The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to Netflix, Amazon and More in February – The New York Times
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If February is cold where you are, what a great reason to stay home in front of the TV. If it’s not, the great TV series and movies coming to the major services this month are all the excuse you need. Here are our favorites, plus a roundup of all the best new titles in all genres. (Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice.)
New to Netflix
‘The Pharmacist’
Starts streaming: Feb. 5
In April 1999, 22-year-old Danny Schneider was shot buying drugs in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans. His father, Dan, who was living nearby in the whiter and more prosperous St. Bernard parish, channeled his grief into obsessively investigating his son’s murder. In the years that followed, Dan started paying attention to the way New Orleans’s drug crisis was moving toward opioids, so he shifted his focus to meticulously collecting evidence about local OxyContin use, desperate to make a difference. “I couldn’t save my son,” he explains. “But I can save some kids.”
This four-part documentary uses Dan’s story to unfurl the devastation caused by the drug addiction epidemic in the United States, and skillfully shows how local and national perspectives intersect: We hear how, in his job as a pharmacist, Dan tried to talk the young, seemingly healthy people handing him prescriptions for OxyContin out of using the drug; see him stake out the office of a local doctor prescribing incredible numbers of painkillers; watch as he talks to the Drug Enforcement Administration and gives a deposition against that doctor. Even knowing the broad strokes of the opioid crisis, “The Pharmacist” tells a moving and surprising story.
‘Horse Girl’
Starts streaming: Feb. 7
Don’t be fooled: “Horse Girl” is a much stranger and more ambitious movie than its name, conjuring up cute childhood hobbies, might suggest. In this, her screenwriting debut, Alison Brie explores the impact of her own maternal grandmother’s paranoid schizophrenia, playing a lonely but optimistic young woman who becomes increasingly paranoid and disturbed. Co-written by Jeff Baena, who also directed, the film starts like your typical indie comedy, with sweet humor and a quirky lead character — who does indeed love horses and makes friendship lanyards. But as we learn more about Sarah’s life, strange things start happening and plot points become increasingly inexplicable, and reality seems to unravel. If you enjoyed Miranda July’s deep dive into a complicated, isolated woman’s psyche in her novel “The First Bad Man,” be sure to give “Horse Girl” a watch.
‘To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You’
Starts streaming: Feb. 12
In this sequel to 2018’s “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before,” perhaps Netflix’s most successful foray into teen rom-coms, Lara Jean (Lana Condor) finally has a boyfriend, the human puppy Peter (Noah Centineo). But, much to her dismay, it turns out this is where the complications really begin, as we discover what happened to the love letter Lara Jean wrote to John, her middle school crush. The scene-stealing Anna Cathcart is back as Lara Jean’s sister, and Holland Taylor joins the cast. “P.S. I Still Love You” is based on the second book in Jenny Han’s trilogy, and a third adaptation is already in the works.
‘Gentefied’
Starts streaming: Feb. 21
“Gentefied” began life as a web series, and as a half-hour Netflix show, it’s bright and snappy, full of one-liners just begging to be made into GIFs. The 10 episodes center on Ana, Erik and Chris, Latino and Latina cousins living in the Boyle Heights neighborhood in east Los Angeles, where ballooning rents have forced the trio to fight to keep their grandfather’s taco shop open. There are some very satisfying depictions of hipster culture, like a white guy in a sombrero leading a tour of local food spots, but the show really shines when it’s investigating the fraught fault lines of gentrification and the immigrant experience: For minority art to be embraced by the white creative mainstream, is a degree of exploitation inevitable? At what point do the needs of a community supersede the legacy of individuals within that community? How much change is necessary to stay afloat on the waves of gentrification? What if living the life your parents wanted for you means rejecting them? These fraught questions crept up on me watching “Gentefied,” because I was so engrossed in the characters’ day-to-day high jinks. But when the emotional moments land, they really land.
Also arriving:
Feb. 1
“The Dirty Dozen”
“Dirty Harry”
“Driving Miss Daisy”
“Elizabeth”
“Elizabeth: The Golden Age”
“The Notebook”
“The Pianist”
“Purple Rain”
Feb. 7
“Locke & Key”
Feb. 26
“I Am Not Okay With This”
Feb. 27
“Altered Carbon” Season 2
Feb. 28
“All the Bright Places”
“Babylon Berlin” Season 3
New to Amazon
‘Honey Boy’
Starts streaming: Feb. 7
Shia LaBeouf, who became a teen celebrity in the early aughts for his role in the Disney channel series “Even Stevens,” wrote and stars in this reimagining of his own childhood. The movie switches between the ’90s, when 12-year-old Otis (Noah Jupe) is living with his father James, played by LaBeouf, in a motel, and the ’00s, when adult Otis (Lucas Hedges) is in rehab, trying to understand his relationship with James. If this sounds like an exercise in Hollywood navel-gazing, well, you’re not wrong. In recent years, LaBeouf’s drunken misbehavior has gotten him more attention than his acting, and in “Honey Boy” he’s doing therapy in public — the Times review said the film is “a flex: an assertion of the clout LaBeouf claims, in interviews, to no longer have.” But there’s still something strikingly courageous about a former Hollywood golden boy attempting this depth of self-reflection, and being messy in the process.
‘Hunters’
Starts streaming: Feb. 21
Al Pacino is going from headlining Netflix’s gangster epic “The Irishman” to anchoring an Amazon Studios drama: Set in 1977, “Hunters” is based on the true story of a group of vigilantes, including Holocaust survivors, based in New York City who were determined to find the hundreds of Nazis happily resettled across the United States and bring them to overdue (and violent) justice. Pacino leads a strong ensemble cast that includes Logan Lerman, Carol Kane and Lena Olin, with Jordan Peele as an executive producer.
Also arriving:
Feb. 1
“Bridget Jones’s Diary”
“Ghost”
“Magic Mike”
“Precious”
Feb. 7
“All or Nothing: The Philadelphia Eagles”
Feb. 12
“The Farewell”
New to Apple TV Plus
‘Visible: Out on Television’
Starts streaming: Feb. 14
This docu-series, from executive producer Wanda Sykes, gives a thorough history of how L.G.B.T.Q. people have been represented on television. In so doing, it also doubles as an overview of American culture over the last 70 years. Starting in the ’50s with the Lavender Scare and the televised Army-McCarthy Senate hearings, “Visible: Out on Television” traces the cultural and political legacies of Liberace’s career and the experiences of gay actors like Sheila Kuehl and Raymond Burr, all the way to recent shows exploring the trans experience, like “Pose.” The five hourlong episodes feature interviews with a veritable who’s who of L.G.B.T.Q. entertainers, including Janet Mock, Margaret Cho, Lena Waithe and Andy Cohen. (The third episode, on television’s role in AIDS activism, is especially strong.)
New to Hulu
‘High Fidelity’
Starts streaming: Feb. 14
In this TV adaptation of Nick Hornby’s 1995 novel about a cynical and brokenhearted record-store owner in London, Rob is played by Zoë Kravitz, her store is in Brooklyn, and the exes she obsesses over include both men and women. Rob lives in a version of today’s Brooklyn that is all dive bars, smoking weed in the street and knowing your neighbors — in other words, a fun world to spend some time in, anchored by a great soundtrack.
If you enjoyed John Cusack’s Rob in the 2000 film version of “High Fidelity,” you’ll be pleased to hear that the emotional notes are the same here: Our heroine, who also confides directly to the camera, is just as self-absorbed and destructive, and is struggling to grow up. “Oh, you’re an adult? ’Cause you dress like a little boy,” her brother says to her at one point. Her misanthropy is tempered somewhat by her employees, played wonderfully by David H. Holmes and Da’Vine Joy Randolph. But be warned: The show still may leave a bitter taste in your mouth.
Also arriving:
Feb. 1
“Bridget Jones Diary”
“Ghost”
“Hitch”
“Precious”
“When Harry Met Sally”
New to HBO
‘We Are the Dream: The Kids of the Oakland MLK Oratorical Fest’
Starts streaming: Feb. 18
If you’re looking for a feel-good hour, look no further than this documentary about the annual public-speaking competition held in Oakland, Calif., in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. The competition sees children from prekindergarteners to high school seniors reciting poems and speeches, both original works and pieces from famous black thinkers, alive with themes of hope, love and acceptance. Winston Williams, an educator at an Oakland elementary school, notes that this is a rare chance to teach children about black history, a topic he sees as sorely lacking in today’s curriculums. The children, parents and teachers take the competition seriously: Choreography is carefully rehearsed, performances are timed and enunciation is practiced. You might just find yourself getting inspired, too.
Also arriving:
Feb. 1
“Casino Royale”
“In a World …”
“The Thomas Crown Affair”
“Winter’s Bone”
Feb. 7
“High Maintenance” Season 4
Feb. 17
“Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” Season 7
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