“Deep Stone Lullaby is the most gorgeous piece of game music that you’ve never heard,” wrote PC Gamer’s Tim Clark back in 2021. The “melancholy slice of sci-fi magic” was tucked away inside the raid for Destiny 2’s Beyond Light expansion, one of the multiplayer shooter’s end-game activities that the majority of…
Bungie is the latest PlayStation studio to face layoffs. While the scale of the cuts wasn’t immediately apparent, multiple, now-former staff members began posting on social media on October 30 that they’d been let go by the beloved Destiny 2 maker.
ChatGPT, the AI-powered chatbot from OpenAI, far outpaces all other AI chatbot apps on mobile devices in terms of downloads and is a market leader by revenue, as […]
When Hi-Fi Rush shadow-dropped on January 25, it was a shockingly pleasant surprise. Beautiful, vibrant, playful, the rhythm action platformer quickly won players over. A day later, Hitman World of Assassination appeared, deploying clever roguelike mechanics to reinvent the best stealth game of 2021. A day after that, …
Lifetime access to educational content from Curiosity Stream is on sale for $169.97. This is 57% off the subscription’s regular price of $399.99.
TL;DR: As of October 30, you can get a lifetime of access to educational content with Curiosity Stream for only $169.97 instead of $399.99. That’s a savings of 57%.
While many of us love mind-numbing TV, it’s nice to throw some enriching content into the mix once in a while. But if none of the show selections in your streaming subscriptions appeal to your brain, check out Curiosity Stream.
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A Curiosity Stream subscription yields limitless access to thousands of films, series, and shows that will beef up your knowledge. Founded by Discovery Communications’ John Hendricks, the service offers on-demand streaming on a vast library of content spanning science, technology, history, nature, and art. It includes series like Planet of Treasures, Engineering the Future, Deep Time History, and Into the Jungle. In 2017, Curiosity Stream bagged its first Emmy Award for Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places, which clinched the News and Documentary Awards trophy for Outstanding Graphic Design and Art Direction.
You can watch world-class documentaries anytime, anywhere, using any device — multiple devices even. All content is downloadable for later viewing, so you can enjoy them even without an internet connection. They’re also all in high-definition for a more immersive experience. Plus, with regular content updates, you’ll never worry about running out of things to stream. Whenever you want to learn something new, just hit play.
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Instead of $399, you can get it for just $169.97, no coupon needed, until October 31 at 11:59 p.m. PT.
Prices subject to change.
A review of Remedy Entertainment’s ‘Alan Wake II’ for PS5, Xbox, and PC.
There is nothing out there quite like Remedy Entertainment’s Alan Wake II. A tense, slow, and acid-induced horror journey through the eyes of its main protagonists, Alan Wake and Saga Anderson, Alan Wake II sits at the very pinnacle of the survival horror genre.
If that sounds like high praise, well, it is, because it’s a damn good game. Building upon not just its predecessor, Alan Wake, but on everything within the Remedy catalog — taking the old and creating a wholly unique gaming experience, unlike anything its contemporaries in the genre offer.
Alan Wake II launched on Oct. 27, and from the 14 hours I played — about 70 percent of the game — I was very impressed. In a month stacked with heavy hitters such as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Alan Wake II is a stand-out that kept me hooked.
Alan Wake II‘s inspirations reach across all genres and mediums, creating a game that both feels familiar and unique at the same time. From its Twin Peaks-inspired town to its grungy, dirty crime noir nightmare version of New York City, the games’ two worlds offer players a feast for the eyes.
The game, set 13 years after its predecessor, sees FBI Agent Saga Anderson travel to the fictional town of Bright Falls, Washington, to investigate several disappearances and murders that have taken place in town. Meanwhile, the titular Alan Wake tries to write himself out of the Dark Place — a surreal alternate reality outside space and time that can turn art into reality — which sits at the bottom of Bright Falls’ Cauldron Lake.
Players can at any time switch between the two protagonists, its two worlds offering a distinctive style and tone. The two areas are small, dense, and technical marvels to enjoy. As Saga, players are introduced to a methodical, investigatory slow-burn detective story, while Wake is trapped in a filthy art-deco neo-noir meets horror movie mashup. And it’s a clear choice by Remedy to make its story a slow, plodding build so as to invest players in its characters and mystery.
Essential to this detective story is the game’s central mechanic, the Plot Board, which Saga can access from her Mind Place — a sort of quasi-pause menu where players can piece together deductions made from their investigations of the main quest and the various side quests found around town and other areas. It’s a unique way of keeping track of character progression but also doesn’t require the player to use it in order to figure out how to progress the plot. This allows players to piece together the case themselves without the game holding their hands as they explore the surroundings on offer.
And that’s a good thing because this game demands the player’s attention as they slowly walk through the beautiful town of Bright Falls and the surrounding areas of Watery and Cauldron Lake. Set in the Pacific Northwest, trekking through these areas as Saga is a treat as the environments feel natural and authentic, with Remedy playing into its strength with compelling environmental storytelling. Wading through the woods outside of town as your investigation furthers, the sound design and level of detail make sure you never feel safe. There is always a sense of foreboding doom the minute you leave your safe havens, and it makes for a tense journey as you progress through the game.
The stark contrast to the greenery and stunning views of Bright Falls is Alan Wake’s nightmare version of New York City. An unnatural, grimy place, this version of New York feels like being trapped in an art museum after hours. Each building was placed with careful consideration, as if the city was put on display for the mind of its imprisoned inhabitant. The area is detailed and dense, with everything from the street clutter to the graffiti on the wall having some message behind it. The ambiance of the city is filled with broken street lamps and dingy neon lights that guide Alan toward his next objective. Compared to the strange eeriness of Bright Falls, the world of Nightmare New York is more hard-boiled, its city inspired by right-wing vigilante fantasies like Death Wish and its ilk.
The world design, by far, is the best part of Alan Wake II. It’s small and intimate, and it tells a hundred stories before a word is even said. It’s atmospheric in a way that not even a lot of immersive sims are, and it allows Remedy to do some truly bizarre and meta things within the chosen genres and motifs of its world.
I spent a lot of time gushing about the world of Alan Wake II, but how’s the gameplay? It’s fine. If you’ve played any of the Resident Evil remakes, you’ve played Alan Wake II. Not to say the gameplay is bad–it’s quite solid, actually—but it’s clear that combat was not what Remedy was focused on here.
The shooting is good, with each gun having a decent weight to it when fired. The core gameplay loop doesn’t get tiring, with your character shining their light on enemies to get rid of their darkness shield before blasting away at them. This is complemented by an excellent sound design that makes for an auditory treat whenever you shoot enemies’ weak spots. However, the options of weapons are quite limited for both characters, and the enemy variety is sparse. There are 3-4 different variants of “Taken,” there’s the big variant, the melee variants, and the ranged variants. While the game says that there are different ways to approach each of these, in my experience in the game, this is very inconsistent, and most of the enemies tend to be bullet sponges.
The bosses are particular high points. While the bosses are still of the point-and-shoot variety, they do offer compelling visual and thematic areas not found in the game as players enter “Overlaps” between the real world and the Dark Place. With the way combat is designed, Remedy understood that too much can be a bad thing, and you’ll rarely ever engage in combat and seldom, if ever, face more than one or two enemies at a time.
Alan’s side of the game is a little tenser and less combat-focused. Instead of running into bog-standard enemies, Nightmare New York is littered with shadowed silhouettes that may or may not try to engage you. The game forces you to get up close and personal with them as they whisper and shout your name. Some shadows may grab you while others will full-on attack you, with Alan never knowing which is which until it’s too late. This makes for tense encounters as you progress through the plot, and it’s clear that Remedy is more focused on building a sense of dread as the player rummages through the world than just becoming another action-horror shooter. It’s a massive improvement compared to its predecessor, Alan Wake, with its floaty combat mechanics and stilted graphics making it the quintessential 2010s bargain bin action-horror title.
Often with these kinds of games, the story is secondary to the combat, but Alan Wake II takes a different approach, building upon its connected universe without getting too in the player’s face. In each of the games, Remedy has sought to combine gameplay with narrative. Alan Wake’s story within the story told you how everything would play out, Max Payne was heavy on reactive internal monologues, and Control was a lore-rich narrative that rewarded players for exploration. All these combined create what is essentially a magnum opus for Remedy, with Alan Wake II being the culmination of a decade’s worth of experience and game design. That’s without talking about its performance, which runs almost perfectly, bar the rare visual glitch.
With the review for this game, which was possible thanks to a review code from Remedy and Epic Games, I didn’t want to talk about the story too much beyond the bare-bones plot. That’s because it has to be experienced first, and anything I can say about it will undersell just how impressive it is. Video games have never been a bastion of good writing, except in rare cases, and that just comes with the territory. But Alan Wake II is a story that needs to be replayed a couple of times — it’s a unique blend of meta-commentary, live-action, and incorporation of music that creates a story that can’t be told in other any format, medium, or genre — and it needs more than one playthrough to truly, fully understand and appreciate it. Alan Wake II touches upon and references Remedy’s other games, but does so in a way that feels familiar to fans of these games while also allowing new players to feel welcomed into the world.
In an industry littered with unfinished, high-budget triple-A video games, it is refreshing to see a near-perfect and polished game released on day one. Remedy’s Alan Wake II is not only the studio’s best game to date, but it’s one of the best games of its genre and perhaps of the year.
Lapse, a photo-sharing app with a film filter, shot to the top of the App Store thanks to a clever gimmick. But can its users get hooked on yet another social media app?
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that social media sucks right now.
Platforms are overrun by ads and sponsored posts, and algorithms don’t prioritize the social aspect of digital connection. The swift rise and fall of BeReal, an app that offered a solution to the disappointing state of the social media landscape, now seems more like a cautionary tale. That’s not stopping developers from trying to revolutionize the way we connect online, and Lapse is the latest alternative social media app on the scene.
It advertises itself as “the invite-only disposable camera.” On Lapse, you take a photo (called a “snap”) and send it to the “darkroom” to be “developed.” At an unspecified time later in the day, you’ll get a notification that your photo is ready, and you can see the photo you took transformed by Lapse’s grainy, analog filter. Once you see the photo, you can decide whether to post it in your gallery or archive it.
Lapse forgoes an algorithmic feed and aims for something more personal and chronological. Snaps live on your profile, or your “Journal,” which can be customized with music, a carousel of select images, your zodiac sign, and emojis. Meanwhile, your friends can react to your snaps, or share a “vibe,” with a range of pre-selected randomized emojis.
The photo app remixes aspects of other platforms to create a unique, yet familiar experience. It incorporates the camera roll archive of Snapchat, the film-like filter of Dispo, the photo-sharing element of Instagram, and the low-stakes, low-key nature of BeReal.
The darkroom gimmick of Lapse encourages users to live in the moment and take a photo and go, contrary to the fraught Instagram experience of taking dozens of photos and immediately scrutinizing them for posting potential or the instant gratification of BeReal.
“With Instagram now, I feel like you have to think long and hard about what’s going to be on your feed, but if I want to take a picture of the fucking chicken fingers that I made, then I can post it on Lapse,” Daniel Head, a 32-year-old Lapse user in Brooklyn, New York, told Mashable.
Lapse isn’t new — it first launched in 2021 as a collaborative disposable camera roll app — but in June, it rebranded to more of a traditional social media platform with profiles where users could share their “developed” photos and organize them into monthly “memories” and albums. At its launch, Lapse raised $11 million in seed round funding.
In the last month, you’ve likely received a cryptic text message from a friend along the lines of “we need this,” accompanied by an early access invite to Lapse. The platform requires new users to invite five or eight friends via text message before they can start using it. At the end of September, it shot up from No. 118 to No. 1 in the App Store — it currently sits at No. 2 — as a result of this growth hack. According to data.ai, Lapse had nearly 1.2 million users worldwide in late September.
Joshua Santos, a 27-year-old software engineer in Phoenix, Arizona, started using Lapse at the beginning of October. “It felt off that I had to invite other people just so I could use the app,” Santos told Mashable. “It was like some weird pyramid scheme.”
The app co-founders Dan and Ben Silverton stand by their onboarding process. Dan told TechCrunch, “We are top of the charts because Lapse is resonating with young people, who are sharing millions of photos per day in our app. They are exhausted by existing photo-sharing apps, and Lapse is a way for them to live in the moment and share memories pressure-free.” It also clearly benefits from young people’s insatiable nostalgia for vintage tech following the disposable camera boom in 2019.
But texting friends isn’t the only requirement to access Lapse. “You have to add the [Lapse] widget to your home screen or your lock screen, which is kind of wild. Like, oh, OK, we’re really being invasive with it,” explained Head.
Other users, like Ria Bhagwat, don’t mind the widget. “[The widget] is very engaging. It convinced me to want to use it more,” the 23-year-old freelance journalist told Mashable.
The platform successfully gamed the system for downloads, but can its users get hooked on yet another social media app? BeReal taught us about how quickly the novelty of a new social platform can wane, and while Lapse is breaking through without the incentive to use it daily, its staying power remains unclear.
But so far, Bhagwat is hooked. She posts on Lapse two to three times a day to 50 friends. “I am not usually a fan of photo apps. I had Snapchat in college. It forced me to always be on high alert about how I looked or what I was doing,” explained Bhagwat. “Lapse is nice because a lot of people use it for scenery. It’s different from Snapchat or BeReal because it’s not focused on the person who is posting, it’s more what they’re doing or who they’re with.”
Another draw of the app is that at the end of each month, all your posts are consolidated into an album. Jasmine, a 29-year-old art director in Brooklyn, treats it like a photo diary.
She also appreciates the community she’s built on the app. “I was looking at Lapse this morning, and it was nice to have people that I recognize and talk to in real life on it,” she explained to Mashable. “I open it and then scroll for 10 seconds and put it away. It doesn’t feel like a black hole.”
A roundup of the best religious horror movies that are free to stream right now, including “The Witch,” “The Conjuring,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” and more.
Some of the all-time creepiest films (hello The Exorcist) fall under the category of religious horror.
Whether it’s strange symbols, creepy cults, or repressed guilt, there’s something about various elements of religion and lore that just seem ripe for terror — and many, many movies have played into that.
From the incredibly sinister Saint Maud to terrifying Taiwanese TikTok trend-starter Incantation, we’ve scoured the streaming sites for the best religious horror movies you can watch for free right now…
Writer/director Robert Eggers’s haunting folk horror flick follows an isolated family living in 1630 New England as paranoia and religious fervor brew after an infant goes missing. Rebellious teen Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) bears the brunt of the blame from her Puritan parents, but her eerie twin siblings (is there any other kind?) and their friendship with a goat they’ve nicknamed Black Phillip lets the viewer know something far stranger is afoot.
“What really sets this movie apart from its horror peers […] is its sheer beauty,” wrote Yohana Desta in her review for Mashable. “Every scene is meticulously styled. The costumes have a quiet beauty. Every frame could be a painting, or a macabre Vogue editorial. The score (and scenes with lack thereof) is a perfect accompaniment, rattling and haunting.” — Sam Haysom, Deputy UK Editor
How to watch: The Witch is now streaming on Max.
It’s a rare thing for a remake to outdo the original. Yet Kimo Stamboel’s gruesome 2019 offering does just that by upping the ante on body horror with frightfully realistic gore. Deep in rural Indonesia, a humble orphanage is supposed to be the site of a warm reunion between three friends (Ario Bayu, Tanta Ginting, and Miller Khan), who long ago spent their boyhoods there. But in the past and in this place, they buried a terrible secret. Now, something horrid has risen to claim vengeance on them and their families. With creeping dread, stomach-churning scares, and ruthless supernatural twists, this one is not for the faint of heart.* — Kristy Puchko, Deputy Entertainment Editor
How to watch: The Queen of Black Magic is now streaming on Shudder.
The unnervingly sinister directorial debut from Rose Glass, Saint Maud will get under your skin, and we really mean that. This truly frightening, erotic, psychological horror is led by the terrifyingly talented Morfydd Clark, who brings a dark and disturbing level of care to her role as deeply pious hospice nurse Maud.
A masterpiece of maddeningly precise sound editing and lighting — Glass wields chiaroscuro and close framing with the same level of suffocating, sensual control as its protagonist — Saint Maud is unrelentingly threatening as Maud takes her role as her patient’s “saviour” to horrifying lengths. We’re already living in a constant state of unease this year, and Glass’s brilliant film, with Adam Janota Bzowski’s haunting score, will plunge you deeper into it.* — Shannon Connellan, UK Editor
How to watch: Saint Maud is now streaming on Prime Video.
The Conjuring director James Wan took John Carpenter’s art of fake-out jump scares to a new level in this 2013 supernatural horror smash. When it was released, Wan already had Saw and Insidious under his belt, but he raised his horror game with the film that would kickstart its own Conjuring Universe with two sequels, the Annabelle films, The Nun and its sequel, and more. This first film, written by Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes, has scared the crap out of sleepovers the world over ever since. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga play real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, investigating the spooky goings-on of the Perron family in Rhode Island in 1971. You’ll never look at wardrobes the same again. — S.C.
How to watch: The Conjuring is now streaming on Max.
Director Richard Donner’s The Omen is a classic case of the original film in a franchise being leagues better than any sequel or remake to follow it. Starring classic Hollywood icons Gregory Peck and Lee Remick, this story of suspected possession follows parents and their troubled son through a bone-chilling encounter with demonic forces. Harvey Stephens role as creepy kid Damien Thorn rightly earned him a Golden Globe nod and a permanent spot in horror history. Everyone should see it once.* — Alison Foreman, Entertainment Reporter
How to watch: The Omen is now streaming on Hulu and Prime Video, both with the Cinemax add-on.
Helplessness is a key element of a lot of horror movies, and classic Rosemary’s Baby hits that from a few different angles (if you watch it, know it’s a Roman Polanski film and everything that goes with that). When young couple Guy and Rosemary Woodhouse move into a New York apartment building, their lives rapidly begin to change in unusual ways. They decide to have a baby, and that’s when things really start getting weird. Turns out the residents of the building are all members of a Satanic cult looking to bring the Antichrist into the world using Rosemary’s womb as the host. This flick ratchets up the terror as it goes, and it’s widely considered one of the best in the genre.*
How to watch: Rosemary’s Baby is now streaming on AMC+.
Larry Cohen is one of the most iconoclastic exploitation film directors of all time, a dude who followed his impulses to create some all-time cult classics. His 1976 masterpiece God Told Me To is a claustrophobic, panic-inducing story of a Catholic NYPD detective who discovers a murder wave where every perpetrator claims God instructed them to slaughter innocents. Things get weirder and weirder from there – and once the flick starts bringing in Chariots of the Gods-style Ancient Aliens stuff it’s arguably a little silly, but the gritty intensity carries it through.*
How to watch: God Told Me To is now streaming on Pluto.
Kevin Ko’s Taiwanese horror freaked people out so much that it even started a TikTok challenge and managed to become the all-time highest-grossing horror film in Taiwan. “When one imagines horror movies, it’s almost impossible to not associate them with jump scares, monsters, or slashers,” wrote Rizwana Zafer for Mashable. “Incantation does not rely on any of those typical horror movie factors, so it’s not really ‘scary’ in the traditional sense. Instead, Ko manages to terrify us using suspense and dread, built on the intimacy and psychological terror of the heroine. He plays on our deepest fears to scare us, incorporating elements of gore, trypophobia, and the eeriness of the unknown, that something evil is always lurking in the background.” — S.H.
How to watch: Incantation is now streaming on Netflix.
Ti West is one of our favorite modern horror directors, and his 2013 found footage flick The Sacrament turns the lens on the cult lifestyle. Two journalists accompany a man as he travels to the community of Eden Parish to visit his sister. When they get there, they quickly discover that things are spiralling wildly out of control as the group’s leader, known only as Father, has let his paranoia take over. With strong parallels to the 1978 Jonestown massacre, this one moves a little slowly but really cuts into what makes people put their trust in cults, and Gene Jones gives a great, conflicted performance as Father.*
How to watch: The Sacrament is now streaming on Pluto.
Pascal Laugier’s 2008 horror film uses the many abuse scandals of the church as a springboard for a deeply unsettling story of revenge. As a young girl, Lucie Jurin was horrifically and systematically tortured by a group of people looking to discover what happens after death. She escapes but is haunted by the memories, some aspects of which her best friend Anna (Morjana Alaoui) is secretly somewhat skeptical of. Years later, Lucie brings Anna with her on a terrible quest for revenge, kicking off one of the most intense and infamous French New Extremity films ever. This one’s not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, as it’s got some vicious gore sequences leading up to the shocking climax. Don’t bother with the 2015 American remake.*
How to watch: Martyrs is now streaming on Tubi.
*This blurb appeared on a previous Mashable list.
UPDATE: Oct. 25, 2023, 1:28 p.m. EDT Updated to include what’s currently available on streaming.
The best, most exciting action movies on Netflix, from “The Old Guard” to “Jumanji,” “The Dark Knight,” “Kick-Ass,” and more!
Looking to fuel up your Netflix queue with some high-octane action?
Whether you’re a fan of wild Westerns, cunning detectives, high-swinging superheroes, ravenous zombies, or hard-core assassins, Netflix has a movie pitch-perfect for every kind of adrenaline seeker. But scrolling through the app can be a chore when all you want to do is Netflix and chill. We’ve taken out the hard step, highlighting the most stunt-stuffed, battle-powered, high-speed films the streamer has to offer.
Here, in no particular order, are the 20 best action movies on Netflix, streaming right now.
If you like your action movies with a heaping helping of cerebral sci-fi, then Dune is here to save the day.
Granted, director Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s classic novel takes its time more so than most action movies, focusing on the political intrigue between the various galactic forces who seek to control the desert planet Arrakis. But as protagonist Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) begins to undergo a mythic transformation, we’re thrust into a stunningly crafted world of knife duels, hostile takeovers, and space battles. Oh, and sandworms — glorious, glorious sandworms. — Belen Edwards, Entertainment Reporter
How to watch: Dune is now streaming on Netflix.
Gil Bok-Soon (Jeon Do-yeon) is a single mother who often finds herself at odds with her teenage daughter. She’s also a highly skilled and successful assassin. Kill Boksoon is a fantastic action film that sees its main character head straight from a brutal killing to the grocery store so she can get dinner on the table. It’s one hell of a hook that sucks you in immediately. The fight scenes are hypnotic and the cinematography ambitious and exciting. It’s a gripping thriller that makes plenty of space for the complex emotional reality of its characters.* —Kristina Grosspietsch, Freelance Contributor
How to watch: Kill Boksoon is now streaming on Netflix.
I can’t tell you how many times I watched my worn-out DVD of the first chapter in Sam Raimi’s ’00s Spider-Man trilogy, but suffice it to say, I can’t remember many other 2002 films. Spider-Man introduces a perfectly earnest Tobey Maguire as trembling genius teen Peter Parker. He’s pining away for his neighbor Mary Jane Watson (a superbly savvy Kirsten Dunst) and grieving while also developing superpowers from a fateful super spider bite. Meanwhile, he’s fanning out over his best friend’s dad, industrialist Norman Osborn (the exquisitely evil Willem Dafoe); little does Peter know his idol is also the villainous Green Goblin, who will soon be throwing Spidey around in many a nail-biting, cross-city battle.
We’ve moved through two other Spider-Men since Maguire’s run, but Raimi’s film wove unforgettable scenes into cinematic history — that upside-down rain kiss can’t be beat. In fact, the film has such iconic action shots in it that Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts included several in the now-infamous meet-up scene — watching Maguire dodge those Razor Bat pumpkins in 2002 and 2021 is sheer glee for fans. — Shannon Connellan, UK Editor
How to watch: Spider-Man is now streaming on Netflix.
It might be a cliche to say “This is the role they were born to play!” But when you witness the storming glory of Viola Davis as a hard-fighting general in The Woman King, that thought hits hard, fast, and repeatedly, like one’s heartbeat as this historical epic kicks into action mode.
In promoting the film, Davis has spoken openly about all the ways it’s the kind of movie that Hollywood’s supposed conventional wisdom — which caters predominantly to white and male audiences — said could never be made. Davis is a 57-year-old, dark-skinned Black woman, and she’s headlining a war movie in which she gets to be the titular protagonist and kicks slavers’ ass. As she expressed before the film’s World Premiere at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, she’s living her dream in this film. And for us, it was exhilarating to live vicariously through her.
Inspired by the Agojie of West Africa, The Woman King explores the passions, problems, and camaraderie of this all-female band of warriors. While Davis dazzles at its center, co-stars Thuso Mbedu, Sheila Atim, and Lashana Lynch shine alongside her. Each brings powerful charisma to a full-throated performance that keeps audiences equally riveted through scenes of battle or blossoming romance, gut-punching grief or pugnacious celebration. As she did with The Old Guard, Gina Prince-Bythewood marries action with emotion, creating sequences that make our pulses race and our hearts shudder.* —K.P.
How to watch: The Woman King is now streaming on Netflix.
Before Bong Joon-ho won Best Picture with Parasite, he delivered an icy thrill ride crowded with action and political commentary. Based on Jacques Lob’s graphic novel Le Transperceneige, Snowpiercer is set in a post-apocalyptic future where the world has entered a merciless ice age, forcing all humans to survive on a single train that races around frozen terrain. But the cheap seats are much worse than flying in coach. While those in the back of the train live in squalor and suffer from starvation, those in the front revel in luxury and splendor. This pushes a posse led by one grim man (Chris Evans) to do whatever it takes to get to the front and fight for change. Also on board this star-stuffed action movie are Song Kang-ho, Tilda Swinton, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ewen Bremner, Go Ah-sung, John Hurt, and Ed Harris. — K.P.
How to watch: Snowpiercer is now streaming on Netflix.
You’ve never seen an action movie quite as bombastic or as bromantic as RRR. Director S.S. Rajamouli draws loosely from history to tell the story of Indian freedom fighters Alluri Sitarama Raju (Ram Charan) and Komaram Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.). Over the film’s three-hour runtime, the two unwittingly face off in the search for a kidnapped girl, become the best of friends, and square off against villainous English colonizers.
Any of RRR‘s action sequences would be the pinnacle of a lesser action movie, but the film seems determined to outdo itself with showstopper after showstopper. Take when Raju faces down hundreds of protesters and wins, or when Bheem fights a tiger bare-handed. Would you believe me if I told you those happen within the first 20 minutes? The action — and the movie — only get more awesome from there. — B.E.
Where to watch: RRR is now streaming on Netflix.
Put ’em up, as this is hands-down one of the best action movies in the Wild West.
Directed by Jeymes Samuel, The Harder They Fall defiantly redefines the predominantly white Western, boasting an incredible cast of Black stars: Jonathan Majors, Idris Elba, Regina King, Zazie Beetz, LaKeith Stanfield, and Delroy Lindo. A tale of heroes and villains, the film follows Nat Love (Majors) on his quest for revenge against the formidable Rufus Buck (Elba). But he’ll have to make his gunslinging way through “Treacherous” Trudy Smith (Regina King) and Cherokee Bill (Stanfield) first. Even before the opening credits roll, you’ll fall hard for this one. — S.C.
How to watch: The Harder They Fall is now streaming on Netflix.
In 1975, Steven Spielberg gave rise to the blockbuster with this iconic creature feature. Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss star as an unlikely trio of local sheriff, sea captain, and shark expert. Together, they brave the waters off Amity Island to do battle with a man-eating great white shark. Though not as action-packed as today’s blockbusters, this nerve-rattling adaptation of Peter Benchley’s beach read was scary enough to drive audiences wild and turn the tide of shark sentiment against the sea beast for decades. Yet nothing in the fear-mongering Shark Week can compete with action of man versus sea beast that goes down here. And every time you’ll be tempted to cheer when Brody snarls, “Smile, you sonovabitch!” —K.P.
How to watch: Jaws is now streaming on Netflix.
Sherlock Holmes’s much cooler little sister is an overlooked young action hero in Enola Holmes. Based on author Nancy Springer’s popular book series The Enola Holmes Mysteries, the film puts the great detective’s savvy 16-year-old sibling on the case, played with energetic spoonfuls of gumption by Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown. She’s set to solve the greatest mystery of her young life: to find her missing mother (Helena Bonham Carter) through a series of deliberately cryptic clues — all while breaking the fourth wall and confiding in the audience, thanks to Fleabag director Harry Bradbeer and His Dark Materials‘ Jack Thorne’s sharp screenplay.
Stepping into the footsteps of her famous brother Sherlock (Henry Cavill) and avoiding those of her stuffier misogynist brother Mycroft (Sam Claflin), Enola’s case leads her on a wild ride through Victorian-era England, with more than a few fistfights and butts to kick along the way. And lucky for you, the sequel is even better. — S.C.
How to watch: Enola Holmes is now streaming on Netflix.
Sometimes, you get the urge to watch an Oscar-nominated actor blast a bunch of dinosaurs with a laser gun. And when that urge sneaks up on you, the only cure is 65.
65 is built around the genius premise that is “Adam Driver fights dinosaurs,” and boy, does it deliver. As Mills, a pilot from a super advanced civilization from 65 million years ago, Driver crash-lands on prehistoric Earth, where he headshots a T. Rex, bludgeons a raptor, and much, much more. He also takes the time to bond with his one fellow survivor, a young girl named Koa (Barbie‘s Ariana Greenblatt). The result is a sweet “lone wolf and cub” movie full of dino-sized thrills, kills, and a very threatening asteroid. — B.E.
How to watch: 65 is now streaming on Netflix.
With this 2023 release, co-writer/director Juel Taylor pulls plenty of inspiration from Blaxploitation. John Boyega, Jamie Foxx, and Teyonah Parris star as a drug dealer, a pimp, and a sex worker who undercover a nefarious conspiracy that’s happening underneath their neighborhood. Taylor and fellow screenwriter Tony Rettenmaier weave in wild twists, fly fight scenes, irreverent humor, and swaggering style for what our critic called “a propulsive comedy-thriller with weight.” As bold as it is star-studded, you won’t want to miss They Cloned Tyrone. And stay for the credits, trust us. —K.P.
How to watch: They Cloned Tyrone is now streaming on Netflix.
If you’re a sucker for black comedy, witty dialogue, ’70s style action, and/or odd-couple comedic duos, it doesn’t get much nicer than The Nice Guys.
Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) and Holland March (Ryan Gosling) play a pair of washed-up private investigators who reluctantly join forces to search for a missing woman (Margaret Qualley) in 1977 Los Angeles — with occasional assistance from March’s clever teenage daughter, played by Angourie Rice. Though the mystery takes the gang to the farthest reaches of the city, burrowing deep into rabbit holes and brushing up against all manner of eccentrics, it’s the unexpected chemistry between Crowe and Gosling that really keeps this engine running, and it’ll leave you wishing for more where that came from.* — Angie Han, Deputy Entertainment Editor
How to watch: The Nice Guys is now streaming on Netflix.
This Netflix adventure has Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, and Pedro Pascal coming together as a group of former Special Forces who plan an elaborate heist in South America. But after things get out of hand, their survival skills are put to the ultimate test.
Putting a talented cast in a tension-filled scenario, Triple Frontier is the type of gritty thriller that’s hard to turn away from. — Brooke Bajgrowicz, Entertainment Fellow
How to watch: Triple Frontier is now streaming on Netflix.
Blending drama with fantasy/adventure and weaving in a very real message about the horrors of the meat industry, Bong Joon-ho‘s Okja is a beautifully unique creature feature, striped with action.
The film follows Mina (Ahn Seo-hyun), the granddaughter of a farmer in South Korea who has spent the last 10 years rearing a genetically modified super-pig called Okja as part of a breeding project spearheaded by a grim U.S. corporation. This movie is dark in places, magical in others, and poignant overall, asking us to stop and reflect on the dark side of an industry the majority of us are complicit in. Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal make for an entertaining pair of villains, too.* — S.H.
How to watch: Okja is now streaming on Netflix.
There are plenty of good reasons to watch Rush, including the charismatic performances by Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl as rival Formula One drivers, the dramatic story beats pulled from actual history, and the fabulous sets and costumes steeped in ’70s style (especially everything Olivia Wilde‘s character wears). But the best reason of all is the racing scenes, which director Ron Howard imbues with such a propulsive thrill that you may find yourself making race car noises (vroom, vroom) for hours afterward, like a little kid tearing into a new box of Hot Wheels on Christmas morning. Uh, not that I’d know from personal experience or anything. — A.H.
How to watch: Rush is now streaming on Netflix.
Spike Lee copters audiences back to the Vietnam War with Da 5 Bloods, a daring film that’s part drama, part war movie, and part heist flick. Named for a squad of Black U.S. Army soldiers of the 1st Infantry Division, Lee’s critically heralded 2020 joint follows this band of brothers through a treacherous war zone, then rediscovers them in a present where they’re seeking to uncover the past — and a big payday.
Sequences of brutal battles, narrow escapes, and high-tension hijinks make Da 5 Bloods an enthralling watch. Though inspired by history, it’s impossible to predict where Lee’s story will lead. Our guides on this intense journey through time, loss, war, and brotherhood are Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, Isiah Whitlock Jr., and the late Chadwick Boseman. Together, they and Lee create an American war film that can’t be missed. — K.P.
How to watch: Da 5 Bloods is now streaming on Netflix.
Looking for high-octane martial arts action? Then you’re in luck, because Gareth Evans’s thriller The Raid: Redemption (and its sequel, The Raid 2) are both streaming on Netflix.
This Indonesian action masterpiece takes a relatively simple premise — a police squad raids a crime lord’s apartment block — and elevates it with shocking plot twists and some of the best fight scenes put to film. Choreographed by Iko Uwais and Yayan Ruhian, who also star, The Raid‘s action sequences are no-holds-barred smackdowns that will have you on the edge of your seat. They feature everything from the Indonesian martial art pencak silat to machetes and guns, making for fights that are as varied as they are brutal. — B.E.
Where to watch: The Raid: Redemption is now streaming on Netflix.
Sometimes all you want is to grab hold of that action-o-meter and crank the dial, hard, to a solid 11. Army of the Dead more than delivers on that front, opening with a musical montage of guns and exploding body parts — and it only gets gorier from there. Zack Snyder‘s story follows a band of mercenaries hired to steal $200 million from a casino in Las Vegas. The problem? Vegas has been invaded by zombies, the city is quarantined, and the military is planning to blow the entire thing up with a tactical nuclear strike. The sprawling cast includes Dave Bautista, Omari Hardwick, Hiroyuki Sanada, Garret Dillahunt, and Ana de la Reguera, as well as a digitally added Tig Notaro.
What follows is a gloriously silly romp that refuses to take itself too seriously, propelling us through a series of explosions and bullets while the story twists and turns through a 148-minute runtime that feels oh, so much shorter. — S.H.
How to watch: Army of the Dead is now streaming on Netflix.
The entirety of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is streaming on Netflix, but if you only have time to watch one movie, make it the highlight. Make it The Dark Knight.
While artfully directed high-speed car chases and hand-to-hand combat abound here, it’s the introduction of Heath Ledger’s Joker that sets this film apart. He’s chaos in clown makeup, pushing Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) to his limit with a series of attacks and moral dilemmas that terrorize Gotham. A gripping crime drama full of unforgettable sequences, The Dark Knight isn’t just the best comic book movie of all time — it’s one of the best action movies of all time, too. — B.E.
How to watch: The Dark Knight is now streaming on Netflix.
Folks looking for that summer blockbuster thrill, search no further than The Old Guard. Based on the superhero comic books of the same name, director Gina Prince-Bythewood‘s movie sucks viewers into a slick, well-crafted world of action and narrative that isn’t particularly unique but delivers its formulaic pieces with enough precision to keep you invested.
Charlize Theron crushes as the ass-kicking leader of an immortal warrior fight crew, with performances by Harry Melling, Marwan Kenzari, KiKi Layne, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Veronica Ngo, Matthias Schoenaerts, and more.* — Alison Foreman, Entertainment Reporter
How to watch: The Old Guard is now streaming on Netflix.
* denotes the entry comes from a previous Mashable list.
UPDATE: Sep. 8, 2023, 5:00 p.m. EDT This post has been updated to reflect the current selection on Netflix.
Games For Gaza, an itch.io fundraiser for Medical Aid For Palestinians (MAP) that features 256 items ranging from games, stories, soundtracks, game assets, and more, reached its first, $10,000 goal within hours of its October 27 launch.
