The best movies new to Netflix, HBO Max, Hulu, and Prime (March 2023)

Polygon readers: Happy March It’s getting warmer, which is good news for streaming services. There are many exciting options available to you at home.

We’ve picked out 13 terrific options (including one collection of incredible movies) for you to consider for your movie options this month, including Emma Stone’s high school comedy It’s easy to do Netflix: An all-time great Denzel Washington performance (also now on Prime) and many other action-packed movies featuring Michelle Yeoh, now on Criterion Channel.

It’s a good month for movies new to streaming services. Let’s get into it.


Netflix: New Features

It’s easy to do

Emma Stone as Olive Penderghast in Easy A, wearing a black dress with a red “A” on it as other people watch her walk down a school hallway.

Photo: Adam Taylor/Sony Pictures

Year: 2010
Genre: Comedic Comedy
Run time: 1h 32m
Director: Will Gluck
Cast: Emma Stone, Amanda Bynes, Penn Badgley

It’s easy to doIncludes the Great High School Movies, Alongside For the mean girlsAnd The Breakfast ClubIt is truly that delicious. Have fun! The Scarlet Letter — the literary classic of which it’s a kind of inverted remake — it’s a sophisticated comedy of manners about bored, precocious teen Olive (Emma Stone), who agrees to pretend-bang her gay best friend to ward off the bullies. She becomes an imaginary prostitute when others from the school’s fringes request the same service. They trade her falsely sexually attractive reputation for favors. It walks its line with humor and charm, despite the fact that no actual sex happens. Stone is a knockout in her first lead role, the script is a firecracker, and there’s a hilarious Greek chorus of dissolute grownups who comment wryly on the action without really having a moral leg to stand on, including Lisa Kudrow, Thomas Haden Church, and the deliciously wry Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci as Olive’s liberal parents. —Oli Welsh

It’s easy to do Streaming is available Netflix.

Magic Mike XXL

Joe Manganiello, shirtless, dances to I Want It That Way in a supermarket.

Warner Home Video

Year: 2015
Genre: Comedic Comedy
Run time: 1h 55m
Director: Gregory Jacobs
Cast: Channing Tatum, Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello

First, I love it Magic MikeThe clever twist on many romance comedy tropes is accompanied by a heartfelt story about America’s dream. Channing Tatum is a real movie star, and this franchise knows how to utilize him — both in his incredible control over his body while dancing as well as the deep melancholy that lies beyond the surface of his eyes.

Perhaps the next step is, Magic Mike XXL, is even better. A riotous celebration of pleasure (I have previously called it “Hellraiser without the pain”), XXL is also a great road trip movie and a great “the gang gets back together for one last job” movie. The third installment of the trilogy. Magic Mike’s Last Dance, now available to watch at home, there’s no better time than now to catch up on the best entry in the series. —Pete Volk

Magic Mike XXL Streaming is available Netflix.

Hulu: New!

Anastasia

Anastasia giving a man a side eye in princess garb in Anastasia

Image: 20th Century Fox

Year: 1997
Genre: Adventure
Run time: 1h 34m
Directors: Gary Goldman and Don Bluth
Cast: Meg Ryan and John Cusack. Christopher Lloyd

Fox Animation only had a brief lifespan but produced some amazing films. Most famous is likely Fox Animation. AnastasiaThis is an extremely loose account of the story about the missing Russian princess. The Russian Revolution in this story is the work of Rasputin. He’s a revengeful necromancer and hates Romanoffs. We won’t dig into the ethics of all of this. You should instead enjoy the electric chemistry that exists between Anya (Meg Ryan), a lost princess, and Dimitri (John Cusack), which is unlike any other animated couples. The songs are infectious, and while the animation sometimes isn’t as polished as the Disney Renaissance movies of the time, the extravagant musical sequence in Paris more than makes up for it. Just don’t think too hard about the implications of the Russian Revolution being caused by an angry necromancer and his bat friend. —Petrana Radulovic

Anastasia Streaming is available Hulu.

Love & Basketball

(L-R) A smiling woman (Sanaa Lathan) reclining in the arms of a man in a black shirt (Omar Epps).

Image: The Criterion Collection

Year: 2000
Genre: Romantic sports drama
Run time: 2h 4m
Director:Gina Prince-Bythewood
Cast: Sanaa Lathan, Omar Epps, Alfre Woodard

Listen — I don’t like playing basketball myself, but I love Love & Basketball. If someone were to ask me how that is even possible, I would say it’s because Gina Prince-Bythewood’s directorial feature debut (like every great sports drama) demonstrates a keen understanding that basketball (like every great sport) is not just about basketball; it’s about life. It’s about what happens both on and off the court, about the players and spectators who find meaning, truth, validation, material success, and yes, even love through the disciplined practice of the sport.

Monica Wright (Sanaa) and Quincy McCall(Omar Epps) are two close friends from childhood who share a common bond of love and devotion to basketball. Both Monica and Quincy’s relationship develops into something more than a friendship. They are forced to make tough decisions between their career choices or the love of their life. If that storyline weren’t enough, Love & BasketballAlfrewoodard provides some truly amazing supporting performances in this film.Twelve Years as a SlaveHarry LennixThe BlacklistDennis Haysbert (24) as Monica’s mother Camille, her father Nathan, and Quincy’s celebrity basketball star father Zeke, respectively. While the film hasn’t exactly aged well with respect to its depiction of dated gendered expectations in the form of Monica’s family life, Love & Basketball It is a lasting love letter to not only the sport but also to its ability to bring people together, even when they aren’t. —Toussaint Egan

Love & BasketballIs streaming on Hulu.

Prime Video – New

Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Denzel Washington holds his phone to his right ear while standing in the desert in Roman J. Israel, Esq. His hair is disheveled and he wears big glasses and a vest.

Columbia Pictures

Year: 2017
Genre: Crime drama
Run time: 2h 2m
Director: Dan Gilroy
Cast: Denzel Washington, Colin Farrell, Carmen Ejogo

This legal drama comes from writer-director Dan Gilroy, brother of Tony (the author of the Bourne movies, with whom Dan worked on last year’s forensic examination of the Star Wars machine, Andor). While he’s just as fluid a writer as his brother, Dan has an off-kilter sensibility and a love of characters who don’t quite connect to the world around them, like Jake Gyllenhaal’s ghoulish news cameraman in his dark, pulpy, and brilliant directorial debut, Nightcrawler.

His follow-up to that movie sees him switch registers into something that looks more like conventional awards bait — the story of a blinkered, awkward, idealistic activist lawyer losing his principles and finding them again. You even have the great Denzel Washington in the role, adopting a shambling gait, a weird wardrobe, and tics that hint at Roman’s neurodivergence. However, the character is much more fascinating and destabilizing than it sounds. Gilroy’s breathless writing, backed by Washington’s fierce intellect, convincingly create a man for whom the world just can’t be made to fit — which, you come to understand, is very much the world’s fault. —OW

Roman J. Israel, Esq.Is streaming on Prime Video.

Duck Soup

Groucho Marx dancing in front of a large crowd in Duck Soup

Image: Paramount Pictures

Year: 1933
Genre: Comedic Comedy
Run time: 1h 9m
Director: Leo McCarey
Cast: Groucho Marx, Harpo Marx, Chico Marx

The Marx Brothers were one of my favorite comedy acts growing up. Their run from 1931’s Monkey Business through 1935’s Night at the Opera is one of the most consistent heights we’ve ever seen in comedy, with 1933’s Duck Soup A standout comedy masterpiece sure to make your stomach churn.

Mirror sequence is one of the most beloved comedy routines. It’s a spectacular display of comic chops that has made it an iconic classic. Duck Soup One of the greatest American comedy ever produced. —PV

Duck Soup Streaming is available Prime Video.

HBO Max new

Speed racer

A young man (Emile Hirsch) with dark hair in a white collar racing jacket looks up at a stadium filled with blinding lights with fireworks in the distance.

Warner Bros. Pictures

Year: 2008
Genre:Sport action comedy
Run time: 2h 15m
Directors:Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski
Cast: Emile Hirsch, Matthew Fox, Christina Ricci

Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s live-action adaptation of the beloved sports racing anime is just one of several films of which my opinion and appreciation has evolved and changed over the years. Initially released to a thudding critical and commercial response in 2008, the movie has since undergone a reappraisal among not only fans of the Wachowskis’ work, but avid moviegoing connoisseurs as well.

Speed racerIt is loud and bright. It is also, beneath those surface-level attributes, a deceptively savvy story about one young man’s love for the sport of racing and his David and Goliath-esque battle against the combined forces of monopolistic corruption and the unassailable might of money.

Imagine if, without any warning, Ned Beatty’s “the world is a business” monologue from 1976’s Network was inexplicably spliced into the middle of 2001’s Spy Kids. Imagine the caricatured vehicle theatrics. Furious 7 but, instead of playing out across the bustling streets of Los Angeles or some other exotic cinematic locale, they took place across a series of Hot Wheels-style racing tracks à la Mario Kart’s Rainbow Road. Picture a child dressed in chimpanzee-patterned pajamas, and their pet chimpanzee in pajamas with child patterns. They are reenacting scenes from Saturday morning anime. That’s Speed racer in a nutshell, and if I haven’t already made it clear enough: It’s awesome. —TE

Speed racer Streaming is available HBO Max.

Tangerine

Mya Taylor, left, and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, in Tangerine.

Magnolia Pictures

Year: 2015
Genre: Dramedy
Run time: 1h 28m
Director: Sean Baker
Cast: Kitana Kiki Rodriguez, Mya Taylor, Karren Karagulian

Shot entirely on an iPhone, this vivid, funny, sad, and painfully human vérité drama follows two trans sex workers as they walk the wild streets of West Hollywood one Christmas Eve. Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez), a hotheaded motormouth just released from prison, goes on the warpath when she hears her pimp/boyfriend has been sleeping with a cis woman; Alexandra (Mya Taylor) tries to keep her friend’s rage under control and her own fragile dreams intact. An Armenian taxi driver Karren Karagulian encounters all kinds of interesting fares and seems to be on the lookout for more.

Sean Baker, Director (who later became a director of Make It Happen) Florida Project, an equally touching exploration of a different American socioeconomic wilderness) has an eye for authentic faces and a deep — but not humorless — compassion for lives lived on the edge. Crucially, he doesn’t feel the need to wring his characters dry for pathos; he just lets them live their complicated, silly lives. TangerineThis is a raw, garrulous slice of life. —OW

Tangerine Streaming is available HBO Max.

Paramount Plus: New

Cloverfield Lane

(L-R) An older man (John Goodman) sitting in a wooden chair in a dimly lit concrete room across from a woman (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) chained to a wall by her ankle and seated on a mattress.

Image: Paramount Home Entertainment

Year: 2016
Genre:Sci-fi action thriller
Run time: 1h 43m
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Cast:Mary Elizabeth Winstead John Goodman John Gallagher Jr.

No one really knew what the hell to make of Dan Trachtenberg’s 2016 sci-fi horror thriller when it first released in theaters back in 2016 — least of all the people marketing it. Today, Cloverfield Lane feels like a genuine anomaly in the wide yet narrowly defined landscape of franchise filmmaking: It’s a Loose (and boy, do I mean loose) thematic follow-up to Matt Reeves’ 2008 film Cloverfield that makes a hard 90-degree turn from “9/11-coded American kaiju found-footage horror-drama” into “bunker-sized apocalyptic psychological-thriller” territory.

You can chalk it up Cloverfield Lane’s thematic proximity and relationship to 2008’s Cloverfield to the inscrutable eldritch machinations of Hollywood bookkeeping or a genuine attempt at soft-rebooting the series into an anthology-adjacent sci-fi horror franchise, it’s still a damn good movie in its own right. Between this film and 2022’s PreyDan Trachtenberg is already a promising director who works within the studio filmmaking mold. He taps into two well-known sci-fi horror films and reconfigures them in unexpected ways.

Mary Elizabeth Winstead delivers a terrific lead performance here as a woman inadvertently “rescued” and held captive by an aloof and menacing doomsday prepper, and likewise, John Goodman’s portrayal of said doomsday prepper makes for one of the most memorable performances of his late career. These strengths make this film, despite its tenuous ties to Cloverfield, an engaging thriller that’s more than it appears. —TE

Cloverfield LaneIs streaming on Paramount Plus.

Peacocks are now in stock

Mamma Mia!

A group of women marching and singing in tandem while singing.

Universal Pictures

Year: 2008
Genre: Romantic comedy
Run time: 1h 48m
Director: Phyllida Lloyd
Cast: Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Amanda Seyfried

Donna Sheridan was a free-spirited Matriarch as played by Meryl Strreep, in the ABBA jukebox musical. Mamma Mia! just can’t be pinned down. It’s a musical where all the actors are drunk and having the time of their lives, and also some of them can’t really sing. But it’s also a reflection on womanhood and what makes a family, a celebration of middle-aged women that we so rarely see in film. Every moment is a joy, even Pierce Brosnan’s painful signing, because everyone involved is just having such a damn good time, you can’t help but smile and sing along. You can come for the ABBA or stay to see Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), who asks her mother for help in walking her down the aisle. —PR

Mamma Mia! Streaming is available Peacock.

How to Train Your Dragon

Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) and his Night Fury dragon Toothless in DreamWorks Animation’s How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World

Image by DreamWorks Animation/Universal Pictures

Year: 2010
Genre: Adventure
Run time: 1h 38m
Directors: Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders
Cast: Jay Baruchel, Gerard Butler, Christopher Mintz-Plasse

How to Train Your Dragon is about two misfits finding one another, a horse girl story with a fantasy twist — but it’s also so much more. The movie was basically a reset for DreamWorks, harkening back to the studio’s original mission to make more serious animated movies. The success of ShrekThe studio saw that mature filmmaking meant making references to pop culture. Thus, Shark Tale, MadagascarAnd Bee Movie. But How to Train Your DragonWe went back in time to the great days of The Prince of Egypt to tell a story both epic in scope and personal in nature — with a banging soundtrack to go along with it. —PR

How to Train Your Dragon Streaming is available Peacock.

Criterion Channel has a new channel

Michelle Yeoh Collection

Michelle Yeoh with a rope dart in Magnificent Warriors.

Image by Tai Seng Video Marketing

Year: Various
Genre: Act Now
Run time: Various
Director: Various
Cast: Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung (with Michelle Yeoh), Anita Mui (with Michelle Yeoh)

Michelle Yeoh is an iconic movie star. Thankfully, she’s getting a bit of a renaissance in the West after her Oscar-nominated role in You can have everything at once.

The ripple effect of that movie has meant broader availability of the movies from Yeoh’s excellent stint as an action lead in Hong Kong. You can watch eight of these films on Criterion Channel. You’re probably already familiar with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (but it’s still worth a rewatch), but I highly recommend Yes, Madam!, Magnificent Warriors, The Heroic TrioAnd Police Story 3: Supercop. —PV

Watch the Michelle Yeoh collection streaming online Criterion Channel.

Another Country

Isabelle Huppert smokes a cigarette on a balcony as a man looks at her, out of focus, behind her in In Another Country.

Kino Lorber

Year: 2012
Genre: Drama
Run time: 1h 29m
Director:Hong Sang-soo
Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Yoo Jun-sang, Jung Yu-mi

Hong Sangsoo is one my favorites filmmakers, creating beautiful images from still moments and adding depth to them. I was grateful to be able to see many of his movies at a nearby museum before the pandemic — it’s one of the things I miss the most about pre-COVID life — but I caught one of his newest films, Keep Your Face in FrontI can attest that he blows my mind even though he is home.

Another Country It was the first movie I ever saw by him, and it is now available for you to see. Isabelle Huppert portrays three female characters, each named Anne. Three charming French ladies, Annes, visit a tiny South Korean town on the coast. Like all of Hong’s films, it’s gorgeous and quintessentially human, featuring terrific images and performances from start to finish. —PV

Another Country streaming video on the Criterion Channel.

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