In 2017, Hulu made television history by becoming the first streaming network to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series, thanks to the phenomenon that was The Handmaid’s Tale (which returned in April for its sixth and final season).
While Netflix has largely cornered the streaming market on original movies—and even managed to persuade A-listers like Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, and Martin Scorsese to come aboard—Hulu is starting to find its footing in features too, securing the exclusive rights to a large number of Oscar-nominated movies like A Real Pain and Anora. Below are some of our top picks for the best movies (original and otherwise) streaming on Hulu right now.
Still looking for more great titles to add to your queue? Check out WIRED’s guides to the best TV shows on Hulu, best movies on Netflix, the best movies on Disney+, and the best movies on Amazon Prime. Don't like our picks, or want to offer suggestions of your own? Head to the comments below.
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28 Weeks Later
Five years after Danny Boyle and Alex Garland’s post-apocalyptic triumph with 28 Days Later, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo took the reins to continue telling the saga of the Rage Virus that has overtaken London. In this case, the US military has taken control of the island of Great Britain in an attempt to restore order and keep the survivors safe. The story focuses on a family—parents Don (Robert Carlyle) and Alice (Catherine McCormack), and kids Tammy (Imogen Poots) and Andy (Mackintosh Muggleton)—who might hold the key to a cure. It makes a perfect pre-show to a screening of Doyle and Garland’s new 28 Years Later.
Barbara Walters: Tell Me Everything
Just over two years after her death, documentarian Jackie Jesko delves into the life of Barbara Walters, the trailblazing journalist who knew exactly which questions to ask someone to elicit an emotional response—and how to get under her interview subjects’ skin, too. Many of the people Walters both inspired, and occasionally annoyed (see: Katie Couric and Oprah Winfrey), offer their insights into Walters and the important role she played in breaking down barriers for the female journalists who came after her.
Idiocracy
Like Office Space before it, Mike Judge’s Idiocracy wasn’t an immediate hit upon its release. But it has gained a much wider and more devoted following since it came out in 2006. A totally average man (Luke Wilson) and woman (Maya Rudolph) agree to take part in a top-secret experiment that will see them sleep for a year then re-emerge into a new world. But the duo are forgotten about when the military base where they’re hibernating shuts down. When they’re eventually rediscovered in 2505, the world has degraded in such a way that Wilson’s Joe is now the smartest man in the world—a problem for Joe, and the world at large.
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