The Best R Movies to Watch on Hulu

One thing about director Sean Baker’s movies is that everything is rooted in class. Anora might charm as a romance, delight as a comedy, and dazzle as a realistic look into sex work, but at the end of the day, it’s a movie about labor, specifically exploitation labor, making the movie as painfully realistic as […]

“The healing power of art” sounds cheesy, but it’s a statement made beautiful and true in Ghostlight. It’s the sensitively told and wonderfully performed story of an ordinary man who, up until this point, doesn’t even know how Romeo and Juliet ends. That’s how detached he is from art. But when Rita (Dolly de Leon) […]

You would expect a courtroom drama to be built around damning pieces of evidence, passionate speeches, or certain social issues lending weight to the investigation. But what makes Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning Anatomy of a Fall so remarkable is how direct it is. Triet doesn’t treat this case like a puzzle for the audience to […]

A Real Pain is a deceptively simple film. There’s not a lot going on on the surface, but Eisenberg’s smart script and tight direction, coupled with Culkin’s firecracker performance fuel the film with heart and infectious energy. A Real Pain shines when it focuses on the cousins’ bond​​at once pained and precious—but it also works […]

Babes tells the story of Eden (Ilana Glazer) and Dawn (Michelle Buteau), codependent best friends who are forced to reevaluate their relationship when Eden finally joins Dawn in becoming a mother. While Eden learns how to be more mature and independent, Dawn struggles to feel like herself again after two exhausting pregnancies. Burdened by these […]

After you get back home, and you tuck your kids to bed, we search for some easy entertainment in the late-night talk show. Quips about today’s news and intimate conversations with guests are just the thing to wind down, but theoretically, anything can happen at late night. Late Night with the Devil plays as a […]

Once you get over the fact that A Complete Unknown isn’t like most biopics, the film becomes a blast to watch. It doesn’t extol the virtues of its hero, nor does it pretend to know who Dylan is at his core. Instead, the film relishes his enigma and puts forward his flaws alongside his genius. […]

When modern systems like law enforcement and forensics fail to come up with definite answers to a murder, loved ones of the victim usually have no recourse, which is the fear at the heart of Irish horror film Oddity. To lose someone you care about, forever, hurts. So when Darcy takes more strange and esoteric […]

It’s kind of amazing how Johnson, who writes, directs, and stars in this feature, narrowly escapes narrative holes by being so darn self-effacing and likable. The female lead Maddy (Anna Kendrick) should be denounced as a Manic Pixie Girl, but because of Johnson and Kendrick’s overflowing charm, you don’t question the flimsiness of her character […]

The Royal Hotel sees Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) resorting to take up a dire live-in job behind the bar in a remote desert part of Western Australia. Although they’re warned that they’d “have to be okay with a little male attention” in the outcast mining town, their financial precarity overrides the potential […]

Everything about Sugarcane is arresting, whether it’s the epic shots of the sweeping reservation (“Canada is our land,” one native announces), the emotional moments shared by survivors of the abusive residential schools, or the damning discoveries they find in an investigation into the Catholic priests. Every second of it is sure to shock and infuriate. […]

Exhibiting Forgiveness does what it says in the title. The plot moves when a repentant family member returns to the protagonist’s life to reconcile with them, and in doing so, there’s hope that things would work out between them. Many a depiction would often treat this moment as a simple hurdle to jump over, but […]

As the third instalment in Paul Schrader’s “man in a room” trilogy after First Reformed (2017) and The Card Counter (2021), Master Gardner rounds up the issues at stake in a most profound way. For anyone who’s seen a film either scripted by Schrader (such as Taxi Driver) or directed by him, there will be […]

On the one hand, How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a tense thriller—an excellently set-up heist that makes you wonder, until the end, whether the low-budget operation succeeds or not. On the other hand, it’s a thoughtful rumination on the evil and influence of Big Oil, which despite its relentless destruction of environments and […]

Surreal, off-putting, and extremely disturbing, Infinity Pool plays with the concepts of cloning and the death penalty to craft an examination on colonial tourism. It’s a thematically rich horror film, with hazy neon-lit sex scenes and absolutely terrible behavior, enabled by their wealth and advanced technology that could have been put to better use. Mia […]

For people having difficulty bearing a child, artificial insemination is one way to go for parenthood, but going to sperm banks can be expensive, shrouded with too much anonymity, and have had many incidents of malpractice. Some people would rather take things into their own hands. Spermworld explores the journeys of three different internet sperm […]

Rye Lane knows it’s treading familiar ground by having its charming leads fall in love as they walk and talk their way through a beautiful city. So instead of experimenting on a tried-and-tested setup, it smartly focuses on specificity. It hones in on the characters’ Gen Z woes and cranks up the British references, giving […]

In Suncoast, writer-director Laura Chinn takes the personal tragedy of losing her brother to cancer and weaves it into something meaningful. The film is a sensitive meditation on death and grief, but it isn’t all grim. It’s also a coming-of-age story, one that focuses on Doris (Nico Parker), a version of Chinn’s younger self aching […]

There are only two main characters in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande: Nancy, a retired teacher who was recently widowed, and Leo, an adept sex worker with a mysterious past. They’re almost always in one place and work on a single goal: pleasure. But despite the seeming monotony, the movie is crackling with wit […]

Between its maximalist production design and increasingly dark comedic set pieces, the most striking thing about Damien Chazelle’s critically misunderstood industry satire is how it strikes a tone closer to tabloid gossip than anything else. As opposed to the clockwork precision of Chazelle’s Whiplash, or the dreaminess of La La Land, Babylon’s restlessness doesn’t resemble […]

Among the sea of class satires released in the last year, Triangle of Sadness is one of the better ones. Directed by Ruben Östlund (The Square, Force Majeure), the film follows an ultra-rich group of people who get stranded on an island after their luxury cruise ship sinks. The social pyramid that has long favored […]

Kinds of Kindness is three different short films stacked into one. They don’t share a lot of similarities, except that their characters are played by the same actors, all of whom excellently display varying degrees of isolation and desperation. None of these people are likable—in fact, they’re despicable—but damn if they don’t make you stop […]

Child Star feels like it’s two movies clumsily stitched into one. On the one hand, it’s a straightforward documentary about the history of child actors. There are talking heads of experts explaining things like the Coogan Law, also known as the California Child Actor’s Bill, as well as interviews with children who dream of being […]

Though it begins with the catfishing and hacking incident that affected thousands of Tegan and Sara fans, not to mention Tegan herself, Fanatical dips into the more general topic of fandom and explores both the good and bad of it. Tegan and Sara make for an excellent case study for two reasons. One is that […]

Diane von Furstenberg has no doubt lived a rich, fascinating life, but the documentary struggles to strike a balanced tone and instead comes off as an advertisement of DVF’s (admittedly beautiful) dresses. It’s not that the designer doesn’t merit the glowing praise given to her by friends, family, and experts in the documentary, but that […]

As a supernatural horror, The Pope’s Exorcist doesn’t bring anything new to the table. It employs more or less the usual elements you’d expect from the genre, and to be fair, it does occasionally fright you with its bloody jumpscares and demonic screeches. But as a drama, the film is surprisingly watchable thanks to a […]

In 1961, Francisco de Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington was stolen from London’s National Gallery, but the theft was no slick heist pulled off by international art thieves. No, the improbable culprit was (the improbably named) Kempton Bunton, a retired bus driver and aspiring playwright who pinched the painting — which the gallery […]

Producer-turned director Sean King O’Grady has some fresh ideas about what can shake up the dystopia genre, but The Mill needs more than a corporate critique to lift it off the ground. Even with Lil Rel Howery’s apt acting skills (you’ll probably remember him from Get Out), the film falls flat in its second half, […]

Despite what its title suggests, the real thrill of this documentary isn’t the mysterious 1998 robbery of a royal Austrian jewel, but the many other criminal escapades of Gerald Blanchard’s that are chronicled here. Blanchard, who appears on camera for much of the doc, remains cagey (for legal reasons) about how exactly he orchestrated the […]

Built on promising ideas revolving around toxic relationships, exploitation of Black bodies, and a fading African heritage, Jagged Mind comes up with reasonably diverting genre thrills but stops short of taking advantage of the rich material it has at its fingertips. In getting caught up with its own premise, the film isn’t able to craft […]

Yet another drama designed to be emotional without actually doing the heavy lifting to get us invested, Prisoner’s Daughter takes the easy way out at every turn, mistaking its use of capital-I Issues and dramatic plot points for substantial writing. This doesn’t mean that the film itself isn’t still watchable and competently performed (by a […]

Andy Samberg, Cristin Milioti (Modern Love, Black Mirror), and J.K. Simmons star in this easy but original rom-com that takes place in a wedding time loop. Nyles (Samberg) finds himself living the same day over and over again, so he gives in to the monotony and the fact that there is no way to escape […]

Based on the novel by Women Talking author Miriam Toews, this adaptation of All My Puny Sorrows holds clear reverence for its source material but falls short of making a case for its existence as a film. Toews’s prose—significant parts of which writer/director Michael McGowan has kept intact in the dialogue—may be appropriate for a […]

Horror likes to take a human fear and personify it. It’s a winning move, materializing our worst nightmares, but what does a woman’s self-doubt look like? In this case, extremely ugly and somewhat laughable, but surely not scary. The special effects team dropped the ball on this one, and the appendage’s physical presence is more […]

This low-stakes coming-of-age movie stars SNL’s Pete Davidson as Zeke, an aimless college dropout. His best friend, Monroe, is still in high school and is much younger and more innocent. Monroe doesn’t realize that he has a very biased outlook on life through Zeke, as he starts drug dealing, partying, and dating according to rules […]

Watch this if you like weird movies. And don’t be fooled by the first half, which serves just to set Jesse Eisenberg’s character and the monotone life he leads. It’s the calm before the storm, during which that character is attacked by a violent gang and decides to take self-defense classes in an unusual club. […]

There is a clear and wide gap between what Maximum Truth wants to be and what it actually is. What it wants to be is a silly but smart sendup of right-wing activism and the rampant disinformation the movement propels. What it ends up being is an occasionally funny but mostly tiresome film that falls […]

An interesting premise quickly sputters out in Fool’s Paradise, writer-star Charlie Day’s misfire of a directorial debut. Day plays a down-and-out Charlie Chaplin-esque mute who happens to be a dead ringer for a difficult method actor (also Day) who’s stalling production on a Billy the Kid remake — and so he’s brought in by the […]

The Witch hardly reinvents the thriller wheel. In fact, part of the fun in watching it is calling out the cliches. Cold-blooded villain? Check. Antihero who defies death? Check. Senseless, bloody killings for minutes on end? Check, check, check. The Witch has everything you’d expect from an action movie, and yet, the viewing experience is […]

This might just be the most insightful movie about men. Watch if you are a guy and you will cringe endlessly from seeing yourself in the characters, and if you are a girl  you should also watch it to laugh and understand the men around you better (yes, it is that insightful). Rob Gordon, a […]

Not only is this multi-award-winning drama seriously star-studded, Robert Downey Jr., Rosario Dawson, Channing Tatum, and Shia LaBeouf also deliver superb performances. With two Sundance Awards and many other nominations in its pocket, A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints is based on the eponymous memoir by author, director, and musician, Dito Montiel, who recalls his […]

In 2008, legendary and controversial director Darren Aronofsky delivered yet another unforgettable allegory, starring Mickey Rourke as Randy “The Ram” Robinson, an aging professional wrestler long past his prime, who is struggling to retain a sense of identity, purpose, and dignity later in life. Rourke, who worked as a professional boxer in his 90s and, […]

Donnie Darko is a cult film by director Richard Kelly, starring Jake Gyllenhaal. It’s about the troubled teenager Donnie who lives in a suburb and suddenly faces a person in a giant rabbit costume who tells him that the world is going to end in 28 days. If that didn’t make sense to you, don’t […]

Based on a true story, The Whistleblower is the biography of a once Nebraskan police officer who volunteers for the U.N. peacekeeping mission in post-war Bosnia. Once there, she uncovers a human trafficking scandal involving peacekeeping officials, and finds herself alone against a hostile system in a devastated country. Rachel Weisz plays the whistleblower in a powerful lead role, but […]

A beautifully intertwined love story showing the ups and downs of a father, his ex-wife, and their children experiencing love. The film weaves the three love stories of the different generations seamlessly and leaves you caring deeply about the characters. It has an amazing soundtrack added to fantastic acting that will make you feel as though you are living the same experiences as the […]

There’s a vein of reality running through He Got Game that gives this Spike Lee joint a sense of pulsating immediacy. For one, the young basketball prodigy at its center is played by real-life pro Ray Allen, who shot the movie during the sport’s off-season period in 1997. The film also draws on a host […]

You might have to wipe some sweat from your forehead once you’ve finished watching this blistering political thriller. It doesn’t make any sense to us that this 2006 movie by documentary director Kevin Macdonald made less than 20 million in box office revenue when it came out, but that makes it even more A Good […]

Bryan Cranston, best known for his role as Walter White in the Breaking Bad series, stars as Robert Mazur, a federal agent, who goes undercover to infiltrate the trafficking network of Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar. With the film based on Mazur’s memoir, Bryan Cranston gives an impressive lead performance that captures the intense distress […]

As black a comedy as they come. Nick Naylor (superbly portrayed by Aaron Eckhart) is the chief spokesperson for tobacco and shows the world why smoking is as key to protect as any other liberal value. This movie is funny, smart, thoughtful and raises some good questions about the ego, the morale and what we […]

Once is about a vacuum cleaner/repairman/street musician and a florist in a boy-meets-girl-then-makes-music tale of love, friendship, family, and freaking great music. You can just feel the passion from this simple but charming low-budget movie capturing the chemistry of music making. The film’s music will make your skin tingle and hair stand on end. How good is […]

Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is Sidney Lumet’s last film, and in many ways, it distills what the director explored in his prolific body of work: What is justice? And does everyone deserve it? Shot digitally at a time when the concept was still quite new, Before the Devil moves fast and takes us […]

This anthology of 18 short films — directed by the likes of the Coen brothers, Gurinder Chadha, Wes Craven, and Olivier Assayas — is a cinematic charcuterie board. Each director offers their own creative interpretation of one north star: love in Paris. Romantic love is heavily represented, naturally, but in diverse forms: love that’s run […]

We all love Jeff Bridges. We all agree that we shouldn’t leave a movie he won an Oscar for unwatched. That’s enough reason to watch this movie, but there are so many others. The story is fantastic and based on true events: a country musician living rough and having a shot at happiness after he […]

Written and directed by Bambi from Scrubs himself, Garden State is one hell of a directorial debut. It is one of those movies that leaves you wanting to cuddle, as it is very sweet, charming and funny… the whole lot really. It’s a movie you want to date. More than that, this is the film that popularized […]

Watching Carol is like reading a really interesting book while relaxing on a Sunday afternoon. It is one of those movies that you probably heard about during its Oscar run, and have since delayed actually viewing it. Well now that it is on Netflix and other streaming services you have no excuse! It’s refreshingly unique, […]

When categorizing Lars von Trier’s oeuvre, critics speak of a “Depression Trilogy” bookended by Antichrist and Nymphomaniac, but Melancholia is the one that really embodies the concepts and worries nested at the heart of this project. The Danish director may be known for his provocative approach to filmmaking and disregard of taboos, but with this […]

The Negotiator isn’t reinventing the wheel on cop thrillers, and so the first few minutes of this film by Gary Gray (The Italian Job, Straight Outta Compton) pass by predictably. Jackson’s Danny Roman is a superstar of an officer, then quickly falls from grace once he gets wind of a corrupt scheme within the hallowed […]

Warm and nourishing as the film’s cuisine, Soul Food is a celebration of the modern African-American family, represented here by the Josephs. The Chicagoan family has a longstanding tradition of making dinner together every Sunday—a ritual, we’re told, that’s lasted for at least 40 years. However, when the matriarch Big Mama Joe gets hospitalized, the […]

Starring a sad-sack Steve Carrell and an ensemble cast with brilliant timing and real heart, Little Miss Sunshine is a rare understated comedy that brings laughter and tears. As a dysfunctional family’s youngest member gets chosen to be in a pageant in California, the family must come together and support her through her journey. Along […]

In this ensemble cast directed by Wes Anderson, we see a very dysfunctional family with three very unique siblings who grow apart from each other due to their father, a charismatic and ever-absent grifter. However, when he announces his immanent death, the whole family is forced to confront each other, themselves and their childhoods as […]

Before “burnout,” “bullshit jobs,” and “quiet quitting” became part of our everyday lexicon, there was a film in the ‘90s that prophesied the rise of these workplace problems. Office Space follows three co-workers who, having had enough of their dreary low-paying jobs, fight back against their company via an embezzlement scheme.  Office Space makes the […]

Unlike the many courtroom films of its time, My Cousin Vinny forgoes theatrics and drama for true-blue comedy. It stars Joe Pesci as the titular Vinny, a newly minted New York attorney who’s taking on a murder trial in Alabama as his first case, while Marisa Tomei plays Vinny’s fiancée, Mona Lisa Vito, in an […]

Best friends Miles and Jack are off to wine country to celebrate Jack’s last week of freedom before he gets married. They drop white lies about themselves, with Miles pretending to be a successful writer and Jack not mentioning his impending wedding, and soon meet two beautiful women whom they spend the rest of their […]

The Gift is Joel Edgerton’s directoral debut, a twisted and smart thriller that sneaks up on you where you least expect it. He also stars in it as Gordo, a friend from the past that enters a new couple’s life (played by Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall) and brings a secret that has been hidden for decades. A […]

Starring the forever young and awkward Michael Cera, this is a hilarious, sweet and well-executed movie on friendship and teen life. With the assumption that you’ve read so far because you still haven’t watched the movie, how did you make it this far in life without knowing the origins of McLovin? In a nutshell, it […]

A modern yet entertaining take on an alien invasion movie but with a twist with who’s defending us against these wretched beasts. Taking place on Guy Fawkes night in South London, it pits a Brixton gang of ne’er do wells against technologically advanced space aliens. With a sharp sense of humor and eye for detail, first-time director […]