The Best Movies New to Every Major Streaming Platform in June 2024 (2024)

‘Fancy Dance’ (dir. Erica Tremblay, 2023)

Lily Gladstone spent much of 2023 being rightfully celebrated for her devastating performance in Martin Scorsese’s $200 million ‘Killers of the Flower Moon,’ but the actress did everything in her power to share that blinding spotlight with people and projects who weren’t afforded any of the same attention, including one that was especially near and dear to her heart: Erica Tremblay’s ‘Fancy Dance.’

An instant favorite when it premiered at Sundance in January of last year, this sensitive but urgent drama about a woman (Gladstone) looking after her niece in the wake of her sister’s disappearance from an Oklahoma reservation languished without distribution even as its star became a leading contender for Best Actress, and it wasn’t until just before the Oscars that Apple finally doubled down on the Lily Gladstone business and scooped up this indie gem, which instantly became one of the strongest films in the company’s slate of original releases.

How strong? Here’s how Gladstone put it while accepting the Performance Award at IndieWire Honors last December: “This performance has been the absolute highlight of my career, the best work I feel like I’ve ever done, the most important story, elevating the awareness of missing and murdered Indigenous women, missing and murdered sisters, working with the greatest, most visionary, most committed director of my life, working with somebody who I love very dearly and had the best chemistry I’ve had with somebody on screen …You all thought I was talking about the other movie, didn’t you?”

Available to stream June 28.

‘Desert Hearts’ (dir. Donna Deitch, 1985)

The Criterion Channel can always be counted on to have the deepest and most diverse lineup of any of the major streamers (while the bar is low, Criterion over-delivers), but I was still taken aback by the sheer variety of what’s on tap this month. The fun starts with a program dedicated to movies with iconic synth soundtracks — the ’80s dominate of course (‘Scanners,’ ‘Thief,’ ‘Shogun Assassin,’ etc.), but the series stretches as far back as 1956’s ‘Forbidden Planet,’ and up to the moon with ‘For All Mankind.’ For a ridiculously jarring change of pace, why not dip your toes into the internet’s deepest Ingmar Bergman retrospective, which stretches from ‘Crisis’ in 1946 to ‘After the Rehearsal’ in 1984.

If that’s a bit too chilly for you, the ever-comforting cinema of Paul Schrader is on hand to offer its warm embrace, as Criterion has put together a retrospective that includes masterpieces like ‘Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters’ and ‘Hardcore,’ films maudit like ‘The Comfort of Strangers’ (that’s a cusper), and even the likes of ‘The Canyons.’ Ingmar Bergman and Lindsay Lohan in the same month? That’s tough to beat.

Elsewhere, the Channel is celebrating Pride with a slew of LGBTQ+ favorites (‘Portrait of Jason,’ ‘Paris Is Burning,’ our pick of the month ‘Desert Hearts,’ and a whole bunch more), while Céline Sciamma receives her own little spotlight that brings special attention to on-theme films like ‘Water Lilies’ and ‘Tomboy.’ There’s a package devoted to sprawling ensembles (‘Dazed and Confused,’ ‘The Big Chill,’ even ‘Can’t Hardly Wait’), a handful of ecstatic but under-seen gems from ‘House’ director Nobuhiko Obayashi (don’t miss ‘Beijing Watermelon’), first-run exclusives like Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Cannes hit ‘About Dry Grasses, Jacques Rivette’s inimitable ‘Duelle,’ a tribute to Haitian-Canadian auteur Miryam Charles, and somehow so much more.

All films available to stream June 1.

‘Perfect Days’ (dir. Wim Wenders, 2023)

Hulu’s June lineup finds it making the most of its output deal with Neon, as the platform is set to become the exclusive streaming home for Wim Wenders’ Oscar-nominated ‘Perfect Days’ — a sweet and restorative treat starring Kōji Yakusho as a public toilet cleaner in Tokyo — and Ava Duvernay’s ‘Origin,’ the latter of which is destined to be seen and reckoned with online in a broader way than it was during any part of its fraught theatrical campaign. Those splashy premieres are joined by contemporary standouts like ‘A Love Song’ and ‘It Follows,’ in addition to comparatively ancient classics like ‘Taps’ and ‘Working Girl’ (1988 might as well be 1932 in streaming years).

Available to stream June 6.

Other highlights:

– ‘It Follows’ (6/1)
– ‘Working Girl’ (6/1)
– ‘Origin’ (6/10)

‘Skin Deep’ (dir. Alex Schaad, 2023)

Kino Lorber, which has spent the last 45 years developing one of the deepest and most distinguished libraries in the game, has been streaming some of its titles through a dedicated channel on Prime Video since last November. But this May, the company made the big and extremely welcome move to create a direct-to-consumer platform of its own, where subscribers can enjoy hundreds of major classic and contemporary films for just $5.99 per month (a steal at a time when most of the competition is starting to charge around three times as much).

The Kino Film Collection blew it out for its inaugural month in business, with a debut lineup that included everything from ‘The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’ and Andrei Tarkovsky’s ‘The Sacrifice’ to Pham Tien An’s recent Cannes stunner ‘Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell,’ which couldn’t be streamed anywhere else.

Kino is keeping the good times rolling this June with a slate that offers another unmissable Tarkovsky masterpiece (‘Nostalghia’), Nancy Savoca’s long-unavailable 1993 gem ‘Household Saints,’ an intimate Tania Cypriano documentary about transgender-related healthcare (‘Born to Be’), and a little ‘Private Benjamin’ just to keep things from getting too heavy. Alex Schaad’s ‘Skin Deep’ highlights the Kino Film Collection’s role as a first-run streaming pipeline for the company’s theatrical releases, and this wholly unique body swap drama —a beguiling breath of fresh air when it first came out this winter —is the kind of film that benefits from being able to watch it all over again with the click of a button.

Available to stream June 13.

Other highlights:

– ‘Private Benjamin’ (6/6)
– ‘Nostalghia’ (6/20)
– ‘Born to Be’ (6/20)

‘Nymphomaniac’ (dir. Lars von Trier, 2013)

Here’s IndieWire’s Ryan Lattanzio on the movie that seems to be the centerpiece of Magnolia Selects’ library: “Leave it to our gloomiest living filmmaker to create an oddly tender epic about a woman’s sexual education. That woman, Joe, is played with feral fearlessness by Charlotte Gainsbourg, and in recounting her coital past, the film becomes a psychosexual picaresque — and a truly twisted character study. Framing the story is the banter between Gainsbourg and Stellan Skarsgard, equally discomfiting and hilarious. (Actual line from the film, spoken by Skarsgard after Gainsbourg reveals lurid details of her past: ‘That’s an excellent parallel to river trout fishing!’) ‘Volume II’ plates up darker meat than its predecessor, as Joe is forced to confront her demons, and develops a mutually satisfying (if grim) relationship with an S&M practictioner played by Jamie Bell, among many other transcendent horrors.”

Available to stream June 26.

Other highlights:

– “Ukraine Is not a Brothel” (6/19)
– “No End in Sight” (6/25)
– “Exiled” (6/26)

’35 Shots of Rum’ (dir. Claire Denis, 2008)

Claire Denis possesses an incredibly vivid understanding of bodies and the spaces they occupy, and her acute insights into the physical world are typically expressed through violence of one kind or another — the violence of male desire, the violence of colonialism, the violence of memory. But while bodies (even dead ones) are of paramount importance to ’35 Shots of Rum,’ this intimate drama is also one of the most tender movies ever made.

A quietly heartbreaking portrait of a widower (Alex Descas), his increasingly independent daughter (Mati Diop), and the makeshift family they cobble together between the loners and oddballs who live in their apartment building, Denis’ masterpiece unfolds like the most sensual movie that Yasujirō Ozu never made. It’s a bittersweet story of the joys and disappointments that shape our lives, that bring us together and pull us apart, and it’s told with a physical musicality that allows you to feel it on your skin. The centerpiece ‘Nightshift’ sequence is one of those things that everyone should see before they die. ’35 Shots of Rum’ is presented on Metrograph at Home as part of a series of films selected by cinematographer and ‘The Sweet East’ director Sean Price Williams.

Available to stream June 1.

Other highlights:

– “Goodbye, Dragon Inn” (6/1)
– “Tropical Malady” (6/1)
– “Zero Tolerance” (6/1)

‘Monster’ (dir. Hirokazu Kore-eda, 2013)

Mubi’s June release slate is as sharp and focused as it gets, with well-curated programming that invites you to go deeper on what’s currently in the zeitgeist.

Still reeling from Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s ‘Evil Does Not Exist’ (or struggling to find it in a theater near you)? Check out his first professional feature, 2008’s ‘Passion,’ about a couple who begins to flounder after they make their engagement public.

Hearing great things about Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan’s Sundance hit ‘Ghostlight,’ which IFC is releasing this month? Catch up with their sweet and poignant 2019 dramedy ‘Saint Frances’ and see what all the fuss is about.

And speaking of Sundance, the festival’s marvelous 2023 premiere ‘Sometimes I Think About Dying’ is here too, a strange and quiet little film that stays with you for months. And it goes without saying that Mubi is taking care of its own, as the company is supporting its recent release of ‘Gasoline Rainbow’ with a Ross brothers retrospective that plays all the hits, from ‘45365’ to ‘Contemporary Color.’

MUBI is also celebrating Pride this month, and doing so with a rich selection of films that range from hot (Gregg Araki’s ‘Kaboom’) to heavy (‘How to Survive a Plague’) and indefinable points between (‘The Duke of Burgundy’). Other films amid their June slate might also fit under that umbrella, albeit in less obvious ways. It almost feels like a spoiler to remind people that Hirokazu Kore-eda’s twisty but achingly tender ‘Monster’ won the Queer Palme at Cannes last year, but this multi-dimensional tale of self-discovery broaches queerness on its own terms, which is a beautiful thing to see even if you already know it’s coming.

Available to stream June 7.

Other highlights:

– ‘45365’ (6/1)
– ‘The Duke of Burgundy’ (6/1)
– ‘Sometimes I Think About Dying’ (6/21)

‘Godzilla Minus One’ (dir. Takashi Yamazaki, 2023)

The best movie coming to Netflix this month is either ‘Carol’ or ‘Aftersun,’ but those two masterpieces — the Haynes in particular — bounce around the streaming world so often that it hardly feels worth calling special attention to their latest pitstop at Ted Sarandos’ house.

More seismic is the arrival of the Oscar-winning ‘Godzilla Minus One,’ which has been temporarily unavailable in the aftermath of its smash theatrical run, striking panic into the hearts of people who apparently don’t remember when waiting six months to watch something at home was a profitable norm we all accepted for the health of the movie business.

The good news is that Takashi Yamazaki’s inspired origin story is still a roaring good time on your TV, as well as a perfect companion piece for Netflix’s kid-friendly kaiju saga of the month, ‘Ultraman: Rising.’ Add those to Richard Linklater’s ‘Hit Man,’ and the streamer has no shortage of star power for the first month of summer.

And while you’re there, do us all a favor and check out ‘Scavengers Reign,’ OK? It’s a TV show, but let’s not hold that against one of the most evocative and inspired pieces of science fiction you’ll ever see in the streaming era. Log enough view hours, and we might even be lucky enough to get more of it.

Available to stream June 1.

Other highlights:

– ‘Hit Man’ (6/7)
– ‘Carol’ (6/17)
– ‘Aftersun’ (6/21)

‘The Student’ (dir. Kirill Serebrennikov, 2016)

Always unpredictable (and all the better for it), OVID continues to do what it does best this June, delivering a slate that ranges from a riveting documentary about a female Palestinian hijacker (‘Leila Khaled, Hijacker’) to a Cold War road trip assembled from Yugoslavian newsreel footage (‘Scenes from the Labudovic Reels’) and Stewart Thorndike’s ‘Lyle,’ a Pride-ready queer psychodrama starring Gaby Hoffmann as a grieving mother who begins to suspect that her neighbors are members of a Satanic death cult.

Most exciting of all might be the rare chance to see the breakout film by dissident Kirill Serebrennikov (‘Leto,’ ‘Limonov: The Ballad’), who’s become a world cinema darling since the Russian government tried to silence him from speaking out. A bracing and volatile drama about a high schooler who begins lashing out at the moral rot he sees reflected back in the adult world around him, ‘The Student’ confirmed Serebrennikov as a fearless artist with a rare and necessary gift for aestheticizing political rage.

Available to stream June 28.

Other highlights:

– ‘Leila Khaled, Hijacker’ (6/13)
– ‘Narrow Path to Happiness’ (6/27)
– ‘Lyle’ (6/28)

‘The Beach Bum’ (dir. Harmony Korine, 2019)

A meandering and morally psychedelic comedy about a hedonistic poet named Moondog (a pure, uncut Matthew McConaughey) who has to finish his novel in order to inherit his late wife’s millions, Harmony Korine’s ‘The Beach Bum’ is borderline illegible to a modern audience conditioned to process stories by passing judgment on their characters. Moondog cannot and will not be put in a box: He’s everything all of the time. He’s a sinner and a saint. A rich man and a vagabond. A genius and a moron. Dependent upon his privilege, and yet happy to burn it all down just so he has something to smoke.

Moondog is a tour guide through a demented Floridian underworld where Zac Efron wears JNCO jeans, Jimmy Buffet duets with Snoop Dogg, and ‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ star Martin Lawrence is a hilarious Vietnam vet/dolphin-obsessive named ‘Captain Wack,’ but he’s also its main attraction. It’s hard to know if McConaughey is playing Moondog for the first time or if Moondog has always been the one playing McConaughey, but either way, it makes for an inimitable performance that somehow manages to simultaneously confront and ignore the self-absorbed nihilism of the modern world. ‘The Beach Bum’ may not have made huge waves when it came out, but people will be getting stoned off this strange American odyssey for decades to come.

Available to stream June 1.

Other highlights:

– ‘The African Queen’ (6/1)
– ‘Bound’ (6/1)
– ‘Shutter Island’ (6/1)

‘Of an Age’ (dir. Goran Stolevski, 2022)

Macedonian-Australian director Goran Stolevski has made a major name for himself in a very short amount of time, as he quickly followed his 2022 debut — the Malickian witch epic ‘You Won’t Be Alone’ — with two smaller but similarly assured dramas that confirm his talent. This year’s ‘Housekeeping for Beginners’ is already streaming on Peaco*ck, but Stolevski’s other 2022 feature is joining it just in time for Pride. Here’s how IndieWire’s Ryan Lattanzio, a diehard Stolevski fan from the start, described the film:

“Out Macedonian-Australian filmmaker Goran Stolevski’s bittersweet love story summons memories of ‘Weekend’ and ‘Before Sunrise’ in the romance between an Aussie dancer and his friend’s older brother. Kol (Elias Anton) and Adam (Thom Green) first bond over Franz Kafka, Tori Amos, and Wong Kar Wai’s ‘Happy Together’ over a leisurely, hot car ride, stoking an overnight connection that carries into the next decade during a run-in at a wedding.

“‘Of an Age’ is an exquisitely shot and aching ode to furtive glances and verbal attraction. Stolevski freely quotes from his own queer media literacy in bonding Kol and Adam in their mutual love of obscure music and movies. Adam is an idealization of the kind of person that young closeted gay people yearn to connect with, especially those struggling socially who bury themselves in the arts rather than people, who mostly disappoint anyway. ‘Of an Age’ should offer anyone who loves turning a missed romantic opportunity over and over in their minds, going in circles over what went wrong or didn’t, a chance to relive regret all over again.”

Available to stream June 7.

Other highlights:

– ‘Blockers’ (6/1)
– ‘If Beale Street Could Talk’ (6/1)
– “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’ (6/19)

‘Anomalisa’ (dir. Charlie Kaufman & Duke Johnson, 2015)

The jury is still out on Prime Video’s raw and revealing new Celine Dion documentary (‘I Am: Celine Dion’), poised to be the streamer’s biggest and most bizarrely titled debut of the month.

But subscribers will have a smattering of other favorites to enjoy while they wait. Anyone who missed ‘Oppenheimer’ on Peaco*ck can finally watch it on X-Ray mode as Christopher Nolan intended, while Liam Neeson fans can double back for the very best of his post-‘Taken’ action dramas, Joe Carnahan’s man-vs.-wolfpack epic ‘The Grey.’ And it’s never a bad time to revisit Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson’s singular and thrilling ‘Anomalisa,’ which is still waiting for the ‘Synecdoche, New York’-like cult obsession that it so richly deserves.

Available to stream June 16.

Other highlights:

– ‘The Grey’ (6/18)
– ‘Oppenheimer’ (6/18)
– ‘I Am: Celine Dion’ (6/25)

‘Exhuma’ (dir. Jang Jae-hyun, 2024)

Earlier this year, a supernatural horror movie about a family trying to exorcize a vengeful spirit from their newborn baby followed its quiet debut at the Berlinale by promptly becoming the sixth highest-grossing film in the history of South Korea’s box office, with admissions numbers eclipsing all-time blockbusters like ‘Parasite’ and ‘Train to Busan.’

Unlike those global sensations, however, Jang Jae-hyun’s ‘Exhuma’ hasn’t caught fire across the rest of the world (it pulled in a mere $2,310,900 when Well Go USA released it here in March), but it feels like that’s only a matter of time. While Netflix has to settle for Xavier Gens’ fun but forgettable ‘Shark de Triomphe’ or whatever it’s called, Shudder might just be sitting on the international streaming blockbuster of the summer, as the genre-focused service has claimed ‘Exhuma’ as one of the highest-profile exclusives in its library. There’s no other place where this story of ghouls and grave robbers would be so well-positioned to find the North American audience it deserves.

Available to stream June 14.

Other highlights:

– ‘A Lonely Place to Die’ (6/3)
– ‘Valhalla Rising’ (6/3)
– ‘The Devil’s Bath’ (6/28)