The Best Movies New to Every Major Streaming Platform in April 2024

“Girls State” (dirs. Amanda McBaine & Jesse Moss, 2024)

Winner of the U.S. Documentary Competition Grand Jury Prize at Sundance in 2020, Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss’ “Boys State” embodied the best and worst of the eponymous tradition that it captured on camera: An annual leadership program, funded by the American Legion and held in almost all 50 states since the 1930s, in which 1,000 or so hyper-ambitious teenage boys from all walks of life are given a week to form and elect a mock government. 

On the one hand, their film offered a semi-realistic microcosm of the American system at work, and an optimistic preview of what Gen Z — at least its most politically engaged young men — might bring to the table as they become old enough to and run for office. On the other hand, it reinforced the American Legion’s history of preserving the status quo through a “separate but not so equal” approach that makes it obvious who’s really expected to inherit the power in this country. McBaine and Moss’ sequel film returns to undress Boys State’s underfunded sister program, in which teen girls vie for the kinds of offices that few — if any — women have ever held in the real world. Shot in the purgatorial stretch of time between when the Dobbs memo was leaked and when Roe v. Wade was officially overturned, “Girls State” finds that teenagers are as divided on the issues as the rest of the country, but at the same time it also offers a powerful and encouraging portrait of young women who discover the power of listening to their own voices by sharing in the same primal scream.

Available to stream April 5

“Cleo from 5 to 7” (dir. Agnès Varda, 1962)

Truth be told, the most exciting addition to the Criterion Channel this month isn’t a movie, but rather a new channel unto itself: “Criterion 24/7,” which is now streaming a round-the-clock selection of classic and contemporary masterpieces from the platform’s unparalleled library. Criterion isn’t the first streamer to harken back to the glory days of cable TV, but this is still an absolute godsend for painfully indecisive cinephiles who often find themselves browsing through movies for hours without ever watching anything. Most of what’s played during the first days of “24/7” has been recognizable at a glance (“Chungking Express,” “The Seventh Seal, “Night on Earth,” etc.), but I’m hopeful the Channel will eventually provide an overlay so that people can see what’s on and more easily make their way down the rabbit hole of discovery. 

In terms of the usual á la carte offerings, the Channel isn’t resting on its laurels. April’s most enjoyably themed retrospective offers a selection of movies that take place over the course of a single night (or, in the case of our monthly highlight, a late afternoon), a series that ranges from classics of the genre like “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” to more recent entries like Bertrand Bonello’s “Nocturama.” The Peak 1950 Noir package focuses exclusively on the highest year in the history of cinematic low-lifes, lending ultra-focused context to everything from “The Asphalt Jungle” to “Where the Sidewalk Ends.” 

Elsewhere, fans of the late William Friedkin can delight in a selective retro that pairs his unassailable hits (“The Exorcist,” “Sorcerer”) with his more curious misses (“Deal of the Century,” “Jade”), while the “Hong Kong in New York” series brings Maggie Cheung to Chinatown in the accurately titled likes of Peter Chan’s “Comrades: Almost a Love Story,” and a glimpse at the glory of Jean Eustache offers subscribers the bask in the new restoration of his once-elusive “The Mother and the Whore.” And how cool is it to see Makoto Shinkai featured alongside the greatest auteurs of all time? “Suzume” is on Netflix this month, but check out “Children Who Chase Lost Voices” for one of the most luminous — and frustratingly under-seen — anime epics of the 21st century.

All films available to stream April 1

“Wish” (dirs. Chris Buck & Fawn Veerasunthorn, 2023)

You’ll wish this were better (not even Chris Pine trying to will “This Is the Thanks I Get?!” into a classic Disney song is enough to make it come true), but parents desperate for a reprieve from the likes of “Moana” and “Encanto” — masterpieces both! — might give Disney’s latest animated musical a whirl. It’s not like any other movies are coming to the platform this month, even if that 28-minute episode of “Bluey” is shaping up to be the motion picture event of the year.

Available to stream April 3

“Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” (dir. Hamaguchi Ryūsuke, 2021)

A playful triptych of self-contained vignettes (complete with their own credit blocks) that are bound together by a shared fascination with memory, coincidence, and the deep truths that shallow lies tend to uncover, Hamaguchi Ryūsuke’s wonderfully beguiling “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” feels more like a single film than it does a trio of smaller ones that have been stitched together into a makeshift anthology, but the finished product is only greater than the sum of its parts because the “Drive My Car” director understands that the best short fiction isn’t just a travel-sized version of something bigger. On the contrary, the short stories he tells here are so delightful because they operate in a way that “long” ones don’t. Together, they cohere into a fun, sexy, and deceptively lightweight reminder that Hamaguchi is one of the most exciting filmmakers alive right now — there’s no better way to whet your appetite for the release of his “Evil Does Not Exist” next month. 

Available to stream April 12

Other highlights:

– “Beautiful City” (4/19)
– “Dancing in the Dust” (4/19)
– “White River” (4/19)

“She Came to Me” (dir. Rebecca Miller, 2023)

It often pains me that this column is so biased towards newer movies, because — with the exception of MUBI, the Criterion Channel, and a few others — most of the notable streaming platforms consider anything made before 1990 too antique for the cost to license. The only silver lining: The opportunity these platforms offer for even casual viewers to discover the genuinely fascinating stuff that was never given a proper chance in theaters. 

Audiences may not have flocked to see Rebecca Miller’s “She Came to Me” when it opened in limited release last fall, but it’s easy to imagine people clicking on a Hulu button that promises them a tight, NYC-set rom-com starring Anne Hathaway and Peter Dinklage. What’s actually in store for them: A winsome and wonderfully strange modern fable about a disaffected operetta composer who falls in love with a salty tugboat captain played by Marisa Tomei(!) and decides to make her the subject of his next masterpiece. Did I mention that Hathaway strips naked for Chris Gethard while monologuing about kreplach? Or that Brian d’Arcy James and “Cold War” star Joanna Kulig have a custody battle in the middle of a Civil War reenactment? This might lure people in by posing as just another piece of standard-assembly streaming content, but Hulu doesn’t have anything else like it.

Available to stream April 5

Other highlights:

– “Blockers” (4/1)
– “Little Women” (4/22)
– “Stars at Noon” (4/28)

“EO” (dir. Jerzy Skolimowski, 2022)

Max has virtually nothing on offer when it comes to new originals this month, but at least its library content is a bit more interesting than what streamers typically circulate into their lineups. That starts with all four of Éric Rohmer’s “Tales of Four Seasons,” including the effervescently profound “A Summer’s Tale,” which ranked high on IndieWire’s list of the 100 best movies of the ’90s. There’s also Olivier Assayas’ thoroughly nightmarish and wholly unmissable “Demonlover,” Janicza Bravo’s early decade standout “Zola,” the first three movies in the “Once Upon a Time in China” series, and Terrence Malick’s “The New World” — just in time for another Cannes without the premiere of his long-gestating movie about Jesus Christ. But we’re going with Jerzy Skolimowski’s “EO,” because it’s about a donkey with cute pointy ears, and because it’s the only movie on this list that will break your heart more than the fact that “Curb Your Enthusiasm” isn’t coming back. 

Available to stream April 1

Other highlights: 

– “Demonlover” (4/1)
– “The New World” (4/1)
– “A Summer’s Tale” (4/1)

“How to Have Sex” (dir Mollie Manning Walker, 2023)

MUBI’s April all-killer, no-filler April lineup isn’t particularly robust, but good luck finding another streaming platform that’ll let you hop from Andrew Haigh’s “45 Years” to Alain Resnais’ “Stavisky” and S. Craig Zahler’s “Brawl in Cell Block 99” without having to close the tab or return to the menu page of your Apple TV. But MUBI’s streaming service is best known as the exclusive home for MUBI’s theatrical releases, and this month gives subscribers the chance to revisit or catch up with Mollie Manning Walker’s 2023 Cannes breakout “How to Have Sex,” a drama about a girls trip to Malia that dives head-first into post-#MeToo questions of conquest and consent with deeply sobering results.

Available to stream April 5

Other highlights:

– “45 Years” (4/1)
– “Stavisky” (4/1)
– “Brawl in Cell Block 99” (4/1)

“Anyone but You” (dir. Will Gluck, 2023)

As someone who’s professionally obligated to sit through “Rebel Moon: Part Two: The Scargiver,” I’m praying that it makes up for the catastrophic first installment of Zack Snyder’s sci-fi riff on “Seven Samurai” and gives Netflix subscribers an Original film worth celebrating this month, but the jury is still out on that one. In the meantime, safer bets abound. “American Graffiti” satisfies Netflix’s annual quota of streaming one (1) film made before 1980, while “The Land Before Time” offers parents some classic dinosaur content for their kids and “How to Be Single” suggests that everyone might’ve been a little too hard on the few studio rom-coms we got during the 2010s. If the genre is able to stage a proper comeback, fans will have “Anyone but You” to thank for reminding Hollywood that audiences will still pay to see beautiful people meet-cute, mess it up, and then make out in front of the Sydney Opera House. And if you love Glen Powell in this, just wait until you see him in “Hit Man” when it finally arrives on Netflix in June.

Available to stream April 23

Other highlights:

– “American Graffiti” (4/1)
– “How to Be Single” (4/1)
– “The Land Before Time” (4/1)

“Always Shine” (dir. Sophia Takal, 2016)

Close your eyes and pick an IndieWire staffer at random and you’ll probably name someone who loves Sophia Takal’s “Always Shine.” Here’s what Film Editor Ryan Lattanzio had to say about the movie when it ranked on our list of the best female-directed horror films of the 2010s: Alongside ‘Persona’ ‘The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant,’ ‘Black Swan,’ and the thematically similar ‘Queen of Earth,’ ‘Always Shine’ is the ultimate girlfriends-on-edge film.

Mackenzie Davis and Caitlin FitzGerald play a pair of blond, lithe, almost-lookalike actress friends who, in an effort to rekindle their cracking bond amid the pressures of Hollywood aspirations, take a healing trip to Big Sur. But in Takal’s world, there will be no R&R on this mini-vacation to hell. Beth (FitzGerald) and Anna (Davis) proceed to tear each other apart with eviscerating words and psychosexual mind games. Alone, and together, in the woods is no place to be for two women on the verge — and especially two competitive actors — who are locked in a suffocating folie à deux.”

Available to stream April 25

Other highlights:

– “Sirens” (4/9)
– “Museum Hours” (4/11)
– “Saturday Night at the Baths” (4/16)

“Magnolia” (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999)

Paramount Plus is still leaning on library titles to keep movie fans engaged, and the streamer’s offerings continue to pull from the same pool that most of its competitors have been swimming in for the last few years. Still, subscribers looking for something beyond the new season of “Star Trek: Discovery” could do a lot worse than the likes of “Galaxy Quest,” “Face/Off,” and “Malcolm X.” I’m only highlighting the eminently streamable “Magnolia” because its plague of raining frogs has always made it feel like something of a Passover film (ditto “There Will Be Blood”), and the inexplicability of its ending might resonate more than ever during the morally anguished seders that many of us will be leading this year. 

Available to stream April 1

Other highlights:

– “Face/Off” (4/1)
– “Juice” (4/1)
– “Malcolm X” (4/1)

“M3gan” (dir. Gerard Johnstone, 2023)

Peacock doesn’t have much to offer subscribers in the way of exclusive new movies this month (it’s hard to compete with the new season of “Summer House,” and the mind-blowing reveal that Paige DeSorbo is paying $8,500 a month for a flavorless 2br in midtown), but parents with Illumination-pilled kids will surely appreciate “Migration” being just a click away. Beyond that, library standouts include “Waiting to Exhale,” the ever-underrated “Mission: Impossible — III,” and “House of Gucci,” which might receive a surge of interest in the wake of the “Joker: Folie à Deux” trailer. But we’ll give it up to our girl “M3gan,” because no other recent movie has had so much campy fun messing around with the horrors of AI. 

Available to stream April 24

Other highlights:

– “Mission: Impossible — III” (4/1)
– “Waiting to Exhale” (4/1)
– “Migration” (4/19)

“The Holdovers” (dir. Alexander Payne, 2023)

It stands to reason that “The Holdovers” would be the last of this year’s Best Picture nominees to make its way to streaming, as this nuanced and hyper-literate Alexander Payne drama — set in the winter of 1970 and shot to look as if it had actually been made back then — takes great pleasure in defying every impulse of modern cinema from even before the moment it starts. And yet, it might take even greater pleasure in embracing some of the movies’ most time-honored tropes and traditions. 

Chief among them: The inviolable rule that anything a school teacher “casually” tells their students in the first act of a film must speak to a core idea of the film itself. In that light, be sure to take notes during the opening scene in which Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti) quotes Cicero to the “vulgar philistines” in his Ancient Civilization class. “Non nobis solum nati sumus.” “Not for ourselves alone are we born.” No spoilers, but that’s definitely going to be on the final exam of “The Holdovers,” which gradually thaws into a slight but sensitive tale about a trio of lonely souls who teach each other to push through their lives’ most isolating disappointments. I found Payne’s latest a bit strained and lacking in comparison to the likes of “Sideways” and “Election,” but Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s Oscar-winning performance really is that good, and the whole movie is worth it for the heartbreak and resilience she brings to it by the end.

Available to stream April 30

Other highlights:

– “Chinatown” (4/1)
– “Titanic” (4/1)

“Infested” (dir. Sébastien Vaniček, 2023)

Movies about giant spiders — and not the humanoid friendly neighborhood kind — are having a bit of a moment in the wake of recent fare like “Spaceman” and “Sting,” but Sébastien Vaniček’s “Infested” might have the strongest bite of them all. The story of a kind-hearted animal lover whose apartment becomes ground zero for an arachnid invasion after he adopts an illegally imported spider named Rihanna, this creature feature may not have the most remarkable monster in the world, but it makes up for that in just about every other arena. Reviewing the film out of this year’s Overlook Film Festival, IndieWire’s Alison Foreman wrote: “What Vaniček’s intricately crafted creature feature lacks in the specialness of its specimen it makes up for with a captivating killing den inhabited by multidimensional characters as melancholy as they are hilarious.”

Available to stream April 26

Other highlights:

– “Late Night with the Devil” (4/19)
– “The Changeling” (4/22)
– “The Innkeepers” (4/22)