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Aug 20, 2023

Best Movies Streaming March 2023: Murder Myster 2, Triangle of Sadness

By Zack Sharf Digital News Director With the Oscars right

By Zack Sharf

Digital News Director

With the Oscars right around the corner, it's good timing for Ruben Östlund's satirical dark comedy "Triangle of Sadness" to make its streaming debut on Hulu. The film is up for three Academy Awards, including best picture and best director, so make sure to catch up on it before the 2023 Academy Awards air on March 12.

It's also good timing for "Creed" and "Creed II" to arrive on Amazon Prime Video (along with all the other movies in the long-running "Rocky" franchise), as "Creed III" opens in theaters nationwide on March 3. The same can be said for "Scream 4," which debuts on Paramount+ this month just as "Scream 6" opens in theaters March 10. The two films are more connected than one might think since "Scream 4" star Hayden Panettiere returns to the horror franchise in "Scream 6."

As is often the case, Netflix has some of the biggest original streaming offerings of the month. Idris Elba is finally back as detective John Luther in the long-awaited feature film follow-up to the beloved BBC crime show. It's been over four years since Idris last played Luther, which makes "Luther: The Fallen Sun" a must-see movie event for fans this month. Also sure to be on people's radars is "Murder Mystery 2," which reunites Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston in the sequel to one of Netflix's most-watched comedies of all time.

Check out a full rundown below of the best movies new to streaming in March 2023.

Ruben Östlund's Palme d’Or winner "Triangle of Sadness" is debuting on Hulu shortly before the 2023 Academy Awards, where the film is nominated for three prizes (best picture, director and original screenplay). The dark satirical comedy follows a celebrity couple who vacation aboard a luxury cruise. The less said about the movie's plot the better, as it contains endless surprises and some disgusting set pieces you have to see to believe. From Variety's review: "Östlund's wickedly funny English-language debut creates deeply uncomfortable situations for people more than comfortable with their privilege. It's a Buñuelian strategy, of which Östlund has become art cinema's foremost practitioner."

Idris Elba is finally back as Luther. "The Fallen Sun" is a continuation of the BBC series that made Elba an international star. The original "Luther" series ran for five seasons between 2010 and 2019. Elba notched four Emmy nominations, plus two Golden Globe wins, a Screen Actors Guild award and a Critics’ Choice award for the series. In the follow-up movie, Elba's detective is released from prison and has to go toe-to-toe with a dangerous new killer, played by Andy Serkis. Dermot Crawley reprises his "Luther" TV role of Martin Schenk in the film, while Cynthia Erivo also stars. "With film, the sky is the limit," Elba said of the project. "You can be a little bit more bold with the storylines. And a little bit more international, and a little more up the scale. But John Luther is always going to be John Luther."

Universal's "Shrek" spinoff "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" was a box office hit with $448 million worldwide, and now families can watch the Antonio Banderas-voiced feline from home when the sequel hits Peacock this month. From Variety's review: "‘Puss in Boots: The Last Wish’ marks DWA's best film since the "How to Train Your Dragon" trilogy, reflecting some of the lessons learned on that series, including the notion that cartoon characters get a lot more interesting if they’re not immortal."

Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston's "Murder Mystery" is one of Netflix's biggest original comedy films in history, so of course the streamer had to go ahead and make a sequel. In "Murder Mystery 2," Audrey and Nick Spitz (Aniston and Sandler) now run a struggling private eye agency when their friend, the Maharaja, gets kidnapped at his wedding, leaving the full-time detectives in the middle of an international abduction. The original film was streamed by over 30 million accounts in its first three days. It ended 2019 as Netflix's most popular release, followed by "Stranger Things 3" in second place. The "Murder Mystery" sequel's cast includes returning actors Adeel Akhtar and John Kani, with Mark Strong, Mélanie Laurent, Jodie Turner-Smith, Tony Goldwyn and Annie Mumolo joining the ensemble.

Expect "Money Shot" to be the buzziest Netflix documentary of the month. The non-fiction feature, from filmmaker Suzanne Hillinger and Alex Gibney's Jigsaw Productions, looks at the history of the internet's most famous adult entertainment platform and the recent backlash against the site. Launched in 2007, Pornhub's accounts on YouTube and Instagram have been shut down within the last six months for violating the respective platforms’ policies. Netflix's official synopsis reads: "Pornhub fundamentally changed how pornography is made and distributed. This enabled erotic content creators to reach a massive audience while the company made billions of dollars – but it also became embroiled in allegations including non-consensual material and trafficking on the site."

After making its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival, the Taron Egerton-starring drama "Tetris" will debut exclusively on Apple TV+ at the end of the month. "Tetris" tells the true story of how one of the world's most popular video games found its way to avid players around the globe. Egerton stars as Henk Rogers, who discovered Tetris in 1988 and risked everything to bring the game to life by traveling to the Soviet Union in the middle of the Cold War to join forces with inventor Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov). Apple is billing "Tetris" as a "Cold War–era thriller on steroids, with double-crossing villains, unlikely heroes, and a nail-biting race to the finish."

Jingyi Shao's coming-of-age sports movie "Chang Can Dunk" centers on an unpopular high schooler (Bloom Li) who loves basketball and Pokémon. The eponymous Chang's life is turned upside down when he wagers a bet with the school's all-star player, Matt (Chase Liefeld), that he will be able to make a slam dunk in 12 weeks time. The film also stars Zoe Renee, Ben Wang, Dexter Darden and Eric Anthony Lopez. "I was really inspired by early ’90s coming-of-age films, but specifically sports-coming-of-age films like ‘Mighty Ducks,’" Shao told Variety of his feature directorial debut. "In a town where there aren't a lot of other Asian American families, sometimes you don't know why people are treating you a certain way. That's why the dunking was so important because it's an objective goal — it doesn't matter how people perceive you or how you perceive yourself. You can or you cannot."

Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon join forces in writer-director Matt Ruskin's Hulu crime movie "Boston Strangler." The 1960s true story drama follows the two trailblazing reporters who broke the story of the notorious Boston Strangler. Knightley stars as Loretta McLaughlin, a reporter for the Record-American newspaper who becomes the first journalist to connect the Boston Strangler murders. As the mysterious killer claims more and more victims, Loretta attempts to continue her investigation alongside colleague and confidante Jean Cole (Carrie Coon), yet the duo finds themselves stymied by the rampant sexism of the era. The film, produced by Ridley Scott, co-stars Alessandro Nivola, David Dastmalchian, Morgan Spector, Bill Camp and Oscar winner Chris Cooper.

"Carol" is back on Netflix, and just in time as Cate Blanchett wraps up her awards season run for "Tar." Blanchett and co-star Rooney Mara were both Oscar-nominated for this Todd Haynes period drama about two women in 1950s New York City who become romantically drawn to each other. From Variety's review: "Even high expectations don't quite prepare you for the startling impact of ‘Carol,’ an exquisitely drawn, deeply felt love story that teases out every shadow and nuance of its characters’ inner lives with supreme intelligence, breathtaking poise and filmmaking craft of the most sophisticated yet accessible order."

With Michael B. Jordan's "Creed III" opening in theaters this month, it couldn't be a better time for the original "Creed" and "Creed II" to hit streaming via Amazon Prime Video. Jordan takes on the role of Apollo Creed's son, who must forge his own boxing legacy while taking guidance from Sylvester Stallone's Rocky Balboa. The first installment, directed by Ryan Coogler and released in 2015, remains one of the best studio crowd-pleasers in recent memory. With knockout performances from Jordan and Stallone, the latter of whom was Oscar nominated for supporting actor, the first "Creed" effortlessly lived up to the best of the "Rocky" movies while forging its own path and allowing Jordan to steer the franchise into an exciting new future.

Guillermo del Toro is the Oscar frontrunner for animated feature this year thanks to his Netflix stop-motion film "Pinocchio." Celebrate the occasion by watching del Toro's best picture winner "The Shape of Water" on Netflix. Sally Hawkins plays a lonely government lab maid who stumbles upon and falls in love with her company's hidden new project: A humanoid fish creature. "The Shape of Water" landed 13 Academy Award nominations and won del Toro the prizes for best picture and best director. From Variety's review: "Guillermo Del Toro is on peak form with this tender, ravishingly imagined romantic fantasy, headlined by an extraordinary Sally Hawkins."

Chloe Okuno's chilling psychological thriller "Watcher" stars "It Follows" favorite Maika Monroe as a woman who becomes paranoid by her neighbor's gaze. From Variety's review: "‘Watcher’ is actually pretty damn good. That's thanks in large part to a terrific Maika Monroe, who gets the mature, psychologically rich showcase she's fully earned with all the running and bleeding she's done heretofore as a horror heroine…it's a fun, shivery, fish-out-of-water chiller."

Peter Strickland's unforgettably gross-out "Flux Gourmet" follows a trio of experimental performance artists who create sounds from various foods. A journalist is assigned to document the group's artistic process, but he soon finds himself an unwilling participant in the proceedings. From Variety's review: "‘Flux Gourmet’ is not that foodie movie. In fact, ‘Flux Gourmet’ may well send audiences running for the loo, or else reaching for the barf bag, coming about as close to triggering the gag reflex as a film can without actually jamming a finger down your throat."

Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas send up the film industry in the black comedy "Official Competition," which follows a billionaire businessman on a desperate quest to make a smash hit movie. From Variety's review: "A mismatched collective of artists and investors make a film for all the wrong reasons in this cheeky and funny showbiz comedy… As it traces the fractious pre-production process of an art-house film being made for cynical commercial purposes, the film will certainly mine dark laughs of recognition from industry folk."

With $2.9 billion at the worldwide box office, the four-film "Hunger Games" franchise was such a worldwide sensation that it's no surprise a prequel film, "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes," is on the way this fall. Jennifer Lawrence was already an Oscar nominee for "Winter's Bone" when the first Gary Ross-directed "The Hunger Games" debuted and made her an instant worldwide star. All four movies are now available to stream on Netflix. Stream them quick, as they’re only available for the month of March.

Given that "Scream 6" debuts this month in theaters and features the long-awaited franchise return of Hayden Panettiere, it would seem that streaming "Scream 4" ahead of time is essential. Panettiere debuted in the fourth film in the slasher franchise as Kirby Reed, a horror movie fanatic who survived a grisly round of Woodsboro killings. It turns out that the person under the Ghostface mask was someone unexpected for Kirby, so there's no telling what kind of trauma will play into the character's big "Scream 6" return.

Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance give commanding performances as June and Jennifer Gibbons, twin sisters who were institutionalized at Broadmoor Hospital following years of silence and teenage rebellions. The film is based on a true story. From Variety's review: "Gifted Polish director Agnieszka Smoczyńska defies movie-of-the-week cliché in this boldly expressive biopic of troubled twin writers June and Jennifer Gibbons… . Layering one wild formal flourish over another — from macabre stop-motion animation to elaborately choreographed musical fantasies — the drama is a swing for the fences that, almost by design, spins out of control."

Johnny Knoxville and company are now middle aged, but that hasn't slowed their juvenile masochistic fervor. Case in point: "Jackass Forever." The insane fourth installment of the "Jackass" movie franchise comes to Prime Video this month after debuting last year on Paramount+. From Variety's review: "Is the ‘Jackass’ franchise showing its age? No more than the team members themselves. Like Johnny, Steve-O, and the rest, "Jackass Forever" is perpetually amused by itself, a little weather-beaten, and always game — a no-frills serial stunt movie that's almost cozy in its depravity, even as the feats of dumbbell daring come off as more dangerous than ever."

Lesley Manville gives a delightful performance in "Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris," a sweet trifle of a movie in which she plays a widowed cleaning lady in the 1950s who becomes obsessed with owning one of her client's haute couture Dior dresses. Mrs. Harris uses her war-widow's pension to travel to Paris to make her dream a reality. From Variety's review: "For those tired of movies in which something as grand as the fate of our existence is at stake — threatened by aliens or wizards or something so far removed from reality — the simply titled and even more simply plotted ‘Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris’ offers a pleasant reprieve."

After making its streaming debut on Peacock last year, Jordan Peele's acclaimed spectacle thriller "Nope" finally becomes available for Prime Video subscribers at no extra cost this month. "Nope" stars Keke Palmer and Daniel Kaluuya as siblings who set out to record a UFO that's hovering over their remote horse farm. Nothing goes as planned, of course. Variety film critic Owen Gleiberman called the film "tantalizingly creepy" in his review, adding, "Watching the movie, you can just about taste the DNA of Steven Spielberg's ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind.’" The movie became Peele's third straight $100 million grosser at the box office.

Tom Cruise's historic blockbuster "Top Gun: Maverick" has been streaming on Paramount+ since last Christmas, but it now gears up for its Amazon Prime Video debut. The film is one of the highest-grossing movies of all time with $1.4 billion, not adjusted for inflation. No one saw the record-breaking success of "Top Gun: Maverick" coming, but never underestimate the global star power of Cruise. Variety film critic Peter Debruge hailed the film as a "stunning" and "barrier-breaking" sequel, adding, "Engineered to hit so many of the same pleasure points as the original, ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ fulfills our desire to go really fast, really far above ground."