The year is still young, but the shape of the year’s movie landscape is already apparent. Comic book movies are in a bit of a holding pattern, opening up space for non-superhero movies; as a result, we’re seeing some more unique movies move to the forefront.
Unlike last year, though, when Barbie and Oppenheimer dominated the zeitgeist, there’s no consistent theme—unless it’s the fact that would-be big-budget blockbusters, even good ones like Furiosa and The Fall Guy, have struggled. It’s not entirely clear why (Dune: Part Two still cleaned up), but mid-year, the movies are looking a little peaked on a macro level, even as there is a lot to celebrate on a micro level—as evidenced by these 23 releases that have already made it to streaming or digital rental.
(Note that a few entries on this list are technically 2023 movies that either played internationally or only in limited release in the U.S. I’m defining a 2024 film as one that had the bulk of its North American run this calendar year.)
Dune: Part Two
Release date: March 1
U.S. box office gross: $282 million
Did Denis Villeneuve stick the landing on his adaptation of the latter part of Frank Herbert’s epic novel? Yes, and so much so that Dune zealots are already looking ahead to a third film, adapting the second book in the series. The chilly (metaphorically) and cerebral film was a critical as well as a box office success—surprising on both counts, especially considering that the beloved book had come to be seen as more-or-less unadaptable.
Where to stream: Max, Digital rental
Lisa Frankenstein
Release date: Feb. 7
U.S. box office gross: $10 million
This neon-lit horror comedy from director Zelda Williams and writer Diablo Cody got short shrift at the box office but remains a genre-hopping good time. Kathryn Newton plays teen outcast Lisa, who accidentally revives and then develops romantic feelings for a decaying Victorian-era young man (Cole Sprouse). The blend of sweet romance, horror, and dark comedy is not for every taste, but if any of that sounds at appealing, you’re in for a grisly treat.
Where to stream: Peacock, digital rental
Late Night With the Devil
Release date: March 22
U.S. box office gross: $11 million
David Dastmalchian stars as Jack Delroy, the host of a late-night talk show in 1977—not quite Johnny Carson, but in that ballpark. A Halloween night broadcast about demonic possession brings Jack’s dark secrets to the foreground and soon spirals out of control, with grisly consequences. The conceit is that we’re watching a live recording of actual events, and the filmmakers have a lot of fun laying out the period vibe trappings things start to go south for the host, guests, and studio audience.
Where to stream: Shudder, digital rental
I Saw the TV Glow
Release date: May 3
U.S. box office gross: $4 million
What if your favorite TV show was more than just a show, but, instead, a view of a different world? As a couple of kids in 1989 get caught up in their favorite TV show, their senses of identity begin to fracture, for better or worse. Writer/director Jane Schoenbrun’s second effort (after the extremely online experimental horror flick We’re All Going to the World’s Fair) is on one level a stylish and trippy consideration of the dangers of nostalgia, and on another, a beautiful, emotionally wrenching vision of the trans experience.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Infested
Release date: April 6 on streaming
U.S. box office gross: N/A
What, you don’t like spiders? This 2023 French import, released in the U.S. in April, sees a giant housing project overrun by a rare species of arachnid that never should have been imported. It’s not exactly rigorously science-based, just the story of scrappy young people trying to survive an onslaught of rapidly breeding, rapidly growing spiders, even as the authorities are more interested in containing the problem then in actually helping the low-income Parisians trapped inside the building. Good fun for fans of creepy crawlies.
Where to stream: Shudder, AMC+, digital rental
Hit Man
Release date: May 24 on streaming
U.S. box office gross: N/A
Not sure why we’re still going direct to streaming for films from major directors, but such is the case with Richard Linklater’s Hit Man. Glen Powell stars as a sullen New Orleans professor who discovers he’s surprisingly good at his new side gig: impersonating a hired assassin for the police in order to catch people willing to pay to kill. Things get rather complicated (in a darkly comedic way) when he’s approached by Madison (Adria Arjona) to bump off her abusive husband, and he’s suddenly not so clear about who is a hero and who is a villain.
Where to stream: Netflix
Challengers
Release date: April 26
U.S. box office gross: $50 million
Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name) brings us the horny bisexual romantic tennis drama we didn’t know we needed. Zendaya stars as a former tennis pro turned coach who falls into a love triangle with her champion husband (Mike Faist) and her low-circuit boyfriend (Josh O’Connor). The chemistry between the three is a smash.
Where to stream: Digital rental
River
Release date: Early 2024 on streaming
U.S. box office gross: N/A
A delightful import from Japanese director Junta Yamaguchi, River is set at a bucolic health spa where nothing much ever happens…until staffer Mikoto finds herself sent back in time exactly two minutes. Every two minutes, actually, and she’s not the only one affected. The sci-fi comedy is appropriately frantic, as staff and guests try to figure out how to live their lives two minutes at a time, but there’s a winning sweetness that balances nicely with the genre elements. It’s really fun.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Hundreds of Beavers
Release date: April 15 on streaming
Box office gross: $420,000 in limited release
This one’s been a hit on the festival circuit, delighting roadshow audiences with its Looney Tunes-esque charms and, naturally, an abundance of beavers. A 19th century applejack (that’s a kind of booze) salesman Jean Kayak kicks off a war with said beavers (played by humans is giant, absurd costumes) when one eats through a support beam and destroys his home. What ensues is absolute comic anarchy, with one legitimately hilarious silent film-style gag after another. You wanted something unique? This is it.
Where to stream: Digital rental
Love Lies Bleeding
Release date: March 8
Box office gross: $8.3 million
Writer/director Rose Glass (Saint Maud) returns with a darkly comic, neo-noir crime thriller involving a reclusive gym manager (Kristen Stewart) and a bodybuilder (Katy O’Brian) who get involved with the mob after conspiring to cover up a murder. It’s a wonderful bit of modern queer pulp with a couple of great lead performances.
Where to stream: Digital rental
The First Omen
Release date: April 5
Box office gross: $20 million
If you had told me that a prequel to the long-defunct Omen franchise would be one of the year’s more effective horror movies (so far), I’d have looked at you the way everybody looks at Gregory Peck when he tried to kill his satanic kid way back in the 1976 original. But here we are! First-time feature director Arkasha Stevenson brings a ton of ’70s period style and an appropriately paranoid vibe to the story of future antichrist Damien’s birth, blending themes of bodily autonomy with genuine horror and one of the freakiest birth scenes in movie history.
Where to stream: Hulu, digital rental
Bosco
Release date: Feb. 2
Box office gross: N/A
Based on a memoir from Quawntay “Bosco” Adams (played here by Aubrey Joseph), who was sentenced in 2004 to 35 years in a maximum security prison for the heinous, unforgivable crime of—well, the movie keeps that under wraps for quite a while. Suffice it to say that, once the truth is revealed, it’s not hard to root for him as he plans an ingenious and fairly spectacular escape with the help of a prison pen pal (Nikki Blonsky). Tyrese Gibson, Theo Rossi, Thomas Jane, and Vivica A. Fox round out the cast.
Where to stream: Peacock, digital rental
Orion and the Dark
Release date: Feb. 2 on streaming
Box office gross: N/A
Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) wrote the early drafts of this DreamWorks animated adaptation of the Emma Yarlett novel. When young Orion is visited by the literal incarnation of his fear of the dark, he’s taken on a whirlwind journey to explore the world of night, with the hope it will help him face his fears. Without ever feeling age-inappropriate, this Netflix animated film tackles some bigger themes than we’re used to seeing in modern kids’ movies (existential dread, anyone?).
Where to stream: Netflix
The Fall Guy
Release date: May 3
Box office gross: $88 million
While theatrical audiences didn’t go wild for this action-comedy take on the 1980s TV show, this Ryan Gosling/Emily Blunt vehicle, from John Wick director David Leitch, is an impressively enjoyable bit of summer fun. The stunts are, perhaps unsurprisingly, continuously impressive, as are the special effects, but the real star is the chemistry between Gosling and Blunt. It’s the kind of satisfying, enjoyable, standalone entertainment we don’t get to see tht often these days (and given it’s on track to lose buckets of money, perhaps ever again).
Where to stream: Digital rental
Drive-Away Dolls
Release date: Feb. 23
Box office gross: $5 million
Ethan Coen goes it solo as director (co-writing with his wife Tricia Cooke) for this gloriously unhinged tribute to ’70s exploitation romances. Marian and Jamie are a couple of friends who, setting off on a road trip to Tallahassee, Florida, discover that they’ve taken the wrong rental car. The tipoff: A briefcase full of sex toys and a human head in the trunk. Of such circumstances are great lesbian adventures born. If it’s not quite a match for the Coen brothers’ best work (a tall order), it’s still an awfully good time.
Where to stream: Peacock, Digital rental
Shirley
Release date: March 22 on streaming
U.S. box office gross: N/A
John Ridley (screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave) directs this rather necessary biopic of Shirley Chisholm. The first Black woman elected to Congress (in 1969), she ran a forcefully progressive campaign for president just three years later. While the film doesn’t stray too far stylistically from the biopic formula, Regina King gives a moving, powerhouse performance in the title role.
Where to stream: Netflix
Scoop
Release date: April 5 on streaming
U.S. box office gross: N/A
Gillian Anderson plays real-life British journalist Emily Maitlis, who lead the BBC2 team that secured a disastrous (for the prince) interview with Prince Andrew (Rufus Sewell) that laid bare his associations with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Anderson is phenomenal in a movie that manages to make the hunt for an interview suitably dramatic.
Where to stream: Netflix
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
Release date: March 22
U.S. box office gross: $113 million
Look, there’s no question the whole Ghostbusters thing has grown a little perfunctory. Still, there’s fun to be had in this Avengers-esque mash-up that brings together generations of Ghostbusters more formally than did the previous film, Afterlife. It also returns to New York City, which just feels right, and Ernie Hudson remains the unsung franchise MVP.
Where to stream: Digital purchase
Bob Marley: One Love
Release date: Feb. 14
U.S. box office gross: $97 million
In many ways standard issue as biopics go, this one’s entirely saved by the brilliant lead performance from Kingsley Ben-Adir and, of course, a killer soundtrack. An underdog box office success story.
Where to stream: Paramount+, Digital rental
Monkey Man
Release date: April 5
U.S. box office gross: $25 million
Dev Patel writes, directs, and stars in this bloody action thriller that winds up giving John Wick a run for its money. Loosely inspired by the Hindu deity Hanuman, the film casts Patel as a nameless fighter in a sleazy bare-knuckle establishment who is wronged, and sets his mind on revenge. The actor is incredibly compelling onscreen, and appears to have a clear eye behind the camera; Monkey Man stands out from the action-movie pack by eschewing highly stylized fight choreography in favor of a more brutal, gritty style.
Where to stream: Peacock, Digital purchase
Jim Henson Idea Man
Release date: May 31 on streaming
U.S. box office gross: N/A
Ron Howard directs this moving, funny, and generally essential biography of the man behind The Muppets, Sesame Street, and The Dark Crystal . It’s por anyone who’s ever laughed along with Gonzo, or cried their way through a frog singing “Rainbow Connection” (so, all humans, essentially).
Where to stream: Disney+
The Promised Land
Release date: Feb. 2
U.S. box office gross: $300,000
In 18th-century Denmark, down-on-his-luck war hero Capt. Ludvig Kahlen (Mads Mikkelsen) hopes to turn his meager retirement pension into some kind of life for himself by cultivating a portion of a vast wilderness that no one else has been able to make anything of. A covetous local magistrate quickly finds himself threatened by Kahlen’s reputation, with the intent of spoiling all his plans. The beautifully forbidding Nordic drama plays out with some of the style of westerns.
Where to stream: Hulu, Digital rental
All of Us Strangers
Release date: Jan. 4 (U.S. wide release)
U.S. box office gross: $4 million
This is another that was technically released in 2023, though it didn’t go into wide release in the U.S. until January 2024. A ghost story on the surface, All of Us Strangers follows lonely screenwriter Adam (Andrew Scott) as he starts a romantic relationship with his very mysterious neighbor Harry (Paul Mescal), the two of them the only residents of an imposing new apartment building. The relationship draws Adam to return to his family home, where he finds his (long dead) parents acting very much alive and well. The movie goes to very dark places from there, providing a strong reminder that loss is an inevitable part of life, yes, but also that the only real comfort is in forgetting and moving on. Emotionally raw, but beautiful.
Where to stream: Hulu, Digital rental
