We've all been there: staring at the screen as we try to decide among hundreds of movies to watch on Netflix, Prime Video, Paramount Plus, Peacock, Max or any of the other popular streaming services. It can be daunting, which is why it's always nice to have a little help from someone else. So allow me to humbly offer my services in suggesting movies to stream in April.
While there are plenty of new movies to watch in movie theaters this month, April's slate of streaming offerings includes both new and classic movies for viewers to enjoy.
Here are my personal recommendations for movies launching on streaming services this month that you should watch, in alphabetical order for ease of reference:
1. Baby Driver (Netflix)
People love Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, World's End) and rightly so, but the director has done some great work beyond that, including the heist movie Baby Driver. The story centers on a young getaway driver, Baby (Ansel Elgort), who is always listening to music, but that doesn’t stop him from being the best in the business. Attempting to get out of the game though proves quite difficult for him. The movie is edited to fit perfectly with the soundtrack, which just adds to the overall excitement.
2. Black Swan (Max)
If you took my advice from this list and watched The Wrestler on Hulu in March, then I highly recommend you keep things rolling with Darren Aronofsky's follow up to The Wrestler, 2010's Black Swan. The movies on the surface couldn't seem more different, as the realism of The Wrestler is substituted for the psychological thriller elements of a ballerina (Natalie Portman in her Oscar-winning role) preparing to perform Swan Lake. However, these movie's themes of people's obsessive natures and how they can destroy everything around them in the pursuit of their goals make them excellent companions.
3. Dazed and Confused (Peacock)
Despite the philosophy of Matthew McConaughey's Wooderson, Dazed and Confused has not been able to stay the same age (it celebrated its 30th anniversary last year, wow). But Richard Linklater's high school classic does lend some credence that age is just a number, as it remains a really good watch. Heck, even just getting to see so many stars in one of their earliest roles — Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Milla Jovovich, Adam Goldberg, Anthony Rapp and Cole Hauser — makes it worthwhile.
4. Fighting With My Family (Prime Video)
2019 was a breakout year for Florence Pugh, who starred in the hit movie Midsommar and earned her first (and to date only) Oscar nomination for a movie that we're going to feature on this list in just a little bit. Somewhat overshadowed from that year was her movie Fighting With My Family, a wrestling dramedy based on a true story of an English girl who comes from a family of wrestling fanatics and gets her shot to become a WWE star. Pugh's star quality is on full display in this funny and ultimately charming story of fighting for your dream.
5. Happy Gilmore (Netflix/Peacock)
While Peacock is also bringing Adam Sandler favorites Big Daddy and Billy Madison back to streaming this month, picking just one of the comedians movies we're going to have to go with Happy Gilmore. First, the movie of a hockey player who brings his intense flare to the golf course is still hilarious, but it's also a classic role from the late Carl Weathers, who passed away recently. On top of all that, there are rumors a Happy Gilmore sequel is in the works.
6. Little Women (Hulu)
While Greta Gerwig turned Barbie into an Oscar-winning, critically-acclaimed, box office smash, her previous movie took another iconic property and gave it a fresh spin, with her adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. Gerwig's excellent script and direction, top-tier performances from Saoirse Ronan, the aforementioned Florence, Laura Dern, Meryl Streep and a fresh perspective on the ending brought Little Women to life for a whole new generation.
7. Malcolm X (Paramount Plus)
Spike Lee and Denzel Washington are an iconic pairing, and its arguable that neither have ever been better than they were in this biopic of the Civil Rights icon Malcolm X (though Lee was somehow not nominated for any Oscar while Washington didn’t win in his category). Washington masters the charisma of Malcolm X, while Lee's epic never feels slow or overwhelming and looks at the entire picture of Malcolm X's life and fight for equality.
8. Nebraska (Paramount Plus/Prime Video)
If you fell in love with The Holdovers recently, then perhaps you should explore some more work from director Alexander Payne, including his 2013 comedy Nebraska. The movie stars Bruce Dern as an elderly man who believes he has won a million-dollar prize, so he travels from Montana to Nebraska with his adult son (Will Forte) to claim it. Shot in gorgeous black-and-white, Nebraska is a hilarious and heartfelt story and another high watermark in Payne’s filmography.
9. Smokey and the Bandit (Netflix)
I only watched Smokey and the Bandit for the first time in the last year, but I would definitely recommend others giving the movie a try as well if they have not. Burt Reynolds is the definition of a movie star as he plays a the fast-driving Bandit who takes the challenge of transporting a truck full of beer across state lines (illegal at the time), while having to deal with a fuming local sheriff (hilariously portrayed by Jackie Gleason) and picking up a runaway bride (Sally Field) along the way. It's just a fun, easy to watch movie.
10. The Social Network (Max)
So much has happened with social media since The Social Network came out that two or three movies could probably be made about it, but there's a good chance none of them could live up to what David Fincher, Aaron Sorkin and Jesse Eisenberg achieved with their movie about the founding of Facebook. Sure, the movie's accuracy may be shaky, but its depiction of an earth shattering business and the young man behind it is maybe the closest thing we've gotten to Citizen Kane this century (in terms of type of story, not necessarily impact).
11. The Zone of Interest (Max)
One of the best movies of 2023 comes to streaming in April (April 5, to be exact). The Zone of Interest is a stunning movie about a German family in World War Two that attempts to create an idyllic life for themselves, the only problem is they are doing so just outside the gates of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Jonathan Glazer's direction in the movie is in a class by itself, as he brilliantly uses sound to recreate the horrors that happened in the camps. The Zone of Interest has to be seen though to understand its full effect.
