Streaming audiences can't seem to agree on how the world ends, and this month's most-watched titles prove it. Two of the biggest streaming hits of the month happen to be built around global disaster, yet they land on opposite ends of the emotional spectrum, one a hopeful science-fiction rescue mission, the other a chaotic satire about artificial intelligence gone wrong. Zoom out across the rest of the top ten and the pattern repeats: for every bloody, backstabbing survival thriller, there is a gentler, feel-good counterpart waiting to balance it out, sometimes literally starring farm animals. Here is what is actually topping the charts right now, and where to watch each one.
A Sun-Saving Mission And An AI Uprising Lead The Pack
The month's top spot goes to Project Hail Mary, a crowd-pleasing science-fiction adventure led by Ryan Gosling as Ryland Grace, a middle school science teacher who ends up blasted into space in a last-ditch effort to save the planet. Grace turns out to be the only person on Earth who might understand how to stop a cosmic infection that is slowly killing the sun, and by extension, all life that depends on it. He is not an astronaut, and he certainly does not think of himself as any kind of hero, but the film builds toward the obvious question of whether he will find the inner strength to pull off the impossible anyway. Project Hail Mary is currently streaming on FuboTV and MGM+.
Right behind it is Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, a gleefully unhinged science-fiction comedy from director Gore Verbinski, known for The Ring and the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. The film skewers artificial intelligence, social media addiction, virtual reality and modern life in general. Sam Rockwell plays a time traveler who turns up in a Los Angeles diner insisting that the customers around him help him stop an artificial intelligence from being born before it destroys the future. He has apparently tried this same mission many times before and failed every time, but this attempt is supposedly going to be different, or everyone dies again. The film borrows heavily from both Terminator and Black Mirror, and it throws so many ideas at the screen that audiences eventually give in to its chaotic internal logic out of sheer exhaustion. It is streaming on Hulu and Prime Video.
Farm Animals And Office Villains Fight For Survival
On the gentler end of the spectrum sits The Sheep Detectives, a family film with just enough darkness to keep things interesting. Hugh Jackman plays an English farmer who reads mystery novels aloud to his flock of sheep every night. When he turns up dead, the authorities write it off as natural causes, but his sheep are not convinced, and they use everything they picked up from all those whodunits to track down whoever is actually responsible. Anyone who enjoyed the Babe films will likely enjoy this one too, and even viewers who assume they are too cynical for a movie about detective sheep are probably wrong about themselves; it plays as genuinely charming and fun. The Sheep Detectives is streaming on Prime Video.
On the far more violent end of that same spectrum is Send Help, directed by horror veteran Sam Raimi. Rachel McAdams stars as Linda, an awkward cubicle worker stuck in an office full of ruthless, well-dressed coworkers. Her boss, Bradley, played by Dylan O'Brien, is a nepo baby executive with endless money and no compassion for anyone beneath him. A plane crash strands the two of them together on a deserted island, where Bradley quickly discovers that his talent for belittling coworkers is useless in the jungle. Linda, on the other hand, turns out to be a surprisingly capable survivalist, and also more than a little unstable herself, setting up a twisty plot that builds to a bloody final confrontation. Send Help is streaming on Hulu and Disney+.
A Satanic Cult, A Robot Beaver And A Vintage Spielberg Classic
They Will Kill You brings the same violent, blood-soaked energy under director Kirill Sokolov, known for Why Don't You Just Die!. Zazie Beetz plays Asia, a former convict who answers a job listing to become a live-in housekeeper at a luxury high-rise in New York City. She quickly discovers that the building's eccentric tenants, played by Patricia Arquette, Tom Felton and Heather Graham, are actually a bloodthirsty Satanic cult planning to sacrifice her. Asia has no intention of making it easy for them. Fans of Ready or Not or You're Next should feel right at home here. They Will Kill You is streaming on Max.
For something considerably softer, Hoppers, directed by Daniel Chong, the creator of We Bare Bears, follows Piper Curda as Mabel, a college environmentalist who transfers her mind into a lifelike robotic beaver in order to get closer to nature, only to find herself leading an uprising of animals against her own species. Jon Hamm voices the film's antagonist, Mayor Jerry, a slick politician determined to bulldoze the nature preserve to make way for a new highway. It is a carefully constructed crowd-pleaser, and it works exactly as intended. Hoppers is streaming on Disney+.
Meanwhile, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg's 1977 science-fiction landmark, saw a streaming resurgence this month tied to the director's newest alien-conspiracy thriller, Disclosure Day, currently playing in theaters. It remains the best of Spielberg's many space-creature films. Richard Dreyfuss plays Roy Neary, an ordinary electrical lineman whose quiet suburban life falls apart after an encounter with a UFO, sending him on a personal quest to understand what actually happened to him, one that ends somewhere far gentler and more beautiful than most modern alien stories dare to go. Close Encounters of the Third Kind is streaming on The Criterion Channel.
A Housemaid With Secrets, A Grieving Widow And A Summer Romance
The Housemaid, directed by Paul Feig and based on Freida McFadden's 2022 novel of the same name, borrows equally from steamy suburban thrillers like Gone Girl and classic suspense films like Vertigo. Sydney Sweeney plays Millie, a young woman with a secret past who takes a job as a live-in housemaid for a wealthy couple, Nina, played by Amanda Seyfried, and Andrew Winchester, played by Brandon Sklenar. Millie soon realizes the seemingly perfect couple who hired her is hiding some genuinely dangerous secrets of their own. The Housemaid is streaming on Starz.
Remarkably Bright Creatures takes a quieter, more emotional approach. Sally Field plays Tova, a widow who spends her days cleaning tanks at the local aquarium while still grieving the death of her son. Lewis Pullman plays Cameron, a drifter in need of both a mentor and a mother figure, and Alfred Molina voices Marcellus the Octopus, the unlikely cephalopod who ends up bringing the two humans together. Anyone drawn to smart, emotionally sensitive dramas with strong performances should find plenty to like here. Remarkably Bright Creatures is streaming on Netflix.
Finally, Office Romance gives Jennifer Lopez a return to more familiar territory after odder science-fiction detours like Atlas and the even stranger This Is Me...Now: A Love Story. Here, she plays Jackie Cruz, a high-powered airline CEO who strictly enforces a zero-tolerance policy against workplace relationships, until Daniel Blanchflower, a charming lawyer played by Ted Lasso breakout Brett Goldstein, joins the company and makes that policy considerably harder to enforce. It is a straightforward, raunchy romantic comedy, sexy, funny and light enough to work as a perfect summer watch. Office Romance is streaming on Netflix.
Taken together, the ten titles cover almost every mood a viewer could want this month, apocalyptic hope, chaotic satire, animal-led whodunits, home-invasion horror, cult violence, family-friendly rebellion, a genuine science-fiction classic, secrets-behind-closed-doors suspense, a tearjerking friendship story and a breezy office romance, spread across FuboTV, MGM+, Hulu, Prime Video, Max, Disney+, The Criterion Channel, Starz and Netflix.
