The Best Movies New to Every Major Streaming Platform in May 2023

“Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” (dir. Davis Guggenheim, 2023)

This May might very well become the month that Apple TV+ starts turning into a must-subscribe for movie fans — not because of anything that’s premiering on the platform over the next few weeks, but rather because of what’s premiering in Cannes during the same time period as a preview of things to come.

But while Davis Guggenheim’s “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” may not have quite the same cachet as Martin Scorsese’s imminent “The Killers of the Flower Moon,” this sensitive and unflinching doc is very much worth a watch.

Here’s what Esther Zuckerman wrote about the film from its Sundance premiere in January:

“Upsetting as it is to confront the pain that Parkinson’s Disease has wrought upon Michael J. Fox’s body, the actor is nothing if not a likable figure, and he and Guggenheim have crafted a likable film about both his suffering and resilience without turning him into a martyr. 

The wise conceit Guggenheim (‘An Inconvenient Truth’) uses to tell Fox’s story involves recutting the actor’s movie and TV appearances to fit his narration about his real life. This is to say that Alex P. Keaton and Marty McFly act out Fox’s ascent to fame. Scenes from ‘Family Ties’ and ‘Bright Lights, Big City’ show his courtship with Tracy Pollan. As he grapples with his denial about the challenges his body faces he also dodges gunfire in ‘Mars Attacks!’ These images of Fox frequently running and doling out punchlines with his perfect timing stand in stark contrast to the footage of Fox in the present day where his mind seems to work faster than his ability to express himself and his legs consistently fail him. It’s not without some of the conventional beats of a star-driven documentary, but it also refuses to turn maudlin when it so easily could.”

Available to stream May 12.

“Branded to Kill” (dir. Seijun Suzuki, 1967)

Based on quantity alone, Criterion Channel’s May slate might not seem as robust as their average monthly lineup, but a quick look under the surface reveals a rich and typically well-curated array of essential movies that should be able to keep anyone happy from now until June.

The fun starts with a 14-film series devoted to the anarchic Japanese director Seijun Suzuki; Suzuki’s deliriously cool Yakuza masterpieces (e.g. “Youth of the Beast,” “Tokyo Drifter”) have been staples of the Criterion library since the company’s inception, but his even more unclassifiable late-career freak-outs have proven more elusive. There’s no topping the art-pop majesty of “Branded to Kill,” but the surreal and endlessly protean likes of “Zigeunerweisen” and “Yumeji” offer broader insight into one of the 20th century’s most irrepressible film artists.

Bridging the gap between Japan (along with the rest of Asia) and the Western world is curator Brian Wu’s absolutely unmissable series devoted to the Asian American films of the 1980s. Anchored to Wayne Wang’s landmark “Chan Is Missing” and extending out to vital gems like Steven Okazaki’s “Living on Tokyo Time” and Elliott Hong’s action-comedy “They Call Me Bruce,” the program offers a vibrant and frequently punkish overview of cultural identities cohering on screen at a critical moment in the history of independent film. 

Elsewhere, the Channel is serving up a retrospective of James Stewart films directed by Anthony Mann (don’t miss “Winchester ’73”), a fond tribute to the great Jennifer Jason Leigh (there’s never a bad time or reason to revisit “In the Cut”), and the exclusive streaming premiere of Jafar Panahi’s excellent “No Bears.”

All titles available to stream May 1.

“Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (dir. Peyton Reed, 2023)

Well, it was either this, the nature documentary “Wildlife,” or a family movie that I haven’t seen about three kids who steal a rover so that they can explore a crater in outer space. It’s called “Crater,” and in hindsight I probably should’ve just gone with that instead. Only a streaming service that owned the rights to Pixar’s entire library in perpetuity could get away with phoning it in this hard.

Available to stream May 17.

Other highlights:
– “Crater” (5/12)
– “Wildlife” (5/26)

“The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist” (dir. Umberto Lenzi, 1977)

I’ll be honest with you: I haven’t actually seen “The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist,” but as a fan of both Umberto Lenzi’s splashy giallo fare (e.g. “Seven Bloodstained Orchids”) and a fan of movies with absolutely incredible titles, this explosive poliziotteschi about a prison escapee hellbent on murdering the man who put him behind bars is still an easy choice for our pick of the month.

It highlights a concise but potent blast of refreshingly unexpected content from the good folks at Film Movement, whose May slate also includes Lenzi’s “Almost Human” and “Brothers Till We Die” in addition to the early Mel Gibson vehicle “Attack Force Z” and some higher-brow fare like the recent Canadian drama “Drunken Birds” and the sensitive Israeli suicide drama “The Day After I’m Gone.”

Available to stream May 19.

Other highlights:
– “Drunken Birds” (5/5)
– “Attack Force Z” (5/5)
– “The Day After I’m Gone” (5/19)

“Saint Omer” (dir. Alice Diop, 2022)

Hulu’s partnership with some of the film world’s strongest production labels continues to pay off with another month of excellent arthouse fare that stands out from the library stuff that dominates the biggest streaming platforms every month. The platform’s May slate is highlighted by three NEON titles from last year’s festival circuit, the best of which is Alice Diop’s stunning “Saint Omer.”

Here’s some of what Sophie Monks Kaufman had to say about the film when it premiered in Venice in September:

“For her first narrative film, French filmmaker Alice Diop brings the rhythms of her documentary background to reconstruct a heavy, ripped-from-the-headlines story. In 2013, Fabienne Kabou left her 15-month-year old baby girl on a beach in Berck-sur-Mer to be claimed by the rising tide. Diop read about the story while pregnant and felt an intimate connection, one that she has written into ‘Saint Omer’ through an alter-ego.

Rama (Kayije Kagame) is a pregnant academic who decides to watch the court case of the mother on trial, here rechristened Laurence Coly (Guslagie Malanga), ostensibly as part of her research into the most famous baby killer of all, Medea. Despite her academic interest, the mere act of witnessing Laurence’s trial gets under Rama’s skin, and lines of association between Rama, Laurence, Rama’s unborn baby, and her very real mother are blurred until the central tragedy of it all belongs to everyone.

Although technically a work of fiction, ‘Saint Omer’ is fiercely documentary-like in its concerns. The questions it conjures are not the anticipated emotional ones, rather they challenge the audience, asking: what expectations do we carry about a person like Laurence? Do we want to believe that she is evil? Crazy? Is she the product of a ‘foreign’ culture? Is there someone else in her life that we could pin this on? ‘Saint Omer’ doesn’t so much dodge easy answers as reframe the focal point, so that although the film recognizes the injustice done to Baby Elise in its somber atmosphere, Diop’s unflinching yet bracingly empathetic gaze ends up fixed on the nature of motherhood.”

Available to stream May 12.

Other highlights:
– “Both Sides of the Blade” (5/4)
– “Broker” (5/24)

“Parasite” (dir. Bong Joon-ho, 2019)

RIP HBO Max. Long live Max! Or is it “max”? Or “m@x”? Or “a harebrained scheme to eke out a streaming profit by churning together 100 different brands into a massive blue soup that means nothing to anyone”? Well, whatever the hell it is, you’ll be able to watch “Parasite” on it when it launches, so that’s nice.

A comically violent class parable that examines how a society can only be as strong as its most vulnerable people, Bong Joon-ho’s electric Palme d’Or-winner is a tender shiv of a movie that doesn’t rely on its metaphors, or even let them survive; unlike some of the “Snowpiercer” auteur’s other high-concept work, “Parasite” is nothing if not eminently possible.

A grounded enough story about the members of a poor Seoul family (led by the great Song Kang-ho) who, one-by-one, each begin working for a nouveau riche family in their sleek mansion up the hill, Bong Joon ho’s Oscar-winning “Parasite” starts as an off-kilter class comedy of sorts before sinking into something wild, unclassifiable, and burning with rage. As heightened as “Okja,” as realistic as “Mother,” and as heart-in-your-throat haunting as “Memories of Murder,” Bong’s latest is a madcap excoriation of life under the pall of late capitalism, and it leaves everyone a little richer at the end of it.

Winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes before going onto become an international sensation, “Parasite” already seems certain to go down as a defining expression of the socioeconomic inequality that has defined so much of the early 21st century, both in Korea and beyond.

Available to stream May 19.

Other highlights:
– “Unbreakable” (5/15)
– “The LEGO Batman Movie” (5/19)
– “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (5/19)

“Timbuktu” (dir. Abderrahmane Sissako, 2014)

IndieWire named “Timbuktu” as one of the best films of the 2010s, and Abderrahmane Sissako’s masterpiece only continues to feel more urgent and perceptive. Here’s what former IndieWire staffer Tambay Obenson wrote about the movie at the end of the previous decade:

“A harrowing but lyrical portrayal of a northern Mali community in the grip of a radical Islamist group, Sissako’s ‘Timbuktu’ was always going to hit a nerve. The Mauritanian filmmaker took significant personal risk in making his fifth feature, and he knew that — even when safely completed — the project would be a lightning rod for polemical attacks due to the way it depicted Islam on screen, and cut to the heart of the country’s fraught relationship with artistic expression.

But Sissako prevailed. His ability to provide a local perspective on the specific issues ordinary people face, while also offering the world a window into the quotidian hypocrisy of jihadist culture, allowed ‘Timbuktu’ to succeed on a global stage. It resonated across the globe, winning seven César awards and becoming the first film by a Black African filmmaker about Black Africans to earn more than $1 million at the U.S. box office.

Sissako’s poetic approach allowed him to temper and complicate the film’s disturbing violence, a tactic crystallized with a soccer game that’s played without the villagers being permitted to use a ball; such is the absurdity of life under fundamentalist rulers, who distort Islam in cruel and clearly unfounded ways in order to justify their atrocities. ‘Timbuktu’ unearthed a pulsing sense of life from beneath an inconceivable plague.”

Available to stream May 16.

Other highlights:
– “The White Ribbon” (5/6)
– “The Wonders” (5/18)
– “Sátántangó” (5/31)

“Victim/Suspect” (dir. Nancy Schwartzman, 2023)

Netflix has precious little in the way of original content to offer its subscribers this month (though we’re obviously still holding out hope for Swedish late-comer, “The Year I Started Masturbating”), but the streamer’s paltry May lineup is buffeted by a strong documentary that flew under the radar at Sundance.

Here’s what IndieWire’s Kate Erbland wrote about Nancy Schwartzman’s “Victim/Suspect” back in January:

“If anything, ‘Victim/Suspect’ too calmly lays out its case over the course of a tight 90-minute running time. The ‘Roll Red Roll’ filmmaker is again taking on the topic of sexual assault in America with her latest film, which follows investigative reporter Rachel de Leon as she unspools tale after tale of alleged sexual assault victims suddenly, horribly being turned into suspects when the very cops meant to investigate their allegations accuse them of faking all of it. Even worse: They are then charged with a litany of crimes, fully completing the cycle from, yes, victim to suspect.

It’s the kind of story that should make viewers rage — at the cops, the system, the world — but Schwartzman sidesteps emotion to cede her story to de Leon, an engaging and dogged journalist who neatly walks us through her reporting process. By the end of ‘Victim/Suspect,’ de Leon has turned up gobsmacking evidence, including numerous incidents of cops just straight lying to these alleged victims, all courtesy of the kind of shoe-leather reporting in short supply these days.”

Available to stream May 23.

Other highlights:
– “Starship Troopers” (5/1)
– “Steel Magnolias” (5/1)
– “The Year I Started Masturbating” (5/26)

“Taming the Garden” (dir. Salomé Jashi, 2021)

OVID’s characteristically unexpected and well-curated May lineup is highlighted by a series of bracing documentaries about modern China, including dGenerate Films’ “Inside the Red Brick Wall,” which offers a ground-level perspective on the pro-democracy protests that turned Hong Kong upside down in 2019, as well as Murray Lerner’s Oscar-winning 1979 doc “From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China,” which follows the famous violinist as as he collaborates with the China National Symphony Orchestra at a very different time in the country’s history.

If that doesn’t do it for you, there’s always Silvana Cesci and Reto Stamm’s “The Queen of Condoms,” which relates the incredible story of the East German woman who followed a Cuban soldier home to the Caribbean and eventually became Fidel Castro’s Sexual Education Minister. 

OVID’s most high-profile release of the month is likely Salomé Jashi’s awe-inspiring 2021 documentary “Taming the Garden,” about a massive tree that’s ripped out of Georgian soil and sailed across the Black Sea on a tiny barge so that a billionare — Georgian politician Bidzina Ivanishvili — can replant the rare giant in his own personal Eden. 

Available to stream May 19.

Other highlights:
– “Inside the Red Brick Wall” (5/1)
– “From Mao to Mozart: Isaac Stern in China” (5/3)
– “The Queen of Condoms” (5/19)

“The Grandmaster” (dir. Wong Kar-wai, 2014)

If and when people think “Peacock,” they definitely think “impressionistic Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai.” That’s why the Peacock logo looks so natural and not-at-all objectionably vulgur when you slap it on a still from one of his movies. And so it stands to reason that — sandwiched between similarly incredible seasons of “The Traitors UK” and “The Traitors Australia” — Peacock subscribers are about to be treated to one of the most artful martial arts movies ever made.

It’s unlikely that Peacock will offer the far superior director’s cut of Wong’s masterpiece (what, no “The Grandmaster China”?), but beggars can’t be choosers when it comes to a platform that offers 27 seasons of “Access Hollywood” for every worthwhile movie it streams. 

If Wong’s films suggest the detail and potency of a short story writer, Ip Man biopic “The Grandmaster” is his one true crack at an epic. To call this achingly sad Kung Fu saga a biopic would be misleading in the extreme: For one thing, that suggests the kind of dull linearity that Wong couldn’t do with a gun to his head. For another, “The Grandmaster” is less a focused story about the Foshan-born man who eventually found his way to Hong Kong and became Bruce Lee’s teacher than it is a bittersweet mural that depicts the emotional timbre of an entire migration. And the fight scenes are unlike anything else you’ve ever seen.

Available to stream May 1.

Other highlights:
– “The Joy Luck Club” (5/1)
– “Notting Hill” (5/1)
– “Schindler’s List” (5/1)

“She Said” (dir. Maria Schrader, 2022)

Several of last year’s most underappreciated films are making their way to Prime Video this month. Here’s what IndieWire’s Kate Erbland had to say about Maria Schrader’s “She Said” when the journalistic thriller — a sober, harrowing docudrama about the investigative reporters who brought down Harvey Weinstein — premiered at the NYFF in October:

“There is, of course, a dark irony to Weinstein — for so long such a Hollywood titan, a bonafide super-producer — getting taken down (again! and good! do it more!) via the kind of awards-y, end-of-year true-life tale the former Miramax head probably would have loved to make, back when he was, oh, you know, not in jail for multiple sex crimes. Hit him where it hurts. But it’s also bitterly hilarious that Weinstein’s downfall came at the hands of two women, the kind of tenacious, emotional, stressed, and heroic people he spent so much of his life and career trying to shut down. Dozens of films could be made about what Weinstein did, how Kantor and Twohey took him down, and the many lives his crimes disrupted, but Schrader’s would likely still be the best of the bunch, a definitive endeavor right out the gate.”

Available to stream May 19.

Other highlights:
– “Till” (5/9)
– “Three Thousand Years of Longing” (5/23)
– “Violent Night” (5/26)

“The Babadook” (dir. Jennifer Kent, 2014)

One of the most harrowingly accurate movies ever made about living with grief and the guilt that comes with it, Jennifer Kent’s “The Babadook” leverages dozens of traditional horror tropes into a wrenching portrait of the human pain to which no other genre has such immediate access. Anchored by Essie Davis’ unforgettable turn as a single mother who’s still living in the shadow of her husband’s death, Kent’s brilliant debut feature uses terror as a way to plunge deeper into its heroine’s heartache.

The Babadook itself is a marvel (and a burgeoning gay icon?), the amorphous creature popping out from the pages of a mysterious children’s book to wreak all sorts of Rorschach-like havoc on the poor Australian woman who brought it into her home. Yes, the monster is a clear metaphor for depression, but few films have so viscerally realized the residual agony of loss, and how it can never be fully extinguished. 

Available to stream May 15.

Other highlights:
– “Inside” (5/1)
– “Consecration” (5/9)
– “Huesara: The Bone Woman” (5/12)