A new month means more movies are added to your favorite streamers’ libraries. Hulu is no exception, as the streamer wasted no time in releasing one of the best Predator movies ever, Predator: Killer of Killers.
That movie has a 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, but what other new films have around the same score and are worth your time and attention?
Watch With Us has done the dirty work and found three films — a sci-fi classic, a last chapter in a romantic movie trilogy and an acclaimed drama — that were just added to Hulu and have an RT score of 90 percent or better.
These films were lavished with praise when they were first released, and they’re just as good now as they were back then.
‘Alien’ (1979)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 93 percent
In space, no one can hear you scream, but in a crowded movie theater, all bets are off. Ridley Scott’s groundbreaking sci-fi horror film was an instant hit in 1979 and spawned a multimedia franchise that’s still thriving today.
In deep space, the crew of the spaceship Nostromo responds to a distress signal from a distant planet. What they find is a terrifying organism that immediately claims one of their own and stalks them on their own spaceship. As one crew member after another dies by the creature’s hand, it’s up to officer Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) to help the other survivors and somehow kill an alien with acid for blood and no instinct other than to kill.
It’s not really a spoiler to reveal she survives, since Ripley is now recognized as one of the most famous sci-fi heroes of all time. The enduring appeal of the first Alien movie is how quiet, subtle and poetic it is. It takes its time to establish each crew member’s personality, so when they are inevitably killed, you actually feel sad when they perish. Add in a moody score by Jerry Goldsmith and stunning cinematography by Derek Vanlint, and you have a timeless movie that is as modern, scary and entertaining today as it was nearly half a century ago.
‘Before Midnight’ (2013)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 98 percent
Richard Linklater is one of the best American filmmakers working today, and his crowning achievement is the Before trilogy: 1995’s Before Sunrise, 2001’s Before Sunset and 2013’s Before Midnight. Each movie chronicles the evolving relationship between Celine (Julie Delpy) and Jesse (Ethan Hawke), a Gen X couple who fall in love, lose contact with each other and reconnect years later.
Before Midnight picks up where Sunset left off, with Jesse and Celine now in a committed relationship with children and entering middle age. They’re still restless, though, and face an uncertain future when Celine receives an offer to work in the French government, while Jesse feels the need to settle in Chicago to be closer to his teenage son Hank. While they care for each other, each of them has changed, and Celine wonders whether they should be together anymore.
Before Midnight is the most melancholy entry of the trilogy, as it deals with all the pain and regret that comes with advancing age. Jesse and Celine are no longer young and in love, nor are they curious about what a future would look like with them together. They’re now living with the reality of being together, and it’s not as ideal as they — or anyone — have pictured.
There’s something touching and essential about Before Midnight; it’s the rare movie that’s honest about the limitations of idealized romance and how love really endures. The ending is so perfect, it makes you wish Linklater never makes another follow-up with these beloved characters again.
Before Midnight is streaming on Hulu.
‘Blue Jasmine’ (2013)
Rotten Tomatoes score: 90 percent
New York City socialite Jasmine Francis (Cate Blanchett) is out of money and out of options. That’s why she goes to San Francisco to live with her estranged sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins), and takes a job at a dentist’s office to rebuild her life. But as much as she wants to avoid the past, Jasmine can’t outrun it forever, and the more she resists, the harder it will be for her to face an uncertain future.
Blue Jasmine is directed by Woody Allen, who is best known for his signature NYC-set classics like Annie Hall and Hannah and Her Sisters, but it contains little of his trademark humor or authorial imprint. That’s a good thing, as the film’s compelling story (which owes a lot to the real-life case of Bernie Madoff) and superb lead performance by Blanchett make Blue Jasmine one of the best films of the 2010s. This is a comedy in name only as Jasmine’s ripped-from-the-headlines story evolves into a tragedy worthy of Tennessee Williams.
Blue Jasmine is streaming on Hulu.
