Smile 2, Alien: Romulus, Netflix’s The Piano Lesson, and every movie new to streaming

Each week on Polygon, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.

This week, Smile 2, the sequel to the supernatural horror debut from director Parker Finn, leers its way onto VOD following its theatrical debut in September. If supernatural horror isn’t your bag, why not give sci-fi horror a try? Alien: Romulus, Evil Dead director Fede Álvarez’s new installment in the venerable Alien franchise, slithers onto Hulu this week alongside the Nick Jonas-led comedy drama The Good Half and the historical drama Firebrand starring Alicia Vikander.

There’s a whole lot more to choose from on streaming this weekend, including the historical survival drama Blitz on Apple TV Plus; The Piano Lesson starring John David Washington (Tenet); Shrek director Vicky Jenson’s latest animated adventure, Spellbound, on Netflix; Blink Twice on MGM Plus; and several other new releases.

Here’s everything new that’s available to watch this weekend!

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New on Netflix

The Piano Lesson

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Genre: Drama
Run time: 2h 5m
Director: Malcolm Washington
Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Ray Fisher

The feature directorial debut by Malcolm Washington adapts August Wilson’s play for the silver screen. Starring Malcolm’s brother John David, The Piano Lesson centers on the lives of Boy Willie Charles and his family living in post-Great Depression Pittsburgh. As the Charles family quarrels over the fate of a prized heirloom, a piano decorated with designs carved by an enslaved ancestor, the fight threatens to roil old resentments and inflame long-simmering tensions.

Joy

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Genre: Biographical drama
Run time: 1h 55m
Director: Ben Taylor
Cast: Bill Nighy, Thomasin McKenzie, James Norton

Joy tells the story of the first test-tube baby and the invention of in vitro fertilization, through the eyes of nurse Jean Purdy, scientist Robert Edwards, and surgeon Patrick Steptoe in the 1970s. The trio faces opposition, as religious zealots claim their work to be unnatural, but continue to persevere in the face of those odds. For decades, Purdy’s contributions to the development of IVF were largely forgotten, but in recent years she’s been more and more recognized.

Spellbound

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Genre: Fantasy comedy
Run time: 1h 49m
Director: Vicky Jenson
Cast: Rachel Zegler, John Lithgow, Jenifer Lewis

A new animated musical from the director of Shrek, Spellbound is about a young princess who must break a spell that’s transformed her parents into monsters and split her kingdom in two. Musical legend Alan Menken does the music for the movie, and with Rachel Zegler as the lead, the soundtrack is sure to soar. The movie was first called Split before it was changed to The Unbreakable Spell, and after shifting between a few streaming services, it was finally renamed Spellbound.

The Merry Gentlemen

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Genre: Musical rom-com
Run time: 1h 27m
Director: Peter Sullivan
Cast: Britt Robertson, Chad Michael Murray, Marla Sokoloff

Magic Mike meets a cozy Christmas movie in this new Netflix holiday flick. A dancer tries to save her family’s performance venue by putting on a steamy all-male dance revue to raise money. She recruits some of the hot men around her small town and trains them in the art of hip thrusting and shirt tearing… and also starts to fall for one of them. Will she save her parents’ venue just in time for Christmas? Given the genre, probably, but there will be more bare torsos than usual.

New on Hulu

Alien: Romulus

Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu

Genre: Sci-fi horror
Run time: 1h 59m
Director: Fede Álvarez
Cast: Cailee Spaeny, David Jonsson, Isabela Merced

Set 20 years after the events of Ridley Scott’s Alien, Fede Álvarez’s sci-fi horror film follows three pairs of young siblings who attempt to scavenge through a derelict space station in a last-ditch effort to escape their indentured servitude to the Weyland-Yutani megacorporation. What they discover aboard the station, however, is not their salvation, but a horror beyond anything they could’ve possibly imagined.

From our review:

“Is it as good as Alien or Aliens?” is the obvious question franchise fans will ask when weighing whether to see Alien: Romulus. Álvarez and Sayagues seem to have been uncomfortably aware that this question was coming. They anticipated those five different answers about what Alien fans love from the previous films, and tried to split the difference between all of them and more. Like the Romulus and Remus stations, which serve as the film’s setting, Alien: Romulus is made up of roughly two parts: a haunted-house story in outer space à la Alien, and a crowd-pleasing horror-action spectacle like Aliens. The former element is stronger than the latter in this case, and the imbalance is one of the reasons Alien: Romulus feels like a by-the-numbers retread of the franchise defining it, rather than the resuscitative breath it so desperately needs.

The Good Half

Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu

Genre: Comedy drama
Run time: 1h 36m
Director: Robert Schwartzman
Cast: Nick Jonas, Brittany Snow, David Arquette

The Jonas Brothers’ very own Nick Jonas stars as an emotionally distant writer returning to Cleveland, Ohio, for his mother’s funeral, after years of avoiding his complicated family. He forges some new relationships and confronts some old ones, and eventually must face his grief — and family drama — head on. The Good Half first premiered at the 2023 Tribeca film festival.

Firebrand

Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu

Genre: Historical drama
Run time: 2h 1m
Director: Karim Aïnouz
Cast: Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, Eddie Marsan

King Henry VIII is remembered for many things, but he’s probably most known for marrying six women in his lifetime, two of which he had executed. Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina) stars in this historical drama as Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII (Jude Law), who must fight for her survival when the king’s behavior becomes more and more erratic and paranoid in the years preceding the end of his reign.

New on Max

Watchmen: Chapter I

Where to watch: Available to stream on Max

Genre: Superhero drama
Run time: 1h 23m
Director: Brandon Vietti
Cast: Troy Baker, Adrienne Barbeau, Corey Burton

Watchmen is back, this time as a multi-part animated film series! In an alternate 1985, a government-sponsored superhero has been inexplicably murdered. Determined to apprehend his killer, a costumed vigilante named Rorschach reunites with his estranged former colleagues and scours the criminal underworld of New York is his search for clues. What he uncovers is a conspiracy that threatens to endanger the entire world. Will he be able to track down the conspirators before it’s too late?

New on Apple TV Plus

Blitz

Where to watch: Available to stream on Apple TV Plus

Genre: Drama
Run time: 2h
Director: Steve McQueen
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Elliott Heffernan, Harris Dickinson

Saoirse Ronan (Lady Bird) stars in Steve McQueen’s historical drama as Rita, a young mother who sends her son George (Elliott Heffernan) to the English countryside to protect him from the impending attack on London by Nazi Germany. When Rita learns that George did not reach his destination, she embarks on a search to find him.

Bread & Roses

Where to watch: Available to stream on Apple TV Plus

Genre: Documentary
Run time: 1h 30m
Director: Sahra Mani

Bread & Roses is a documentary about women in Afghanistan living under the Taliban, following three women: Sharifa, a former government employee confined indoors; Zahra, a dentist who began to organize activists till she was captured and tortured; and Taranom, who has been exiled to Pakistan for her activism. The documentary premiered at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival to critical acclaim.

New on MGM Plus

Blink Twice

Where to watch: Available to stream on MGM Plus

Genre: Psychological thriller
Run time: 1h 42m
Director: Zoë Kravitz
Cast: Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater

Zoë Kravitz’s directorial debut is a psychological thriller about a cocktail waitress named Frida (Naomi Ackie) who gets whisked away to a private island by a tech mogul for a lavish partying getaway. But Frida begins to notice that something strange is happening with the female guests. Fun fact: The film’s working title was Pussy Island, but the Motion Picture Association had an issue with that.

New on Mubi

Witches

Where to watch: Available to stream on Mubi US

Genre: Documentary
Run time: 1h 30m
Director: Elizabeth Sankey
Cast: Catherine Cho, Sophia Di Martino, David Emson

This documentary chronicles the relationship between how witches have been characterized across the history of film, television, and culture and how we view women, motherhood, and mental health. Relying on her own robust knowledge and long-standing obsession with the film’s subject matter, Elizabeth Sankey draws on clips from The Wizard of Oz, Girl, Interrupted, Rosemary’s Baby, and more to illustrate her argument about the connection between the history of witches and the historical vilification of women and their bodies.

New to rent

Smile 2

Where to watch: Available to stream on Metrograph

Genre: Supernatural horror
Run time: 2h 7m
Director: Parker Finn
Cast: Kyle Gallner, Naomi Scott, Lukas Gage

Parker Finn returns with a follow-up to his smash-hit horror debut, Smile. Picking up just a week after the events of the previous film, Smile 2 centers on Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), a famous pop star recovering from a tragic car accident. When a mysterious curse is inadvertently passed on to her, Skye struggles to retain her sanity as she fights against a parasitic supernatural entity that seeks to devour her from the inside out.

From our review:

Smile dodging the streaming abyss and finding box-office success felt like a miracle, but Smile 2 is something even rarer: a horror sequel that outdoes its predecessor in every way. Rather than simply rehashing the original, Parker Finn pushes his clever premise to its logical extreme and builds some incredibly scary scenes to match. In fact, Finn ends Smile 2 in a spot that feels like the perfect conclusion to the franchise — and the perfect jumping-off point for the career of one of the most exciting horror directors of his generation.

source https://www.polygon.com/what-to-watch/480676/new-movies-watch-streaming-smile-2-alien-romulus-netflix-the-piano-lesson