Now Stream This: One of 2017’s Most Underrated Films, Early Scorsese, a Cult Documentary, And More

(Welcome to Now Stream This, a column dedicated to the best movies streaming on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and every other streaming service out there.) 

Looking for something to stream? You’re in luck! I just happened to compile a list of 10 great movies you can stream right now! Here you’ll find one of 2017’s most underrated films; an early Martin Scorsese classic; a unique coming-of-age drama; a melancholy musical; two vastly different documentaries; one of Spike Lee’s most commercial (yet still excellent) films; a German action-horror film; and one nasty slasher movie.

These are the best movies streaming right now. Let’s get streaming.

The Best Movies Streaming Right Now

1. Professor Marston and the Wonder Women
Now Streaming on Hulu

Release Date: 2017

Genre: Biographical Drama

Director: Angela Robinson

Cast: Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall, Bella Heathcote

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women, one of last year’s most underrated films, is finally available to stream. That means you no longer have an excuse to avoid it (…unless you don’t have Hulu). Angela Robinson directs this funny, sexy, surprising film about the people who helped create Wonder Woman. Luke Evans is Professor William Marston, a college professor and the creator of the lie detector. Rebecca Hall is his wife and teaching partner Elizabeth. Bella Heathcote is a student who becomes the Marston’s assistant…and then becomes something much more. The three enter into a loving polyamorous relationship – something that doesn’t go over too well with other people of the era. Over the course of their relationship, William invents Wonder Woman, with a little inspiration from the two women in his life. What easily could’ve been a by-the-numbers biopic is instead a truly lovely film. And did I mention it’s sexy as hell? Everyone is good here, but Rebecca Hall, one of the best actresses working right now, is truly dynamite. Hall has to balance her affection for her two lovers against the fears of being discovered by a judging society, and nails it.

For fans of: Wonder Woman, Kinsey, The Dreamers, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, a sexy good time.

 

2. Mean Streets
Now Streaming on FilmStruck

Release Date: 1973

Genre: Crime Drama

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, David Proval, Amy Robinson, Richard Romanus, Cesare Danova

Mean Streets wasn’t Martin Scorsese‘s first movie, but it was the movie that put him on the map. With kinetic energy and whip-crack filmmaking, Scorsese turned the neighborhood of his youth into a brutal, engrossing crime drama. Loaded with bursts of brutality and a whole lot of Catholic guilt, Mean Streets follows Charlie (Harvey Keitel), a young man who wants to be good but is pulled towards a criminal lifestyle by his loan shark uncle, and his pain-in-the-ass best friend Johnny Boy (a very young, very wild Robert De Niro). “I wanted to make an anthropological study: It was about myself and my friends,” Scorsese said of Mean Streets. “I figured even if it was on a shelf some years later, people would take it and see that’s what Italian Americans — not the godfather, not big bosses — lived like on the everyday scale. This is what they really talked like and looked like and what they did. This was the lifestyle.”

For fans of: Who’s That Knocking at My Door, GoodFellas, Taxi Driver, holding your hand over a prayer candle.

 

3. Wild Wild Country
Now Streaming On Netflix

Release Date: 2018

Genre: Documentary Series

Director: Maclain Way and Chapman Way

Cast: Ma Anand Sheela, George Meredith

In the 1980s, spiritual teacher Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and his Rajneeshpuram followers purchased a huge tract of land in Oregon. There, they set up their own fully-functioning city, and while they projected an air of politeness, the locals didn’t take very well to these weird outsiders coming in and turning things upside down. Meanwhile, within the sect (or cult, as most people call it), sinister forces were at work, plotting crimes that ranged from poisoning to attempted murder. Netflix’s addictive docu-series Wild Wild Country chronicles this wild, wild story in fascinating detail. What makes the series so interesting is the way your allegiances change from one moment to the next. First, you’ll find yourself sympathizing with the Rajneesh’s followers as they’re cruelly ostracized by the bigoted townspeople. Then, you’ll realize that many of the Rajneesh’s followers are up to nefarious things, so maybe you shouldn’t have so much sympathy with them after all. There’s no real black and white here – only gray areas

For fans of: Making a Murderer, The Keepers, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, all-burgundy clothes.

 

 

4. The Fits
Now Streaming on Amazon Prime Video

Release Date: 2015

Genre: Coming-Of-Age Drama

Director: Anna Rose Holmer

Cast: Royalty Hightower, Alexis Neblett, Da’Sean Minor, Lauren Gibson, Makyla Burnam, Inayah Rodgers, Antonio A. B. Grant Jr.

Few feature film directorial debuts are as electric as Anna Rose Holmer‘s The Fits. Royalty Hightower, who does so much with so little words, is Toni, a 11-year-old who trains as a boxer at her local rec center. One day, she finds herself transfixed by the Lionesses — a trope of young female dancers who also train at the rec center, and move in a furious progression that puts any boxer’s jab and hook to shame. Toni joins the Lionesses, and then things start to grow very strange. One by one, girls on the team begin being overcome with strange, unsettling fits — their eyes roll back in their head, their bodies convulse, they writhe and collapse to the ground. At a tight 72 minutes, Holmer unfolds The Fits with precision, letting Hightower carry the film on her small shoulders. The Fits is a coming-of-age film unlike few others, and the last five minutes are tailor-made to make your draw drop.

For fans of: Mustang, Tomboy, Water Lilies, It Follows, hot sauce.

 

5. Inside Man
Now Streaming on Netflix

Release Date: 2005

Genre: Crime Thriller

Director: Spike Lee

Cast: Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe, Chiwetel Ejiofor

Inside Man may be Spike Lee‘s most commercial film, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a hell of watch. A maddeningly clever heist movie, Inside Man features Clive Owen as the leader of a team of bank robbers. Owen and his gang have taken hostages at a New York City bank, and cop Denzel Washington has arrived to try to defuse the situation. But almost nothing goes the way it should – yet at the same time, everything is going according to plan. The film’s script, courtesy of Russell Gewirtz, is full of sharp twists and turns that never seem forced and almost always pay off. Plus, the film is peppered with great performances from seasoned pros, including Christopher Plummer, Willem Dafoe, and a scene-stealing Jodie Foster.

For fans of: Dog Day Afternoon, Quick Change, The Town, movie titles that are secretly puns.

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