Hulu has been slower than some of its competitors getting in the original movie game, focusing more on building its library of films and developing original series. But it’s done a better job of securing rights to new movies that have just finished their theatrical runs. We’ll keep a running tab on the newest Hulu movies, including both originals and first-streaming films.
Below are eight newly added films from the streaming service. We’ll update the list as Hulu continues to produce new features and acquire the rights to recent films.
1. It’s a Wonderful Binge
Hulu Release Date: December 9, 2022
Director: Jeremy Garelick
Stars: Eduardo Franco, Dexter Darden, Zainne Saleh, Marta Piekarz, Danny Trejo, Tony Cavalero, Nick Swardson, Kaitlin Olson, Tim Meadows, Paul Scheer, Patty Guggenheim, Esteban Benito, Eileen Galindo, Karen Maruyama
Genre: Comedy
Rating: TVMA
The movies can’t all be candy canes, presents and mistletoe. In this sequel to 2020’s The Binge, the annual day of drinking and drugging happens to fall on Christmas. The press release for the movie promises that “the new holiday adventure will feature magical storybooks, catchy songs, stop-motion animation… and drugs! Lots of them!” —Amy Amatangelo
2. Matriarch
Hulu Release Date: October 21, 2022
Director: Ben Steiner
Stars: Jemima Rooper, Kate Dickie, Sarah Paul, Simon Meacock, Nick Haverson, Franc Ashman
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Paste Review Score: 7.2
Ben Steiner’s feature debut Matriarch continues a decade-long pop-culture fixation on Kate Dickie’s chest as a magnet for the bizarre, the uncomfortable, and the straightforwardly evil. In Game of Thrones, she plays a Lady Regent determinedly nursing her son, who is well beyond nursing years; in The Witch, she hallucinates nursing her baby, which is actually a raven pecking away at her chest; in Matriarch, well, embrace the mystery until seeing the film for yourself. But her figure is addressed directly in Steiner’s script more than once. As Celia, the official but unelected leader of her small town England, she is styled with a sense of glamor and sophistication, the best-dressed person in the village. Celia’s daughter Laura (Jemima Rooper) is in disbelief that her mom looks as good as she does, citing her age as somewhere in her 80s, though it’s not entirely clear whether she’s joking. After all, it’s been 20 years since they last saw each other. Maybe Laura simply doesn’t recognize her mother after that long passage of time; maybe Celia simply has good genes; maybe she’s taken good care of herself over those two long decades. Or maybe the truth lies in the wilderness surrounding the village. The movie doesn’t want for eldritch menace. Just like the black ichor seeping into Laura, Matriarch saturates viewers’ senses until it pays off its many adumbrations with unexpected revelations. —Andy Crump
3. Rosaline
Hulu Release Date: October 14, 2022
Director: Karen Maine
Stars: Kaitlyn Dever, Isabela Merced, Sean Teale, Kyle Allen, Spencer Stevenson
Genre: Romantic Comedy
Rating: PG-13
Paste Review Score: 6.5
Hollywood has proven its knack for transforming Shakespearean source material into teen rom-com gold. The math seems pretty straightforward: Take an already-familiar Shakespeare play. Subtract the Early Modern English. Hire twentysomethings who are way too attractive and physically developed to be teenagers to play them anyway. Throw in some steamy kissing scenes. Voila, you’ve got yourself a pretty great movie. Based upon the bestselling Rebecca Serle novel When You Were Mine, Rosaline attempts to cash in on this tried-and-tested hit-making formula—but finds that it’s not as foolproof as its previous users have made it out to be. Told through the perspective of Rosaline Capulet (Kaitlyn Dever), a character only briefly mentioned in the original Shakespeare work, Rosaline attempts to bring modern sensibilities to Romeo and Juliet. When the film begins, the lesser-known Capulet damsel is in the beginning stages of a secret love affair with Romeo Montague (Kyle Allen). Their romance has been kept hushed for two reasons: 1. Like the source material, the Capulet and Montague families are sworn enemies. 2. Rosaline’s father Adrian Capulet (Bradley Whitford) is trying to sell her off in an arranged marriage. The forbidden romance is starting to heat up until Rosaline finds herself unable to reciprocate Romeo’s confession of love, pushing the love-sick teen away and into the arms of another. While Romeo is busy falling in love-at-first-sight with Juliet (Isabela Merced), his new sweetheart who also happens to be his ex’s cousin, Rosaline is occupied by Dario (Sean Teale), another suitor sent by her father. Rosaline gets some things absolutely right—the casting of Dever, the use of music to lampoon genre clichés, its creative point of view—but it misses the mark it establishes for itself. It’s a misguided work that highlights the insincerities that have emerged in Hollywood’s recent charge towards “inclusion” and “diversity.” Movies that center marginalized characters, but lack the conviction (or heart) to do their stories justice are simply empty gestures. —Kathy Michelle Chacón
4. Grimcutty
Hulu Release Date: October 10, 2022
Director: John William Ross
Stars: Sara Wolfkind, Usman Ally, Shannyn Sossamon, Callan Farris, Alona Tal, Kayden Koshalev, Joel Ezra Hebner
Genre: Horror
Rating: TVMA
Paste Review Score: 5.5
Hulu’s meme horror hysteria Grimcutty avoids a fate worse than Slender Man, but that doesn’t mean John Ross’s film eviscerates his wet-noodle competition. Grimcutty relies on the nightmarish design of its lumbering practical entity, which weakens the more that monster actor Joel Ezra Hebner wobbles around in the top-heavy costume. Ross’ screenplay features exciting starting points for obsessive online conversations between parents and children, only for the execution to squander any urban legend intrigue with an unfortunate incompleteness that’s anything but a tightly wound boogeyman romp. Grimcutty’s events revolve around the Chaudhry family, only one household affected by a town-wide internet challenge called “Grimcutty.” Parents Leah (Shannyn Sossamon) and Amir (Usman Ally) interrogate youngest Kamran (Callan Farris) and older sister Asha (Sara Wolfkind) about neighborhood classmates cutting themselves under Grimcutty’s orders. Asha’s too busy recording ASMR videos to even know what her out-of-touch mother and father are babbling about—until Grimcutty appears in the Chaudhry’s kitchen. Amir institutes a “Detox Box,” where electronic devices stay locked away from usage to protect his offspring, but Asha rebels because the more that Amir and Leah fear Grimcutty’s legend, the more Asha confronts the knife-waving demon. To fight a viral meme, she’ll need WiFi access. There’s so much to chew on as Sossamon and Ally bear the natural imperfections of parenthood aloud until Grimcutty loses its creepiest flavors. Too much of a good thing becomes John Ross’ curse, as Grimcutty renders his demonic scowl impotent after the umpteenth close-up. Stick your landing, not your opening—Grimcutty works itself backward into a forgettable cyber-folktale fate. —Matt Donato
5. Hellraiser
Hulu Release Date: October 7, 2022
Director: David Bruckner
Stars: Odessa A’zion, Drew Starkey, Brandon Flynn, Adam Faison, Jamie Clayton, Goran Višnjic
Genre: Horror
Rating: R
Paste Review Score: 5.5
One point in favor of David Bruckner’s new Hellraiser is that it takes some time before it feels truly lost. A point against is that it takes some time before it does almost anything. Still, barely-recovering addict Riley (Odessa A’zion) is a more immediately compelling character than any of the humans in Barker’s movie, and her conflict with her brother and roommate Matt (Brandon Flynn) has a messy rawness that’s arguably missing from the earlier version’s joyless love triangle. Desperate for cash, fuming at her judgmental brother and involved with a fellow addict named Trevor (Drew Starkey), Riley agrees to break into a long-abandoned storage container and sell its contents. As it turns out, this includes a single item: A strange three-dimensional puzzle box with a series of knife-y surprises. When the box causes Riley to hallucinate and, seemingly, Matt to disappear, she becomes obsessed with tracking down its owner. It takes close to an hour of this set-up and detective work to lead into what seems to be the main event: Riley, Trevor, Matt’s boyfriend Colin (Adam Faison) and roommate Nora (Aoife Hinds) arriving at a remote mansion owned by a missing rich man—sort of a posh version of Saw or Escape Room. There are some human-laid traps, but moreover, the box has summoned Cenobites, a group of extra-dimensional beings, led by the Hell Priest (Jamie Clayton), known to horror fans, as well as probably some video-box-art connoisseurs, as Pinhead. What happens next I should not describe, presumably because it would spoil the movie, and also because I’m still confused by it. The movie is part slasher, part creature-feature and part psychological horror, with a healthy portion of everyone’s favorite horror villain: Trauma. All of these approaches have flashes of inspiration; in particular, Hellraiser contains some wonderfully gnarly makeup effects. What’s really lurking at the edge of this story, moreso than unspeakable desire or alternate-dimensional terror, is a bunch of lore, which seems like it would be of greater interest to hardcore Hellraiser fans than anyone else, possibly including the Cenobites. Barker’s Hellraiser is a vivid nightmare; Bruckner’s is a hazy dream. —Jesse Hassenger
6. Prey
Hulu Release Date: August 5, 2022
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Starring: Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers, Dane DiLiegro, Stormee Kipp, Michelle Thrush, Julian Black Antelope
Genre: Action
Rating: R
Runtime: 100 minutes
Paste Review Score: 8.0
Filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg’s Predator prequel Prey succeeds by daring to embrace what prior sequels did not: Simplicity. The basics of Predator cinema boil down to skull trophies and rival combat, but most of all, the thrill of an uninterrupted hunt. With brutal ease, writer Patrick Aison translates Predator codes to hunter-gatherer dichotomies in Native American cultures. There’s nothing scarier than the laws of natural hierarchies on display in their most elemental forms, and that’s what Prey recognizes with menacing regard. Trachtenberg understands what Predator fans crave, and executes without mercy. Set in the Northern Great Plains of 1719, Prey pits a Predator challenging any species’ alphas—wolves, bears, people—against a Comanche tribe. Taabe (Dakota Beavers) leads other boys on hunts while his sister Naru (Amber Midthunder) practices her deadliest skills in secrecy. She’s dismissed by most for her gender, but not by Taabe. Naru’s chance to defeat a lion (thanks to Taabe) and earn her warrior’s rite of passage fails when a Predator’s alien technology distracts from afar—which no one believes. Only Naru can protect her family and tribespeople from the unknown Yautja threat since no one will listen, which will be the warrior-wannabe’s ultimate test. Prey is inarguably the best Predator since the original. The film gets so much right, paying homage to John McTiernan’s 1987 masterwork—through cigars and direct quotes that it’ll have fans hooting—and adding Indigenous representation with real cultural strength. Trachtenberg and Aison keep things simple, and that’s the special sauce. The performances are tough-as-nails, action sequences absurdly gory and intensity streamlined like a high velocity arrow. By going back to beginnings, Prey sheds pounds of franchise dead weight for a leaner, meaner Predator prequel with all the spine-tearing, one-liner-spouting gladiatorial conquest that fans desire—computer-generated or not. —Matt Donato
7. Not Okay
Hulu Release Date: July 29, 2022
Director: Quinn Shephard
Stars: Zoey Deutch, Dylan O’Brien, Mia Isaac, Nadia Alexander
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: R
Runtime: 103 minutes
Paste Review Score: 7.7
The intricacies of online cancel culture, appropriation and white privilege are easy fodder for a satire. In a world where laughter is the best way to force the medicine down lest we start a war of the words, an opinion on cultural politics is best served as a caricature of itself, but one that still gets to the heart of its observations. That is where Hulu’s satirical romp Not Okay succeeds in spades. The film is accurate to what it’s portraying, from internet takedowns to Gen Z culture to digital media—and its main focus, the insidious encroachment of white feminism on different facets of the marginalized experience, is particularly laser-focused. The movie is an incessant interrogation of what our young people are becoming, what they want and what the rules are to get it, yet its humor and humility make it stand out as one of the better recent satires. Not Okay follows Danni (Zoey Deutch), a Caroline Calloway-obsessed, Gen Z, aspiring writer, as she navigates New York. She’s got no friends, no prospects and a dead-end day job as a photo editor for a popular magazine she’d rather be writing for. In a desperate bid for the attention of hot, culturally-appropriating weed blogger Colin (Dylan O’Brien), she fakes a trip to Paris for an exclusive writer’s retreat and shares the whole stay via Instagram, with doctored photos and everything. It all seems to have gone according to plan until tragedy strikes Paris in a way no one expected—and Danni is forced to incorporate it into her ruse, leading to unfettered access to the attention economy she so desperately sought. The second feature helmed and written by actor Quinn Shephard, Not Okay is well directed, choreographed and paced. You’d think a film in nine parts would be overkill, but it’s easily digestible and each section is justified in its break. It’s also a great dramatic framing device, forcing the audience to zero in on the movie’s focal points and main beats. What Not Okay examines is the price of the societal second chance, something that few, least of all Deutch’s Danni, are actually worth affording. —Lex Briscuso
8. The Princess
Hulu Release Date: July 1, 2022
Director: Le-Van Kiet
Stars: Joey King, Dominic Cooper, Olga Kurylenko, Veronica Ngo, Ed Stoppard, Alice Reid, Katelyn Rose Downey
Genre: Action
Rating: R
Runtime: 94 minutes
Paste Review Score: 7.4
In the first seven minutes of Le-Van Kiet’s The Princess, Joey King’s circumscribed protagonist kills three men with a hairpin, a warhammer and a tower window fortuitously overlooking the sea. For the film’s remaining 80 minutes, she keeps the streak going any way she can, which nicely suits Kiet’s inclinations as a director. If The Princess’ mood can be described in four words, those words are “calm the hell down.” Once Kiet gets his movie going, he takes only rare pauses here and there for plot buttressing flashbacks, then revs up the action and his audience like he’s judging a 5K. Backstory is fine. Seeing King introduce scores of anonymous leering henchmen to their varying deaths is better. The Princess makes a sandwich out of Brave and Moana, with Kiet’s best-known movie, Furie, as the filling: A spirited, fiercely independent princess (King), only ever addressed by her title, wakes up from a deep drug-induced snooze in her bedroom, chained up and with hazy memories of a betrothal that became a betrayal. Julius (Dominic Cooper), the entitled prince promised her hand by her father the king (Ed Stoppard), has led a coup against the kingdom with his army, slain the castle’s guards and taken her family—her father, her mother the queen (Alice Reid) and her sister Violet (Katelyn Rose Downey)—hostage. Lucky for them the princess is a warrior in waiting, trained in secret by Linh (Veronica Ngo), one of the king’s advisors. Let acrobatic medieval carnage commence! —Andy Crump