Before we get into the buzzy new releases that are making their streaming debuts this month, let’s get this important PSA out of the way first: Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy is finally back on Netflix. There really is no better way to spend a winter weekend than on the couch with all 558 minutes of Jackson’s breathtaking Middle Earth adventures.
As for recent releases, Ryan Coogler’s Marvel blockbuster “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” is now streaming on Disney+ after earning well over $800 million at the worldwide box office. It’s a perfect time for the “Black Panther” sequel to hit streaming, as it was just nominated for four Academy Awards. A different kind of blockbuster new to streaming is “Skinamarink,” the indie horror sensation that cost only $15,000 to make and is now about to hit $2 million at the box office.
It also wouldn’t be February without some new Valentine’s Day streaming offerings. Netflix has united rom-com legends Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher for “Your Place or Mine,” while real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie are behind Amazon Prime Video’s “Somebody That I Used to Know.”
Check out Variety’s full rundown below of the best new films to streaming platforms.
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Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (Feb 1 on Disney+)
Image Credit: ©Walt Disney Co./Courtesy Everett Collection Ryan Coogler’s “Black Panther” sequel cleared the $800 million mark at the worldwide box office and picked up four Academy Award nominations. Angela Bassett is the Oscar frontrunner for supporting actress after picking up prizes from the Golden Globes and Critics’ Choice Awards. From Variety’s review: “Watching ‘Wakanda Forever,’ it’s almost unavoidable that we feel the absence of Boseman’s heroic dramatic center of gravity. The movie doesn’t have the classic comic-book pow of ‘Black Panther,’ and it’s easily 20 minutes too long (we could probably have lived without the Talokan backstory). Yet ‘Wakanda Forever’ has a slow-burn emotional suspense. Once the film starts to gather steam, it doesn’t let up.”
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The Woman King (Feb. 16 on Netflix)
Image Credit: Photo : ©TriStar Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection Gina Prince-Bythewood’s historical action film “The Woman King” was completely shut out of the Oscars. No nomination for Viola Davis. No nomination for Prince-Bythewood. And, somehow, no nominations for costumes, makeup and hairstyling, production design and more. The film tells the story of the Agojie, the all-female warrior unit that protected the West African kingdom of Dahomey during the 17th to 19th centuries, and it was a box office hit for Sony with $94 million worldwide. From Variety’s review: “Prince-Bythewood (a director for whom scope comes easily, coming off Netflix’s globe-spanning ‘The Old Guard’) gives these women the iconic treatment: Rigorous training montages and other rites of passage, seen through the eyes of new recruit Nawi (Thuso Mbedu), build to elaborately choreographed action sequences and, in some cases, dramatic death scenes. These women are formidable.”
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Skinamarink (Feb. 3 on Shudder)
Image Credit: ©IFC Films/Courtesy Everett Collection IFC Films’ micro-budget horror film “Skinamarink” has become an indie box office sensation this year, grossing nearly $2 million at the domestic box office, and now it’s coming straight into homes thanks to the horror streaming platform Shudder. Directed by Kyle Edward Ball, the film centers on two children who wake up one night and discover their parents are missing and all the exits to their home no longer exist. Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman called the film “terrifying” in his review, adding, “It’s a demanding but visionary chiller that’s like a demon puzzle lit by a cathode-ray tube.”
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Empire of Light (Feb. 7 on HBO Max)
Image Credit: ©Searchlight Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection Two-time Oscar winner Roger Deakins (“Blader Runner 2049,” “1917”) is an Academy Award nominee for best cinematography this year thanks to his work on Sam Mendes’ “Empire of Light,” which stars Olivia Colman as a troubled movie theater worker in a small coastal town who befriends a new staff member (Michael Ward). The 1981-set drama divided critics on last year’s fall festival circuit, but Variety film critic Peter Debruge was a fan. “Do yourself a favor and see Sam Mendes’ ode to movies on a big screen,” he wrote in his review. “What better definition of ‘movie magic’ can one find than the sight of Olivia Colman and Michael Ward’s faces, reflecting their feelings for one another?”
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All That Breathes (Feb. 7 on HBO Max)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection Shaunak Sen’s impressionistic non-fiction feature “All That Breathes” is one of the five nominees for best documentary at the upcoming 95th Academy Awards. The film follows two brothers who devote their lives to protecting the black kite, a majestic bird of prey essential to the ecosystem of New Delhi. The birds have been falling from the sky at alarming rates due to environmental toxicity and social unrest. The documentary won the grand jury prize in the world doc competition at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. From Variety’s review: “This snapshot of self-harm both societal and planetary nonetheless manages a gentle, impressionistic lyricism.”
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Spoiler Alert (Feb. 3 on Peacock)
Image Credit: ©Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection Ben Aldridge is the next big thing in Hollywood. He’s currently in theaters with M. Night Shyamalan’s doomsday thriller “Knock at the Cabin,” and last year he was the highlight of Focus Features’ gay romance movie “Spoiler Alert.” Based on the eponymous memoir by TV Line editor-in-chief Michael Ausiello, the film explores the romance between TV fanatic Michael (Jim Parsons) and his cancer-stricken partner Kit (Aldridge). Sally Field also stars in the drama, which boasts “The Big Sick” helmer Michael Showalter as its director. The film aims to hit the emotional jugular a la tearjerker classics like “Terms of Endearment.”
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Your Place or Mine (Feb. 10 on Netflix)
Image Credit: ©Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection The Netflix romantic comedy could be getting its most blockbuster entry yet thanks to the pairing of genre icons Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher. The duo star as Debbie and Peter, lifelong best friends who live on opposite coasts. When they decide to swap houses and lives for a week, they’re forced to confront the possibility that maybe they do have some loving feelings for each other after all. The rom-com marks the feature directorial debut of Aline Brosh McKenna, best known for writing “The Devil Wears Prada,” “27 Dresses” and “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.” The supporting cast includes Zoë Chao, Tig Notaro, Griffin Matthews, Rachel Bloom, Shiri Appleby, Vella Lovell and Steve Zahn.
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Smile (Feb. 21 on Prime Video)
Image Credit: ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection Paramount’s “Smile” was a huge horror breakout in 2022 with $216 million at the worldwide box office. Sosie Bacon plays a therapist who gets a curse passed onto her in which a demon haunts her through the smiles of other people who kill themselves in graphic ways. Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman called “Smile” a “horror movie with a highly effective creep factor” in his review, adding, “In ‘Smile,’ the first-time writer-director Parker Finn, drawing on films like ‘Hereditary’ and ‘It Follows’ and ‘The Strangers,’ turns the human smile into a spooky vector of the shadow world of evil.”
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Beast (Feb. 7 on Prime Video)
Image Credit: ©Universal/Courtesy Everett Collection The Idris Elba-starring creature feature “Beast” was a late-summer surprise last year, and now it becomes available to Prime Video subscribers after previously making its streaming debut on Peacock. Elba plays a widowed doctor who takes his two daughters to visit a South African game reserve. The family is forced to fight for their lives when they are stalked and attacked by a ferocious, man-killing lion. Variety film critic Peter Debruge wrote in his review: “It’s not as ambitious as ‘Nope,’ but this tense survival story — set amid an out-of-control safari — is a lot more fun than brainier summer blockbusters… the movie is a singularly frightening combination of ones and zeros, not killer instinct and claws. ‘Beast’ is a blast.”
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Somebody That I Used to Know (Feb. 10 on Prime Video)
Image Credit: ©Amazon/Courtesy Everett Collection Dave Franco’s latest directorial effort is Prime Video’s original rom-com “Somebody That I Used to Know,” written by Franco and Alison Brie. The latter stars in the film as Ally, a workaholic TV producer who returns to her hometown after a setback at work and finds herself once again drawn to her first love, Sean (Jay Ellis). That relationship is upended when Ally discovers Sean is getting married to Cassidy (Kiersey Clemons), whose confidence and creative convictions remind Ally of who she used to be. The supporting cast includes Haley Joel Osment, Danny Pudi, Julie Hagerty and Amy Sedaris.
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Lord of the Rings Trilogy (Feb. 1 on Netflix)
Image Credit: ©New Line Cinema/Courtesy Everett Collection “The Fellowship of the Ring.” “The Two Towers.” “The Return of the King.” 558 minutes of iconic fantasy filmmaking with 30 Academy Award nominations and 17 wins. A combined $2.99 billion grossed at the worldwide box office. There’s nothing else to say. Just stream them.
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Force Majeure (Feb. 1 on HBO Max)
Image Credit: ©Magnolia Pictures / Everett Collection Ruben Östlund’s most recent directorial effort, “Triangle of Sadness,” won the Palme d’Or at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival and is now nominated for three Academy Awards, including best picture, best director and original screenplay. What better way to celebrate than to stream Östlund’s 2014 international breakthrough “Force Majeure”? The black comedy centers on a family vacationing in the French Alps. The parents’ relationship spirals out of control after the husband prioritizes his own safety during the threat of a potential avalanche. Variety described the film as “Michael Haneke meets ‘Scenes From a Marriage’” in its review.
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Take This Waltz (Feb. 1 on HBO Max)
Image Credit: ©Magnolia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen joined forces last year for Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” but their first pairing on screen came courtesy of “Take This Waltz.” The film is written and directed by Sarah Polley, an Oscar nominee for adapted screenplay this year thanks to “Women Talking.” Williams plays a writer who os thrown into an emotional crisis when a relationship with her new artist neighbor (Luke Kirby) threatens to upend her five-year marriage with Rogen’s character. From Variety’s review: “Given how quickly movie characters tend to fall into bed with one another, it’s especially winning to see writer-director Sarah Polley wring maximum tension, humor and emotional complexity from a young wife’s crisis of conscience. This intelligent, perceptive drama is flat-out sexy.”
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Swiss Army Man (Feb. 1 on HBO Max)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection The Daniels are the talk of Hollywood thanks to “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which earned over $100 million at the box office and scored 11 Academy Award nominations this year, including best picture, director and original screenplay for the filmmaking duo. All four principal actors (Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Crutis and Stephanie Hsu) are also Oscar nominated. Mark the occasion by streaming Daniels’ insane directorial debut “Swiss Army Man,” starring Paul Dano as a suicidal man stranded on a deserted island and Daniel Radcliffe as the corpse who becomes his unexpected savior. Variety called the film a “singularly unique” experience that “wears its weirdness as a badge of honor — as well it should.”
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Sharper (Feb. 17 on Apple TV+)
Image Credit: ©Apple TV/Courtesy Everett Collection Director Benjamin Caron’s “Sharper” is a psychological thriller that marks Apple’s big original movie of February 2023. Starring Julianne Moore, the film has a tantalizingly vague plot synopsis that reads: “‘Sharper’ unfolds within the secrets of New York City, from the penthouses of Fifth Avenue to the shadowy corners of Queens. Motivations are suspect and expectations are turned upside down when nothing is as it seems.” The supporting cast includes Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith, Brianna Middleton, Darren Goldstein and John Lithgow.
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Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (Feb. 4 on Netflix)
Image Credit: ©Sony Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection Based on the best-selling book series by Bernard Wabe, “Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile” is a family adventure set in New York City and featuring the voice of Shawn Mendes as a singing crocodile. When the Primm family (Constance Wu, Scoot McNairy, Winslow Fegley) moves to New York City, their young son Josh struggles to adapt to his new school and new friends until he discovers Lyle the crocodile living in the attic of his new home. The two become fast friends, but Lyle’s existence is threatened by an evil neighbor named Mr. Grumps (Brett Gelman). The movie features original songs from “The Greatest Showman” duo Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.
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Piggy (Feb. 9 on Hulu)
Image Credit: ©Magnolia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection It may not have gotten the attention that “Smile” and “Barbarian” achieved last year, but make no mistake: “Piggy” was one of the best horror movies of 2022. Laura Galán plays an emotionally abused teenager who seeks revenge on the bullies who make her life a living hell. When a serial killer comes to her small town, she finds herself drawn into his bloodlust. From Variety’s review: “Spanish helmer Carlota Pereda’s formidable horror film draws its terror from the same well of adolescent female insecurity as ‘Carrie,’ before going its own grisly way… This viciously impressive debut uses standard genre shocks almost as MacGuffins; it’s the all-too-recognizable horror of brutalized adolescence that really makes us wince.”
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La La Land (Feb. 1 on Netflix)
Image Credit: ©Lions Gate/Courtesy Everett Collection It lost best picture to “Moonlight,” but Damien Chazelle’s “La La Land” was still an Academy Awards favorite with wins for best director and best actress (Emma Stone), among others. And with $447 million worldwide, it’s the kind of adult-driven box office blockbuster that’s all-too-rare in the post-pandemic theatrical landscape. From Variety’s review: “In his splashy, impassioned, shoot-the-moon third feature, Chazelle pays virtuoso homage to the look and mood and stylized trappings of the Hollywood musicals of the ’40s and, especially, the ’50s (glorious soundstage spectacles of star-spangled rapture), with added shades of Jacques Demy and ‘New York, New York.’”
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Bad Boys and Bad Boys II (Feb. 1 on Netflix)
Image Credit: ©Columbia Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection “Bad Boys” and “Bad Boys II” arrived on Netflix a day after original stars Will Smith and Martin Lawrence joined forces to announce that a fourth installment in the action franchise is now in development. Directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, who helmed “Bad Boys for Life,” are returning after their third installment earned $426 million in 2020, right before the pandemic shut down theaters around the world. Michael Bay helmed the energized first two installments, which follow two Miami narcotics detectives on dangerous missions into the city’s criminal underbelly.
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Edge of Tomorrow (Feb. 7 on HBO Max)
Image Credit: ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection Tom Cruise is on top of the world with best picture Oscar nominee “Top: Gun Maverick,” so it’s fitting that one of his best recent action tentpoles hits streaming this month. That would be “Edge of Tomorrow,” Doug Liman’s incredibly fun adaptation of Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s 2004 Japanese novel “All You Need Is Kill.” Cruise and Emily Blunt play soldiers in the future fighting against an alien race. Cruise’s character finds himself stuck in a time loop and forced to relive the climactic day in which the aliens win, unless he can reverse the outcome. The film grossed $370 million at the worldwide box office. Liman, Cruise and Blunt have long discussed wanting to return for a sequel, but the project has never officially gotten off the ground at Warner Bros.
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Fruitvale Station (Feb. 13 on HBO Max)
Image Credit: ©Weinstein Company/Courtesy Everett Collection It’s a big streaming month for writer-director Ryan Coogler. Not only is his Marvel blockbuster “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” now streaming on Disney+, but his extraordinary feature directorial breakthrough “Fruitvale Station” is also set to arrive on HBO Max. Michael B. Jordan stars in the true story of Oscar Grant, a young man in San Francisco who was killed by a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer. From Variety’s review: “Coogler’s film isn’t the flashiest, but in its carefully observed, unvarnished portrait of middle-class African-American life and its acute sense of injustice, it makes a major impression.”
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Magic Mike XXL (Feb. 28 on HBO Max)
Image Credit: ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection With Channing Tatum and Steven Soderbergh ending their “Magic Mike” trilogy this month with “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” only in theaters Feb. 10, it’s a perfect time for the duo’s over-the-top and amazing second installment “Magic Mike XXL” to return to streaming via HBO Max. In “XXL,” Mike joins his fellow strippers on a road trip to a Myrtle Beach male stripping convention. Tatum’s irresistible ensemble cast includes Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello, Kevin Nash, Adam Rodríguez, Gabriel Iglesias, Amber Heard, Donald Glover, Andie MacDowell, Elizabeth Banks and Jada Pinkett Smith.
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Love and Mercy (Feb. 28 on HBO Max)
Image Credit: ©Roadside Attractions/Courtesy Everett C / Everett Collection Paul Dano missed out on an Oscar nomination for “The Fabelmans,” but it’s hardly the first time the beloved actor didn’t get the awards attention he deserved. Enter “Love & Mercy,” which might be home to Dano’s best performance yet. This intimate look at Beach Boys co-founder Brian Wilson’s struggle with mental illness bounces between two periods of Wilson’s life, the 1960s (where he’s played by Dano) and the 1980s (John Cusack), to create a dialogue between the artistic and personal sides of his life. Variety praised the drama as a “wonderfully innervating cure for the common musical biopic… This finely crafted split portrait should win over music nerds skeptical of yet another complicated life being reduced to a series of highlight-reel moments. Dano and Cusack’s expert performances should attract an appreciative reception.”
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Bill Russell: Legend (Feb. 8 on Netflix)
Image Credit: ©Netflix/Courtesy Everett Collection Bill Russell gets the Netflix documentary treatment courtesy of Oscar nominee Sam Pollard (“MLK/FBI,” “Citizen Ashe”). The film traces Russell’s groundbreaking career on and off the court, from his legendary run with the Boston Celtics to his role as a Civil Rights pioneer. When President Barack Obama awarded Russell with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, he described the Hall of Fame player as “someone who stood up for the rights and dignity of all men.” This documentary explores the reason why and includes interviews with basketball greats including Larry Bird, Steph Curry and more.
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It (Feb. 1 on Netflix)
Image Credit: ©Warner Bros/Courtesy Everett Collection Stephen King’s “It” had always been a tough nut to crack. Though the mammoth novel was reduced to a few indelible images and quotes over the decades — a killer clown, a balloon, “you’ll float too” — King’s story of seven youngsters who come of age while confronting a shape-shifting demonic presence in small-town Maine, then come home as adults to deal with its return, was just too much story to bottle up into a film or miniseries. Andy Muschietti mostly cracked the code with his 2017 horror adaptation thanks to visual flair and a solid cast.