The 12 Best Movies and TV Shows to Watch This Weekend
Going from movie screening to movie screening sounds great in theory, but the truth is your butt can only take so much. SXSW did offer up some worthwhile movies, though, including several out this week — and in Problemista’s case, after a yearlong strike delay. Doug Liman’s Road House kicked off the Texas fest this year, and Vulture’s “Action Edition” cover star kicked ass and looked hot. Afterward, Jake Gyllenhaal and the cast including Conor McGregor did a Q&A in which McGregor basically steamrolled over everyone else’s answers, so I couldn’t tell you what they actually said about the movie. Elsewhere at SXSW, Sydney Sweeney debuted her first time leading a horror (second, if you count Euphoria), and the Game of Thrones showrunners unveiled 3 Body Problem and gave most of the crowd (fake) gaming headsets. (If you’ve actually seen their new show, you know this is terrifying.) Oh, also, there’s a new excuse to get this iconic song stuck in your head. Enjoy X-Men ’97 and the rest of this weekend’s movie and TV picks, nerds. —Savannah Salazar
Featured Presentations
Problemista
Comedian Julio Torres’s directorial feature debut is finally in theaters after premiering at last year’s SXSW. A precious, surrealist, loosely autobiographical comedy, Problemista is one of those movies that’ll stick with you for a while — it has with me for over a year! Torres stars as Alejandro, an aspiring toy-maker from El Salvador who, after being fired from his job, has to quickly find new work before his visa expires. Desperately, he becomes the assistant to an erratic art critic (a triggering yet hilarious Tilda Swinton) looking to preserve the legacy of her cryogenically-frozen artist husband (RZA). —S.S.
In theaters now
3 Body Problem
Several elements of this project are primed to raise eyebrows. It’s an adaptation of Liu Cixin’s sci-fi novel, which is highly acclaimed but also requires significant changes in order to make its theoretical, abstract, meditative alien-invasion story into a filmable TV show. It’s produced by D.B. Weiss and David Benioff of Game of Thrones fame. It’s Netflix, not HBO or one of the other prestige-y outlets. None of its leads of enormous stars. And yet somehow all of that adds up to a fascinating series! —Kathryn VanArendonk
Streaming on Netflix
➽ Eiza González has to convincingly play a grown woman named Auggie. Good luck, girl.
Road House
Jake Gyllenhaal’s version of the Road House hero, remade and now named Elwood Dalton, leans into the haunted aspects of his character, who we learn used to be a championship UFC fighter and is now living out of his car. This Dalton isn’t so much a professional bouncer as a guy who just knows a lot about inflicting pain and whose outwardly laid-back, almost passive demeanor hides something more menacing. —Bilge Ebiri
Streaming on Prime Video
➽ Remember when we tried to blow Gyllenhaal up? We do fondly.
Immaculate
Ten years ago, Sydney Sweeney auditioned for Immaculate. Ten years later, she’s been on a three-film press run (Anyone But You, Madame Web, and Immaculate) in the span of four months and has basically willed this nun horror back to life. This Neon-distributed movie, directed by Michael Mohan, stars Sweeney as a devout young nun who journeys from America to a peculiar convent in Italy. Let’s just say there’s no Do-Re-Mi’ing in these hills. —S.S.
In theaters now
Shirley
The incomparable Regina King returns to the screen as Shirley Chisholm in this biopic directed by John Ridley, screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave. Supported by a cast that includes the late Lance Reddick, Lucas Hedges, and even King’s sister Reina, the Netflix film charts Chisholm’s historic campaign for a presidential nomination in 1972. —S.S.
Streaming on Netflix
Palm Royale
Honestly, Palm Royale could easily coast off its cast (and is probably hoping to), which includes Kristen Wiig, Carol Burnett, Laura Dern, Allison Janney, Leslie Bibb, Ricky Martin, and many more people fun to watch onscreen. It’s about a woman (Wiig) looking to break into the elite high society, led by Janney’s pompous Evelyn, of Palm Beach’s exclusive club. —S.S.
Streaming on Apple TV+
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire
The jokes are witless, the emotions artless, and the movie joyless, but at least it’s not actually offensive, so it’s got that going for it.
SNIKT!
X-Men ’97
The bombastic score to X-Men: The Animated Series is like a clarion call for millennials; this new animated series, set after Professor Xavier’s exit, taps into that rabid nostalgia. How his allies, students, and loved ones continue is the focus. —Roxana Hadadi
More to read:
➽ X-Men ’97 Will Validate Your Nostalgia
➽ The Original Series’ Essential Episodes
➽ What X-Men: TAS Did for Comic-Book Movies
Streaming on Disney+
An Urgent Slack ????????
That’s Criterion Film Freddy Got Fingered, of course. Thank you, Rebecca, Alison, and Canada!
Streaming on the Criterion Channel
One for the “Poet of Sleaze”
Blood Simple
Onscreen sleaze and offscreen gent, M. Emmet Walsh once said, “I approach each job thinking I may die of a heart attack, so it had better be the best work possible.” No one can ever say the actor didn’t deliver exactly that across a career of memorable turns in Blood Simple, Blade Runner, Knives Out, Slap Shot, and The Iron Giant. He died of cardiac arrest earlier this week and would have turned 89 today. RIP. —Eric Vilas-Boas
Streaming on Max
Finally Streaming
Anatomy of a Fall
While watching Anatomy of a Fall, I never questioned whether Sandra Hüller’s cool writer (also named Sandra) was guilty or not, but now that it’s on Hulu, you can draw your own conclusions. Justine Triet’s gripping drama examines Sandra and her relationships as her husband falls to his death outside their attic window, and the only other witnesses are her blind son and his dog, Snoop (the awards-season scene-stealer Messi).
Streaming on Hulu
Double Feature
Arrival
To honor the arrival (you’re welcome) of 3 Body Problem, a sci-fi series about aliens potentially touching down on Earth, pair it with Arrival, a sci-fi movie about aliens that have already touched down on Earth. Dune 2 may be the Denis Villeneuve blockbuster du jour, but Arrival is still one of his and star Amy Adams’s best films. She plays the person in charge of talking to the extraterrestrial beings. —S.S.
Streaming on Peacock
Want more? Read our recommendations from the weekend of March 15.
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