28 Must-Watch Movies on Hulu Right Now (September 2025)

It seems like spooky season starts earlier every year — does that mean it’s seasonally appropriate for us to watch Jennifer’s Body again? This dark horror-comedy was infamously mis-marketed to men because it starred Megan Fox, even though it’s actually a ruthlessly sharp movie about sexuality and female friendship.

Fox stars as Jennifer Check, a high school cheerleader who becomes possessed by a demon after a botched satanic ritual. This transformation leads her to start feeding on her male classmates to sustain her supernatural powers. Amanda Seyfried costars as Jennifer’s best friend, Needy Lesnicki, who discovers Jennifer’s deadly secret and struggles to stop her rampage while navigating their loving but complicated relationship.

If you loved The Fantastic Four and Superman and you’re eager for more superheroic shenanigans — especially with characters that will purportedly merge with the MCU in Avengers: Doomsday — you’ll be pleased to know that the Fox X-Men series is now on Hulu! Kicking things off is this film, which introduces two factions of mutants: the X-Men, led by Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), who aims to create peace between mutants and humans, and the Brotherhood of Mutants, led by Magneto (Ian McKellen), who believes that war is inevitable. 

Hugh Jackman‘s breakout role as Wolverine was hugely influential on the superhero genre, as the insane box office numbers from Deadpool & Wolverine would go on to show more than 20 years later.

This underrated and daring film stars Bel Powley (The Morning Show, A Small Light) as a teenage girl in 1970s San Francisco whose relationship with her inattentive mother Charlotte (Kristen Wiig) is further complicated when she begins an affair with Charlotte’s boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård). Adapted from a graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner, the film is a stylized and intimate look inside Minnie’s head, using animation and voiceover to express her most personal feelings. It’s a complicated movie about desire, consent and growing up.

Twin brothers Bill and Hal (both played by Theo James) share a traumatic past that involves an absentee father, a complicated upbringing and a lethal toy monkey that brings about people’s untimely deaths. The brothers buried the toy and seemingly put that ordeal behind them, but after 25 years the monkey is back and deadlier than ever. Bill and Hal must reunite and work together to overcome the monkey’s curse — or it will soon be lights out for them, too.

The Monkey is the rare horror movie that also works as pure comedy. Each death is more intentionally outlandish than the next. Director Osgood “Oz” Perkins (Longlegs) sought to make a film that showed the randomness and absurdity of death. He succeeded, resulting in a movie that will make you laugh while simultaneously covering your eyes.

Owning your home is the American dream, so when the McCall family — dad Josh (Ben Foster), mom Rachel (Cobie Smulders) and son Max (William Kosovic) — move into their new suburban home, what was once a fantasy becomes a wonderful, welcomed reality. But things start to deteriorate when a sharp corner in front of the home causes multiple accidents to occur that disturb Rachel — and excite Josh. Soon, Josh obsesses over when the next accident might occur, which causes him to neglect his family. Can Josh maintain what little sanity he has left?

Sharp Corner is an unconventional thriller in that the protagonist and the villain are the same person. Josh starts out as a well-meaning husband and father, who gradually transforms into someone who is willing to harm others to feel like he’s needed. The movie’s incredibly suspenseful, but it’s also a thoughtful examination of Josh’s wounded masculinity. The ending is a downer, but one you arguably won’t forget.

In a career full of memorable roles, Denzel Washington played one of his best — and underrated — characters in the 1995 retro thriller Devil in a Blue Dress. He stars as Easy Rawlins, an amateur private investigator hired to find a missing woman, Daphne Monet (Jennifer Beals). As Easy uncovers various clues regarding her whereabouts, he discovers a conspiracy involving the upcoming L.A. mayoral election involving a local gangster, Frank Green (Joseph Latimore). Can Easy find Daphne, save her and save himself in the process?

Devil in a Blue Dress was adapted from Walter Mosley’s acclaimed crime novel that mixed a hard-boiled plot with subtle social commentary about racism in post-WWII Los Angeles. As good as Washington is, a then-unknown Don Cheadle nearly steals the show as Easy’s shady associate, Mouse. It’s a performance not to be missed in a movie that’s as good as it gets.

In the horror comedy Ready or Not, Samara Weaving stars as Grace, a newlywed who just got hitched to her wealthy boyfriend, Alex Le Domas (Mark O’Brien). On their wedding night, Grace partakes in an unusual family tradition when Alex convinces her to play a game of hide-and-seek with his extended family. Grace soon realizes this game isn’t so innocent when several family members try to kill her while playing the game. Grace is marked for death, and she has to find out why or else her marriage — and life — will be over. 

Ready or Not is a bit bonkers, but it’s also a playful, well-paced movie that delivers plenty of scares — and laughs — as the audience, along with Grace, discovers the mystery behind her husband’s family. Anchoring all the madness is Weaving, who, in her blood-splattered wedding dress, is a heroine worthy of Kill Bill’s The Bride. It’s a fun movie to watch, especially if you’re thinking about meeting your partner’s family.  

2025 hasn’t been a great year for animated movies so far, but 2024 had some all-time bangers like Inside Out 2, Flow and The Wild Robot. None of them are quite as impressive — or odd — as Memoir of a Snail, an adults-only stop-motion animated film from Australia. 

The movie chronicles the sad saga of twin siblings, Grace (voiced by Sarah Snook) and Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who are separated when their father dies. As they mature into adults, they hope to one day reunite and live together, but dramatic events such as a forbidden relationship and an abusive foster family keep preventing that from happening.

July 2020 seems like a lifetime ago, but for Keith Gill (Paul Dano), that was the exact moment when his life changed forever. Noticing that video game store GameStop’s stock is at an all-time low, he decides to use his life savings and buy the stock for cheap. His actions start a chain of events that affect not only Keith, but his friends, family, a few millionaire stock investors and Wall Street.

Dumb Money dramatizes the very real account of how Gill brought financial power back into the hands of ordinary Joes like him, and how he beat Wall Street at their own financial game. Even if you don’t know what “short-selling stock” means, Dumb Money is accessible to everyone and enjoyable to all. That’s due in large part to the great ensemble cast, which includes Seth Rogen, Pete Davidson, Nick Offerman, Sebastian Stan and America Ferrera. 

In the distant future, space miner Andy’s (Hamilton’s Anthony Ramos) ship unexpectedly breaks down, forcing him to crash land on an alien planet that could be hostile. His AI-programmed suit is damaged, no one knows he’s missing and he has a limited supply of air. He’s not alone, though; Naomi (Naomi Scott) is stranded nearby in her escape pod, and she needs his help to leave it before she dies. Can Andy save Naomi and himself while also figuring out a way for both of them to return home?

Long Distance is a survival thriller that’s set in the unforgiving vastness of space rather than the wilderness. Andy’s problems are just the same as anywhere else — he has limited means and supplies to survive, and he has to rely on his wits to stay alive. That’s what makes Long Distance so gripping — it constantly pushes its protagonist into impossible situations, and you keep wondering how he’ll get out of them.

Sometime in the near future, population control is now enforced through a procedure known as “The Assessment.” If any couple wants a child, they have to endure a rigorous series of tests to determine whether they are fit to be parents.

Mia (Elizabeth Olsen) and Aaryan (Himesh Patel) desperately want a child, so they agree to be inspected by Virginia (Alicia Vikander), a government employee charged with determining if they are mentally and physically able to raise a healthy child. But soon, Virginia’s methods become less professional and more harmful as she tests Mia and Aaryan’s love for one another. Mia doesn’t think Virginia has their best interests at heart and wants to find out what the inspector is up to. Virginia has a secret she’s desperate to hide, and it could cost Mia more than a child.

The Assessment is a somber movie that works as both a sci-fi flick and a thriller. It will keep you guessing as to what Virginia is up to, or why Mia is so intent on having a baby. The film’s portrait of a dystopian future is strikingly original, and the ending is one you won’t forget soon.

The follow-up to 2018’s A Quiet Place finds Evelyn Abbott (Emily Blunt) and her two children looking for safe refuge after the events of the first film. They team up with Emmett (Cillian Murphy), a friend of her husband, Lee (John Krasinski), who has lost his family to the noise-sensitive aliens that have invaded Earth. Together, they seek out other survivors — and maybe find a way to beat the aliens once and for all.

A Quiet Place Part II is a rare sequel that’s just as good as the original, if not slightly better. The movie effectively expands the desolate world seen in the first film, with Evelyn encountering other survivors just like her. It feels like the next chapter in an epic story rather than a money grab. 

Fruitvale Station depicts the last day of Oscar Grant III, a real-life Oakland resident who was shot and killed by police on January 1, 2009. The movie starts with Oscar having a fight with his girlfriend and then follows him as he applies for a job, attends a birthday party and then becomes involved in a fight on a BART train that leads to his murder by two policemen.

Director Ryan Coogler and actor Michael B. Jordan began their fruitful partnership with this film, and you can see why they later collaborated on such hits as Creed and Sinners. They both create a haunting portrait of an innocent man who is just like you or me — someone who loves his family, is frustrated by his stagnant career and wants to do better in life. That’s what makes the inevitable tragedy that lies before him so powerful — and unforgettable.

“You’re killing me, Smalls!” The beloved kids classic The Sandlot returns to Hulu at just the right time in the summer when you’ve played a lot of ball games (or at least watched them on TV), eaten too many hot dogs and witnessed the visual splendor of 4th of July fireworks. 

Scott “Scotty” Smalls (Tom Guiry) is the new kid in town, and he faces spending the summer with his lonely single mom (Karen Allen). Fortunately, Benny (Mike Vitar) quickly befriends him and soon, he’s playing pickup baseball with him and the other neighborhood children. When a stray ball lands in the backyard of the fabled — and feared — beastly dog, Smalls and his new friends will have to overcome their fears to get it back or not play the sport they all love for the rest of the summer.

Even though it’s set in the early 1960s, The Sandlot is a timeless movie that gives off irresistible nostalgic vibes. Set and made in an age before cellphones and social media, it will make you long for the days when your only option to have fun was to go outside and find some adventure. Imagine that.

With the streaming success of 2022’s Prey, the dormant Predator franchise came roaring back to life. This year will see not one but two new Predator movies, with the first being Predator: Killer of Killers, an animated anthology from Prey director Dan Trachtenberg. 

The film takes place in three different eras — 800s Scandinavia, 1600s Japan and 1940s America — as different warriors take on various Predators. The film gives you what you want: to see Vikings and samurai battle aliens in a winner-takes-all deathmatch. Killer of Killers is appropriately violent, and the animation is surprisingly beautiful for such a visceral and blood-soaked, Gladiator-esque tale.

Dylan (Charlie Plummer) is a 21-year-old construction worker saving up money to buy an RV so he can drive across the country. His latest job has him working at the House of Splendor, a bohemian ranch whose residents all identify as queer. Gradually, Dylan becomes enamored with the ranch’s accepting atmosphere and begins reevaluating what is important in his life.

National Anthem doesn’t have much of a plot; instead, it’s all vibes, with an emphasis on mood and character development. The film is a modern Western that shows small-time life in all of its beauty and ugliness, with a refreshing lack of judgment for all of its characters. It plays like a dream of what America is right now and what it can be in the near future.

Mady (Jonathan Feltre) just can’t catch a break. A graduate student who moonlights as a locksmith in Brussels, he’s tricked by a beautiful stranger named Claire (Natacha Krief) to unlock an empty apartment so she can grab a bag. She disappears, leaving Mady to answer to mobster Yannick (Romain Duris), whose bag Claire took. Did we mention that it’s full of cash and Yannick thinks Mady is in cahoots with Claire to rip him off?

Mady buys enough time to find Claire and get the cash back to Yannick, but Brussels is locked down due to a rowdy Black Lives Matter protest and one of Yannick’s henchmen, Theo (Jonas Bloquet), is secretly involved with Claire. It’s not Mady’s night, and if things don’t go his way, it could be his last.

Night Call is a terrific action-thriller that uses a topical event — the Black Lives Matter movement — to enrich its already superb narrative. It matters that Mady is Black, so he can’t quite move around in the city during that night like others can. The movie unveils one surprise after another, but it never feels cheap or superficial. Night Call is one of 2025’s best movies that most people don’t know about, so check it out now that it’s on Hulu.

Shelly Gardner (Pamela Anderson) is a veteran Las Vegas showgirl facing a midlife crisis. The revue she stars in is closing, and she’s too old and proud to audition for other Vegas shows that require more nudity and less dignity from their dancers. Shaken, she reaches out to her estranged older daughter to mend their strained relationship, but is it too late for mother and daughter to bond after all these years?

The Last Showgirl is a melancholy film about a woman who chose her career over her family and the price she pays for investing in a profession that throws away its female talent as they grow older. Still best known for her work on Baywatch, Anderson is simply stunning in a complex role she’s never played before. The actress received Oscar buzz for her performance, and she should’ve been nominated by the Academy.

Jang Hae-jun (Park Hae-il) can’t sleep, and that’s an asset when you’re a detective with a lot of cases to solve. His latest one is a doozy — an old man is found dead near a mountain, and his much younger wife, Song Seo-rae (Tang Wei), is the prime suspect. The case seems pretty simple, but Jang soon finds himself disturbed by his growing feelings for Song. Soon, his empathy for her turns into an obsession that might get them both killed.

Shortlisted for Best International Feature at the Oscars in 2023, South Korea’s Decision to Leave is one of the best movies released in the last five years, period. It’s effective as a police procedural thriller, but it’s also a haunting ode to how love saves and destroys one man. Decision to Leave’s plot is surprisingly twisty, and the film’s stunning cinematography will linger in your memory long after you’ve finished the movie. It’s that good.

Ani (Mikey Madison) is a Brighton Beach stripper who speaks some Russian and is very good at her job. That helps her meet Vanya (Mark Eydelshteyn), a 21-year-old son of a wealthy Russian oligarch who wants some companionship along with a lap dance. They fall in lust, then love and soon marry, but Vanya’s disapproving parents send three men to force them to annul their marriage. When Vanya flees, Ani, along with hired hand Igor (Yura Borisov), Vanya’s godfather Telos (Karren Karagulian) and henchman Garnik (Vache Tovmasyan) have to find him before the boy’s parents arrive in the United States.

Anora is a stripper Cinderella fable that effortlessly blends comedy, drama and action (there’s an extended fight sequence that will make you laugh and wince) into one entertaining package. The film won multiple Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress, and it’s easy to see why — it’s legitimately great and fun to watch. As Ani, Madison is terrific, creating a character who is tough but still wants to believe in a happily ever after ending. 

Movie biopics about musical legends have become a bit of a running joke over the past decade or so. Anyone who endured Bohemian Rhapsody or Back to Black will tell you that the genre has become a parody of itself. But A Complete Unknown is one of the better recent biopics because of the assured direction by James Mangold, a strong supporting cast with Oscar nominees Edward Norton and Monica Barbaro and a great lead performance by Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan.

The movie takes place during Dylan’s early days as an up-and-coming singer in the early ‘60s New York City folk scene, where Pete Seeger (Norton) mentors him and Joan Baez (Barbaro) collaborates with him professionally and personally. Dylan soon eclipses them both in popularity, but his desire to experiment — specifically by ditching his acoustic guitar for an electric one — causes him to question his purpose as a musician and a symbol of the emerging counterculture movement. 

Chalamet is an uncanny mimic, but his performance as Dylan is more than just a flattering imitation. He understands that Dylan can’t really be entirely understood, and his slipperiness —  his resistance to being pinned down to just one identity — is the bulk of his appeal. A Complete Unknown is nirvana for Dylan fans, but it’s accessible and entertaining enough for the uninitiated, too.

David (Jesse Eisenberg, who also directed the movie) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) travel to Poland to honor the last wish of their dead grandmother to take part in a Jewish heritage tour and visit her childhood home. But things don’t go according to plan as the once-close cousins realize they’ve grown too far apart to really relate to each other anymore. Can they find a way to reconnect before the tour ends and they go their separate ways back in America?

A Real Pain was one of 2024’s most critically acclaimed movies, and after watching it, you can understand why. The writing (Eisenberg wrote the excellent script) is punchy but never trite; at times, you want to slap David and Benji across the face and then give them a big hug and tell them everything will be okay.

Culkin won an Oscar for his performance, and it was deserved. There’s a Benji in every family, and Culkin’s frantic energy makes him stand out in every scene he’s in.

Sandra Voyter’s (Sandra Huller) husband is dead, and everyone suspects she did it. His gruesome fall from their two-story French chalet can’t easily be explained as an accident, and their past relationship was rocky. They fought bitterly, and even their visually impaired son Daniel (Milo Machado-Graner) isn’t so sure his mother is innocent. As Sandra stands trial for murder, can she convince a judge —  and the audience —  that she didn’t push her husband and let him fall to his death?

Anatomy of a Fall isn’t your traditional thriller since there are really no other suspects, and no one else is in harm’s way. But the director, Justine Triet, isn’t concerned with just generating suspense; she also wants to examine how Sandra’s once-solid marriage gradually disintegrated and why it’s not completely ridiculous to think Sandra would off her husband in such a manner. The film features superb acting from Huller and Machado-Graner, and one of the best canine performances (by Messi, who became a social media star in late 2023) in film history.

Gretchen (Hunter Schafer) isn’t your ordinary teenager. She’s still getting over the death of her mother, and her dad’s work has taken her away from her home. Stuck in a remote resort in the Bavarian Alps, Gretchen notices some unusual things like loud shrieks at night, vomiting female guests and a hooded woman who seems to be stalking her. She begins to suspect her father’s employer, the inscrutable Herr Koning (Dan Stevens), is involved in all of this, but her efforts to prove her theory may get her killed.

Cuckoo lives up to its title — it’s genuinely crazy in all the right ways. The film makes the most of its atmospheric setting, utilizing dark shadows and moments of disturbing silence to set up several well-earned jump scares. Schafer is a great addition to the Final Girl Hall of Fame, and Stevens adds another madman role to his already impressive resume of unhinged weirdos.

In Oregon, a string of gruesome murder-suicides has left local investigations stumped. FBI agent Lee Harker (Maika Monroe) is called in to investigate and figure out why these crimes were committed. Her path eventually leads to a strange, pasty-faced serial killer named Longlegs (Nicolas Cage), who claims to work for “the man downstairs.” But what led to Longlegs’ involvement with all of the murders? And why does Lee feel personally connected to the case?

A surprise summer hit in 2024, Longlegs is a riff on The Silence of the Lambs with just a touch of deeply unsettling weirdness. Director Oz Perkins opts for atmosphere over jump scares, resulting in a movie that is filled with ominous foreboding and dread. As Longlegs, Cage is appropriately freaky and creepy, and Monroe makes for a great heroine burdened by childhood trauma who would make Jodie Foster’s Clarice Starling proud.

Eileen Dunlop’s (Thomasin McKenzie) life is pretty drab. She lives in Massachusetts, where the winters are long and bleak, and she works at a juvenile detention facility for teenage boys, which is about as exciting as it sounds. But one day, in walks the platinum blonde Rebecca Saint John (Anne Hathaway), and Eileen’s life is forever changed — at first for the better, and then for the worse.

Eileen is an excellent thriller that’s also a compelling character study as it follows both women’s interest in a young inmate, Lee Polk (The White Lotus Season 3 star Sam Nivola), who Rebecca suspects is hiding a dark family secret. Hathaway is in full movie-star mode as the glamorous Rebecca, and McKenzie is convincing as the sexually repressed Eileen. The movie paints a vivid picture of New England life in the early 1960s, and its abrupt ending is both frustrating and appropriate.

Class warfare takes place on a luxury superyacht in Triangle of Sadness, Ruben Östlund’s pitch-black social satire from 2022. Among the boat’s guests are Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean Kriek), two spoiled models/influencers who are in a relationship of convenience; Russian tycoon Dimitri (Zlatko Buric) and his wife Vera (Sunnyi Melles); and Jarmo (Henrik Dorsin), a tech billionaire with eyes for Yaya. They are served by the boat’s loyal crew, particularly maid Abigail (Dolly de Leon) and the captain (Woody Harrelson), but when a storm strikes and pirates attack, class lines blur, tables are turned, and the fragile divide between the rich and the poor disappears completely.

Nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards in 2023, Triangle of Sadness hits all the obvious targets (rich people, war profiteers, social media stars) but does so in a very funny way. The film takes its premise to absurd lengths, and the third act is pretty much Lord of the Flies with adults instead of children, but it’s always watchable, and it will make you think twice about eating all that seafood.  

Hannah (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) are American backpackers traveling across the Australian Outback. When they run out of money, they take temporary jobs as bartenders at the Royal Hotel, a rundown pub that houses many of the local misfits. As the two women try to save enough money to leave, they find out very quickly that their new workplace isn’t as hospitable as they would like it to be. Violence inevitably erupts, and Hannah and Liv will have to fight for their lives to check out of the Royal Hotel.

Inspired by the 2006 documentary Hotel Coolgardie, The Royal Hotel is a thriller grounded in reality. Nothing the two women experience, from casual sexism to blatant harassment, feels all that outlandish, and the feeling that this could happen to anyone makes the movie more unsettling. Both Garner and Henwick are outstanding as the Americans who witness the ugly side of Australia, and the direction by Kitty Green is taut without overdoing it.

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