Here we are, facing down the lane of the third week of May. Who’s ready to roll a strike with three movies that have come to Netflix this month and that have been knocking down movies on the Netflix Top 10 like bowling pins? If your focus hasn’t been locked on Remarkably Bright Creatures or the excellent new Martin Short documentary, then check out the movie selection below.
Premiering on Netflix today is Jordan Peele’s genre-defining sci-fi horror with an intriguing name. Second is the rags-to-riches movie to end them all, which skyrocketed the career of one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. And last is a family animated underdog story produced by a basketball great.
Who would have thought, while laughing hysterically at all those Key & Peele sketches, that Jordan Peele had whole new genres of mind-bending horror and sci-fi films brewing in that head of his? Today, the writer and director’s third film, after the terrifying Get Out and Us, lands on Netflix to freak you out.
Nope follows siblings OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer), who run a Black-owned ranch in the Santa Clarita Valley where they train horses for Hollywood films. When a strange, invisible entity haunting the skies above the valley starts picking off their horses, OJ and Emerald enlist the help of local electronics store nerd Angel Torres (Brandon Perea), who installs surveillance cameras, and cinematographer Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), to capture footage of the entity with the hopes of selling it for fame and fortune.
Things get weirder, though, when the odd, circus-like theme park next door, run by former child star Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yuen), starts tempting the creature by feeding it horses for show. Nope (which actually stands for something you should look up), is Peele’s most visually ambitious movie that examines the ideas of ambition, spectacle, and exploitation, three things that rarely end well when combined. The film has an 83% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Even though Julia Roberts had an Oscar nom under her belt the year before for her supporting role in Steel Magnolias, it was Garry Marshall’s 1990 rom-com mold-breaker, Pretty Woman, that would skyrocket Roberts to fame, and earn her a second Oscar nom for Best Actress.
The film that would make America fall in love with Roberts’ infectious laugh and illuminating smile is about Hollywood prostitute Vivian Ward (Roberts), who, while working Hollywood Boulevard, is approached by Edward Lewis (Richard Gere), a wealthy corporate slinger who pulls up alongside Vivian in his sports car to ask for directions. But Edward, like the rest of us, falls hard for Vivian’s smile, laugh, and good vibes, and one thing leads to another…
But Edward is smitten, for real, and hires Vivian to be his arm candy for a week of business dinners and rich-people events. It’s a literal fairytale for Vivian (there’s lots of shopping), but Edward’s sleazy lawyer and “friend” Philip Stuckey (creepily played by Jason Alexander), isn’t having it, and tries to shut the romance down. Will Edward be Vivian’s knight in shining armor? Pretty Woman is the classic rom-com that you should see if you haven’t.
It’s hard to ignore a movie that has done a monstrous $190+ million in worldwide box office and has an impressive 85% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s also hard not to raise an eyebrow at the team behind it, which includes the animation studio behind Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and KPop Demon Hunters and, oh yeah, basketball superstar Stephen Curry, who’s on the credits as producer.
GOAT is a brilliantly funny, slickly animated, and action-packed underdog story about Will Harris (voiced by Stranger Things‘ Caleb McLaughlin), a vertically-challenged goat with dreams of playing in the big leagues of a basketball-soccer-rugby hybrid sport called “roarball.” When a viral video lands Will a tryout with his favorite team, the Vineland Thorns, Will gets his chance to prove that his heart (and skills) outshines his stature as he goes toe-to-to with towering gorillas, polar bears, bulls, and even his hero, the panther Jett Fillmore (Gabrielle Union).
GOAT is a ton of fun for both kids and adults, and the additional voice cast is totally stacked—David Harbour, Nick Kroll, Jennifer Hudson, Aaron Pierre, Patton Oswalt, Nicola Coughlan, and Jelly Roll all lend their voices.
A sci-fi horror, a classic romantic comedy, and a fun animated feature—I thin we’ve covered a lot of bases with this week’s list of movies to watch. But if you’re still not convinced one of these is for you, then we have streaming guides for Paramount+, Netflix documentaries,and across all the major streaming services.
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