Can’t keep your eyes off the non-stop dread of your phone screen? You know you want to watch a movie — but which one?
Cheapness and laziness are, let’s face it, paramount: Is it easy to access, and is it free with your subscription? There are countless hidden gems in the overwhelmingly long rows of titles in your major streaming services, so allow me to suggest gems tailored to a wide range of tastes. (Fun drinking game: Take a shot every time a now-disgraced celeb appears.)
1. “Bridget Jones’s Diary” (Netflix)
As Yakov Smirnoff might’ve said, “You don’t own movie, movie owns you!” For me, that film is 2001’s “Bridget Jones’s Diary.” If the Renée Zellweger rom-com is on TBS or an iPad, I must stop everything and watch it. No exceptions. With a Jane Austen storyline moved to a modern-day single London woman’s shenanigans, every scene is classic. —JO
2. “Arthur” (Amazon Prime)
If you’re longing for a bustling New York full of decadence and eccentricity, look no further than “Arthur.” The riotous 1981 comedy bursts with everything you love about the city, but especially its outrageous characters. Dudley Moore plays a rich, lewd, drunken playboy who’s as charming as he is offensive. One day, he meets a brash Queens girl — played by Liza Minnelli! — outside Bergdorf’s, and they begin a quirky romance. —JO
3. “Pleasantville” (Starz, iTunes)
Wouldn’t it be great to live in the Brady house? Or in the calm world of “Leave It to Beaver”? Not as much as you might think. In this strangely beautiful 1998 comedy, two siblings (a young Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon) get sucked into their favorite old black-and-white show, and teach the town how to express itself. —JO
4. “Chocolat” (HBO Go, Amazon)
A beautiful French village. A mysterious woman who, alongside her daughter, travels the world as the wind blows. Secret Mayan candy recipes that inspire lust and vigor. This Juliette Binoche, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp 2000 drama is a bag of Dove chocolates without the calories. —JO
5. “Spirited Away” (iTunes, Amazon)
Most of Japanese animation genius Hayao Miyazaki’s films are coming to HBO Max in May. But get a head start with 2001’s “Spirited Away” for a few bucks on iTunes. A great achievement in hand-drawn animation, a girl’s fantastical visions come to life when she’s unexpectedly whisked away to a magical day spa for spirits. —JO
6. “Moonstruck” (Amazon Prime)
Let Cher help you “snap out of it!” Some of her finest acting work came in 1987’s “Moonstruck” as a hapless Italian woman in Brooklyn who falls in love with her fiancé’s brother, played by a caveman named Nic Cage. Loretta attending her first opera, La Boheme, at the Met; Vincent Gardenia listening to “It Must Be Him” — all magic. —JO
7. “Amadeus” (iTunes)
The red-headed stepchild of Best Picture Oscar winners, 1984’s “Amadeus” takes two niche indulgences — classical music and costume drama — and makes them sexy, silly and murderous. Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) is the big cheese of Vienna composers until Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart comes to town and kicks off a dangerous rivalry. —JO
8. “Babe” (Starz, iTunes)
Is it a kid’s movie? Yeah. Was it nominated for Best Picture, when the category was still kept to a tiny five nominees? Damn right. In 1995’s “Babe,” a little pig in Australia is saved from slaughter by his dreams of becoming a sheepdog. Remember James Cromwell dancing happily around the living room? —JO
9. “Ghost” (Hulu)
The story of a murdered man (Patrick Swayze) trying to warn his girlfriend (Demi Moore) of danger from beyond the grave, this 1990 drama is more than just a sexy clay-pot scene. Whoopi Goldberg is brilliant as a storefront psychic, who learns she’s not a fraud. —JO
10. “The Grand Budapest Hotel” (iTunes)
The 2014 tale of a once-hopping, regal hotel is told through the eyes of a former bellhop. The acting is sublime and the visuals are gorgeous. It’s everything you’d want from director Wes Anderson, with a budget. —JO
11. “The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!” (Netflix)
In difficult times, slapstick is the best medicine. Leslie Nielsen (“Airplane!”) plays Frank Drebin, a stunningly bumbling detective — first introduced in the short-lived cult TV series “Police Squad!” —who still always gets his man. —SS
12. “The Cabin in the Woods” (Amazon Prime)
Joss Whedon’s mischievous spin on slasher tropes stars Chris Hemsworth — as the archetypal hunk, naturally — and Bradley Whitford in what begins as a straightforward scary movie and quickly twists into something more insidiously meta. —SS
13. “True Grit” (Amazon Prime)
The Coen brothers’ spin on a 1968 Charles Portis novel stars Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Hailee Steinfeld in her first role as unforgettably salty teen heroine Mattie Ross. —SS
14. “Tremors” (Netflix)
Giant underground worm monsters terrorize a small southwestern town as Kevin Bacon, Fred Ward and Reba McEntire valiantly fight back; this comic thriller has become a cult hit in the three decades since it first came out. —SS
15. “Harold and Maude” (Amazon Prime)
This love story between a death-obsessed young man (Bud Cort) and a life-loving septuagenarian (Ruth Gordon) is one of the quirkiest, funniest and most uplifting films of all time. —SS
16. “Life Itself” (Hulu)
If you really want to hone your appreciation of movies — and what better time? — there’s no more joyful ode than this documentary on the late, great critic Roger Ebert, who sparred with Gene Siskel for years on their TV show and continued his love affair with film while battling cancer in his later years. —SS
17. “Earth Girls Are Easy” (Amazon Prime)
Geena Davis and Jeff Goldblum star in this goofy, music-infused rom-com about a Valley girl and a bedroom-eyed alien; a young Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans, plus ’80s comic singer Julie Brown, play backup. —SS
18. “The Invention of Lying” (Netflix)
Before he laid waste to Golden Globes audiences, Ricky Gervais used his signature brutal honesty in this comedy about an alternate universe in which nobody knows how to tell the little white lies that keep civilization civil. —SS
19. “Kicking and Screaming” (Netflix)
Noah Baumbach has always mined his own life for material. Before there was “Marriage Story,” there was this mid-’90s comedy about 20-somethings awkwardly adjusting to life after college. —SS
20. “Rango” (Amazon Prime)
A Johnny Depp-voiced chameleon is marooned in an Old West town in this gorgeously animated Gore Verbinski pic, packed with first-rate physical comedy and hat-tips to various classics, including “Chinatown.” —SS
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