July 4th has come and gone somehow, and another, hopefully less fireworks-filled weekend is here. As always, the best streaming services are serving up a ton of new movies to pick from for your weekend viewing pleasure, only a small fraction of which are actually worth your time.
Of the new additions this week, "Backrooms" in all its surreal horror is the main headliner. It's fun and hypnotizing and less scary than you might think — and now you can get lost in its liminal, yellowed hell from the comfort of your own couch. Over on Netflix, you can catch Chloe Zhao's haunting period drama "Hamnet" to see if it lives up to last year's Oscar hype. A similarly critically acclaimed cyber-heist thriller, "Wardriver," just landed on Paramount+.
That's it for the new new stuff. There's another newish movie I think continues to be slept on. If you're going to pay to buy/rent a movie this weekend, I'd wait for "Backrooms" to come to a subscription streamer and put that money toward seeing Boots Riley's "I Love Boosters" instead. This movie is too damn good to flop.
Of everything else that's come out this week, your time's better spent joining me in a new tradition I'm getting off the ground floor of watching "Sinners" on Sundays.
Scroll on to learn everything you need to know about what new movies to stream this weekend. Because who wants to waste their precious streaming time with yet another dud?
'Hamnet' (Netflix)
![HAMNET - Official Trailer [HD] - Only In Theaters This Thanksgiving - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/xYcgQMxQwmk/maxresdefault.jpg)
This is another movie I've been putting off watching forever, but now that "Hamnet" is on Netflix, I might as well see what all the Oscars fuss was about. It follows an alternate history sort of take on the early life of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley), as told from her perspective in a rare turn.
An unimaginable loss for the family inspires the Bard's famously tragic play, and that's when Buckley's raw take of a mother's grief (which won her the award for Best Actress) will have you reaching for the tissues, I'm told.
Watch "Hamnet" on Netflix now
'Wardriver' (Paramount+)
You may not have heard of "Wardriver" before it landed on Paramount+ (I know I didn't), but critics clearly loved it. This cyber-heist thriller managed a rare 100% critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes (and an admittedly much lower 57% audience score). You'll have to watch to see who got it right.
Dane DeHaan stars as Cole, a low-level hacker who gets roped into a cyberheist that's hopelessly above his pay grade. When he tries to drain the bank account of an unsuspecting woman with a rich benefactor, the operation spirals into a cat-and-mouse chase with deadly stakes. And his growing feelings for said woman certainly don't complicate things. But like any typical noir protagonist, he only realizes too late that he's in over his head.
Watch "Wardriver" on Paramount+ now
'Backrooms' (PVOD)
If you missed this one in theaters, I'd hold off on catching "Backrooms" until it hits a subscription streaming service. But if you, for whatever reason, need to watch "Backrooms" this weekend, it just hit video-on-demand platforms. This movie is absolutely as weird and uncanny and genuinely good as people say it is, don't get me wrong. Though, of the two, "Obsession" left the bigger impression on me in theaters.
As for what "Backrooms" is about, ain't that the question. How do you describe a dream? Give that dream a bunch of yellow hallways, a sense that you're being watched, and a single, large pirate, and you've got "Backrooms." It's a surreal nightmare, a slow-burning psychological horror that captivates. Also, there's no lore you need to know (trust me, I went in knowing zilch). Understanding is second to pure spectacle in this one, like a more horror-leaning "Everything, Everywhere, All at Once."
'Sinners' (HBO Max)
We watch "Sinners" every Sunday. That's the rule. That's the goal now. Mind you, I've been calling it church since last July, but if y'all would rather listen to Jeremy Culhane (in a pitch-perfect impression of that one angry white guy I always forget the name of — there's a lot of them out there these days) then at least you're listening to somebody about how phenomenal this movie is.
"Sinners" is a romantic horror movie, heavy on the romance. Michael B. Jordan plays Short and Stack, twin brothers navigating the monsters of 1930s Mississippi. All too human monsters, I should clarify, at least until one fateful night when bloodsuckers come for their souls. The music alone is reason to watch and re-watch Ryan Coogler's opera.
Watch "Sinners" on HBO Max now
'I Love Boosters' (PVOD)
I'm have an ugly soft spot for early 2000s humor, and this week I finally caved and saw "Scary Movie" (notably NOT officially titled "Scary Movie 6," which fits with its ouroborus ass theme), and thought the entire time: "Man, this is like the direct-to-DVD sequel to I Love Boosters."
Y'all didn't turn up in theaters for this one, and I get that. But if y'all could help it find a new audience on streaming, it'd be mighty appreciated. Because for the absolute gift of another Boots Riley spectacle to flop at a time when "Peacemaker" gets a second season, now that... now that hurts my heart. I haven't stopped thinking about this movie since I watched it. It's everything an 'Eat the Rich' movie should be. Spoiling anything more than that would be doing you a disservice.
Buy or rent "I Love Boosters" now
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