Every week, Polygon rounds up the hottest new releases on streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies you can watch at home.
This week, Smile 2, the sequel to director Parker Finn’s supernatural horror debut, hits VOD following its September theatrical release. If you don’t like supernatural horror, why not try sci-fi horror?Alien: Romulus, The Evil Dead
There are plenty of options to stream this weekend, including the historical survival drama “Blitz” on Apple TV Plus. “The Piano Lesson” (Tenet) starring John David Washington. Spellbound, the latest animated adventure from Shrek director Vicky Jenson, is now available on Netflix. MGM Plus will blink twice. There are also several other new releases.
Here’s all the new releases you can watch this weekend.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
piano lessons. (LR) John David Washington as Boy Willie and Skyler Smith as Maresa in “The Piano Lesson.” Image provided by Cr. Netflix: Netflix
Genre: Drama
Run time: 2 hours 5 minutes
Director: Malcolm Washington
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Ray Fisher
Malcolm Washington’s feature directorial debut is an adaptation of August Wilson’s play for the silver screen. The Piano Lesson, starring Malcolm’s younger brother John David, centers on the life of Willie Charles and his family in Pittsburgh after the Great Depression. The Charles family quarrels over the fate of a priceless heirloom, a piano decorated with patterns carved by their enslaved ancestors, and the dispute threatens to stoke old grudges and inflame long-simmering tensions.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Netflix
Genre: Biographical drama
Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes
Director: Ben Taylor
Cast: Bill Nighy, Thomasin McKenzie, James Norton
Joy tells the story of the first test tube baby and the invention of in vitro fertilization through the eyes of nurse Jean Purdy, scientist Robert Edwards, and surgeon Patrick Steptoe in the 1970s. The trio has faced opposition from religious zealots who say their activities are unnatural, but they persevere in the face of these challenges. For decades, Purdy’s contributions to the development of IVF were largely forgotten, but in recent years she has become increasingly well-known.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Netflix
Genre: Fantasy comedy
Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes
Director: Vicky Jenson
Cast: Rachel Zegler, John Lithgow, Jennifer Lewis
Spellbound, the new animated musical from the director of Shrek, tells the story of a young princess who must break a spell that turned her parents into monsters and split her kingdom in two. Music legend Alan Menken composed the film’s music, and the soundtrack, starring Rachel Zegler, is sure to be a hit. The film was originally named Split, then changed to Unbreakable Spell, and after moving to several streaming services, was finally renamed Spellbound.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Netflix
Genre: Musical Romantic Comedy
Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes
Director: Peter Sullivan
Cast: Britt Robertson, Chad Michael Murray, Mara Sokoloff
Magic Mike meets cozy Christmas movies in this new Netflix holiday movie. A dancer tries to save his family’s performance venue by holding a passionate male-only dance revue to raise money. She recruits some attractive men around her small town, trains them in the art of thrusting their hips and ripping their shirts…and begins to fall in love with one of them. Will she be able to save her parents’ venue in time for Christmas? Considering the genre, there will probably be more shirtless footage than usual.
Where to watch: Streaming available on Hulu
Image: 20th Century Studio
Genre: SF horror
Running time: 1 hour 59 minutes
Director: Fede Alvarez
Cast: Cailee Spaeny, David Johnson, Isabella Merced
Fede Alvarez’s sci-fi horror film, set 20 years after the events of Ridley Scott’s Alien, follows an abandoned man in a last-ditch effort to escape indentured servitude to the Weyland-Yutani megacorporation. It follows three pairs of young siblings as they try to scavenge a space station. . However, what they found at the station was not salvation, but horror beyond imagination.
“Is it as good as Alien or Alien?” is the obvious question fans of the series have when considering whether to watch Alien: Romulus. Alvarez and Sayaguez seemed uncomfortable with the question coming their way. They anticipated these five different answers to what Alien fans love from the previous movies, and tried to split the differences between all of them and more. Like the Romulus and Remus stations that the film takes place in, Alien: Romulus is divided into roughly two parts. A space haunted house story like Alien and a crowd-pleasing horror action spectacle like Alien. In this case, the former elements are stronger than the latter, and the imbalance feels more like a by-the-numbers rehash that characterizes the series rather than the reviving breath that Alien: Romulus sorely needs. This is one of the reasons.
Where to watch: Streaming available on Hulu
Image: Utopia
Genre: Comedy drama
Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes
Director: Robert Schwartzman
Cast: Nick Jonas, Brittany Snow, David Arquette
Nick Jonas, the Jonas Brothers himself, plays an emotionally distant writer who returns to Cleveland, Ohio for his mother’s funeral after years of avoiding his complicated family. He develops several new relationships, confronts old ones, and ultimately has to face his grief, and family drama, head-on. The Good Half premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival.
Where to watch: Streaming available on Hulu
Image: Vertical Entertainment
Genre: Historical drama
Running time: 2 hours 1 minute
Director: Karim Ainus
Cast: Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, Eddie Marsan
Although Henry VIII is remembered for many things, he is perhaps best known for marrying six women during his lifetime and executing two of them. Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina) stars as Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII (Jude Law), in this historical drama. In the years leading up to the end of the century, she must fight to survive as the king’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic and paranoid. his reign.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Max
Image: DC Entertainment/Warner Bros. Animation
Genre: Superhero drama
Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes
Director: Brandon Vietti
Starring: Troy Baker, Adrienne Barbeau, Corey Burton
Watchmen is back, this time as a multi-part animated film series! In another 1985, a government-backed superhero is mysteriously murdered. Determined to catch the murderer, a costumed vigilante named Rorschach reunites with estranged former colleagues and explores New York’s criminal underworld in search of clues. What he uncovers is a conspiracy that threatens to endanger the entire world. Will he be able to track down the conspirators before it’s too late?
Where to watch: Available to stream on Apple TV Plus
Image: Apple TV Plus
Genre: Drama
Running time: 2 hours
Director: Steve McQueen
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Elliot Heffernan, Harris Dickinson
Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird) plays Rita, a young mother who sends her son George (Elliot Heffernan) to the English countryside to protect him from Nazi Germany’s impending attack on London in Steve McQueen’s historical drama. He will play the leading role in. When Rita learns that George has not arrived at his destination, she begins a search to find him.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Apple TV Plus
Genre: Documentary
Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Director: Sahara Mani
Bread & Roses is a documentary about three Afghan women living under Taliban rule. Sharifa, a former government employee, is confined indoors. Zahra, a dentist, started organizing activists, but was captured and tortured. And Taranom is an activist who has been exiled to Pakistan. The documentary premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and received critical acclaim.
Where to watch: Available to stream on MGM Plus
“BLINK TWICE” Channing Tatum, 2024. © Amazon MGM Studios / Provided by: Everett Collection Image: Amazon MGM Studios / Everett Collection
Genre: Psychological thriller
Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes
Director: Zoe Kravitz
Cast: Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater
Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut is a psychological thriller about cocktail waitress Frida (Naomi Ackie), who is whisked off to a private island by a tech mogul for a lavish party. However, Frida begins to notice that the female customers are acting strange. Fun fact: The film’s working title was “Pussy Island,” but the Motion Picture Association had a problem with it.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Mubi US
Image: Mubi
Genre: Documentary
Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Director: Elizabeth Sankey
Cast: Katherine Cho, Sophia Di Martino, David Emson
This documentary chronicles how witches have been characterized throughout the history of film, television, and culture, and their relationship to how we view women, motherhood, and mental health. Masu. Relying on her solid knowledge and long-standing obsession with film subject matter, Elizabeth Sankey draws on clips from The Wizard of Oz, The Girl, Interrupted, and Rosemary’s Baby to create The Witch. explains her argument for the history of witchcraft and its connection to the history of witches. Historical denigration of women and their bodies.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Metrograph
Naomi Scott to appear in Paramount Pictures’ Parker Finn film ‘SMILE 2’ from Temple Hill Productions Image: Paramount Pictures
Genre: Paranormal horror
Running time: 2 hours 7 minutes
Director: Parker Finn
Cast: Kyle Gallner, Naomi Scott, Lucas Gage
Parker Finn returns following his blockbuster horror debut, Smile. Set just a week after the events of its predecessor, Smile 2 centers on Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), a famous pop star who is recovering from a tragic car accident. After inadvertently inheriting a mysterious curse, Skye struggles to maintain her sanity as she battles a parasitic supernatural entity that seeks to devour her from the inside out.
It felt like a miracle that Smile avoided the streaming abyss and made it at the box office, but Smile 2 is even rarer: a horror sequel that surpasses its predecessor in every way. Rather than simply rehashing the original, Parker Finn takes that clever premise and pushes it to its logical extremes, constructing some incredibly horrifying scenes to match. In fact, Finn ends Smile 2 in what feels like the perfect ending to the series. And it’s the perfect launching pad for the career of one of the most exciting horror directors of his generation.
