Beyond original TV shows and the live feature, Hulu boasts an overflowing movie library. We picked the 25 best movies Hulu has to offer.
If you thought that Hulu was the streaming service only for watching FX shows the morning after they premiere, think again. From newer hits to must-see classics, Hulu has a solid list of movies waiting just a few clicks away. Here are the 25 best Hulu movies right now.
Last updated on May 12, 2023.
25. Deep Water
Year: 2022
Cast: Ana de Armas, Ben Affleck, Tracy Letts, and Lil Rey Howery
Genre: Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 115 minutes
Director: Adrian Lyne
Trailer: Watch here
Divisive? Yes. This thriller is dripping wet with divisiveness, but where else are you going to get your 1990s sleaze fix nowadays? To wit, this psychological marriage thriller brought Adrian “Fatal Attraction” Lyne out of a 20-year retirement, and while it’s not nearly as steamy as his previous work, it offers up a lot of the same bodily motions. Melinda and Vic have a unique matrimonial union: they stay together for the kids, and Melinda gets all the lovers she wants. Sadly (and predictably), Vic gets more than a little jealous, and one-night stands go a little missing. But is Vic really to blame? And if he is, and Melinda is into it, is that super duper weird? Affleck channels big Gone Girl energy, and his work alongside de Armas will challenge you not to yuck someone else’s yum.
24. Boston Strangler
Year: 2023
Cast: Keira Knightley, Carrie Coon, Alessandro Nivola, and Chris Cooper
Genre:True Crime, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 112 minutes
Director: Matt Ruskin
Trailer: Watch here
We’ve entered an era where major news stories from a half-century ago can be given the glossy Spotlight treatment, using the past to illuminate how we feel about the present. In the case of this explosive film by writer/director Matt Ruskin, it’s the terror-filled reign of the Boston Strangler. Or, more specifically, reporters Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole connecting the dots and uncovering how badly the police department is handling the serial killer. Naturally, they’ve got to watch their backs with a guy out there killing women, but they’ve also got to navigate the patriarchal stubbornness of institutions protecting themselves instead of dealing with a genuine danger to the public. This is another incisive look at two fearless, competent journalists riding a chilling undercurrent of murder.
23. Rosaline
Year: 2022
Cast: Kaitlyn Dever, Isabela Merced, Kyle Allen, Sean Teale, Minnie Driver, Bradley Whitford, and Christopher McDonald
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 95 minutes
Director: Karen Maine
Trailer: Watch here
As most everyone in a high school literature class might remember (or be plagued by), Rosaline is the “immature” love that Romeo sloughs off in order to pursue the forbidden hottie he spied across the crowded party. Real mature. Now, she gets her due in an excellent romantic comedy that injects some well-trod Shakespeare with Dever’s deadpan and scorned woman revenge. It’s a genuine delight with 2020’s sarcasm stuffed into gorgeous period costumes, utilizing the most familiar love story in the Western canon to let us imagine how the side characters must have felt when the spotlight drifted away from them.
22. Hellraiser
Year: 2022
Cast: Jamie Clayton, Odessa A’zion, Adam Faison, Drew Starkey, Brandon Flynn, Aoife Hinds, Jason Liles, Yinka Olorunnife, Selina Lo, and Zachary Hing
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 121 minutes
Director: David Bruckner
Trailer: Watch here
It’s usually easy money to bet against a horror remake, especially one as revered as Clive Barker‘s 1987 gore masterwork. However, this is one time you’d lose your wager and at least a pound of flesh. Proving that his V/H/S and Southbound horror shorts were no fluke, Bruckner imbues this reimagining with profound reverence for the original while making the new breed its own thing. That largely means dropping the beloved video nasty saturation for the slick polish of high-tech filmmaking, giving the Hannibal treatment to scenes of exquisite torment. This time around, it’s a young woman trying to solve what happened to her brother after he gets nicked by the blade inside a hellish puzzle cube that summons otherworldly sadists. As a bonus, Jamie Clayton absolutely owns as Pinhead.
21. Hell Or High Water
Year: 2016
Cast: Ben Foster, Chris Pine, Dale Dickey, Katy Mixon, Gil Birmingham, and Jeff Bridges
Genre: Neo-Western, Crime, Mystery
Rating: R
Runtime: 102 minutes
Director: David Mackenzie
Trailer: Watch here
In case you weren’t sure about it, robbing banks with a chaotic neutral partner is not a great idea. That’s what Toby has to put up with while stealing FDIC-insured money with his hyped-up brother Tanner. Their sibling dysfunction is the bad news. The badder news is that two Texas Rangers are on their trail, but Toby and Tanner are doing all the marauding for a good reason: to save the family farm from disclosure by using the bank’s money to pay what they owe. Mackenzie’s direction is confident and potent, but screenwriter Taylor Sheridan is the one who used the success of the film to launch an emergent career of crafting your dad’s favorite modern movies. It’s revitalized the genre enough that Yellowstone would not exist without it.
20. The French Dispatch
Year: 2021
Cast: Owen Wilson, Benecio del Toro, Tilda Swinton, Henry Winkler, Saoirse Ronan, Ed Norton, Anjelica Huston, Bill Murray, and everyone else in every Wes Anderson movie
Genre:Comedy, Drama, Anthology
Rating: R
Runtime: 108 minutes
Director: Wes Anderson
Trailer: Watch here
It’s 1975, and the revered(?) editor of The French Dispatch dies, leaving behind instructions to print a temporary final issue containing his obituary and four investigative new stories. Enter the typical Anderson cast of dozens portraying idiosyncratic figures modeled off of real-life writers and art dealers and other firmly Anderson-esque types. We’re almost three decades into Anderson refining his style, making what amounts to the same movie every outing while also experimenting wildly. It’s a little surprising he hasn’t attacked an anthology like this until now, but the structure works wonders for his aesthetic, spinning a series of fantastical and humane yarns with the brakes broken off the side-car-attached motorbike as it races through the fictional French countryside.
19. On The Count Of Three
Year: 2021
Cast: Jerrod Carmichael, Christopher Abbott, Tiffany Haddish
Genre: Drama, Comedy
Rating: R
Runtime: 89 minutes
Director: Jerrod Carmichael
Trailer: Watch here
Comedian Jerrod Carmichael commits his directorial debut to this darkly funny drama about two best friends who make a suicide pact that goes off the rails over the course of one day. Carmichael plays Val while Christopher Abbott plays his buddy Kevin. Both men are disillusioned with their lives, struggling with mental health issues and past traumas. They make a deal to kill each other but before going through with the act, they live out their final day by sowing all kinds of chaos and doing a bit of good along the way.
18. The King’s Man
Year: 2021
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Matthew Goode, Tom Hollander, Harris Dickinson, Djimon Hounsou, Charles Dance, and Daniel Bruhl
Genre:Spy, Action, Comedy
Rating: R
Runtime: 131 minutes
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Trailer: Watch here
Wisely pivoting away from the 1990s-set uproarious action of its predecessors, this installment breathes new life into the breakneck, irreverent series by shifting back to the most secretive secret service’s inception. Situating itself in historical events, the film features an aristocrat launching a spy network, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that incited World War I, and the mad wonder of Rhys Ifans as Rasputin. It’s as ridiculous and shocking as the first two films, with Matthew Vaughn once again providing the kind of smart debauchery that sneaks its way into polite society because of how well its dressed. Naturally, it also satisfies that itch to see some truly heinous people save the world as only they can.
17. I, Tonya
Year: 2017
Cast: Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, Allison Janney, Caitlin Carver, McKenna Grace, Julianne Nicholson, and Paul Walter Hauser
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Biopic
Rating: R
Runtime: 119 minutes
Director: Craig Gillespie
Trailer: Watch here
In 1994, professional figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was attacked after practice, presumably with the intent to make her physically incapable of competing in the U.S. Championships. Screenwriter Steven Rogers was inspired to write I, Tonya after interviewing beset figure skater Tonya Harding and her attach-plotting ex-husband Jeff Gillooly to discover that both had very, very different views on how the infamous scandal all went down. The result is a gonzo ride through identity, the lengths the ego will go to defend itself, and the ultimate question of how the public chooses to believe or not believe rumors about celebrities. Margot Robbie is dynamite (as is the rest of the cast including Sebastian Stan and Allison Janney). She was also four when the scandal broke and grew up in Australia, so she had no idea that it was based on real events until after reading the script.
16. The Meg
Year: 2018
Cast: Jason Statham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson
Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi,
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 113 minutes
Director: John Turteltaub
Trailer: Watch here
Cinema could always use a few more big dumb shark movies and this Jason Statham-starring thriller delivers on every promise of the genre. There are scientists exploring deep sea caverns that they have no business messing with. There’s a stoic, grumpy hero tasked with saving humanity. There’s an obtuse wise-cracking billionaire providing some comic relief. And then there’s the film’s central antagonist, a water-dwelling monster so massive, so deadly, you almost walk away impressed by the havoc it wreaks.
15. The Town
Year: 2010
Cast: Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner, Chris Cooper, Blake Lively, Titus Welliver, and Pete Postlethwaite
Genre: Crime, Thriller, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 125 minutes
Director: Ben Affleck
Trailer: Watch here
Four Charlestown-bred BFFs plan one last heist at Fenway Park, while one of their number starts to have a conscience and a budding romance with a bank teller who they took hostage during a clunky robbery attempt. Ben Affleck’s second outing as a director is a muscular, mature crime drama that showed a clear path forward from the excellent Gone Baby Gone to the Oscar-worthy Argo. It was proof of his staying power as a director, as well as a leap forward for almost all the other actors involved, minting stars and statue-holders from up-and-comers. It also had the distinctive honor of premiering at the very baseball field that the crew planned to rob in the movie.
14. Fresh
Year: 2022
Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sebastian Stan, Jojo T. Gibbs, Charlotte Le Bon, Andrea Bang, Dayo Okeniyi, and Brett Dier
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 114 minutes
Director: Mimi Cave
Trailer: Watch here
This delightful terror from Mimi Cave has a lot of the markings of a rom-com: the struggling single 20-something fed up with dating apps, the loving best pal with harsh truths, and the meet cute with the handsome guy who’s a little rough around the edges. When lovelorn Noa hits it off with the dashing Steve (can a “Steve” be “dashing”?), it should be a matter of time before they’re in rom-com heaven, except for the hard left turn into horror town. If you think you know what happens, you’re probably only about 34% correct as this terrific film twists and turns down a dark rabbit hole filled with excellent surprises.
13. Nightmare Alley
Year: 2021
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Bradley Cooper, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, Rooney Mara, and David Strathairn
Genre: Drama, Crime, Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 150 minutes
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Trailer: Watch here
Guillermo del Toro has emerged as the rightful heir to Hitchcock without all the personal baggage. He’s a wondrous filmmaker with a boundless imagination, and his love for genre means that he’s a loving encyclopedia in front of the page and behind the camera. In Nightmare Alley, Cooper plays a carnival-trained psychic pitching himself to the wealthy and powerful in order to move up in the world. When his act has devastating consequences, he spirals into a psychological fit of despair, but he’ll have to fight his depression while trying not to lose everything else he’s got.
12. Spencer
Year: 2021
Cast: Kristen Stewart, Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall, Jack Nielen, Freddie Spry, Jack Farthing, and Stella Gonet
Genre: Drama, Biopic
Rating: R
Runtime: 117 minutes
Director: Pablo Larrain
Trailer: Watch here
From The Crown to a handful of documentaries, there’s been a burst of renewed interest in Princess Diana. With all that competition, it’s difficult to say who’s crafted the definitive performance, but in Spencer, which stars Kristen Stewart, she certainly gave it her all in this laser focused drama. Unlike other projects that want to tell the full story or capture Princess Diana as a symbol for something larger, Spencer homes in on one Christmas in 1991 when she contemplates seriously divorcing Prince Charles and leaving the royal family. How do you weight a choice like that? It’s a stirring film, made outstanding by Stewart’s humane take on the real-life role.
11. Crimes Of The Future
Year: 2022
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Lea Seydoux, Scott Speedman, Kristen Stewart, and Lihi Kornowski
Genre: Horror, Drama, Sci-Fi
Rating: R
Runtime: 107 minutes
Director: David Cronenberg
Trailer: Watch here
How many ears is too many ears? In this new work by body horror master David Cronenberg, Mortensen plays a performance artist who has his organs removed in each foray only to have new ones grow back due to an experimental genetic process. It’s a (not so far off) future where computers interface with body implants, but these performances push the boundaries of thought and taste even for this plastic surgery numbed crowd. Originally planned for 2003, this long-gestating project has been through many incarnations and is absolutely worth the wait. It’s one of the best films of 2022, raising more questions than it answers and offering a potentially prescient look into one possible direction for body modification.
10. Black Swan
Year: 2010
Cast: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, and Barbara Hershey
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Rating: R
Runtime: 108 minutes
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Trailer: Watch here
In 2008, Aronofsky released The Wrestler, a drama about a has-been looking for one last taste of pure perfection in the ring. He followed it up with a companion story about a ballerina seeking the same. Nina Sayers is a young dancer in the world-renowned New York City Ballet, striving to score the lead role in a performance of Swan Lake while managing an infantilizing, over-protective mother and a frenemy who may or may not want to take Nina’s place. It’s a phantasmagoria of obsession and the violent lengths some might go to in order to reach an artistic pinnacle.
9. Triangle Of Sadness
Year: 2022
Cast: Harris Dickinson, Charlbi Dean, Woody Harrelson, Dolly de Leon, Zlatko Buric, Iris Berben, Vicki Berlin, Henrik Dorsin, Jean-Christophe Folly, Amanda Walker, Oliver Ford Davies, and Sunnyi Melles
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 147 minutes
Director: Ruben Ostlund
Trailer: Watch here
The less said about the plot of this wealthy-skewering black comedy the better, because it’s jaw-dropping surprises are worth staying in the dark. Suffice it to say that a famous couple and a bunch of richie rich types are on a private luxury cruise where things do not go according to plan. In addition to a Best Picture nomination, Triangle of Sadness has earned a slew of Oscar nominations and awards, primarily for its performances and its deft satire of people who should be taxed into oblivion. Funny and shocking, it makes a wonderful companion to The White Lotus.
8. Rye Lane
Year: 2023
Cast: David Jonsson, Vivian Oparah
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Rating: R
Runtime: 82 minutes
Director: Raine Allen-Miller
Trailer: Watch here
The story behind this modern-day rom-com isn’t especially revolutionary, but the comedic chemistry between its two leads and the fresh direction from Raine Allen-Miller elevate it to one of the better comedies we’ve seen this year. David Jonsson and Vivian Oparah play Dom and Yas, two people reeling from devastating break-ups who meet at a market in South London. They decide to help each other heal from their romantic troubles in increasingly funny ways before realizing they just might have a connection of their own.
7. The Shape Of Water
Year: 2017
Cast: Sally Hawkins, Doug Jones, Michael Shannon, Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer, and Michael Stuhlbarg
Genre: Fantasy, Drama, Fish-Based Romance
Rating: R
Runtime: 123 minutes
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Trailer: Watch here
Another beautifully weird del Toro flick, The Shape of Water forced the Academy Awards to reckon with the forbidden love between a woman and some kind of fish monster. There’s just no way that del Toro wasn’t inspired to make this film by his time working on Abe Sapien in the Hellboy movies, but instead of diving headlong into superhero action, he chose romance. Sally Hawkins plays a mute custodian working at a secret government lab where the humanoid amphibian thing (Doug Jones, naturally) swims around and, ultimately, learns to fall in love. Sadly, the government isn’t super into these two being together, so they have to race against the powers that be in order to secure their fishy future.
6. Nomadland
Year: 2020
Cast: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Bob Wells, Peter Spears, and a cast of dozens
Genre: Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 107 minutes
Director: Chloe Zhao
Trailer: Watch here
Shortly after her husband dies, Fern loses her job at a gypsum plant and dumps all of her savings into a van so she can finally see the country. Boy does she see it. This film is largely a showcase of Frances McDormand‘s peerless acting talents, as well as a series of interwoven vignettes about the weird Americans you meet on the road. All of it is wrapped inside a drama about how hard it is to be poor in the United States, viewing through Fern the limited choices people get to make when they have to navigate without a safety net. It’s easy to see why it won Best Picture at the Oscars, the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, and the Indie Spirit Awards.
5. Bridesmaids
Year: 2011
Cast: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Rating: R
Runtime: 125 minutes
Director: Paul Feig
Trailer: Watch here
It’s hard to believe now, but back in the mid-aughts, there were questions as to whether women could pull off raunchy comedy. This film, written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, set those doubts to rest. Wiig plays the messy, flawed heroine Annie, a down-on-her-luck baker trying to support her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) who’s about to get married. The build-up to the wedding is complicated by Lillian’s new friendship with the wealthy Helen (a terrific Rose Byrne), a couple of wild bridesmaids (Melissa McCarthy is the stand-out), and Annie’s own financial/relationship troubles. Come for the cringy Jon Hamm sex scenes and quotable one-liners, stay for a bit of bathroom humor so funny, so gross, once you see it you’ll be referencing it for years to come.
4. Prey
Year: 2022
Cast: Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers, Dane DiLiegro, Stormee Kipp, Michelle Thrush, Julian Black Antelope, Stefany Mathias, and Bennett Taylor
Genre: Action, Adventure, Horror, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 100 minutes
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Trailer: Watch here
Just as he took Cloverfield in an intimate, powerful new direction, Dan Trachtenberg has reimagined the slumping Predator franchise into something fresh, ground-level, and fun as hell. Leaping hundreds of years back from our first Schwarzenegger-soaked encounter, Prey focuses on young Comanche healer Naru (Amber Midthunder) who wants to be a warrior. She gets her chance when the iconic alien hunter tries to take out her tribe. Filled with fantastic performances, great special effects, and more depth than a Predator film maybe deserves, it’s the truly refreshing late-franchise film that wins by being serious about being different than what came before.
3. Pig
Year: 2021
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff, Brandy the Pig, Adam Arkin, Nina Belforte, Gretchen Corbett, and David Knell
Genre: Drama, Mystery
Rating: R
Runtime: 92 minutes
Director: Michael Sarnoski
Trailer: Watch here
Rob Feld is a truffle hunter living in an isolate cabin in Oregon. He’s attacked, and his prized truffle pig is stolen, launching him on a challenging quest to get it back. While everyone was making gags about Cage being an unhinged actor, he made this raw, quietly profound story (in between performances that are, let’s not joke, truly unhinged). The point is that Cage has absolutely phenomenal range that has only broadened and deepened with age. Think of this as Okja meets John Wick without all the gunplay.
2. Palm Springs
Year: 2020
Cast: Andy Samberg, Cristin Milioti, J.K. Simmons, Peter Gallagher, Camila Mendes, June Squibb, Meredith Hagner, and Tyler Hoechlin
Genre: Comedy, Sci-Fi, Rom-Com, Mystery
Rating: R
Runtime: 90 minutes
Director: Max Barbakow
Trailer: Watch here
Groundhog Day was so good at what it did that the idea of a repeated-day plot seemed impossible for years. That’s changed recently, with a handful of inventive, successful movies (like Happy Death Day) which spun the concept into new territory. Palm Springs hits that sweet spot beautifully, dumping two wedding guests into an endless time loop that challenges them to break loose, live honestly, and solve the mystery of why they’re perpetually at an annoying reception 90 minutes from Los Angeles. Samberg and Milioti are a killer pair here, ignoring Bogey and Bacall-style chemistry for more sardonic flair that nonetheless makes you want to root for them as individuals and as a romantic team. It’s also funny, strange, and very sweet.
1. Dunkirk
Year: 2017
Cast: Fionn Whitehead, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy
Genre: Drama, History
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 106 minutes
Director: Christopher Nolan
Trailer: Watch here
Christopher Nolan delivers yet another action epic with this World War II retelling of the Battle of Dunkirk. The film is split into multiple timelines — a narrative device that doesn’t always work — to tell the story of a legion of Allied soldiers under siege by the German military near the end of the war. Most of the drama comes in trying to evacuate the masses of young men before they can be picked off by the enemy’s fighter planes but Nolan also gives us a glimpse of the psychological devastation war can wreak on those who survive it.
