Each week on Polygon, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.
This week, The Boy and the Heron, the latest animated fantasy from acclaimed anime auteur Hayao Miyazaki, finally comes to streaming on Max. That’s not all, as Rebel Ridge, the new action thriller from director Jeremy Saulnier (Green Room) starring Aaron Pierre (Old, The Underground Railroad), premieres on Netflix this week too. We’ve got plenty more exciting releases to choose from, including a new film based on the hit anime Spy x Family on Crunchyroll, a brutal martial arts thriller set in 1980s Hong Kong, and a hilarious coming-of-age comedy on Prime Video.
Here’s everything new that’s available to watch this weekend!
Genre: Action thriller
Run time: 2h 11m
Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Cast: Aaron Pierre, Don Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb
This thriller follows an ex-Marine who uncovers corruption in a small town. After local law enforcement unjustly seize the money he carried to post bail for his cousin, he partners up with a court clerk to expose the corruption — and get that bail back for his cousin. Rebel Ridge comes from True Detective season 3 director and executive producer Jeremy Saulnier.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Barn 12/Utopia
Genre: Comedy drama
Run time: 1h 45m
Director: Ally Pankiw
Cast: Rachel Sennott, Olga Petsa, Jason Jones
Rachel Sennott (Bodies Bodies Bodies) stars as Sam, a stand-up comedian living in Toronto who takes on a nannying job in order to earn some cash. After the young girl she was caring for goes missing, Sam is stricken with PTSD and no longer performs comedy, haunted by the loss of her charge and her own helplessness.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Max
Image: GKIDS
Genre: Fantasy drama
Run time: 2h 4m
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Cast: Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Aimyon
After more than a decade, Hayao Miyazaki has returned with a new fantasy follow-up to his 2013 historical drama The Wind Rises. Inspired by Miyazaki’s favorite childhood novel, as well as his own experiences growing up in post-WWII Japan, The Boy and the Heron follows Mahito, a young boy who loses his mother in a tragic fire. After moving to the countryside with his newly remarried father, Mahito crosses paths with a mysterious anthropomorphic bird that entices him with the promise of being reunited with his mother.
And after you’re finished watching The Boy and the Heron, you should check out Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron, the 2-hour documentary chronicling Miyazaki’s return to directing anime and the film’s seven year production.
On the surface, all of this is par for the course for a Miyazaki film, with trace elements from Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, or Kiki’s Delivery Service. The confusion starts when viewers try to square that with the parakeets, causality-breaking out-of-time characters, and the heron turning out to be a small gnomelike man wearing a living bird like a suit. Could all those elements be purposeful trolling from a director known for his, to put it delicately, acerbic personality? Maybe, but there seems to be a statement behind the madness: It’s as if Miyazaki is declaring, “This is my life’s work. I don’t care if you’ve enjoyed it. Goodbye.”
Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime Video
Image: Paramount Home Entertainment
Genre: Coming-of-age comedy
Run time: 1h 52m
Director: Adam Carter Rehmeier
Cast: Conor Sherry, Gabriel LaBelle, Mika Abdalla
Travel back to 1991 in this comedy that follows a pair of teenage boys who work at the snack shack of a local pool in Nebraska. When a new lifeguard shows up, both boys instantly fall for her, putting their friendship in question.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Metrograph
Image: Square eyes
Genre: Documentary
Run time: 1h 35m
Directors: Ekiem Barbier, Guilhem Causse, Quentin L’Helgouac’h
Filmed entirely in the multiplayer survival game DayZ, this documentary follows the filmmakers as they interview a group of players before and during COVID lockdowns in 2020. Exploring the respective philosophies and viewpoints of the game’s playerbase, Knit’s Island opens an exciting and insightful window into the “real” lives of people who look to a post-apocalyptic world of survivalists for escapism from the challenges of their day-to-day lives.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Starz
Photo: Parrish Lewis/Lionsgate
Genre: Horror thriller
Run time: 1h 44m
Director: Jeff Wadlow
Cast: DeWanda Wise, Taegen Burns, Pyper Braun
This supernatural horror film from director Jeff Wadlow (Kick-Ass 2) follows the story of Jessica (DeWanda Wise), a children’s book author who returns to her childhood home with her new family. Jessica’s stepdaughter Alice forms a bond with her old stuffed teddy bear, and things quickly grow out of hand when she starts committing gruesome acts on behalf of her new imaginary friend.
It’s tempting to try to read into this labyrinth of digressions to try to find some kind of meaning or intention, but Imaginary never makes that feel worthwhile. There isn’t a single character in the movie who feels worth rooting for, and the performances are entirely devoid of charisma. The script, written by Wadlow, Jason Oremland, and Greg Erb, is full of wooden dialogue that’s stiff and often feels almost completely nonsensical. Characters sometimes introduce new information like it’s a fact the audience has known forever.
Image: WIT Studio/CloverWorks
Genre: Action comedy
Run time: 1h 50m
Director: Takashi Katagiri
Cast: Takuya Eguchi, Atsumi Tanezaki, Saori Hayami
Spy x Family Code: White, the first feature film based on the hit action-comedy anime franchise, centers on the Forger family: Loid Forger, a spy working undercover in the nation of Ostania on behalf of the neighboring country of Westalis; Yor Forger, Loid’s wife and a former assassin known as the “Thorn Princess”; and Anya Forger, their adopted daughter who is secretly telepathic. When Loid is ordered to be replaced on his assignment, he hatches a plot to help Anya on a school assignment that could prevent his replacement. However, this scheme inadvertently triggers a domino effect that threatens to tip the world into conflict.
As a TV show, Spy x Family expertly handles these tone changes. Having 20-plus episode seasons means a nice balance of both the sillier and the more serious episodes — and because the episodes clock in at half an hour, it never feels like too much focus on one thing. But as a movie, Spy Family Code: White can’t strike that balance. Each half of the movie represents a different aspect of Spy x Family’s appeal, and each half is quite good for what it’s supposed to be. They just don’t gel together at feature length. When the tone shifts, it locks in and doesn’t really have as much give as the show. Still, no matter what type of Spy x Family fan you are, you’ll enjoy at least half of the movie.
Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Well Go USA Entertainment
Genre: Crime action
Run time: 2h 6m
Director: Soi Cheang
Cast: Louis Koo, Sammo Hung, Richie Jen
Set in 1980s Hong Kong, this martial arts action film centers on Chan Lok-kwun, a refugee amateur fighter who steals drugs from a ruthless local crime boss in a desperate bid to seek a better life. Hunted by the boss’ enforcers, Lok-kwun has no choice but to hide out in Kowloon Walled City — the infamous fortified enclave that serves as neutral territory among Hong Kong’s criminal syndicates. When the search for Lok-kwun inadvertently reignites long-simmering tensions between Kowloon’s power players, he’ll have to find a way out alive before the dangers of the Walled City tear him apart.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Utopia
Genre: Comedy drama
Run time: 1h 36m
Director: Robert Schwartzman
Cast: Nick Jonas, Brittany Snow, David Arquette
The Jonas Brothers’ very own Nick Jonas stars as an emotionally distant writer returning to Cleveland, Ohio for his mother’s funeral, after years of avoiding his complicated family. He forges some new relationships and confronts some old ones, and eventually must face his grief — and family drama — head on. The Good Half first premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film festival.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: IFC Films
Genre: Thriller
Run time: 1h 36m
Director: Austin Peters
Cast: Elizabeth Banks, Lewis Pullman, Luis Gerardo Méndez
In Skincare, Elizabeth Banks plays Hope, an aesthetician, who’s about to take the next big step in her career: launching a skincare line. But things start to go awry, when a rival beauty shop pops up across the street and begins to steal her customers. Hope begins to think that someone’s out to get her and destroy her career. She enlists her friend to help her investigate.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Focus Features
Genre: Coming-of-age drama
Run time: 1h 33m
Director: Sean Wang
Cast: Izaac Wang, Joan Chen, Shirley Chen
Set in the late 2000s, this coming-of-age drama follows Chris Wang (Izaac Wang), a 13-year-old boy enjoying his last summer vacation before entering high school. Simultaneously enticed and intimidated by the opportunities and challenges that come with adolescence, will Chris find a way to grow up on his own terms? If you enjoyed Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade or Jonah Hill’s Mid90s, Dìdi should be right up your alley.
