Can Watch On Netflix This Weekend Best Life” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-26” author: “David Leber”
RELATED: 9 New TV Shows to Watch on Netflix This Weekend. Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, and Kodi Smit-McPhee star in acclaimed filmmaker Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog, based on a 1967 Western novel of the same name. And this exploration of rural toxic masculinity is already building tons of Oscar buzz. “Campion understands the genre she’s working in, setting the roiling emotions of her characters against the striking landscapes; Cumberbatch’s performance is as immense as the peaks and valleys around him,” David Sims writes for The Atlantic. “Right now, it feels like a Best Picture front-runner.” In this Netflix original rom-com, after an embarrassing breakup, Peter (Michael Urie) decides to bring his best friend Nick (Philemon Chambers) home for the holidays in his ex-boyfriend’s place. Of course, Peter’s family loves Nick so much that they embark on a festive scheme to get the pair to realize that they may be better off as more than friends. Jennifer Coolidge, Kathy Najimy, and Barry Bostwick co-star. Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, and Natalie Portman star in this sleek and chilly 2004 drama, about two couples who cross each other’s paths and then cross monogamous lines. Owen and Portman both got Supporting nods at the Oscars that year. Rather than being adapted from a piece of fiction, the 2012 ensemble rom-com Think Like a Man is actually based on a relationship advice book by comedian and host Steve Harvey. And the cast is packed with stars, from Kevin Hart and Taraji P. Henson to Regina Hall and Michael Ealy. Harvey also makes a cameo appearance as himself. Julia Roberts is the title character in this 1998 weeper, opposite Susan Sarandon as the ex-wife. Stepmom focuses on the relationship between the two women and the children they both love as they work out how to co-parent and co-exist. The inevitable twist ups the melodrama, but you’ll still be tempted to call your own mother figure as soon as the credits roll. For more recommendations sent right to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb In this futuristic 2002 Steven Spielberg sci-fi flick, premeditated murders can be detected before they happen, but only by using gifted humans called “pre-cogs.” The program is thrown into chaos when they predict that the head of the whole thing, Tom Cruise’s Chief Anderton, is about to kill a man he’s never met. As he goes on the run and tries to get to the bottom of the accusation, he learns some disturbing information the origin of the Precrime division. Before Knives Out and his Star Wars installment, The Last Jedi, director Rian Johnson wrote and directed this well-received time travel thriller, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt. Looper, released in 2012, follows assassins who hide their targets in time, sending them back and offing them there. The only complication is that traveling through time increases your chances of running into yourself… Dreaming about escaping for the holidays? The next best thing to your dream December vacation may be A Castle for Christmas, another new Netflix seasonal rom-com. This one features Brooke Shields as an author who runs away to a remote castle in Scotland to avoid some bad publicity and ends up falling for the grumpy duke (Cary Elwes) who owns the place. Halle Berry not only stars in this boxing drama, it also marks her directorial debut. Bruised tells the story of an MMA fighter who desperately needs a comeback and who tackles her personal traumas too when a figure from her past comes back into her life. The movie has been such a success on the service so far that Berry just signed a deal with Netflix to produce and act in more streaming movies. RELATED: The 10 Most Popular Movies on Netflix Right Now, Data Shows.
title: “9 New Movies You Can Watch On Netflix This Weekend Best Life” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-29” author: “Timothy Henderson”
RELATED: 7 New Netflix Shows You Can Watch This Weekend. In this 2010 film by Christopher Nolan, Leonardo DiCaprio leads a group of criminals who conspire to plant an idea in the subconscious of their client’s rival. But work inside of dreams for too long, and the line between what’s real and what’s not begins to blur. The rest of the cast includes Marion Cotillard, Elliot Page, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Ken Watanabe.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb This brand new animated film features songs by Hamilton composer Lin-Manuel Miranda, who also stars as the eponymous kinkajou. In this heartwarming adventure, little Vivo teams up with a young girl to bring a message in the form of a song from a friend to his lost love After first premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival, this documentary produced by Blumhouse founder Jason Blum and American Horror Story’s Ryan Murphy has just landed on Netflix. It explores the dangers and wreckage of conversion therapy, a term that describes coordinated efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender expression. Survivors and former therapy leaders reflect on their experiences. Another Leonardo DiCaprio favorite, Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can tells the true story of Frank Abagnale Jr., a skilled con artist who made millions posing as other people when he was still in his teens. Tom Hanks plays Carl Hanratty, the FBI agent who tracks Frank even while coming to admire his skill. You may not be able to escape your life for a day, but you can live vicariously through Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick), who ditches school to go on an adventure in the city of Chicago with his best friend (Alan Ruck) and girlfriend (Mia Sara) in this ’80s teen classic. For more recommendations sent right to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. A more recent and also excellent teen movie, The Edge of Seventeen stars Hailee Steinfeld as a savvy and disaffected girl who feels betrayed and abandoned when her best friend (Haley Lu Richardson) starts dating her older brother (Blake Jenner.) Woody Harrelson plays the understanding and cool English teacher she goes to for support. Spike Lee directs stand-up performances by D.L. Hughley, Steve Harvey, Cedric the Entertainer, and the late Bernie Mac in 2000’s The Original Kings of Comedy. In addition to sets performed live for a North Carolina audience, the film also includes a behind-the-scenes look at the comedians’ seminal tour. It’s the coming-of-age movie that traumatized a generation. Set in the ’70s, My Girl centers Vada Sultenfuss (Anna Chlumsky), a death-obsessed 11-year-old who lives in a funeral home, barely has a relationship with her widower dad, and pals around with the geekiest kid in school, Thomas J. (Macaulay Culkin). She experiences a lot of firsts in this movie—some tragic and some positive—and the growing up continues in the sequel, My Girl 2, which is also now on Netflix. Actual pop star Christina Milian plays a fictional wannabe pop star in this Netflix original. Her character Erica accepts a gig at a destination wedding, which turns out to be pretty complicated as her ex is the groom. RELATED: The Best Movie of 2021 So Far, According to Critics.
title: “9 New Movies You Can Watch On Netflix This Weekend Best Life” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-29” author: “Brenda Peterson”
RELATED: The Best Movie of 2021 So Far, According to Critics. R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps and Fear Street books were an introduction to horror for millions of kids and teens. Capitalizing on the nostalgia that those who grew up with them will always have for Stine’s terrifying tales, Netflix is in the midst of releasing a new Fear Street movie trilogy. (Those were the ones aimed at an adolescent, not elementary, audience.) The first one, appropriately set in the mid-’90s, follow a group of friends who tangle with an evil presence that’s taken up residence in their town. The second movie in the Fear Street trilogy takes it back a few years and takes place in one of the most iconic settings for a slasher flick: a summer camp. In this one, a possessed counselor goes on a killing spree, and the campers not immediately taken out have to find a way to survive. The third and final movie, Fear Street Part Three: 1666, premieres on July 16. Several years before Parasite won the Oscar, director Bong Joon-ho introduced audiences to a post-apocalyptic future in which the only remaining humans traverse the now uninhabitable Earth in a train that never stops moving. Snowpiercer takes aim at classism as a passenger from the undesirable back of the train (Chris Evans) aims to take down the rich folks living large at the front. It’s also been adapted into a TV show, but you’ll have to turn to HBO Max to watch Season 1 of that. RELATED: 7 New Netflix Shows You Can Watch This Weekend. “Get off my plane,” may be the one line that everyone remembers from Air Force One, the 1997 action flick starring Harrison Ford as a very self-sufficient president, but there’s a lot more to it than that. You can revisit this movie about the First Family fighting off a group of terrorists mid-air (hey, when you’ve got Indiana Jones flying with you, there’s a chance) now that it’s on Netflix. Christmas in July! Love this aggressively sentimental holiday ensemble rom-com or hate it, it can’t be argued that Love Actually didn’t have an impact. If you’re already feeling the itch to unbox your December decor, you may want to pump the AC and watch a bunch of British people (and the odd American and Irishman) fall in love this weekend. For more recommendations sent right to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. Why Do Fools Fall in Love isn’t your average biopic. The 1998 movie stars Larenz Tate as Frankie Lymon, of the group Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, and dramatizes the stories told after his death by three women (Halle Berry, Vivica A. Fox, and Lela Rochon) who all claimed to be the rightful heir to his estate.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb Widely regarded as the best of the Terminator movies, Terminator 2: Judgment Day (or T2, if you’re on casual terms), is on Netflix now. Like the first, this one stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as the titular android, who this time is sent to the past to protect Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and her son John (Edward Furlong), not prevent the latter’s existence. Netflix is now the proud home to all three movies starring Mike Myers as a thawed-out British superspy who does surprisingly well with women. That’s right: Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and Austin Powers in Goldmember are available on the same service for your streaming pleasure. Get ready for all those lines to come screaming back to you. Make sure the kids are out of the room when you put this Netflix Original animated comedy on, because it’s definitely for adults. Featuring the voices of some of your favorite comics and comedic actors (Channing Tatum, Olivia Munn, Judy Greer, and Will Forte among them), America: The Motion Picture imagines the Revolutionary War playing out a lot (and we mean a lot) differently. RELATED: 18 Actors Who Looked Unrecognizable in Major Movies.
