Streaming

5 must-watch movies and TV shows streaming right now

The best of what's new on Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney Plus, and more.

By Kevin Slane

August 12, 2022

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Welcome to Boston.com’s weekly streaming guide. Each week, we recommend five must-watch movies and TV shows available on streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO Max, and more.

Many recommendations are for new shows, while others are for under-the-radar releases you might have missed or classics that are about to depart a streaming service at the end of the month.

Have a new favorite movie or show you think we should know about? Let us know in the comments, or email [email protected]. Looking for even more great streaming options? Check out previous editions of our must-see list here.

Movies

“Conspiracy Theory”

August 8, 1997, may have only been 25 years ago, but things were quite different back then. Julia Roberts was the biggest star in Hollywood, Mel Gibson was a beloved screen icon with zero anti-Semitic rants to his name, and the notion that the government was controlled by a “deep state” was a little-known fringe conspiracy theory. In “Conspiracy Theory,” which topped the box office that week, Gibson plays an eccentric taxi driver whose paranoid delusions about the deep state turn out to be totally accurate, sending him and a sympathetic Justice Department lawyer (Roberts) on the run. If you can turn your brain off and ignore the fact that some scholars have argued that the film helped mainstream deep-state conspiracies, “Conspiracy Theory” is an enjoyable romp with two A-list leads at the top of their game.

How to watch: “Conspiracy Theory” is streaming on Hulu.

“Thirteen Lives”

With movies like “Rush” and “Apollo 13,” director Ron Howard has shown he has a deft hand in adapting dramatic real-life stories for the big screen. His latest, “Thirteen Lives,” recounts the intense 18-day effort to rescue a Thai youth soccer team trapped in a cave. The film tackles every angle of the global, 10,000-person effort to rescue the team, but focuses most keenly on a group of British divers who navigated the flooded maze of caverns to ultimately free them. Starring Colin Farrell (“In Bruges”), Viggo Mortenson (“Green Book”), and Joel Edgerton (“The Great Gatsby”), “Thirteen Lives” is a tense but ultimately uplifting movie that will temporarily restore your faith in humanity.

How to watch: “Thirteen Lives” is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

TV

“A League of Their Own”

Hollywood — and America — were obsessed with baseball during a five-year period from 1988 to 1993, in which films like “Major League,” “Field of Dreams,” “Bull Durham,” “The Sandlot,” and “A League of Their Own” all hit home runs with critics and audiences alike. Now, 30 years after its initial release, Amazon Prime Video has given “A League of Their Own” the series treatment, swapping World War II-era ball-playing gals Geena Davis, Madonna, and Rosie O’Donnell for modern stars like Abbi Jacobson (“Broad City”), D’Arcy Carden (“The Good Place”), and Chanté Adams (“Roxanne Roxanne”), and subbing Nick Offerman (“Parks & Recreation”) in for Tom Hanks as the team manager. For streaming fans who miss the female athletic camaraderie of Netflix’s canceled series “Glow,” “League” offers the same mix of likable characters and captivating storylines. (As a bonus, Prime Video also has the streaming rights to the 1992 movie if you want to compare and contrast the two.)

How to watch: “A League of Their Own” is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

“Never Have I Ever” Season 3

Mindy Kaling’s coming-of-age high school comedy enters its junior year this Friday, with Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) stumbling into yet another boy of her dreams. Like seasons past, such illusions will certainly be shattered, but she and her friends will have plenty of laughs along the way. In between the giggles, however, “Never Have I Ever” continues to tug at the heartstrings, as Kaling continues to tell a story of processing grief inspired by her own mother’s death.

How to watch: “Never Have I Ever” Season 3 is streaming on Netflix.

“Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99”

“Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99” is one of those Netflix releases that feels silly to categorize as either a movie or a series. Technically, it’s a three-part docuseries, but with Netflix’s auto-play turned on, it’s essentially a two-hour documentary about the infamous music festival, which took the peace, love, and happiness of Woodstock ’69 and lit it on fire. Director Jamie Crawford effectively rebuts prevailing wisdom of the time that unsavory characters drawn by the dark, angry music of headliners Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Rage Against the Machine were predominately to blame for the violence and wanton destruction at the festival. Instead, “Trainwreck” shows how cost-cutting decisions by the festival led to dangerous, inhumane conditions, and how organizers almost managed to cover it all up until the crowd fully turned against them.

How to watch: “Trainwreck: Woodstock ’99” is streaming on Netflix.