15 new movies you can stream right now

– Where to watch: Hulu


– Director: Michael Rapaport


– IMDb user rating: 7.7


– Metascore: 76


– Runtime: 97 minutes

“Beats, Rhymes & Life” offers up views of the ascent—and unraveling—of one of the most famous hip-hop groups of all time. Audiences are treated to vintage photos and video footage of Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, DJ Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and Jarobi White as they grow up and eventually form A Tribe Called Quest. Audiences also get commentary from the likes of Mary J. Blige and The Beastie Boys.

The director, actor Michael Rapaport (“Prison Break,” “My Name Is Earl”) told PeopleTV it was difficult getting the film made; but especially in light of Phife Dawg’s death in 2016, “I’m so proud of it and … just so happy we were able to get it done.”

Roger Ebert said of the film in 1980 that it “never really develops a plot, but maybe it doesn’t want to;” and suggested, “Director Harold Ramis brings on his cast of characters and lets them loose at one another.” Many of the film’s most beloved scenes were improvised, lending some credibility to Ebert’s perspectives.

– Where to watch: Hulu


– Director: Francis Ford Coppola


– IMDb user rating: 7.8


– Metascore: 85


– Runtime: 113 minutes

Francis Ford Coppola’s paranoid masterpiece “The Conversation” features a lonely man, Harry Caul (Gene Hackman), who runs a company specializing in listening to conversations the speakers wish to keep private. His apartment and office are sterile rooms enclosed behind thick walls, representing Harry’s not-unfounded neurosis that someone might always be listening.

Against the bunker-like spaces Harry inhabits, the open-air park where he uses advanced technology to listen in on a private discussion—the titular conversation—is a crowded public place where people exchanging sensitive information believe they can’t be overheard. They’re wrong, but Harry learns the hard way that hearing the words and understanding their meaning are two very different things.

– Where to watch: HBO Max, Hulu


– Director: Kasi Lemmons


– IMDb user rating: 7.3


– Metascore: 78


– Runtime: 109 minutes

“Eve’s Bayou” opens with the line, “The summer I killed my father, I was 10 years old.” The Southern gothic drama goes on to chronicle the events that led to the aforementioned murder, and the sorrow, guilt, hate, and love that our young heroine, Eve (Jurnee Smollett) is wrestling with.

Set in the late 1960s in Louisiana, the movie, which stars Samuel L. Jackson, also deals with the complexities of memory and Black American life, topics that are made all the more interesting by the inclusion of magical realism elements and dazzling soundtrack. A massive hit with critics and audiences alike, the film is often overlooked today much to the chagrin of modern film buffs.

– Where to watch: Netflix


– Director: David Fincher


– IMDb user rating: 7.8


– Metascore: 61


– Runtime: 129 minutes

Nicholas Van Orton (Michael Douglass) is a sleazy investment banker who’s beyond rich. When he reaches his 48th birthday, he’s plagued with memories of witnessing his father’s suicide on the occasion of his father’s 48th birthday.

Nicholas’ brother, with whom he has a complicated relationship, gets him the gift of a “game” for his birthday, which begins to overlap with his real life in ways that make Nicholas question where life ends and the game begins. It becomes increasingly dangerous as he seems to be wrapped in a conspiracy theory—or is he? Director David Fincher keeps the audience, and Nicholas, guessing until the end.

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– Where to watch: Prime VIdeo


– Director: Stanley Kramer


– IMDb user rating: 7.8


– Metascore: 63


– Runtime: 108 minutes

Hollywood royalty Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn teamed up for the ninth and final time in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” a comedy-drama about interracial marriage. Described by the Los Angeles Times as “slipping a revolution into an evening glove,” the movie tackled an incredibly incendiary topic in an easily palatable way (after all, when the movie was being shot, interracial marriage was still illegal in several states). 

While the movie may not be as controversial today as it was back then—Hepburn and co-star Sidney Poitier both received death threats for an on-screen kiss—it’s still an important (and fun) watch both for its message as well as for its role in cinematic history. It received a notable 10 Oscar nominations.

– Where to watch: HBO Max


– Director: Shaka King


– IMDb user rating: 7.5


– Metascore: 85


– Runtime: 126 minutes

At 20-something, Fred Hampton was the chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, an energetic revolutionary and activist whose betrayal by an FBI informant named William O’Neal would end in his assassination in 1969. “Judas and the Black Messiah” is a powerful biographical drama about the relationship between the two men and the duplicity that led to an early death for one of them.

Directed by Shaka King and starring Daniel Kaluuya and Lakeith Stanfield, the film is based on real events and reports, though some creative license is taken with the details.

– Where to watch: Netflix, Prime Video


– Director: Sofia Coppola


– IMDb user rating: 6.5


– Metascore: 65


– Runtime: 123 minutes

A visual and audio feast, “Marie Antoinette” stars Kirsten Dunst as the spoiled, self-obsessed French princess that once, when asked to consider the plight of her subjects, boldly declared “let them eat cake!” Sofia Coppola wrote and directed the film, which follows Marie’s growth from a shallow 14-year-old into a more confident and sincere, if still out-of-touch, woman and mother.

A polarising film among critics, Roger Ebert praised the film not for its historical accuracy but for its depiction of what it’s like to be a woman who is used by a world that refuses to value or understand her.

– Where to watch: Netflix


– Director: Martin Brest


– IMDb user rating: 7.5


– Metascore: 78


– Runtime: 126 minutes

Rolling Stone called “Midnight Run” “the ‘Casablanca’ of buddy comedies.” The comedy-action film stars Charles Grodin as an accountant who’s skipped bail and Robert De Niro as the bounty hunter who’s tasked with hunting him down. A box office smash, the film is one you’ll want to watch over and over thanks to the actor’s incredible performances and the plot’s slight deviation from the typical thriller formula.

– Where to watch: HBO Max


– Director: Steven Soderbergh


– IMDb user rating: data not available


– Metascore: 72


– Runtime: 115 minutes

A super recent release, “No Sudden Move” only premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in mid-June. The period crime drama is set in Detroit in 1955 and follows a group of small-time criminals who are tasked with stealing an important document, only to find (once the robbery goes awry), that their mission may be more complicated than it seems. As funny as it is dramatic, the movie stars big names like Jon Hamm, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, and Brendan Fraser.

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– Where to watch: Prime Video


– Director: Elia Kazan


– IMDb user rating: 8.1


– Metascore: 91


– Runtime: 108 minutes

An instant sensation, and perhaps Marlon Brando’s best role, “On the Waterfront” follows a prizefighter-turned-longshoreman who struggles to stand up to his corrupt, mob-affiliated union bosses. Winning eight Academy Awards, the film is frequently recognized as one of the best and most important movies ever made, and despite its difficult themes is a must-watch for anyone who considers themselves to be even a bit of a cinema buff.

– Where to watch: Hulu


– Director: Paul Verhoeven


– IMDb user rating: 7.5


– Metascore: 67


– Runtime: 102 minutes

Set in a near-future Detroit, “RoboCop” is about a fatally wounded police officer who returns to life—and crime-fighting—as a cyborg who is haunted and inspired by a series of repressed memories. The 1980s action flick is deeply satirical, incredibly violent, and often viewed as a rebuke of many Reagan-era policies. A sleeper hit, the movie is a fun watch despite its dated special effects (which were groundbreaking at the time). If you find that you love it, two sequels as well as a remake are available to keep the party going.

– Where to watch: HBO Max


– Director: John Dahl


– IMDb user rating: 7.3


– Metascore: 54


– Runtime: 121 minutes

Matt Damon stars as a reformed gambler who re-enters the world of high-stakes poker in order to help a friend pay off the circling loan sharks in “Rounders.” Despite the film’s middling performance at the box office, it has developed quite the cult following over the last 23 years, particularly with professional poker enthusiasts.

– Where to watch: Hulu


– Director: Questlove


– IMDb user rating: data not available


– Metascore: 94


– Runtime: 117 minutes

For six weeks during the summer of 1969, artists like Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, B.B. King, and Sly and the Family Stone gathered in Harlem’s Mount Morris Park to celebrate Black culture, history, and fashion. The event, called The Harlem Cultural Festival, drew huge audiences but is often forgotten or seen as an obscure event to modern pop culture aficionados.

Until, that is, Questlove’s 2021 documentary “Summer of Soul (… Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” which brings together incredible archival footage and present-day interviews to tell the story of the festival, its importance, and its impact on entertainment and Black culture as a whole.

– Where to watch: HBO Max


– Director: Michael Crichton


– IMDb user rating: 7.0


– Metascore: 77


– Runtime: 88 minutes

1973’s “Westworld” marked the directorial debut for author and filmmaker Michael Crichton, and served as the inspiration for the popular HBO series by the same name. In the film, widespread robotic malfunctions at a futuristic theme park for adults give androids thoughts of their own. “Westworld” was followed up with a movie sequel “Futureworld” in 1976 and a TV series “Beyond Westworld” in 1980 before HBO took the reins in 2016.

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