Cuckoo, Challengers, and every movie new to streaming this week

Real Hacker StaffSeptember 20, 2024

5 5 minutes read

Cuckoo, Challengers, and every movie new to streaming this week

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, Blink Twice, the new psychological horror movie from actor-director Zoë Kravitz, is available for purchase and rent on VOD, after its theatrical premiere last month. There’s also the horror thriller Cuckoo, starring Hunter Schafer, which is also available to rent and purchase on VOD. If neither of those interest you, don’t worry; there’s tons of other new releases to stream this week, like Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow on Max, Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers, the Norwegian horror mystery Handling the Undead on Hulu, and more!

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

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Photo: Sam Levy/Netflix

Genre: Drama
Run time: 1h 41m
Director: Azazel Jacobs
Cast: Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen

This family drama follows three estranged sisters who reunite during their ailing father’s final days. The tension between the three is further exacerbated because one of them is not biologically related to the rest. Old animosity flares up, but the three must overcome their differences in order to spend their final moments with their father.

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Jon Arbuckle shaves parmesan cheese over Garfield’s lasagna while Odie watches in a still from The Garfield Movie

Image: Sony Pictures

Genre: Adventure comedy
Run time: 1h 41m
Director: Mark Dindal
Cast: Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Hannah Waddingham

It’s Chris Pratt! As Garfield! The lazy orange cat reunites with his long-lost father, Vic (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson, of all people). Along with Odie, Vic and Garfield plan a heist of a farm so that they can steal a lot of milk in order to appease the Persian cat crime boss that Vic works for. The movie comes by way of director Mark Dindal, best known for The Emperor’s New Groove.

Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu

A woman holding the limp body of child in her arms beside a boat surrounded by marsh of reeds in Handling the Undead.

Image: Neon

Genre: Horror drama
Run time: 1h 37m
Director: Thea Hvistendahl
Cast: Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Bahar Pars

There’s tons of horror movies about the dead coming back to life. None of them are quite like Handling the Undead, though. Based on John Ajvide Lindqvist’s 2005 novel, the film follows the story of three families living in Oslo whose loved ones all mysteriously rise from the dead as semi-sentient corpses. How will they handle this new phenomenon, and is it a second chance to say goodbye… or a curse?

Where to watch: Available to stream on Max

Twentysomething movie-theater employee Owen (Justice Smith) stands in a dark theater and looks at the camera, with a slide on the screen behind him that says “Thank You for Watching” atop a cartoon bucket of popcorn in Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow

Image: A24/Everett Collection

Genre: Psychological horror
Run time: 1h 40m
Director: Jane Schoenbrun
Cast: Justice Smith, Brigette Lundy-Paine, Helena Howard

If you somehow haven’t yet had the opportunity to watch Jane Schoenbrun’s critically acclaimed psychological horror drama, don’t worry: There is still time, especially now that the film is available to stream on Max. Justice Smith stars as Owen, an isolated teenager who forms a bond with an older classmate, Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine), over a television series called The Pink Opaque. As the years wear on, however, it gradually becomes clear to Owen that there’s more to the show — and his own reality — than meets the eye.

Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime Video

Teenage Tashi (Zendaya, in a vivid red jumper) sits on a hotel bed, eyes closed, chin up, hands at her sides, as Art (Mike Faist) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor) sit on either side of her, each passionately kissing her neck, in Challengers

Image: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures/YouTube

Genre: Sports drama
Run time: 2h 11m
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Cast: Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, Mike Faist

Luca Guadagnino’s sensual sports drama, about a love triangle in professional tennis, has set certain circles of the world on fire since its release in late April, and it is one of the best movies of the year. Now, you can enjoy it at home.

That script is a terrific three-course meal for Faist and O’Connor. They get to trade off face and heel roles from scene to scene and era to era, as Art and Patrick help and hurt each other in equal measure. But it’s an absolute smorgasbord for Zendaya, who even in starring roles has never been given this much room to stretch. Tashi is a gratifyingly rich character, both righteously angry over the thwarting of her ambitions and cruelly angry at all the men who have the nerve to keep on playing the game that was taken away from her. She’s hungry for affection and withholding it at the same time, by turns sensually curious and coldly dispassionate, ambitious and exhausted, conflicted and confident. She’s the kind of character that media master’s theses are made of, and unpicking Tashi’s conflicting motives and how she integrates them is likely to become a pop culture obsession in the months to come.

Where to watch: Available to stream on AMC Plus

A close-up shot of a woman playing guitar in Dandelion.

Image: IFC Films

Genre: Drama
Run time: 1h 53m
Director: Nicole Riegel
Cast: KiKi Layne, Thomas Doherty, Melanie Nicholls-King

KiKi Layne (If Beale Street Could Talk) stars in this musical drama as Dandelion, a struggling singer-songwriter who travels the country performing gigs, all the while yearning for a career breakthrough she fears will never happen. After striking up a romance with Casey (Thomas Doherty), a fellow disgruntled musician, their love proves to be the inadvertent catalyst for Dandelion’s discovery of an authentic artistic voice all her own.