Every single week, our TV and film experts will list the most important ten streaming selections for you to pop into your queues. We’re not strictly operating upon reviews or accrued streaming clicks (although yes, we’ve scoured the streaming site charts) but, instead, upon those selections that are really worth noticing amid the churning sea of content. There’s a lot out there, after all, and your time is valuable.
10. Godzilla Vs. Kong (Warner Bros. Pictures film streaming on Max)
With Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire giving a piggyback ride and an adorable nap to viewers in theaters, you might want to brush up on this predecessor picture, in which Godzilla and Kong definitely were not working together. How times change! Once you catch up on these monsters’ historical dynamic, then it will be cool to move onto the “slobberknocker” of a current popcorn movie.
9. A Gentleman In Moscow (Showtime series streaming on Paramount+)
Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who are married IRL, have been upfront about their use of an intimacy coordinator for their racy activity in this series. McGregor, of course, portrays the titular gentlemen, the Russian aristocrat Count Alexander Rostov, in this adaptation of Amor Towles’ same-named novel. Rostov finds himself sequestered in a hotel in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, which has deemed him an outlaw. However, he is not immediately executed but, instead, imprisoned within the attic of a luxurious hotel. For a story that is set in such limited surroundings, the happenings are surprisingly voluminous.
8. The Gentlemen (Netflix series)
Again, there are perhaps too many “gentlemen” to go around these days on TV, but with people tuning in, how can you expect Guy Ritchie to slow down on one of his favorite qualifiers? Exactly — he will not. Soon enough, Ritchie will bring us The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare, starring Henry Cavill and Alan Ritchson, who is wearing glasses so that you don’t automatically view him as Reacher. In this series, Theo James portrays the heir to a weed empire, which does trace back to The Gentlemen, the 2019 movie starring Matthew McConaughey, but this series is not a remake.
7. Shōgun (FX series streaming on Hulu)
This show is so over that “Christian nonsense,” and those meme-able moments will last long after FX probably puts this epic story to bed. That’s likely what shall happen regarding future seasons, even though the ratings have been pouring in since this show began. Even with none of John Blackthorne’s famous dong, the masses have flocked to see this new adaptation, and FX’s epic rendering of the lushly layered character and story will be regarded fondly for many years to come. A second season is up to FX.
6. 3 Body Problem (Netflix series)
The Game of Thrones creators, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, have a multi-season plan for their new sci-fi series, and they are publicly pushing hard to see their dream come true. Will Netflix pull that trigger? We shall see. This certainly isn’t what the creators are used to, given the massive guaranteed success of the HBO show, but Netflix is keeping its cards hidden until full viewership numbers roll through. If those wishes are granted, then we will see how humanity continues to prepare for the arrival of space aliens after people couldn’t resist the curiosity of poking that space bear.
5. Sugar (Apple TV+ series)
Colin Farrell is gearing up to appear in Max’s Penguin series, but for the moment, he’s starring as private detective John Sugar, who must track the disappearance of a powerful Hollywood producer’s granddaughter. In the process, Sugar also digs up family secrets that were buried for damn good reasons. Yes, this is a modern spin on film noir, but how could you resist a member of the the Irish renaissance portraying the newest gumshoe on streaming TV?
4 We Were The Lucky Ones (Hulu series)
Historical drama fans must be in heaven these days with Masters of the Air, Shōgun, and Manhunt ongoing. The series does, however, run somewhat parallel to Masters of the Air in that it revolves around the WWII-era experiences of the Polish-Jewish Kurc family. Joey King and Logan Lehman lead the cast as the siblings go into hiding, some unsuccessfully, as Hitler’s troops swirl around them. The series adapts Georgia Hunter’s same-named 2017 book.
3. Ripley (Netflix series)
Everybody remembers Matt Damon in The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Andrew Scott is fully shaking off his “Hot Priest” days to don Tom Ripley’s grifter duds, this time in a more visually-striking medium, from the looks of this trailer. This series is, of course, based upon Patricia Highsmith’s series of novels, and the title character takes a job in the 1960s that sets him on the deceit-filled path to murder. Whether this debut will lead to adapting more books in further seasons, we shall have to wait for that news.
2. Road House (Amazon Prime film)
Jake Gyllenhall is no Patrick Swayze, nor does this movie pretend that he is. This is more like a Road House in a parallel universe but with all the same punching and kicking moves that you would expect to see in a movie with this title. The cast includes Conor McGregor, J.D. Pardo, Jessica Williams, Billy Magnussen, and Lukas Gage, and this movie also cannot take every liberty taken back in the 1980s. That makes the story difficult to smoothly translate for 2024, but this film does well enough as a guilty pleasure, even if Doug Liman was not thrilled to see the project go straight onto streaming.
1. Invincible (Amazon Prime series)
Too quickly, it’s season finale time, but the excellent news is that there was a third-season renewal well in advance, so hopefully, scripts are already close to being locked, and production can happen faster this time around. Fortunately as well, there’s still plenty of Robert Kirkman-created adventures elsewhere on TV, too, including about 80 total seasons of The Walking Dead franchise. Alright, that’s an exaggeration, but once all the spin offs conclude, that figure might not be off the mark. When it comes to Invincible, however, it’s all down to Mark to figure out how to ward off the Vitrumite Empire, so that future seasons of this conflict will bring us more Omni-Man. That father-son dynamic is what it’s all about, but it doesn’t hurt to have many other characters (voiced by everyone from Walton Goggins to Rhea Seehorn) maneuvering around the intergalactic conflict, too.
