23 Best Movies New to Streaming in May: Sonic 2, The Matrix Resurrections and More

Publish date: 2024-04-11

Once you’re done streaming “The Batman” on HBO Max for the umpteenth time, it’s time to direct your attention to all of the new offerings on streaming platforms this month. Perhaps the biggest debut is “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” on Paramount+, which should keep children and families glued to the television well into the summer. The new 45-day theatrical window means a smaller gap between a film’s theatrical release and streaming debut, and so the “Sonic” sequel hits Paramount+ as it’s still proving to be a box office force. The film recently picked up $11 million in its fourth weekend of release to place No. 2 at the box office.

Elsewhere on streaming in May is the return of “The Matrix Resurrections” to HBO Max. The fourth installment in the franchise was Warner Bros.’ final movie in 2021 to get the hybrid-release model, in which films opened in theaters on the same day they became available to stream on HBO Max for 31 days. Now “Resurrections” is returning to the streamer. “Jackass” fans will also get to check out the extended edition of “Jackass Forever” when “Jackass 4.5” debuts on Netflix, which is only slightly confusing considering “Jackass Forever” is streaming on Paramount+.

Check out a roundup below of the best films new to streaming this May.

The Lost City (May 10 on Paramount+)
Since opening in theaters March 25, Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum’s romantic-comedy adventure movie “The Lost City” has grossed nearly $95 million at the U.S. box office and just over $162 million worldwide. Those grosses are pretty remarkable for an original romantic-comedy, a genre that has been on life support in recent years. Now the movie comes to streaming this month on Paramount+ thanks to the studio’s 45-day theatrical window. Bullock plays a romance novelist who gets kidnapped, while Tatum is her book cover model who sets out a mission to save her. From Variety’s review: “I can’t be the only one who’s been craving a good old-fashioned treasure hunt, where the leads throw sparks and the ladies’ makeup never smudges, no matter how close to the volcano they get. After a long stretch without such a big-screen Hollywood adventure movie (at least, not one without ties to a video game or theme park ride), ‘The Lost City’ makes for welcome counter-programming.”
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (May 24 on Paramount+)
Paramount struck box office gold this spring with the release of “Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” which opened to $72 million in April and has since grossed $161 million at the U.S. box office and over $323 million worldwide. The “Sonic” sequel stands as the highest grossing video game movie ever made. No wonder Paramount is moving forward with plans for a third “Sonic” movie and a television spinoff on Paramount+ centered around the character of Knuckles. Variety film critic Peter Debruge called the movie “a fun, fan-service ‘Sonic’ movie” in his review, adding, “When the film nods to 90s-era action-movies homage, it shows how much fun Fowler and writers Pat Casey and Josh Miller can have with the character, who’s once again voiced by smart-alecky comic Ben Schwartz.”
The Matrix Resurrections (May 10 on HBO Max)
After originally debuting on HBO Max for 31 days on the same day it opened in theaters last December, Lana Wachowski’s “The Matrix Resurrections” finally returns to the streaming platform this month. What’s so bold about “The Matrix Resurrections” is how it subverts everything that made the original trilogy such a landmark, from its cyberpunk cinematography to its elaborately choreographed action sequences. Wachowski is more interested in deconstructing the legacy of the action movie she made and where Hollywood went after its release than she is with just delivering another run-of-the-mill sequel. Variety called the film a “welcome” fourth addition in the long-running franchise whose meta storytelling makes it feel like “a greatest hits concert and a cover version rolled into one.”
Jackass 4.5 (May 20 on Netflix)
Paramount Pictures opened the fourth “Jackass” movie, officially titled “Jackass Forever,” earlier this year to the tune of $57 million at the U.S. box office and just over $80 million worldwide. While “Jackass Forever” is now streaming on Paramount+, it’s Netflix that’s getting the exclusive release on the “Jackass 4.5” extended edition. The new version of the film includes never-before-seen pranks. From Variety’s original “Jackass Forever” review: “The team have not slacked off in their mission to create what are basically the world’s most stupidly elaborate frat-house hazing stunts, and to stage them with a juvenile masochistic fervor that lies somewhere between psychotic and religious. That they’re still at it in middle age is to say that these dudes are no longer just Jackassing. They’re fighting for their right to party. They’re raging against the dying of the balls.”
Old (May 13 on HBO Max)
M. Night Shyamalan always divides critics, and boy did he ever with his 2021 psychological horror movie “Old.” Starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps, the film centers on the horrors that unfold when a family vacations on a mysterious beach that rapidly ages its visitors. Variety critic Owen Gleiberman was mixed on the film in his review, writing, “‘Old,’ like most Shyamalan movies, has a catchy hook along with some elegant filmmaking gambits. But instead of developing his premise in an insidious and powerful way, the writer-director just keeps throwing things at you.” But even Shyamalan’s average films are full of inventive filmmaking and audacious gambles that make them worth checking out, especially when they’re streaming.
Navalny (May 26 on HBO Max)
Daniel Roher’s acclaimed documentary “Navalny” chronicles Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and investigates the events related to his poisoning. To say the film is timely in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would be a massive understatement. Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman called the documentary a “must see” in his Critic’s Pick review, adding, “It tells the stirring and riveting-as-a-thriller story of Alexei Navalny: his poisoning, his challenge to Vladimir Putin, his fearless role as Russia’s opposition leader… The film flashes back to the poisoning, and it could be the most sickening and calamitous suspense-thriller episode you ever saw, with Navalny first feeling the symptoms on a plane.”
42 (May 1 on Netflix)
Chadwick Boseman gave one of his early breakthrough performance as baseball icon Jackie Robinson in the biographical drama “42.” Variety’s review had notable praise for both Boseman’s performance as Robinson and Harrison Ford’s supporting turn as Branch Rickey: “Boseman bears a striking resemblance to the real Robinson and has an innately appealing screen presence and a wide, beaming smile…while Ford’s big, boisterous performance verges on caricature at times, but ultimately captures the spirit of a man given to self-dramatizing airs and guided by a sense of his place in history.”
Crazy Stupid Love (May 1 on Netflix)
Variety film critic Peter Debruge hailed “Crazy Stupid Love” as “a wise and wonderfully character-driven” romantic-comedy in his review. The film, directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, stars Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon. “There’s a fresh, insightful feel to this multigenerational love story, in which square dad Steve Carell finds himself taking dating tips from ultra-slick ladykiller Ryan Gosling after getting tossed back into the singles scene,” Debruge writes. The freshness of “Crazy Stupid Love” is in how screenwriter Dan Fogelman balances three difference romantic storylines and waits until the perfect moment to reveal their surprising connection. No wonder the film has gone down as one of the great rom-coms of the 2010s.
Road to Perdition (May 1 on Netflix)
Sam Mendes followed his “American Beauty” Oscar-winning run with “Road to Perdition,” a period crime drama set in the Great Depression that stars Tom Hanks as a mob enforcer seeking vengeance against the man who murdered his family. Hanks’ character is joined in his quest by his young son, played by Tyler Hoechlin. From Variety’s review: “Moody, methodical and measured, ‘Road to Perdition’ takes a brooding and absorbing look at the wages of sin and the heritage of violence among mobsters during the dark days of Prohibition. Predominantly concerned about the passing of nasty traditions from fathers to sons, and the strenuous effort of one killer to be redeemed through his boy, Sam Mendes’ second effort finds him working in a very different key while displaying an even more pronounced attentiveness to tone, genre variations and artistic niceties.”
When Harry Met Sally (May 1 on Netflix)
Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron’s classic romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally” comes to Netflix this month. Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan play the two title characters, lifelong friends who wonder whether or not sex would ruin a platonic relationship between a man and a woman. Ephron earned an Oscar nomination for her screenplay. From Variety’s review: “Rob Reiner directs with deftness and sincerity, making the material seem more engaging than it is, at least until the plot mechanics begin to unwind and the film starts to seem shapeless. The only thing that’s unpredictable about the story is how long it takes Harry and Sally to realize they’re perfect for each other.”
Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers (May 20 on Disney+)
While the premiere of the “Star Wars” television series “Obi-Wan Kenobi” is easily the biggest Disney+ debut of May 2022, don’t sleep on the streaming platform’s original film offering with “Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers.” Backed by The Lonely Island and directed by member Akiva Schaffer, this reboot of the classic Disney animated characters looks far more inventive and original than one might expect. Trailers for the film have gone all in on the movie’s meta storyline, in which Chip and Dale are forced back together 30 years after their show ended to save a missing friend. Jokes abound about CGI animation vs hand-drawn animation, Hollywood fan conventions and more. The voice cast includes John Mulaney, Andy Samberg, Will Arnett, Eric Bana, Keegan-Michael Key, Seth Rogen, J.K. Simmons and KiKi Layne.
Drag Me to Hell (May 1 on Hulu)
With Sam Raimi’s Marvel tentpole “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” opening in theaters this month, it couldn’t be a better time for the director’s gore-filled cult classic horror movie “Drag Me to Hell” to find its way to streaming via Hulu. Alison Lohman is scream queen perfection playing a loan officer who declines an elderly woman’s request to extend her mortgage. The woman responds by placing a spell on the loan officer and binding her soul to burn in Hell. From Variety’s review: “’Drag Me to Hell’ is a flagrantly schlocky horror yarn that will titillate the teens without alienating the director’s far pickier fanboy contingent, who will find the ‘Evil Dead’-style action they’ve been clamoring for in a surprisingly potent PG-13 package. When the bank forecloses on an old gypsy’s house, it’s the unlucky young loan officer who risks having her soul repossessed in this throwback to both Raimi’s early work and ’50s B-movies.”
Forgetting Sarah Marshall (May 1 on Hulu)
“Reprising his successful ‘Knocked Up’ formula of uninhibited bawdiness and chick-flick sweetness, with side orders of slapstick and showbiz satire, producer Judd Apatow scores another long-legged hit with ‘Forgetting Sarah Marshall,’” reads Variety’s review of the 2008 comedy favorite. “This crowd-pleasing confection sees the comedy auteur once again hooking up with fellow vets of cult-fave television series “Freaks and Geeks” and “Undeclared” — including, in this case, director Nick Stoller and scripter-star Jason Segel — who are perfectly in sync with his snarky romantic-comedy sensibilities.”
Marie Antoinette (May 1 on Hulu)
Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette” famously earned boos when it debuted at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, but time has been kind for her revisionist approach to the historical drama. Kirsten Dunst stars as the aimless queen whose girlish rebelliousness clashes with the strict confines of her regal duties. From Variety’s review: “Coppola has re-conceived the tale of the Austrian princess sent to France at age 14 to marry the 15-year-old future king of France as one of a girl who would just rather have fun. Costumes and decor conform to correct historiography, but otherwise the film more closely resembles a story of a youngster moving to a new high school, with its environment of gossip and petty rivalries, than it does any previous screen account of pre-revolutionary France.” The film won the Academy Award for costume design.
Take This Waltz (May 1 on Hulu)
Writer-director Sarah Polley’s rewarding romantic comedy “Take This Waltz” stars Michelle Williams as a writer thrown into an emotional crisis when a relationship with her new artist neighbor (Luke Kirby) threatens to upend her five-year marriage (Seth Rogen plays her husband in an understated and winning performance). From Variety’s review: “Given how quickly movie characters tend to fall into bed with one another, it’s especially winning to see writer-director Sarah Polley wring maximum tension, humor and emotional complexity from a young wife’s crisis of conscience. This intelligent, perceptive drama proves intimately and gratifyingly femme-focused. It’s also flat-out sexy.”
Tangerine (May 1 on Prime Video)
Sean Baker’s “Tangerine” made headlines for being shot entirely on an iPhone, but it’s ultimately remembered for being a wild and emotional friendship story between two transgender sex workers who set out to find the pimp boyfriend who’s been cheating on one of them. From Variety’s review: “Baker’s sun-scorched, street-level snapshot is a work of rueful, matter-of-fact insight and unapologetically wild humor that draws a motley collection of funny, sad and desperate individuals into its protagonists’ orbit. The result is a big-hearted, stripped-down yet technically innovative feature.”
Zero Dark Thirty (May 1 on Prime Video)
Jessica Chastain was Oscar-nominated for playing the woman who hunted for Osama Bin Laden in Kathryn Bigelow’s riveting “Zero Dark Thirty.” While the film ignited controversy over its torture scenes, many critics agreed Bigelow delivered on the nerve-shredding promise of her Best Picture winner “The Hurt Locker.” From Variety’s review: “This dense historical thriller rejects nearly every cliche one might expect from a Hollywood treatment of the subject. Far more ambitious than ‘The Hurt Locker,’ the film is a procedure-driven, decade-spanning docudrama that rivets for most of its running time by focusing on how one female CIA agent with a far-out hunch was instrumental in bringing down America’s most wanted fugitive.”
Sideways (May 1 on Prime Video)
“Moving away from his native Nebraska for the first time onto what proves to be even more fertile soil in the wine country of California’s central coast, Alexander Payne has single-handedly restored humanism as a force in American films in ‘Sideways,’” Variety’s review reads of the 2004 comedy. Payne’s film stars Paul Giamatti and Thomas Hayden Church as two 40-year-olds who spend a week in wine country amid various mid-life crises. The film earned four Oscar nominations, including best picture and best director, plus acting nominations for Church and Virginia Madsen. The review adds: “A beautifully observed, small-scale study of personal foibles, romantic uncertainty and two sides of the sadly predictable male animal, this appealingly handcrafted film is flat-out hilarious.”
Emergency (May 27 on Prime Video)
Another Sundance 2022 highlight making its way to streaming this month is “Emergency,” Carey Williams and KD Dávila’s feature-length adaptation of their short film about two Black college students who come home and find a drunken white girl passed out in their living room. RJ Cyler, Donald Elise Watkins, Sebastian Chacon and Sabrina Carpenter star. From Variety’s review: “Cyler and Watkins create two vivid campus characters in a comedy of anxiety, paranoia, and hijinks …a film that starts out as fast, loose, and boisterously nasty soon grows into a full-fledged caper built around the following question: Are the two main characters, obsessing on how they might be viewed as potential criminals, making the smart play, shielding themselves from everything that could go wrong in a racist society?”
Gladiator (May 2 on Paramount+)
Are you not entertained? Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe’s historical epic “Gladiator” arrives on Paramount+ this month. Crowe plays a Roman general who is forced to rise the ranks of the Gladiator system to avenge the murder of his father. From Variety’s review: “A muscular and bloody combat picture, a compelling revenge drama and a truly transporting trip back nearly 2,000 years, Ridley Scott’s bold epic of imperial intrigue and heroism brings new luster and excitement to a tarnished and often derided genre that nonetheless provided at least one generation of moviegoers with some of its most cherished youthful memories.”
Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol (May 2 on Paramount+)
“This elaborately conceived fourth entry in the Tom Cruise action franchise delivers a tremendous early surge of excitement,” Variety wrote in its review of “ Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol.” The film, marking the live-action directorial debut of “The Incredibles” filmmaker Brad Bird, revitalized the “Mission: Impossible” after the rocky reception of the third movie by making the franchise all about death-defying set-pieces (see Cruise scaling up the Burj Khalifa). Variety called the movie’s action scenes “dazzling individual set pieces” and added, “Pixar wizard Brad Bird’s live-action debut serves up sights and action sequences of often jaw-dropping ingenuity and visual flair.” With the final two “Mission: Impossible” films on the way, it’s never a bad time to relive Ethan Hunt’s adventures.
Young Adult (May 1 on HBO Max)
Charlize Theron gives one of her best performances in Jason Reitman’s dark comedy “Young Adult,” in which she stars as an unraveling and alcoholic author who returns to her hometown and causes havoc on the friends and family she left behind. From Variety’s review: “‘Young Adult’ revels in breaking the rules of safe Hollywood storytelling… For Theron, this represents a different kind of performance from ‘Monster’ and ‘North Country,’ for which she won plaudits while allowing herself to look superficially unattractive. Here, the actress plays closer to home, inviting audiences to observe the process by which she makes herself beautiful, painting on makeup, clipping her nails and attaching hair extensions to disguise her physical flaws. But the scowl etched on her face reveals the ugliness within, demonstrating a naked candor — one that extends to the screenplay itself — that’s plenty admirable, in part because it’s so squirm-inducing to behold.”
Mean Girls (May 2 on Paramount+)
High school classic “Mean Girls” should make Paramount+ an appealing destination for millennials this month, as the Tina Fey-scripted 2004 comedy remains as watchable and endlessly quotable as ever. Lindsey Lohan plays a new girl at her high school who befriends the most popular girls in school (including breakout comedic performances from Rachel McAdams and Amanda Seyfried) on a secret mission to bring them down. From Variety’s review: “The model here clearly is ‘Clueless’ — still the high water mark for post-John Hughes high school comedies — with a nod to ‘Heathers.’ The result feels perhaps closest to 1999 Drew Barrymore vehicle ‘Never Been Kissed’ in its story of an unhip girl going undercover to achieve popularity, hurting her friends in the process and then emerging from hiding to dole out humanity lessons.”

Must Read

Film
COVER | Sebastian Stan Tells All: Becoming Donald Trump and Starring in 2024’s Most Controversial Movie
By Andrew Wallenstein 3 weeks

Sign Up for Variety Newsletters

By providing your information, you agree to our Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.We use vendors that may also process your information to help provide our services. // This site is protected by reCAPTCHA Enterprise and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

ncG1vNJzZmiukae2psDYZ5qopV%2BhtrTA0miZnqukYrqwwsieqmarpKeyornIp55mpZGuenN8kWtm

VoxVib

23 Best Movies New to Streaming in May: Sonic 2, The Matrix Resurrections and More

The Lost City (May 10 on Paramount+)

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (May 24 on Paramount+)

The Matrix Resurrections (May 10 on HBO Max)

Jackass 4.5 (May 20 on Netflix)

Old (May 13 on HBO Max)

Navalny (May 26 on HBO Max)

42 (May 1 on Netflix)

Crazy Stupid Love (May 1 on Netflix)

Road to Perdition (May 1 on Netflix)

When Harry Met Sally (May 1 on Netflix)

Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers (May 20 on Disney+)

Drag Me to Hell (May 1 on Hulu)

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (May 1 on Hulu)

Marie Antoinette (May 1 on Hulu)

Take This Waltz (May 1 on Hulu)

Tangerine (May 1 on Prime Video)

Zero Dark Thirty (May 1 on Prime Video)

Sideways (May 1 on Prime Video)

Emergency (May 27 on Prime Video)

Gladiator (May 2 on Paramount+)

Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol (May 2 on Paramount+)

Young Adult (May 1 on HBO Max)

Mean Girls (May 2 on Paramount+)

Read More About:

More from Variety

Most Popular

Must Read

Sign Up for Variety Newsletters

Variety Confidential