New Movies on Hulu

Movies Lists Hulu
New Movies on Hulu

Hulu has been slower than some of its competitors getting in the original movie game, focusing more on building its library of films and developing original series. But it’s done a better job of securing rights to new movies that have just finished their theatrical runs. We’ll keep a running tab on the newest Hulu movies, including both originals and first-streaming films.

Below are eight newly added films from the streaming service. We’ll update the list as Hulu continues to produce new features and acquire the rights to recent films.

1. Flamin’ HotHulu Release Date: June 9, 2023
Director: Eva Longoria
Stars: Jesse Garcia, Annie Gonzalez, Dennis Haysbert, Tony Shalhoub
Rating: PG-13

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Let’s start with the bad news: In all likelihood, Richard Montañez did not invent Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. If you’re okay with the fact that most of Montañez’s story—which the film presents as truth—is total fiction, let’s move on to the good news: Flamin’ Hot is pretty charming. In Eva Longoria’s hands, helped with a script from Lewis Colick and Linda Yvette Chávez, the movie is a tale of ingenuity and determination that reflects a love for Mexican American culture, without lionizing (at least, not too much) the corporate product at its center. Flamin’ Hot gives us the arc of Montañez’s (Jesse Garcia) life from farmworker kid through his rise up the ranks at Frito-Lay. He meets his supportive wife Judy (Annie Gonzalez) when they’re both in elementary school. They bond over their shared identity as Mexican American kids surviving abusive fathers. As a teen, Montañez becomes a drug dealer, frequently on the wrong side of the law until Judy gets pregnant and they both decide to go straight. Eventually, Montañez gets a janitor job at the Rancho Cucamonga Frito-Lay factory, where he ingratiates himself to the plant’s head mechanic (Dennis Haysbert), eager to learn the inner workings of the machines that make and package the snacks. In the 1980s, a recession endangers the factory’s future, and that hanging threat persists into the early ‘90s. That’s when Montañez—inspired by his younger son’s love of spicy elote—develops the idea for a spicy snack flavoring that will appeal to Latinx customers. He presents the idea to CEO Roger Enrico (Tony Shaloub) as a Hail Mary bid to save the factory. To its credit, Flamin’ Hot at least acknowledges Montañez’s propensity for exaggeration, and uses that to endearing effect. The movie also addresses cultural issues and injustice with admirable honesty. The truth may be much less interesting, but the legend is colorful, heartwarming and surprisingly fun. —Abby Olcese


2. ClockHulu Release Date: April 28, 2023
Director: Alexis Jacknow
Stars: Dianna Agron, Jay Ali, Melora Hardin, Saul Rubinek, Rosa Gilmore, Grace Porter
Genre: Psychological thriller
Rating: R

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Alexis Jacknow’s debut feature Clock joins a recent crop of horror films that probe cultural anxieties surrounding pregnancy, birth and motherhood. Among American offerings, Clock might be the first film that manages to feel genuinely engaged with the discussions women are having about the prospect of bearing a child—particularly among those who feel no natural compulsion toward mothering. A fantastically frenetic performance from Dianna Agron, a truly chilling central entity and interrogations of Jewish heritage elevate Clock (and the potential of further monstrous motherhood stories) above otherwise lackluster competition stateside. Despite being a renowned interior designer, Ella (Agron) can’t help but feel unfulfilled. This largely has to do with her being 37 years old and staunchly opposed to the idea of starting a family with her husband Aidan (Jay Ali). While he claims no official problem with staying child-free, just about every other person in Ella’s life finds her stance objectionable. Without telling her husband, father or friends, she enrolls in the experimental trial with lauded Dr. Elizabeth Simmons (Melora Hardin). As expected, things don’t go so well. Clock follows Ella during her inpatient treatment at Dr. Simmons’ facility and for several uneasy weeks afterwards, never lingering too long in any one setting. The film’s 90-minute runtime is well-utilized, a jaunty ride with plenty of thrills to sustain it. While much of Clock is concerned with Ella’s unraveling psyche, it also incorporates a tall, pale and sincerely frightening figure that manifests as a representation of her Jewish guilt. Clock’s quietly cryptic conclusion counters that even the most peculiar creatures are worthy of awe. We do not need to create life to be bewitched by it. —Natalia Keogan


3. QuasiHulu Release Date: April 20, 2023
Director: Kevin Heffernan
Starring: Steve Lemme, Kevin Heffernan, Paul Soter, Jay Chandrasekhar, Erik Stolhanske, Adrianne Palicki
Genre: Comedy
Rating: R

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For much of their delightfully unlikely movie career, the comedy troupe Broken Lizard has attempted to put some sparkle back into the word “sophomoric.” The group first met in college, and their humor, as seen in movies like Super Troopers and Beerfest, is infused with a certain genial frattiness – but the type of frat guys who squeak through an English major and might have, in the pre-improv days, tried out for some plays. But if this most ambitious Broken Lizard production (past films were set in beer halls, anonymous strips of highway, or a single restaurant), presumably afforded by their home studio Searchlight’s pivot to producing #content for Hulu, bears a superficial resemblance to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it bears a closer and less fortunate resemblance to lower-tier Adam Sandler vehicles. Quasi (Steve Lemme) is a lovable hunchbacked underdog with a Little Nicky twist to his face, and the movie around him has the miss-and-hit first-draft energy of Sandler’s inexplicable dream project The Ridiculous 6. It’s more likable than Sandler at his worst, much less funny than Sandler at his best, and nowhere near anything the Python group did together. —Jesse Hassenger


4. Rye LaneHulu Release Date: March 31, 2023
Director: Raine Allen-Miller
Starring: David Jonsson, Vivian Oparah, Simon Manyonda, Benjamin Sarpong-Broni, Poppy Allen-Quarmby
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Rating: TV-MA

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From director Raine Allen-Miller, Rye Lane takes place over the course of a day, following Dom (David Jonsson) and Yas (Vivian Oparah) as they wander across South London, concocting new, increasingly ridiculous ways of spending time together. They use local landmarks as a set of interpersonal stepping stones, guiding one another through the physical ruins of their own romantic histories. Everything is captured in sharp, bright colors, reflecting the joy buried in every corner of this city. But the color scheme is only one way Allen-Miller navigates the playfulness of Dom and Yas’ dynamic. She stages elaborate setups to heighten their budding relationship: A cinema full of multiple Doms, passionately cheering Yas on as she recreates her recent breakup, is both a funny joke and a constructive character beat, showing two people who bond over a shared way of coping. Allen-Miller experiments with the focus and angle of the camera, switching between the extremes of the fish-eye lens and wide shots to capture the blurred and busy texture of the city. Such cinematic tools work to interpret how seeing and being seen are crucial to falling in love. Jonsson and Oparah’s chemistry is buoyant, their repartee made real through their naturalistic delivery. Thanks to Rye Lane’s specificity and care for its central relationship, Allen-Miller has made one of the best British comedies–certainly one of the best London-based films—of the last decade. Perhaps this is why she doesn’t consider Rye Lane through the lens of the romantic comedy, as she remains wholly concerned with these characters and the details that make them real, rather than the genre that contains them. —Anna McKibbin


5. Boston StranglerHulu Release Date: March 17, 2023
Director: Matt Ruskin
Starring: Keira Knightley, Carrie Coon, Chris Cooper, Alessandro Nivola, Rory Cochrane, David Dastmalchian, Bill Camp, Morgan Spector, Robert John Burke
Genre: Drama
Rating: R

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Matt Ruskin’s new film Boston Strangler dramatizes the reign of the title serial killer, who during the early 1960s took the lives of 13 women unhindered by authorities, and whose identity is canopied by a question mark. To address the ugliness of this chapter in Boston’s past, Ruskin adopts a needlessly ugly style. According to his camera, 1960s Boston’s architecture and landscape were both drained of nearly all traces of color, replaced by a dreariness that perhaps explains why being devoutly miserable is a birthright for locals as much as an unhealthy loyalty to Dunkin Donuts. Gray and sepia tones pervade nearly every single shot, announcing too much of what’s already clear through his material. The killer’s (or killers’) active years were a time of justified paranoia and pervasive fear for women; any stranger claiming the building super sent him to check the radiator might be the Grim Reaper in a maintenance suit. The film doesn’t need the somber tones to convince of its seriousness, with Ruskin focusing on neither the killer (or, again, killers) or the ignoble bumbling schmucks at the Boston Police Department, but rather the brave journalists responsible for investigating this ugly case—real-life journalists Jean Cole (Carrie Coon) and Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley) —Andy Crump


6. BruiserHulu Release Date: February 24, 2023
Director: Miles Warren
Starring: Jalyn Hall, Trevante Rhodes, Shamier Anderson, Shinelle Azoroh, Ava Ryback
Genre: Drama
Rating: TV-MA

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Two sins weigh heavily on Miles Warren’s Bruiser: The broader movie industry’s enduring ignorance of Trevante Rhodes’ galactic star power, and streaming culture’s capacity for muffling new talent. In Warren, he’s found a director capable of harnessing his charisma, but in Hulu he’s found a platform too small for the scope of Warren’s feature debut, made with such assurance that it scarcely reads as such. Plenty of directors go half of their careers or longer without making a movie that lands as hard as Bruiser, either emotionally or aesthetically. It’s a sign of Warren’s potential that this is his first picture out the gate, and that his understanding of Rhodes’ persona is matched only by Barry Jenkins, whose Moonlight would make a fine double feature with Bruiser; they’re both movies about dads in disarray, masculinity in crisis, and a Black teen under strain from wanting resolution in the former while struggling with the latter. Bruiser, however, feels like it could only have been made this far into Rhodes’ career, with seven years of growth and experience in his rearview—perfect for playing a character stitched together from guilt and longing. Rhodes plays Porter, one of Bruiser’s two father figures, a drifter holed up in a houseboat who takes 14-year-old Darious (Jalyn Hall) under his wing after the kid gets in a scrap with a supposed friend. Stress is Porter’s oxygen, but he breathes out cool. Darious is captivated by Porter: His easygoing philosophy, his gentle demeanor, his shaggy dreadlocks, his Vanson motorcycle jacket, emblazoned with the human skeletal system. He cuts a sharp contrast to Malcolm (Shamier Anderson), Darious’ dad, who’s like a grizzly bear stuffed into khakis. Malcolm is strict. He’s square. He loves Darious, but like far too many men raising sons, his listening skills are virtually nil, which makes Porter an even more appealing alternative. The movie gives Darious the uncomfortable task of choosing whose example to follow, and incorporates it into a modern Black American tragedy. —Andy Crump


7. It’s a Wonderful Bingewonderful-binge.jpgHulu Release Date: December 9, 2022
Director: Jeremy Garelick
Stars: Eduardo Franco, Dexter Darden, Zainne Saleh, Marta Piekarz, Danny Trejo, Tony Cavalero, Nick Swardson, Kaitlin Olson, Tim Meadows, Paul Scheer, Patty Guggenheim, Esteban Benito, Eileen Galindo, Karen Maruyama
Genre: Comedy
Rating: TVMA

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The movies can’t all be candy canes, presents and mistletoe. In this sequel to 2020’s The Binge, the annual day of drinking and drugging happens to fall on Christmas. The press release for the movie promises that “the new holiday adventure will feature magical storybooks, catchy songs, stop-motion animation… and drugs! Lots of them!” —Amy Amatangelo


8. Matriarchmatriarch.jpgHulu Release Date: October 21, 2022
Director: Ben Steiner
Stars: Jemima Rooper, Kate Dickie, Sarah Paul, Simon Meacock, Nick Haverson, Franc Ashman
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Paste Review Score: 7.2

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Ben Steiner’s feature debut Matriarch continues a decade-long pop-culture fixation on Kate Dickie’s chest as a magnet for the bizarre, the uncomfortable, and the straightforwardly evil. In Game of Thrones, she plays a Lady Regent determinedly nursing her son, who is well beyond nursing years; in The Witch, she hallucinates nursing her baby, which is actually a raven pecking away at her chest; in Matriarch, well, embrace the mystery until seeing the film for yourself. But her figure is addressed directly in Steiner’s script more than once. As Celia, the official but unelected leader of her small town England, she is styled with a sense of glamor and sophistication, the best-dressed person in the village. Celia’s daughter Laura (Jemima Rooper) is in disbelief that her mom looks as good as she does, citing her age as somewhere in her 80s, though it’s not entirely clear whether she’s joking. After all, it’s been 20 years since they last saw each other. Maybe Laura simply doesn’t recognize her mother after that long passage of time; maybe Celia simply has good genes; maybe she’s taken good care of herself over those two long decades. Or maybe the truth lies in the wilderness surrounding the village. The movie doesn’t want for eldritch menace. Just like the black ichor seeping into Laura, Matriarch saturates viewers’ senses until it pays off its many adumbrations with unexpected revelations. —Andy Crump

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