129 Best Movies In English On Hulu (Page 8)

You can see what director J.J. Anderson is trying to do with Sacred Soil: chronicle the lives of current Piney Woods students and connect them with their school’s storied past. It’s an admirable task that speaks to how, despite all the innovations we’ve made since the school’s founding in 1909, we still have a ways to go to achieve true racial equality. And it’s a story worth telling, set in a school brimming with bright minds unafraid to engage in important discourse. However, these ideas are muddled in Anderson’s unfocused storytelling. There is no narrator, so we’re left listening to clips of conversations and meetings that go on for too long (it often feels like sitting in a forum we’re not invited to). There are inserts of archival photos and beautiful shots of the school, but there’s little context provided to them, so those of us outside of the Piney Woods ecosystem are left feeling confused. Is the documentary about Black teenhood or is it about the history of the school? I imagine there’s a smoother way to interweave the two, but Sacred Soil ultimately fails to bridge the gap between the then and now.

Genre: Documentary

Director: J.J. Anderson

Rating: PG

The main subject that Hold Your Fire promises to be about—negotiation tactics first used in resolving a New York City standoff at a sporting goods store—is ultimately its most least interesting aspect. These supposed tactics aren't too well, and they end up putting a damper on all the human drama that comes before it, which proves strikingly three-dimensional. As the film revisits the details of the hostage situation from the perspective of those who were actually there, it also complicates the situation by compelling us to think of it in a dense, sociopolitical sense rather than a reductive lens of crime and punishment. It's this build-up to the actual negotiation that may actually hold more insight into these kinds of crises.

Genre: Documentary

Director: Stefan Forbes

The broad, symbolic strokes of The Killing of Two Lovers—how its story is set up and the general atmosphere it evokes—are stunning to behold. It's a naturalistic story whose ordinary moments feel like they're being told at the end of the world, given how deliberately chilling Robert Machoian's direction is. Unfortunately, once you start getting into the details of the plot and its characters, their actions and decisions don't lead to particularly interesting insights about the separation and the couple's relationship to each other or their children. The end result is something that's clearly driven by a compelling mood more than anything, but whose resolution still feels anticlimactic.

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Actor: Arri Graham, Avery Pizzuto, Barbara Whinnery, Chris Coy, Clayne Crawford, Sepideh Moafi

Director: Robert Machoian

Rating: R

What seems like The Good Mother's biggest asset is actually its downfall. Yes, the three main actors (Swank, Cooke, and Jack Reynor as the civil servant son, Toby) are all good at what they do, but they're incapable of resuscitating a script that's never truly come to life. These casting choices, obviously made to give some clout to a very mediocre project, feel even more disappointing because the disconnect between actor and character is way too big. For example, Swank is not the alcoholic, fed-up mother we need her to be in this case, and its hard to see this as something else than a derogatory take on her previous more tender and glam roles. Director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte's Sundance-winning As You Are carried a whiff of fresh air, The Good Mother is drained out of all its energy, avoiding reflective depth at all costs, not to mention skirting around the ambivalences of motherhood. 

Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller

Actor: Dilone, Hilary Swank, Hopper Penn, Jack Reynor, Karen Aldridge, Larry Fessenden, Laurent Rejto, Norm Lewis, Olivia Cooke

Director: Miles Joris-Peyrafitte

Rating: R

This a small-town, true-crime thriller that has John Hamm (Mad Men) as the detective, Nick Mohammed (Ted Lasso) as the trusty sidekick, and Tina Fey (30 Rock) as the love interest. They’re a charismatic cast helming a bizarro story whose real-life details are already teeming with juicy details, and yet, the resulting film, directed by John Slattery, is as lackluster and forgettable as can be. There is no sense of mystery, the jokes fall flat, and every scene looks like it’s shot from a studio lot. There is plenty of better fare out there for anyone looking for comedy capers, and I bet the true crime documentary of the real-life Maggie Moore case is infinitely more engaging than its filmic counterpart. 

Genre: Comedy, Crime, Mystery

Actor: Allison Dunbar, Bryant Carroll, Christopher Denham, Christopher Kriesa, Debrianna Mansini, Denielle Fisher Johnson, Derek Basco, Happy Anderson, Jodi Lynn Thomas, Jon Hamm, Louisa Krause, Mary Holland, Micah Stock, Nick Mohammed, Oona Roche, Peter Diseth, Richard Lippert, Roni Geva, Sewell Whitney, Tate Ellington, Tina Fey

Director: John Slattery

Rating: R

Lovers share moments and memories intertwined with music, to the point that when the relationship ends, listening to an old track brings back the past. For Harriet in The Greatest Hits, this is literal, to the point that random music playing outside prolongs her grief. The story is familiar– it’s sort of similar to 2022’s Press Play– and frankly, the cinematography relies a bit too much on lens flares, but the cast makes the best of it, with Lucy Boynton having compelling chemistry with both Justin H. Min and David Corenswet. That being said, the film has a dated feel, with most of the tracks coming from the previous decade, and the conclusion it makes would feel totally insulting if they wrote Harriet’s relationship with Max in depth. But it’s still a fairly decent launching point for the cast and maybe a decent ad for silent disco spots and Spotify.

Genre: Drama, Music, Romance

Actor: Andie Ju, Austin Crute, David Corenswet, Evan Shafran, Jackson Kelly, Jenne Kang, Justin H. Min, Lucy Boynton, Mary Eileen O'Donnell, Retta, Rory Keane, Thomas Ochoa, Tom Yi

Director: Ned Benson

Rating: PG-13

The big ideas swirling at the center of The Creator are about human heartlessness versus AI compassion, man’s coldness versus robot warmth. Unfortunately, the movie winds up being an unwitting example of the former: visual effects take precedence over emotion here, meaning you rarely feel any of the intended poignancy of this story about a soldier driven between warring sides by love.

Part of that effect might be because the premise is an iffy one to swallow, as The Creator drops during a time when the once-theoretical threats posed by AI start to become disconcertingly real. But mostly, the sterile feeling of the film is a product of the writing, as a shallow script prevents most of the cast from ever making their characters compelling. Though its lifelike effects are something to marvel at, The Creator never quite convinces us that any of its humans are real — a pretty gaping flaw for a movie that wants to sell us on the idea that robots might one day be sentient.

Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Science Fiction

Actor: Allison Janney, Amar Chadha-Patel, Anjana Ghogar, Brett Bartholomew, Brett Parks, Chananticha Chaipa, Charlie McElveen, Dana Blouin, Eoin O'Brien, Gemma Chan, Ian Verdun, Jeb Kreager, John David Washington, Karen Aldridge, Ken Watanabe, Leanna Chea, Mackenzie Lansing, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, Marc Menchaca, Mariam Khummaung, Mav Kang, Michael Esper, Monthatip Suksopha, Natthaphong Chaiyawong, Niko Rusakov, Pat Skelton, Pongsanart Vinsiri, Rad Pereira, Ralph Ineson, Robbie Tann, Sahatchai Chumrum, Sawanee Utoomma, Scott Thomas, Sturgill Simpson, Syd Skidmore, Teerawat Mulvilai, Veronica Ngo

Director: Gareth Edwards

Rating: PG-13

Susie Searches begins intriguingly for two reasons: first, there’s the strange disappearance of popular college student Jesse Wilcox (Alex Wolff), and then there’s the fact that that mystery is solved in the film's first 20-ish minutes. With over an hour left of its runtime at this point, Susie Searches seems to suggest Jesse’s disappearance was only a red herring, and that we’re in for something juicier now.

Alas, the rest of the movie — which stars Kiersey Clemons as the titular socially awkward student sleuth who finds Jesse — never lives up to this promise. An encouraging cast list is let down by thin characters; this isn’t true just for the supporting parts played by Rachel Sennott, Jim Gaffigan, Ken Marino, Dolly Wells, and Wolff, but, far more detrimentally to the film, Susie herself. Her motivations are complicated by more than just a desire for the truth, but, despite Clemons’ best efforts, this not-quite Nancy Drew is never all that psychologically compelling or believable. In a film that hinges on big twists revolving around its protagonist, that’s a fatal flaw, because we’re only ever half-invested. Though it may play better with younger audiences, anyone else will likely find its promising cast to be the biggest red herring of all.

Genre: Comedy, Mystery, Thriller

Actor: Aaron Costa Ganis, Alex Moffat, Alex Wolff, Ana Cruz Kayne, Ana Kayne, Chris Sheffield, David Walton, Dolly Wells, Ellie Reine, Geoffrey Owens, Isaac Powell, Jammie Patton, Jared Gilman, Jim Gaffigan, Juliette Goglia, Kat Foster, Ken Marino, Kiersey Clemons, Mellanie Hubert, Neal Bledsoe, Rachel Sennott

Director: Sophie Kargman

Built on promising ideas revolving around toxic relationships, exploitation of Black bodies, and a fading African heritage, Jagged Mind comes up with reasonably diverting genre thrills but stops short of taking advantage of the rich material it has at its fingertips. In getting caught up with its own premise, the film isn't able to craft a compelling enough journey for its protagonist to break free of the cycles she finds herself in. As a result, it becomes something that's fun to watch in the moment—thanks to some playful, misleading editing and a solid lead performance by Maisie Richardson-Sellers—but not something that leaves a lasting impression or makes a full, compelling statement.

Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Actor: Casey Ford Alexander, Jimmy Jean-Louis, Kate Szekely, Maisie Richardson-Sellers, Rosaline Elbay, Shannon Woodward, Shein Mompremier

Director: Kelley Kali

Rating: R