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.
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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Gremlins
It’s Christmastime, and Billy Peltzer (Zach Galligan) is gifted a truly unique specimen from his dad: a Mogwai named Gizmo. The adorable little creature comes with very specific instructions for its care: don’t expose it to bright light, never feed it after midnight, and never, ever get it wet. When Billy’s friend accidentally breaks the last of these three rules, the truth about the species is unleashed. Gizmo spawns more of his kind, but these versions are anything but cute, and they wreak havoc on the town of Kingston Falls. Though it was marketed as a family movie when it was released in 1984, Gremlins caused nightmares for many Gen X kids. And it, along with Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Spielberg also executive-produced Gremlins), is what led to the creation of a PG-13 rating.
Home Alone
When the McCallister family jets off to Paris for Christmas, they realize—a bit too late—that they forgot one thing back in Chicago: their 8-year-old son, Kevin. Chris Columbus directed the film, based on a script by John Hughes, and it made Macaulay Culkin one of Hollywood’s hottest commodities. While his mom (Catherine O’Hara) frantically attempts to make her way back home to her child, Kevin keeps himself occupied by coming up with all sorts of inventive ways to fend off a pair of pesky burglars known as the Wet Bandits (Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern). Thirty-five years after its original release, Home Alone remains required viewing for many people during the holiday season, and with good reason. If you want to make it a marathon, the original film’s four sequels—Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), featuring a cameo from Donald Trump; Home Alone 3 (1997); Home Alone 4 (2002); and Home Alone: The Holiday Heist (2012) are all also on Hulu.
Superbad
Nearly 20 years before creating The Studio, Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg mined their own teenage friendship to cowrite and produce one of the most authentic coming-of-age movies to come out of the genre. As they prepare to graduate high school and head off on their separate paths to college, best friends Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) have one night to party with their classmates and have no regrets. Things, of course, don’t go exactly as planned. In addition to introducing the world to some of the most talented up-and-comers in the business, including Cera, Hill, and Emma Stone, Superbad also contains what might be one of the greatest comedic lines of the past 20 years: “No one’s gotten a hand job in cargo shorts since ’Nam!”
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