The best movies new to streaming in May
May is finally here and with it comes some of the most anticipated movie premieres of the year. Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, I saw the TV glowAnd Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes are this month’s must-see theatrical releases, but if you’re looking for the best movies new to streaming in May on Netflix, Hulu, Max, and more, you’ve come to the right place.
This month we have Jonathan Demme’s classic concert film Stop making senseLana Wachowski’s divisive yet exciting film The Matrix ResurrectionsBaz Luhrmann’s maximalist music biopic Elvisand more.
Here are the new streaming service movies you should watch this month.
Editor’s choice
Stop making sense
Image: Vivendi Entertainment
Where to watch: Max
Genre: Concert film
Director: Jonathan Demme
It’s been 40 years since one of America’s great rock bands released one of the greatest concert films of all time, and now you can stream it in your beautiful home, with your beautiful wife.
Stop making sense Running just 88 minutes, it’s not just meager from a running time perspective; the film contains virtually nothing other than the performances of sixteen songs, compiled from recordings of four shows at the Pantages Theater in Los Angeles in December 1983. But what is there is all that is needed.
Director Jonathan Demme (The silence of the lambs) uses very few shots of the audience, a marked contrast to most concert films. Together with the additional staging designed by frontman David Byrne, this decision keeps the focus almost entirely on the nine musicians on stage: the Talking Heads foursome of Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison, plus five others – Lynn Mabry , Edna Holt, Bernie Worrell, Steve Scales and Alex Weir. If the music alone is somehow not enough to get your blood flowing, the band members’ boundless exuberance will fill your heart with joy and appreciation for this exciting document of artists at their peak.
I have to admit that I came to my Talking Heads fandom relatively late. As such, the very first time I saw it Stop making sense was actually in a theater, thanks to A24’s theatrical re-release last fall. The documentary was meticulously restored in 4K resolution, with the audio remixed in Dolby Atmos spatial sound source material (for both video and audio) that was thought to be lost. The film itself has always been timeless; now it looks like this too. —Samit Sarkar
New on Netflix
The Matrix Resurrections
Image: Warner Bros. Pictures
Genre: Sci-fi action
Director: Lana Wachowski
Form: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II
How many creators can return to their first groundbreaking work decades later and create something new – let alone with a work as groundbreaking as The Matrix? Lana Wachowski’s 2021 sequel to the Matrix trilogy joyfully kicks and screams at the studio franchise system in which it’s embedded.
The Matrix Resurrections gets off to a startling start with Neo (Keanu Reeves) once again trapped in the Matrix, this time in the guise of the Game Award-winning creator of a globally successful video game franchise called The Matrix. His already tenuous sense of reality warps after a chance encounter with a woman named Tiffany (Carrie-Anne Moss) in a coffee shop, and things get trippy from there.
The Matrix Resurrections ends with love and the power of true connection that overcomes evil. It’s a fantastic part of the “I don’t know what’s happening anymore, but I don’t care” canon. —Susana Polo
New on Hulu
Elvis
Image: Warner Bros.
Genre: Biographical drama
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Form: Austin Butler, Tom Hanks, Olivia DeJonge
Baz Luhrmann’s typically maximalist take on Elvis Presley’s life can be divisive, often depending on the viewer’s opinion of Presley as a man – or their tolerance for Tom Hanks delivering a silly voice in heavy latex as his demonic manager Colonel Tom Parker . It now provides a fascinating (and not entirely contradictory) counterpoint to Sofia Coppola’s much more subdued and nuanced women’s perspective, Priscilla.
But Luhrmann’s interest is really in Elvis as a performer, and the film’s main achievement is a series of compelling, energetic, thrillingly sound-mixed concert scenes that illustrate Presley’s generational genius for rock ‘n’ roll iconography and stagecraft. It also gave us the rare gift of a brand new top-level movie star in Austin Butler – who may have (finally) dropped the accent, but seems to have decided that the wide-eyed Southern Gentleman act is here to stay, and it really works for him. —Oli Welsh
New on Max
The lighthouse
Image: A24
Genre: Period horror
Director: Robert Eggers
Form: Robert Pattinson, Willem Dafoe, Valeriia Karamän
Robert Eggers returns later this year with a remake of the German expressionist horror classic Nosferatu, Starring Bill Skarsgård and Nicholas Hoult. Eggers has always had a penchant for historical horror, as would any fan of his 2015 debut The Witch can attest, but his 2019 sequel, starring Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson, is perhaps his most psychologically bracing film yet.
Set in the 1890s – and loosely inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s unfinished short story of the same name – The lighthouse is about two lighthouse keepers who are forced to live and work next to each other on a small island off the coast of New England. As the duration of their assignment progresses, the pair’s patience and sanity also wanes, as otherworldly visions and brutal confrontations erupt under the ethereal glow of the lighthouse beacon. As nightmarish as it is darkly hilarious, The lighthouse is easily one of the stylistically distinctive and unnerving horror films of the 2010s. —Toussaint Egan
New on Prime Video
The Birdcage
Image: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/United Artists
Genre: Comedy
Director: Mike Nichols
Form: Robin Williams, Gene Hackman, Nathan Lane
In 1996, when the most successful films about the lives of gay men were tragic, AIDS-focused dramas, The Birdcage was like a canary among the crows.
Owner Armand (Robin Williams) and his partner Albert (Nathan Lane), also known as club headliner Starina, live above the bustling drag club in Miami. Together they lovingly raised Armand’s son Val (Dan Futterman), who is now an adult and brings his fiancée (Calista Flockhart) home to meet his parents. The only problem? She wants to bring her parents, an arch-conservative senator (Gene Hackman) and wife (Dianne Wiest), and she think Armand is straight. A farce ensues.
Made in the heat of the AIDS crisis (even Lane was is still in the cupboard), The Birdcage stood out as a heartbreaking comedy about low-stakes queer family drama. Nestled within that comedy, however, is a load of sharp satire about mainstream masculinity, gender roles and conservative politics that is still relevant today. —SP
New on Criterion Channel
Don’t look now
Image: Paramount Home Entertainment
Genre: Horror thriller
Director: Nicholas Roeg
Form: Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland, Hilary Mason
Nicolas Roeg’s 1973 masterpiece is one of the most terrifying films ever: a dreamlike ghost story set in a foggy, off-season Venice that seems to crumble and dissolve before your eyes, floating above the calm waters of the Lagoon of Venice. This physical location perfectly matches the psychological location of the film: the tender but destroyed marriage of Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie’s characters. They are mourning the death of their young daughter, who accidentally drowned, when a medium tells them that the little girl is trying to reach them and warn them of something. The hugely influential non-linear montage flutters between moody atmosphere, terrifying prescience and one of the most intimate and erotic sex scenes ever filmed. One of the great horror films – in fact, one of the great films, period. —OW