11 top new movies streaming this week on Netflix, Prime Video, Hulu and more (Oct. 17-23)
There's something for everybody among the new movies streaming this week on demand, Netflix, Hulu and other streaming services. For spooky season lovers, Saw X and Cobweb are great options for fright nights, while comedies Old Dads and No Hard Feelings bring the laughs.
Plus, this week's new streaming movies include a documentary about the famous spy novelist John le Carré, an animated adventure that releases the kraken and a thriller that sees Nicolas Cage enter his Taken era.
Some titles are newly available via digital release, so you can purchase them for a premium price, but for others, all you need is the right streaming subscription. Here are the top new movies streaming this week.
The Miracle Club (PVOD)
Three of the best actresses working today — Maggie Smith, Kathy Bates and Laura Linney — headline this heartwarming tale of friendship. Smith, Bates and Agnes O’Casey play neighbors living in a hard-scrabble community in 1967 Dublin. They finally achieve their biggest dream by winning a pilgrimage to the sacred French town of Lourdes. But just before their trip, their estranged friend Chrissie (Linney) returns to Ireland after leaving in disgrace four decades prior. She joins their journey to Lourdes in place of her recently deceased mother, which reopens old wounds.
Buy on Amazon or Apple starting Oct. 17
The Retirement Plan (PVOD)
Will this action thriller join our list of the best Nicolas Cage movies? No. Still, it’s good to see Cage continuing to appear on screen. His taste in projects may be eclectic, but it can yield some interesting results (see: Pig). He plays the estranged father of daughter Ashley (Ashley Greene), who gets herself and her own young child Sarah (Thalia Campbell) caught up in a criminal enterprise that threatens their lives. Ashley turns to her dad, currently living the life of a beach bum in the Cayman Islands, for help. When crime boss Donnie (Jackie Earle Haley) and his lieutenant Bobo (Ron Perlman) track them down, Ashley soon discovers that her father is hiding a secret past.
Buy on Amazon or Apple starting Oct. 17
Cobweb (Hulu)
The latest entry to the creepy kid horror genre revolves around 8-year-old Peter (Woody Norman), who hears mysterious tapping noises from inside his bedroom wall. His parents Carol (Lizzy Caplan) and Mark (Antony Starr) deem his reports as childish imaginings. They also ban him from trick or treating due to the death of a little girl in the neighborhood years ago. But Peter continues to hear the noises, which turn into the voice of a girl named Sarah, who persuades Peter that his parents will kill him, just like they got rid of that dead trick-or-treater, unless he gets to them first.
Watch on Hulu starting Oct. 20
Old Dads (Netflix)
Comedian Bill Burr makes his directorial debut with this romp about three men in their late 40s who became fathers later in life. Burr, Bobby Cannavale and Bokeem Woodbine find themselves out of step in all aspects of their life. Their new CEO is a millennial who wants to turn the company into a “gender-neutral, carbon-neutral 21st-century lifestyle brand,” a phrase they barely understand. They also don’t fit in with the other parents at preschool, not to mention the perfectionist principal (Rachael Harris). And while Burr would do anything for his kid, he is having a very hard time dealing with anything created after 1987.
Watch on Netflix starting Oct. 20
The Pigeon Tunnel (Apple TV Plus)
The great documentarian Errol Morris trains his lens on the life and career of David Cornwell, aka John le Carré, the celebrated author of such classic espionage novels as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Constant Gardener. The documentary spans six decades, with particular emphasis on the Cold War years, as Morris chronicles Cornwell’s time as an intelligence officer in the British Army and MI5 and a covert foreign spy for MI6 before he turned to writing. Cornwell himself gives a candid, final interview, which is intercut with rare archival footage and dramatized vignettes.
Watch on Apple TV Plus starting Oct. 20
Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken (Peacock)
Dreamworks Animation’s most recent animated adventure follows a shy 15-year-old kraken girl named Ruby Gillman (voiced by Lana Condor), who is desperate to fit in at Oceanside High but mostly feels invisible. That isn’t helped by her overprotective mom (Toni Collette) forbidding Ruby from going into the ocean with the cool kids. When Ruby breaks the rule, she discovers she is a direct descendant of the warrior kraken queens who protect land and sea from evil mermaids. One day, she will inherit the throne from her imposing grandmother (Jane Fonda). Despite all that, Ruby is about to hit some choppy waters, as popular new girl Chelsea (Annie Murphy) just happens to be a mermaid.
Watch on Peacock starting Oct. 20
Silver Dollar Road
If you're in the mood to get mad about injustice, this documentary fits the bill — and then some. Director Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) expands on the 2019 ProPublica article to chronicle the Reels family as they fight to reclaim the land settled by their ancestors. Leading the charge are fierce matriarch Mamie Reels Ellison and her niece Kim Renee Duhon. They are also seeking to free their brothers and uncles Melvin and Licurtis, who were wrongfully imprisoned for eight years in what was the longest sentence for civil contempt in North Carolina history. The doc highlights the covert ways the legal system has been exploited to keep Black land ownership fragile and the racial wealth gap growing.
Watch on Prime Video starting Oct. 20
Saw X (PVOD)
Saw gets the reboot treatment with the 10th installment of the film franchise, which has grown convoluted in its timeline and nearly incomprehensible in story. Saw X seeks to undo the knots and simplify everything by taking place between James Wan’s original 2004 film and 2005’s Saw II. Afflicted with brain cancer, a desperate John Kramer (Tobin Bell) travels to Mexico to undergo a risky and experimental procedure, only to discover the entire operation is a scam. Angry on behalf of himself and other vulnerable patients, John transforms into his alter ego Jigsaw to exact vengeance using his terrifying, extremely bloody methods.
Buy on Amazon or Apple starting Oct. 20
Surrounded (Prime Video)
This throwback Western echoes the best of the genre made by masters like Sergio Leone and John Ford. Director Anthony Mandler takes tried-and-true tropes and gives them a modern flair and focus on race. Set five years after the Civil War, freedwoman and former Buffalo Soldier Moses "Mo" Washington (Letitia Wright) travels west disguised as a man to lay claim to a gold mine. After her stagecoach is ambushed by murderous thieves, Mo is forced to confine legendary outlaw Tommy Walsh (Jamie Bell) while the other surviving passengers go for help. A battle of wills follows, which blurs the line between captor and captive as both try to survive the harsh wilderness.
Watch on Prime Video starting Oct. 20
Werewolf by Night in Color
Last year, the Marvel Cinematic Universe got experimental by rolling out this 53-minute short film from director Michael Giacchino (best known as the composer for Lost and Up) that paid homage to classic horror presentations with a gothic tale and black-and-white visuals. This year, Disney Plus unveils the colorized version of the spooky special, which stars Gael García Bernal as Jack Russell, a monster hunter afflicted with a curse that turns him into a werewolf. After the death of the renowned Ulysses Bloodstone, Jack is summoned to his castle. There, the world’s top hunters — including Ulysses’ daughter Elsa (Laura Donnelly) are set up to compete for a powerful relic by tracking a monster in the gardens. A violent, bloody night ensues.
Watch on Disney Plus starting Oct. 20
No Hard Feelings (Netflix)
Ever since Jennifer Lawrence broke out as a star in the grim Winter’s Bone, she’s mostly shuffled between making dramas and action movies (with a couple of dark comedies sprinkled into the mix). Over the last few years, she’s dialed her career way, way back, focusing on having a family. Now, she’s back on the big screen doing something new: a screwball comedy.
Maddie’s car was just repossessed, making it impossible to keep working as an Uber driver. Facing bankruptcy and needing money, she finds an unusual job listing posted by rich helicopter parents who are seeking someone to "date-date" their awkward, introverted son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman). Though she vows to “date his brains out,” Maddie discovers Percy is no easy catch.
Watch on Netflix starting Oct. 22
