In the game known as the streaming wars, Disney+ came out swinging, bringing with it a massive library of movies and TV shows—with new ones being added all the time. Watched everything on Netflix? Disney+ has a seemingly endless selection of Marvel movies and plenty of Star Wars and Pixar fare too. Problem is, there’s so much stuff that it’s hard to know where to begin. WIRED is here to help. Below are our picks for the best films on Disney+ right now.
For more viewing ideas, try our guides to the best films on Netflix, the best films on Amazon Prime, and the best shows on Apple TV+.
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Something Wicked This Way Comes
When a traveling carnival comes to a small Midwestern town, two best friends—Will Halloway (Vidal Peterson) and Jim Nightshade (Shawn Carson)—suspect that something is not quite right. They soon discover that the carnival’s mysterious boss, Mr. Dark (Jonathan Pryce), has nefarious plans for the townspeople and enlist the help of Will’s dad (Jason Robards) to help them stop him. Rad Bradbury wrote the screenplay for Something Wicked This Way Comes, based on his own 1962 novel, and the film was a rare foray into dark themes for Disney at the time, but developed a rabid cult following over the years. It’s been incredibly difficult to find for decades, so its arrival on Disney+ has fans rejoicing.
Thunderbolts*
Though it failed to do Avengers numbers at the box office, leading many to label it a flop, ticket sales don’t always tell the full story—especially when it comes to the MCU. Florence Pugh reprises her role as Yelena Belova, a Black Widow–trained assassin who gets caught up in a sabotage plan concocted by corrupt CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). When Yelena and her fellow killers-for-hire realize they’ve been duped into killing each other to clean up de Fontaine’s mess, they instead band together—with the help of Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) and Yelena’s dad/super soldier Red Guardian (David Harbour) to seek revenge. At this point it’s not really a spoiler to note that the asterisk in the title was meant to denote the placeholder title, as the group is rechristened the “New Avengers.”
Sacramento
In Sacramento, cowriter-director Michael Angarano stars as Rickey, an emotionally stunted man-child who is not ready to grow up, even as those around him have moved on to find careers, get married, and start families. Glenn (Michael Cera) is one of those old pals, who finds himself unwittingly agreeing to take a road trip from Los Angeles to Sacramento so that Rickey can scatter his recently deceased dad’s ashes. What follows is the stage of male friendship that happens somewhere between Superbad and Sideways, with both men learning something about each other—and themselves—whether they want to or not. Though the film was a hit with critics when it screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, it sadly flew largely under the radar in its brief theatrical run.
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