February’s been a pretty dreary month if you’re single and/or a San Francisco 49ers fan. Ditto if you’re a movie lover. Seriously, has there been a worse time for movies than 2024? It’s been pretty bleak these last eight weeks, and March, with its promises of Dune: Part Two and 3 Body Problem, can’t come soon enough.
To celebrate February’s end, Digital Trends has a suggestion for you: stay in, log on to Hulu, and watch the movies on this list. One is a critically acclaimed drama that was just released in December 2023, another is an underrated thriller from 2022, while the last is one of Quentin Tarantino’s best movies ever.
All of Us Strangers (2023)
Do you want to get your heart broken this weekend? If so, you can’t do any better than All of Us Strangers. Director Andrew Haigh’s tender drama stars Andrew Scott as Adam, a lonely fortysomething writer in London who strikes up a cautious romance with his neighbor, Harry (played by Paul Mescal). It was one of 2023’s best movies, yet failed to receive any Oscar nominations. That’s OK, though, as audiences can and will discover it on streaming in 2024; it’s just too great to ignore.
The movie isn’t just a romance, though; it’s a rumination on family, and how adults can never really escape the shadow of their childhoods. Somehow, Adam is able interact with his long-dead parents, who look and act just like they did when they passed away in a car crash in the mid-1980s. How is this possible? It doesn’t matter; what matters is how an adult Adam interacts with his parents, and how they deal with his sexuality and his revelations about how distant he felt from them both as a child. All of Us Strangers is more of an experience than anything else, so turn off the lights, fire up the Hulu, and let it wash over you.
Watcher (2022)
Oh, what a nifty little thriller this is! In Watcher, It Follows actress Maika Monroe stars as Julia, a young American actress who moves to Romania to be with her boyfriend. She gradually begins to suspect someone is stalking her, which causes her to slowly lose her mind.
Director Chloe Okuno masterfully creates a sense of menace and looming dread as Julia tries and fails to convince anyone she’s in danger. Monroe is great as the increasingly unstable heroine, and the cinematography takes great advantage of the Bucharest locations.
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
Hollywood, 1969. The studio system is dying a slow death, the hippies and rebels have taken over Hollywood, and a young actress named Sharon Tate is about to become the next big movie star. In Quentin Tarantino‘s mostly factual, sometimes fantastical Once Upon a Time in Hollywood…, the entirely fictional Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a fading Hollywood star, and his best friend and bodyguard, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), is a genial man with a checkered past. Together, their paths will inevitably cross with Tate’s (Barbie‘s Margot Robbie), who will memorably encounter the Manson family one fateful night.
Or will she? This is Tarantino’s world after all, and if he can kill off Hitler with a barrage of bullets in Inglourious Basterds, he’s capable of anything. That’s a large part of why this movie is so entertaining to watch. You don’t know where it’s going, even though history will tell you where the plot will eventually end up. As a plus, it’s a great immersive experience; you really do feel like you’re in late 1960s California.
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