Based on the real-life CSX 8888 incident involving a runaway freight train in 2001, Unstoppable stars Denzel Washington as veteran railroad engineer Frank Barnes. Frank’s typical day at work is upended when human error causes an unmanned locomotive carrying toxic chemicals to run away at full power. With the help of younger conductor Will Colson (Chris Pine), Frank and Will must work together and risk their lives to stop a worst-case scenario that would kill innocent people and result in an environmental catastrophe.
Unstoppable is not just ideal popcorn entertainment, it’s also a brilliantly-made thriller that quickly puts its foot on the gas and hardly lets up until it’s all over. Though the A-list star power of Washington and Pine confidently anchors this movie, it’s director Tony Scott‘s remarkable craftsmanship that elevates Unstoppable from a simple disaster film into a pulse-pounding experience you’ll never forget.
Two years before the Civil War, a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx) helps bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz) capture and kill a trio with a high price on their head. When Schultz frees Django in return, the two end up entering into a fruitful partnership searching for the most wanted criminals in the South. As they traverse the country together, their travels take them to the vast plantation of Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), where Schultz has discovered Django’s long-lost wife (Kerry Washington) is being kept as a slave.
Quentin Tarantino‘s Western epic has a little bit of everything: comedy, action, drama, romance, thrills and suspense. As usual with the pop art director, the movie is a bit of a cosmic gumbo, but that lends itself to an unforgettable (and highly entertaining) experience. While Foxx and Waltz lead the film with charisma, it’s DiCaprio’s magnetically unhinged performance as Calvin Candie that makes Django Unchained truly iconic.
It’s 1981, and rising rock star Bruce Springsteen (Jeremy Allen White) is at a crossroads in his young career. Seeking refuge from his growing fame, he hunkers down at his New Jersey home and begins to write and record songs that are darker and more personal than he’s written before. But this new music is such a break from the songs that made him a star to begin with that he risks derailing his career if he releases it.
Deliver Me From Nowhere isn’t a standard rise-and-fall rock star biopic — instead, it’s an origin story of how one of the singer’s best albums, Nebraska, was made. While that may limit the appeal of the movie, it’s catnip for fans of the rock legend. Even if you’re not a Bruce diehard, the film has enough compelling elements and good performances from White and Jeremy Strong as Springsteen’s manager to watch it.
Deliver Me From Nowhere will stream on January 23.
Breaking up is hard to do, but what if you were never really with the person you love to begin with? That’s the dilemma facing Dennis (James Sweeney), a young gay man who can’t quite get over Rocky (Dylan O’Brien). After a quick hookup, Rocky made it clear he wasn’t interested in Dennis anymore. When he unexpectedly dies in a car crash, Dennis finds comfort in a support group for twinless twins. But it’s no coincidence when Dennis meets Roman (also O’Brien), Rocky’s straight twin, at a meeting — Dennis planned it that way. He’ll do anything to keep the illusion that Rocky was the great love of his life alive.
Twinless is a touching dramedy that examines how two different people cope with the same traumatic death. Sweeney, who also wrote and directed the movie, plays a character who has good intentions but does some pretty immoral things, while O’Brien is a revelation as a grieving brother who doesn’t know how to let go of his sibling to move on with his life.
Astronaut Riya (Eiza González) is lost in space — and doesn’t know how or why she got that way in the first place. All her crewmates are dead, and her oxygen is quickly running out. That’s why she’s initially relieved when Brion (Aaron Paul) shows up to help her. But can she trust this stranger? More importantly, when she experiences several quick flashbacks that show how some of her crew got murdered, can she trust herself?
Ash is one of those low-budget sci-fi films that uses a great concept as its chief selling point. It’s genuinely intriguing to find out what happened on Riya’s spaceship and what Brion really wants from her. Even after you find out, there’s another mystery for Riya to solve — just how the hell is she supposed to survive by herself in deep space? You’ll have to watch Ash to find out.
In the wonderful animated film The Illusionist, the titular character is an old Parisian magician who is alone and out of work. He moves to London, where he finds menial jobs performing tricks at noisy pubs and crowded cafes. But when he meets young Alice (Eilidh Rankin), he finds himself inspired by her own unwavering belief in him.
Directed by The Triplets of Belleville maestro Sylvain Chomet, The Illusionist is a beautiful film to look at and soak in. Largely free of dialogue, the movie tells its story through its stunning depictions of working-class life in 1950s England. While the ending is sad and inevitable, you leave The Illusionist feeling upbeat and hopeful. That’s what great movies do to you, and The Illusionist is one of them.
Millie (Alison Brie) and Tim (Dave Franco) are a long-time couple navigating a rough patch in their relationship. After they get stuck in a cave during a rainstorm, they discover their bodies are slowly being drawn together. Is this desire — or something more sinister? It’s definitely the latter as Millie and Tim discover their bodies are fusing together after they have sex and their genitals refuse to unattach from each other. Can they stop a painful process that will result in either their deaths or potentially something worse?
If you enjoyed The Substance’s gross-out comedy, you’ll like Together. Its simple concept is exploited for maximum horror and macabre laughs, with impressive practical effects that graphically show how Millie and Tim are slowly becoming one person. Knowing that Brie and Franco are a real-life couple adds to the perverse pleasure of watching the movie, which cleverly exploits the fears some couples have of losing their individual identities in a relationship. After watching Together, maybe being single isn’t so bad, after all?
Maya (Phoebe Dynevor) is in mourning. Her mother just died, and there’s no one around who understands her pain. At her mom’s funeral, however, someone appears from her past who she wishes had stayed there — her long-absent father, Sam (Rhys Ifans). When he offers her a well-paying job, Maya can’t resist, but she’s soon thrust into an impossible situation after he’s kidnapped and held for ransom. Should she risk her life for a man she barely knows?
Inheritance is an unusual thriller that takes a normally outlandish spy subplot and grounds it in reality by concentrating on just two characters — father and daughter. Less Mission: Impossible and more of a family drama with a dash of espionage, the movie is constantly surprising you with one revelation after another about Sam’s shady past. Inheritance never fails to thrill, even if most of the suspense comes from a daughter reconciling with all the sins her father has committed in the past.
Director Darren Aronofsky managed to make an effective psychological horror thriller in the world of professional ballet in Black Swan. Natalie Portman deservedly took home the Oscar for Best Actress for her spellbinding turn as Nina Sayers, a ballerina who has the chance to land the leading part in Swan Lake.
Nina’s ambitious play for the role of her dreams is threatened by the arrival of a new dancer, Lily (Mila Kunis), who may be a far better fit for the part than she is. The pressure on Nina is so pronounced that she loses track of what’s real and what isn’t. It’s a descent into madness, which is just what Nina needs to embody the Black Swan.
Black Swan is streaming on Hulu.
The Unknown Country does something rarely seen in non-documentary films — it allows non-professional actors to break out of the film’s narrative and share the true stories that shaped their lives. The movie isn’t really about them, but their experiences add depth to Tana’s (Lily Gladstone) journey as she mourns the death of her grandmother.
Because Tana has been so disconnected from her Oglala Lakota family, she undertakes an extended road trip to go to her cousin’s wedding and to learn more about her grandmother, whom she adored. There aren’t any easy answers awaiting Tana, and she’s trying to reconcile her identity with her need to find some deeper connection to the people she calls family.
The Unknown Country will stream on Hulu on December 15.
Have you ever heard of the sovereign citizen movement? Sovereign introduces viewers to Jerry Kane (Nick Offerman), a true believer in that conspiracy theory, even as his life is crumbling down around him. Jerry is also taking his son, Joe (Jacob Tremblay), down with him as the consequences of his choices catch up with them.
Things take a turn for the worse when a routine traffic stop escalates into violence. Suddenly, Chief John Bouchart (Dennis Quaid) and his men are out to find the Kanes at all costs, and there may not be a way out for the father and son.
Sovereign is streaming on Hulu.
In the near future, the world has gone to hell. Almost all animals are extinct, and groups of ravenous cannibals roam around looking for their next victims to kill — and consume. Hailey Freeman (Danielle Deadwyler) doesn’t intend her or her family to be their next meal, which is why she runs her farm like a drill sergeant. But Hailey can’t prevent the outside world from invading her 40 acres of land, and she’ll have to draw on her military training to protect her nearest and dearest.
40 Acres is a survival thriller that has as much character development as it does action. Hailey and her fam kick all sorts of ass, but they aren’t just stock action stereotypes. The movie explores themes of institutional racism and generational trauma with subtlety and care, which makes the violence you see onscreen all the more effective.
This Oscar-winning dark comedy stars Emma Stone as Bella Baxter, a young woman brought back to life by an eccentric scientist (Willem Dafoe) who places an unborn baby’s brain in her adult body. As Bella’s mind rapidly develops, she sets out to experience life, love and freedom — no matter how chaotic the journey becomes.
Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things is a stunning, surreal exploration of autonomy, sexuality and what it means to be human. Stunning visuals and unsettling themes about identity make the movie visceral and unforgettable, but it’s Stone’s nuanced performance that makes it so powerful. It’s both funny and heartbreaking in that way that Lanthimos perfected in films like The Lobster and The Favorite.
In the entertaining action-comedy Thelma, June Squibb stars as a tough 93-year-old grandmother who is scammed out of $10,000 by a con artist — but goes on a mission to get it back.
This lowkey charmer is an incredible showcase for Squibb, who has been making quite a comeback in her golden years. As Thelma zooms off on a motorized scooter with the help of her friend Ben (Richard Roundtree in one of his final roles), the audience gets to know her many flaws as well as the things that make her so lovable. It’s a movie that examines the way the elderly are often infantilized and taken advantage of, but it manages to do so without seeming maudlin or depressing.
This Taika Waititi film didn’t get as much attention as Jojo Rabbit or Thor: Ragnarok, and we’re not sure why — the story of the American Samoa soccer team features as much humor, heart and thoughtfulness as any of Waititi’s other movies.
Next Goal Wins stars Michael Fassbender as Dutch-American football coach Thomas Rongen, who is hired by the Samoans after they suffer one of the most thorough defeats in international football history. While Rongen is at first only in Samoa begrudgingly, he soon bonds with the team and pushes them to new heights.
Based on a true story, Next Goal Wins is a classic sports story with a unique Waititi spin.
Twin brothers Bill and Hal (both played by Theo James) share a traumatic past that involves an absentee father, a complicated upbringing and a lethal toy monkey that brings about people’s untimely deaths. The brothers buried the toy and seemingly put that ordeal behind them, but after 25 years the monkey is back and deadlier than ever. Bill and Hal must reunite and work together to overcome the monkey’s curse — or it will soon be lights out for them, too.
The Monkey is the rare horror movie that also works as pure comedy. Each death is more intentionally outlandish than the next. Director Osgood “Oz” Perkins (Longlegs) sought to make a film that showed the randomness and absurdity of death. He succeeded, resulting in a movie that will make you laugh while simultaneously covering your eyes.
Owning your home is the American dream, so when the McCall family — dad Josh (Ben Foster), mom Rachel (Cobie Smulders) and son Max (William Kosovic) — move into their new suburban home, what was once a fantasy becomes a wonderful, welcomed reality. But things start to deteriorate when a sharp corner in front of the home causes multiple accidents to occur that disturb Rachel — and excite Josh. Soon, Josh obsesses over when the next accident might occur, which causes him to neglect his family. Can Josh maintain what little sanity he has left?
Sharp Corner is an unconventional thriller in that the protagonist and the villain are the same person. Josh starts out as a well-meaning husband and father, who gradually transforms into someone who is willing to harm others to feel like he’s needed. The movie’s incredibly suspenseful, but it’s also a thoughtful examination of Josh’s wounded masculinity. The ending is a downer, but one you arguably won’t forget.
2025 hasn’t been a great year for animated movies so far, but 2024 had some all-time bangers like Inside Out 2, Flow and The Wild Robot. None of them are quite as impressive — or odd — as Memoir of a Snail, an adults-only stop-motion animated film from Australia.
The movie chronicles the sad saga of twin siblings, Grace (voiced by Sarah Snook) and Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who are separated when their father dies. As they mature into adults, they hope to one day reunite and live together, but dramatic events such as a forbidden relationship and an abusive foster family keep preventing that from happening.
July 2020 seems like a lifetime ago, but for Keith Gill (Paul Dano), that was the exact moment when his life changed forever. Noticing that video game store GameStop’s stock is at an all-time low, he decides to use his life savings and buy the stock for cheap. His actions start a chain of events that affect not only Keith, but his friends, family, a few millionaire stock investors and Wall Street.
Dumb Money dramatizes the very real account of how Gill brought financial power back into the hands of ordinary Joes like him, and how he beat Wall Street at their own financial game. Even if you don’t know what “short-selling stock” means, Dumb Money is accessible to everyone and enjoyable to all. That’s due in large part to the great ensemble cast, which includes Seth Rogen, Pete Davidson, Nick Offerman, Sebastian Stan and America Ferrera.
Sometime in the near future, population control is enforced through a procedure known as “The Assessment.” If any couple wants a child, they have to endure a rigorous series of tests to determine whether they are fit to be parents.
Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) and Aaryan (Himesh Patel) desperately want a child, so they agree to be inspected by Virginia (Alicia Vikander), a government employee charged with determining if they are mentally and physically able to raise a healthy child. But soon, Virginia’s methods become less professional and more harmful as she tests Mia and Aaryan’s love for one another. Mia doesn’t think Virginia has their best interests at heart and wants to find out what the inspector is up to. Virginia has a secret she’s desperate to hide, and it could cost Mia more than a child.
The Assessment is a somber movie that works as both a sci-fi flick and a thriller. It will keep you guessing as to what Virginia is up to, or why Mia is so intent on having a baby. The film’s portrait of a dystopian future is strikingly original, and the ending is one you won’t forget soon.
With the streaming success of 2022’s Prey, the dormant Predator franchise came roaring back to life. This year will see not one but two new Predator movies, with the first being Predator: Killer of Killers, an animated anthology from Prey director Dan Trachtenberg.
The film takes place in three different eras — 800s Scandinavia, 1600s Japan and 1940s America — as different warriors take on various Predators. The film gives you what you want: to see Vikings and samurai battle aliens in a winner-takes-all deathmatch. Killer of Killers is appropriately violent, and the animation is surprisingly beautiful for such a visceral and blood-soaked, Gladiator-esque tale.
Mady (Jonathan Feltre) just can’t catch a break. A graduate student who moonlights as a locksmith in Brussels, he’s tricked by a beautiful stranger named Claire (Natacha Krief) to unlock an empty apartment so she can grab a bag. She disappears, leaving Mady to answer to mobster Yannick (Romain Duris), whose bag Claire took. Did we mention that it’s full of cash and Yannick thinks Mady is in cahoots with Claire to rip him off?
Mady buys enough time to find Claire and get the cash back to Yannick, but Brussels is locked down due to a rowdy Black Lives Matter protest and one of Yannick’s henchmen, Theo (Jonas Bloquet), is secretly involved with Claire. It’s not Mady’s night, and if things don’t go his way, it could be his last.
Night Call is a terrific action-thriller that uses a topical event — the Black Lives Matter movement — to enrich its already superb narrative. It matters that Mady is Black, so he can’t quite move around in the city during that night like others can. The movie unveils one surprise after another, but it never feels cheap or superficial. Night Call is one of 2025’s best movies that most people don’t know about, so check it out now that it’s on Hulu.
Shelly Gardner (Pamela Anderson) is a veteran Las Vegas showgirl facing a midlife crisis. The revue she stars in is closing, and she’s too old and proud to audition for other Vegas shows that require more nudity and less dignity from their dancers. Shaken, she reaches out to her estranged older daughter to mend their strained relationship, but is it too late for mother and daughter to bond after all these years?
The Last Showgirl is a melancholy film about a woman who chose her career over her family and the price she pays for investing in a profession that throws away its female talent as they grow older. Still best known for her work on Baywatch, Anderson is simply stunning in a complex role she’s never played before. The actress received Oscar buzz for her performance, and she should’ve been nominated by the Academy.
Jang Hae-jun (Park Hae-il) can’t sleep, and that’s an asset when you’re a detective with a lot of cases to solve. His latest one is a doozy — an old man is found dead near a mountain, and his much younger wife, Song Seo-rae (Tang Wei), is the prime suspect. The case seems pretty simple, but Jang soon finds himself disturbed by his growing feelings for Song. Soon, his empathy for her turns into an obsession that might get them both killed.
Shortlisted for Best International Feature at the Oscars in 2023, South Korea’s Decision to Leave is one of the best movies released in the last five years, period. It’s effective as a police procedural thriller, but it’s also a haunting ode to how love saves and destroys one man. Decision to Leave’s plot is surprisingly twisty, and the film’s stunning cinematography will linger in your memory long after you’ve finished the movie. It’s that good.
Ani (Mikey Madison) is a Brighton Beach stripper who speaks some Russian and is very good at her job. That helps her meet Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), a 21-year-old son of a wealthy Russian oligarch who wants some companionship along with a lap dance. They fall in lust, then love and soon marry, but Vanya’s disapproving parents send three men to force them to annul their marriage. When Vanya flees, Ani, along with hired hand Igor (Yura Borisov), Vanya’s godfather Telos (Karren Karagulian) and henchman Garnik (Vache Tovmasyan) have to find him before the boy’s parents arrive in the United States.
Anora is a stripper Cinderella fable that effortlessly blends comedy, drama and action (there’s an extended fight sequence that will make you laugh and wince) into one entertaining package. The film won multiple Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress, and it’s easy to see why — it’s legitimately great and fun to watch. As Ani, Madison is terrific, creating a character who is tough but still wants to believe in a happily-ever-after ending.
Movie biopics about musical legends have become a bit of a running joke over the past decade or so. Anyone who endured Bohemian Rhapsody or Back to Black will tell you that the genre has become a parody of itself. But A Complete Unknown is one of the better recent biopics because of the assured direction by James Mangold, a strong supporting cast with Oscar nominees Edward Norton and Monica Barbaro and a great lead performance by Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan.
The movie takes place during Dylan’s early days as an up-and-coming singer in the early ‘60s New York City folk scene, where Pete Seeger (Norton) mentors him and Joan Baez (Barbaro) collaborates with him professionally and personally. Dylan soon eclipses them both in popularity, but his desire to experiment — specifically by ditching his acoustic guitar for an electric one — causes him to question his purpose as a musician and a symbol of the emerging counterculture movement.
Chalamet is an uncanny mimic, but his performance as Dylan is more than just a flattering imitation. He understands that Dylan can’t really be entirely understood, and his slipperiness — his resistance to being pinned down to just one identity — is the bulk of his appeal. A Complete Unknown is nirvana for Dylan fans, but it’s accessible and entertaining enough for the uninitiated, too.
Sandra Voyter’s (Sandra Hüller) husband is dead, and everyone suspects she did it. His gruesome fall from their two-story French chalet can’t easily be explained as an accident, and their past relationship was rocky. They fought bitterly, and even their visually impaired son, Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner), isn’t so sure his mother is innocent. As Sandra stands trial for murder, can she convince a judge — and the audience — that she didn’t push her husband and let him fall to his death?
Anatomy of a Fall isn’t your traditional thriller since there are really no other suspects, and no one else is in harm’s way. But the director, Justine Triet, isn’t concerned with just generating suspense; she also wants to examine how Sandra’s once-solid marriage gradually disintegrated and why it’s not completely ridiculous to think Sandra would off her husband in such a manner. The film features superb acting from Huller and Machado-Graner, and one of the best canine performances (by Messi, who became a social media star in late 2023) in film history.
Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) isn’t your ordinary teenager. She’s still getting over the death of her mother, and her dad’s work has taken her away from her home. Stuck in a remote resort in the Bavarian Alps, Gretchen notices some unusual things like loud shrieks at night, vomiting female guests and a hooded woman who seems to be stalking her. She begins to suspect her father’s employer, the inscrutable Herr Koning (Dan Stevens), is involved in all of this, but her efforts to prove her theory may get her killed.
Cuckoo lives up to its title — it’s genuinely crazy in all the right ways. The film makes the most of its atmospheric setting, utilizing dark shadows and moments of disturbing silence to set up several well-earned jump scares. Schafer is a great addition to the Final Girl Hall of Fame, and Stevens adds another madman role to his already impressive resume of unhinged weirdos.
In Oregon, a string of gruesome murder-suicides has left local investigations stumped. FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is called in to investigate and figure out why these crimes were committed. Her path eventually leads to a strange, pasty-faced serial killer named Longlegs (Nicolas Cage), who claims to work for “the man downstairs.” But what led to Longlegs’ involvement with all of the murders? And why does Lee feel personally connected to the case?
A surprise summer hit in 2024, Longlegs is a riff on The Silence of the Lambs with just a touch of deeply unsettling weirdness. Director Oz Perkins opts for atmosphere over jump scares, resulting in a movie that is filled with ominous foreboding and dread. As Longlegs, Cage is appropriately freaky and creepy, and Monroe makes for a great heroine burdened by childhood trauma who would make Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling proud.
Eileen Dunlop’s (Thomasin McKenzie) life is pretty drab. She lives in Massachusetts, where the winters are long and bleak, and she works at a juvenile detention facility for teenage boys, which is about as exciting as it sounds. But one day, in walks the platinum blonde Rebecca Saint John (Anne Hathaway), and Eileen’s life is forever changed — at first for the better, and then for the worse.
Eileen is an excellent thriller that’s also a compelling character study as it follows both women’s interest in a young inmate, Lee Polk (The White Lotus season 3 star Sam Nivola), who Rebecca suspects is hiding a dark family secret. Hathaway is in full movie-star mode as the glamorous Rebecca, and McKenzie is convincing as the sexually repressed Eileen. The movie paints a vivid picture of New England life in the early 1960s, and its abrupt ending is both frustrating and appropriate.
Class warfare takes place on a luxury superyacht in Triangle of Sadness, Ruben Östlund’s pitch-black social satire from 2022. Among the boat’s guests are Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean Kriek), two spoiled models/influencers who are in a relationship of convenience; Russian tycoon Dimitri (Zlatko Buric) and his wife Vera (Sunnyi Melles); and Jarmo (Henrik Dorsin), a tech billionaire with eyes for Yaya. They are served by the boat’s loyal crew, particularly maid Abigail (Dolly de Leon) and the captain (Woody Harrelson), but when a storm strikes and pirates attack, class lines blur, tables are turned, and the fragile divide between the rich and the poor disappears completely.
Nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 2023, Triangle of Sadness hits all the obvious targets (rich people, war profiteers, social media stars) but does so in a very funny way. The film takes its premise to absurd lengths, and the third act is pretty much Lord of the Flies with adults instead of children, but it’s always watchable, and it will make you think twice about eating all that seafood.
Hannah (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) are American backpackers traveling across the Australian Outback. When they run out of money, they take temporary jobs as bartenders at the Royal Hotel, a rundown pub that houses many of the local misfits. As the two women try to save enough money to leave, they find out very quickly that their new workplace isn’t as hospitable as they would like it to be. Violence inevitably erupts, and Hannah and Liv will have to fight for their lives to check out of the Royal Hotel.
Inspired by the 2006 documentary Hotel Coolgardie, The Royal Hotel is a thriller grounded in reality. Nothing the two women experience, from casual sexism to blatant harassment, feels all that outlandish, and the feeling that this could happen to anyone makes the movie more unsettling. Both Garner and Henwick are outstanding as the Americans who witness the ugly side of Australia, and the direction by Kitty Green is taut without overdoing it.