Summer has arrived, which means its vacation season—and there are plenty of travel tips to be found among the best movies on streaming this May. A bloody ballet battle royale in Budapest in Prime Video’s Pretty Lethal, a visit to the picturesque (and definitely not haunted) Dutch forests in Shudder’s Heresy, or an action-packed trip to Japan courtesy of Netflix’s My Hero Academia: You’re Next, are just some of the locations sure to give you wanderlust this month.
If you fancy something a bit more tropical, then look no further than Send Help on Hulu—although director Sam Raimi’s twisty survival horror might have you thinking twice before turning on your out-of-office emails. And, if the rising temperatures are already too much, the Antarctic chill of John Carpenter’s classic The Thing, and its 1950s inspiration, The Thing Brom Another World, are both landing on Criterion.
Here are WIRED’s picks of the best movies to watch right now.
Bugonia
A remake of Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 South Korean film Save the Green Planet!, Bugonia sees paranoid conspiracy theorist Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons) and his autistic cousin Don (Aidan Delbis) kidnap prominent CEO Michelle Fuller (Emma Stone), subjecting her to inventive, brutal forms of torture as he tries to force a confession that she’s in contact with invading aliens. Fuller’s company also happens to be responsible for a botched medical trial that left Gatz’s mother comatose. So is Gatz just a troubled man struggling with grief, out for vengeance against a corrupt businesswoman, or has he stumbled on the greatest threat to humanity? Director Yorgos Lanthimos (Poor Things, The Favourite) has tremendous fun teasing out the answer, while Stone has rarely been as captivating on screen than she is as Fuller, somehow seeming like an animal playing with their food, even at her shaven-headed, desperate lowest points.
My Hero Academia: You’re Next
As the fourth movie spin-off from the long-running anime series My Hero Academia, You’re Next might not seem like an obvious jumping-on point for original manga creator Kōhei Horikoshi’s tale of trainee superheroes in a world where everyone has powers. Thankfully, this is largely stand-alone, allowing anyone who fancies a couple of hours of dynamic anime action to jump right in. All you need to know is that in the wake of a disaster, Izuku “Deku” Midoriya (Daiki Yamashita in Japanese, Justin Briner in English) and his classmates must face off against new villain Dark Might, a dark reflection of Japan’s once-greatest champion All Might—the hero who gave Izuku his powers in the first place. Throw in a mafia crime family, a cyborg butler, and a young girl with unpredictable new powers for Deku and his allies to test their mettle against, and only the stoniest of hearts won’t be entertained.
Pretty Lethal
Ask any trained dancer and they’ll tell you ballet is one of the most grueling things you can put your body through, requiring incredible poise and strength to perform, and a killer competitive streak to make it in the field. All three of those qualities, and a host of teenage snark, take to the stage in this brilliantly schlocky action outing from director Vicky Jewson, which sees five American ballerinas trapped in Budapest and having to adapt their skills to escape a violent war between two crime families—one led by deranged former ballerina Devora Kasimer (Uma Thurman, absolutely vamping every scene). Expect blood-soaked tutus, electrifying fight choreography, and one of the most creative uses of The Nutcracker suite on film.
Good Boy
When Todd (Shane Jensen) moves to his late grandfather’s run-down rural home, his dog Indy immediately senses the vibes are off. Outside, the surrounding woods are full of interesting smells and critters to chase. Inside, something emerges at night, preying on Todd, worsening his health and his sanity—all while Indy is guided by visions of Bandit, Todd’s grandfather’s dog, to uncover the dark forces at work.
A horror movie from the dog’s perspective could have gone horribly wrong—the Hollywood dictum “never work with animals or children” exists for a reason. Anyone saying that never worked with Indy, though, as this award-winning superstar’s incredible canine performance elevates director (and Indy’s human) Ben Leonberg’s tightly told slice of terror into something truly special.
Send Help
When Linda Liddle (Rachel McAdams) and her boss Bradley Preston (Dylan O’Brien) are stranded on a desert island after the private jet they’re on crashes, it’s a good thing that Linda has a host of survivalist skills to fall back on. It’s a bad thing that Bradley has spent months treating her like dirt, so while he’s injured and immobile, Linda’s just starting to live her best life—and she might not be in a rush to get back to the office. A psychotic revenge thriller where you can’t help but root for the psycho (O’Brien does such a good job as the asshole boss, you’ll want to punch your TV), Send Help smartly blurs in elements of horror and comedy alongside the deliberately unsubtle social commentary. And, while director Sam Raimi trades in his customary armies of darkness for sun-kissed tropical locales, he still serves up at least one particularly pants-wetting jump scare that proves he’s never too far removed from his Evil Dead roots.
Heresy
A bit of a festival darling, racking up plaudits around the world, including Austin’s cult-focused Fantastic Fest, Heresy (Witte Wieven) is folk horror with a feminist edge. In a medieval Dutch village, Frieda (Anneke Sluiters) is demonized by her deeply religious community for her inability to conceive, declared a witch, and persecuted even by her husband. It’s a setup that allows director Didier Konings to reframe all the trappings of the genre—the superstitious villagers, the blurred lines between faith and folklore, the fear of dark things lurking in the woods—as an exploration of the horror of control and oppression, especially around women’s bodies. At only 61 minutes, Heresy is a short, shocking slice of terror that delivers some much needed chills in the summer months.
The Thing/The Thing from Another World
Know how the 1980’s was a great decade for film? Criterion, arbiter of cinematic tastes, has curated an entire collection of ’80s remakes paired with their original inspiration. There are a host of classic diptychs included as a result—don’t sleep on the 1942 innovative horror Cat People and its 1982 remake of the same name, nor 1960’s French New Wave classic Breathless (aka À bout de souffle) and its 1983 American take—but it has to be 1951’s The Thing From Another World and 1982’s The Thing that are most deserving of your attention. Both are groundbreaking in their own ways, especially John Carpenter’s more modern take for its phenomenal tension and intense body horror, and they set the stage for decades of copycats in the surprisingly well-populated “shape-shifting alien invader” subgenre.
Tank Girl
Based on the underground British comic by writer Alan Martin and Gorillaz cocreator Jamie Hewlett, Tank Girl is an almost delirious slice of postapocalyptic sci-fi. Set in an arid future, the eponymous hero (Lori Petty) fights back against the despotic rule of CEO Kesslee (Malcolm McDowell), who controls what little water remains on Earth. Aided by repressed mechanic Jet Girl (an early-career Naomi Watts), a bunch of evolved kangaroo bikers led by Ice-T (yes, really), and whatever high-ordnance weaponry she can find, Tank Girl unleashes absolute chaos. People mocked director Rachel Talalay’s campy, comedically violent, and almost painfully low-budget film back in 1995, but it’s earned cult status in the years since. One for the “glorious trash” pile.
