11 movies to check out on Hulu this March

In Alejandro González Iñárritu’s black comedy-drama , Michael Keaton plays a washed-up actor known for playing the superhero Birdman on-screen who tries to reinvent himself on Broadway. The movie also starring Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Emma Stone, and Naomi Watts won four Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. The A.V. Club’s , “For all the winks and nods and inside-baseball irony, Birdman gets airborne only when it’s celebrating, instead of skewering, its hero’s twin vocations. In those moments, the film is a gift to its audience, too.”

Ridley Scott’s seminal 1982 sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner stars Harrison Ford as a blade runner—an LAPD officer who hunts down rogue synthetic humans known as Replicants—in a neon-lit, rainy Los Angeles with flying cars, digital billboards, and artificial animals. Denis Villeneuve’s visually breathtaking sequel takes place 30 years after the original and again stars Ford reprising his role as Rick Deckard, plus Ryan Gosling as the Replicant K, who tracks down Deckard and helps him locate his adult child. The sequel also stars Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Lennie James, Dave Bautista, and Jared Leto. Blade Runner 2049 won two Oscars: Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects. A sequel series titled Blade Runner 2099 is currently in development for Prime Video.

Before you see Denis Villeneuve’s in theaters, revisit the stunning first chapter on Hulu based on Frank Herbert’s iconic sci-fi novels. The movie about the battle for the desert planet of Arrakis—the only place in the universe where a precious spice flows that makes interstellar travel possible—stars Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem. Dune won six Oscars: Best Original Score, Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, and Best Visual Effects.

Christopher Nolan will inevitably clean up at the Academy Awards this month for Oppenheimer, which is probably why the director’s mind-bending sci-fi action-thriller got added to Hulu’s March calendar. The movie about stealing information from people by entering their subconscious minds stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Elliot Page, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Dileep Rao, and Michael Caine. Inception won four Oscars, including Best Cinematography and Best Visual Effects. The A.V. Club’s , “The film is an imposing, prismatic achievement, and strongly resistant to an insta-reaction; when it’s over, Nolan still seems a few steps ahead of us.”

Since this month on Hulu is all about Oscar-winning movies that give your HDTV a workout, check out Ang Lee’s surreal adventure-drama Life Of Pi about a boy (Suraj Sharma) and a tiger stranded at sea for 227 days. The movie won four Oscars: Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, and Best Original Score. The A.V. Club’s , “For much of the film, the metaphors at work are largely submerged in the immediacy of Sharma’s breathless, intense fight for survival, spaced out by moments of overwhelming visual richness provided by the changing environment around him.” Note to Hulu: please stream this one in 4K.

Neil Burger’s psychological thriller stars Star Wars’ Daisy Ridley as well as Ben Mendelsohn and Garrett Hedlund. The official description reads, “Helena’s (Daisy Ridley) seemingly ordinary life hides a dark and dangerous truth: her estranged father is the infamous Marsh King (Ben Mendelsohn), the man who kept her and her mother captive in the wilderness for years. When her father escapes from prison, Helena will need to confront her past. Knowing that he will hunt for her and her family, Helena must find the strength to face her demons and outmaneuver the man who taught her everything she knows about surviving in the wild.”

The official description for the macho action-thriller One Shot reads: “An elite squad of Navy SEALs, on a covert mission to transport a prisoner off a CIA black site island prison, are trapped when insurgents attack while trying to rescue the same prisoner.” Scott Adkins plays Lt. Blake Harris, Ashley Greene plays junior CIA analyst Zoe Anderson, and Ryan Phillippe plays Deputy Site Manager Tom Shields in a movie directed by James Nunn.

This animated superhero comedy about Superman’s pet dog, Krypto, features the voices of Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Kate McKinnon, John Krasinski, Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, Diego Luna, Thomas Middleditch, Ben Schwartz, and Keanu Reeves. The A.V. Club’s : “Behind every great superhero, apparently, there’s a super-pet—or there should be. Buried like a Kryptonite bone beneath all the explosions, jokes, booming music, superhero derring-do, and mega-star voices, that’s the basic takeaway from the animated family feature .” “Weird Barbie” McKinnon steals the show as a manic hairless guinea pig named Lulu.

Two estranged siblings (Haley Lu Richardson and Owen Teague) return to their family’s Montana ranch after their father falls into a coma in this acclaimed drama written and directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel. The A.V. Club’s , “Movies about childhood trauma rarely come as powerfully understated as . Unfolding beneath a Montana sky so clear and expansive you can almost feel the wind whipping through your hair, the film is one of heavy and suppressed sorrow, featuring a brother and sister who each carry a burden of unresolved grief.”

The official description for this Lifetime mystery-thriller reads: “Nicole Ray learns that her stepfather, Matthew, whom she hadn’t seen in years, suffered a deadly fall down the stairs at the family home and that her estranged mother, Kate, has been arrested for his murder. As Nicole begins investigating what happened, she finds out that not everything is as it seems, as if someone wants to let this sleeping dog lie… at any price.” Directed by Peter Sullivan, To Kill A Stepfather stars Alex Camacho, Kelly McCart, Jamel King, Avis Wrentmore, and Elyse Mirto.

Critics mostly dismissed but audiences loved Paint starring Owen Wilson as Carl Nargle, a fictional painter inspired by Bob Ross. The A.V. Club’s , “In the mostly delightful farce , Owen Wilson proves he knows the difference between a comic actor and a comedian who acts. The frequently riotous script by writer-director Brit McAdams feels like it was written with Will Ferrell in mind, circa . Few comedies in recent memory come by their laughs more honestly than Paint does because, like all the best comedies, the laughter is based on a genuine unease.”