When searching for the latest and greatest cinematic offerings, the shifting distribution landscape makes one thing abundantly clear: No matter how badly we’d like for the big screen to be the place for the best movies, it’s simply not the case. Sure, the theatrical experience claims plenty of worthy films, but with on-demand video rental and the overwhelming number of streaming options—two areas where indie and arthouse cinema have been thriving as theaters shove them aside for more and more Marvel movies—alternative viewing methods bear consideration if you’re after a comprehensive list of the best new fare.
This list is composed of the best new movies, updated every week, regardless of how they’re available. Some may have you weighing whether it’s worth it to brave the theater. Some, thankfully, are cheaply and easily available to check out from your living room couch or your bedroom laptop. Regardless of how you watch them, they deserve to be watched—from tiny international dramas to blockbuster action films to auteurist awards favorites.
Check out the 10 best new movies movies right now:
Release Date: January 19, 2024
Director: Ava DuVernay
Stars: Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Jon Bernthal, Vera Farmiga, Audra McDonald, Niecy Nash-Betts, Nick Offerman, Blair Underwood
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 141 minutes
In Origin, writer/director Ava DuVernay once again tackles complex themes about social injustice, posing the question: How do we confront oppression? To find the answer, DuVernay puts the spotlight on nonfiction author Isabel Wilkerson, the influential subject of a bold, galvanizing account of the interconnected roots of hate. Origin chronicles the research and life experiences of the Pulitzer-winning Wilkerson that inspired her bestselling book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. The film follows Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) as a series of political and personal events lead her on expeditions to Germany and India to explore the concept of caste—a stratification system that divides society into a series of identity-based hierarchies. The murder of Trayvon Martin sets Wilkerson’s research in motion, stirring her investigation of how systemic racism in America relates to oppressive systems throughout the world. Like its subject, Origin adopts a journalistic lens, spending less time constructing Wilkerson’s own narrative and instead letting her historical inspirations speak for themselves. The film offers informative examples of caste systems throughout history and the individuals who defied them: A couple targeted by the Nuremberg Race Laws in Nazi Germany, Black anthropologists Elizabeth and Allison Davis, who co-wrote the revolutionary Deep South: A Social Anthropological Study of Caste and Class in 1941 and B. R. Ambedkar, an Indian man born into the Dalit caste—the lowest caste of India—who, despite the adversity that faced him, drafted the Indian Constitution. DuVernay shows creative versatility in these interwoven sequences, building stakes and intriguing characters within these well-designed, thoroughly fleshed-out vignettes. With impressive costuming and scenic details, these fleeting and sentimental stories colorfully illustrate Wilkerson’s narration of the past. Among the many timelines and tragedies the film helms, Origin’s time spent exploring Wilkerson’s family and personal life secures an emotional anchor, divulging the taxing process of reviewing history, especially when one shares a connection with it. Wilkerson’s life, which unfolds tragically throughout the film, echoes her desire to recite history and reminds us that the events of the past live within us. DuVernay’s writing and Ellis-Taylor’s subtle yet full-bodied performance culminate in a warm, powerful protagonist tethered to her work as she reckons with the grief of history and her own losses. DuVernay has already documented history with projects like Selma and 13th, but Origin is her most daring feat yet. This tribute to Wilkerson instills the importance of questioning the oppressive systems established in the past, and looking inward towards our own place within these systems.–Sage Dunlap
Release Date: March 1, 2024
Director: Julio Torres
Stars: Julio Torres, Tilda Swinton, RZA, Catalina Saavedra, James Scully, Greta Lee, Larry Owens
Rating: R
Runtime: 98 minutes
Anyone familiar with Saturday Night Live writer and Los Espookys co-creator Julio Torres’ idiosyncratic, fanciful sense of humor won’t be surprised to learn that his feature film debut, Problemista, is a delightfully erratic and wild ride. Problemista follows Alejandro (Torres), a young man who moves from El Salvador to Bushwick in the hopes of realizing his dreams as a toy maker. Getting the sponsorship he needs to remain in the United States proves to be a headache of epic proportions, but he sees a potential light at the end of the tunnel in the form of Elizabeth (Tilda Swinton): An eccentric, volatile and hostile art critic who spends her days picking fights with waiters and Apple Support technicians. Elizabeth solicits Alejandro to help get her cryogenically frozen husband Bobby’s (RZA) paintings into an art show, vowing to sponsor the young man should everything go to plan. But, we all know that everything tends not to go as planned in these sorts of situations. Getting sponsored turns out to be a wholly Kafkaesque experience for Alejandro—an experience replete with a healthy dosage of ludicrousness that Torres highlights with magnificent maze-like sets that recall the wacky, dystopian office spaces of Jacques Tati’s Playtime. These spectacular sets are a staggering showcase of Torres’ command over his unique aesthetic sensibilities and provide shrewd commentary on immigration and classism in a wholly inventive way. Despite the strength of Problemista’s fantasy, Torres doesn’t fall victim to leaning too heavily on the unreal. Using fast-paced cuts, editors Jacob Secher Schulsinger and Sara Shaw seamlessly weave the real and imagined worlds together until they become almost indistinguishable, expertly walking the delicate tightrope of believability, relatability and otherworldliness. This fearless, authentic debut showcases immense command of a unique and inventive form of humor, while touching on a very real issue with heart and candor.–Aurora Amidon
Release Date: February 9, 2024
Director: Pawo Choyning Dorji
Stars: Tandin Wangchuk, Deki Lhamo, Choeying Jatsho, Tandin Sonam, Harry Einhorn, Pema Zangmo Sherpa
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 107 minutes
Set against the backdrop of 2006 Bhutan, The Monk and the Gun is a light but well-delivered political satire about the country’s first democratic elections following their king’s abdication. Through Pawo Choyning Dorji’s thoughtful framing of his home country and understated humor that captures the specifics of this place, The Monk and the Gun communicates why those living there may not be as enthused about these changes as Western pundits would assume. Buddhist monk Tashi (Tandin Wangchuk) receives a request from his lama: Find a pair of guns. While the lama isn’t exactly forthcoming about why, he ominously states that “things need to be made right again” regarding the upcoming mock elections recently announced over the radio. As Tashi sets out on his quest, a man from the city, Benji (Tandin Sonam), undertakes a parallel endeavor to help an American named Ron (Harry Einhorn) to locate an antique rifle reported in the area. Elsewhere, locals brace for the imminent elections as tensions flare within households, like how Tshomo (Deki Lhamo) and Choephel (Choeying Jatsho) face issues with their marriage due to the latter’s involvement in helping a family member run for office. As these groups approach the next full moon, when the elections will take place and the lama’s plan will be carried out, their paths converge. Although elements of The Monk and the Gun’s premise, like its focus on political machinations and firearms, may imply that it’s a heavy, brooding affair, it’s defined by an undercurrent of levity. Dorji, who also wrote the film, weaves in playful comedy, delighting in the quiet absurdity implied by its title. The Monk and the Gun balances all these inclinations. It’s funny and lighthearted, but delves into political forces and carries a slight undercurrent of danger. It subtly lambasts the overbearing reach of Western influence, particularly American gun culture, but also accepts the possibility for change. Most importantly, it gives director Pawo Choyning Dorji a chance to catalog the landscapes and ideas of his home as he deftly recounts where it was at a specific moment. It may be unhurried, but for a film archiving a particular way of life, that is very much by design.–Elijah Gonzalez
Release Date: March 8, 2024
Director: Rose Glass
Stars: Kristen Stewart, Katy O’Brian, Jena Malone, Anna Baryshnikov, Dave Franco, Ed Harris
Rating: R
Runtime: 104 minutes


Love Lies Bleeding is, in actuality, a far more effective horror film than Saint Maud. Filmmaker Rose Glass excels at crafting horrific images, moments of pure grotesquery and terror, and she pushes the boundaries of an otherwise grounded thriller-crime drama into something that resembles a gorgeous night terror. Sensuality oozes from every frame for a film that isn’t even terribly gratuitous during its sex scenes. But the physical act of sex between bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O’Brian) and gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) equals otherwise non-sexual scenes, such as Lou jabbing a syringe into Jackie’s butt cheek, or Lou Sr. (Ed Harris) whispering in Jackie’s ear before she fires a gun—or even Jackie’s roid rage-fueled murder of JJ (Dave Franco), which plunges Jackie and Lou’s passionate neophyte romance into an explicitly gay Thelma and Louise, where the two lovers must flee the wrath of Lou’s criminal family. The connection between the two women is desperate, carnal and overwhelming, if simultaneously toxic and even a little superficial. Suddenly, nothing matters to Lou quite as much as her ripped new girlfriend, whom she’s more than happy to continue supplying with body-enhancing drugs that cause Monstar-like eruptions under her skin in sequences of heightened surrealism. As the walls close in on Jackie and Lou, Glass amps up the tension with tight, suffocating shots, propulsive editing and an absorbing score by Clint Mansell. At the center of it all is Jackie and Lou’s cacophonous romance. By all accounts, the gay Romeo and Juliet were doomed from the start. Stewart and O’Brian have incredible chemistry, and Stewart’s understated naturalism really shines. Love Lies Bleeding is easily one of the best of 2024 so far: A thorny, thrilling narrative about two fucked-up women that is—most importantly—genuinely, scintillatingly hot. The film is also very obviously about the myriad, terrifying ways human beings express love to one another, and on the surface seems to question which ones are more or less valid.–Brianna Zigler
Release Date: January 19, 2024
Director: Phạm Thiên Ân
Stars: Lê Phong Vũ, Nguyễn Thịnh, Nguyễn Thị Trúc Quỳnh, Vũ Ngọc Mạnh
Rating: NR
Runtime: 178 minutes


Having a kid irrevocably changes a person’s life, and those changes are doubled when the kid arrives orphaned by tragedy. Two lives in flux, and the new parent is responsible for shepherding a little one through formative grief, on top of traditional parenting duties. But Thiện (Lê Phong Vũ), the laconic protagonist of Phạm Thiên Ân’s first feature, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell, handles this abrupt charge with laid-back ease, as if his every experience has prepared him for the circumstance of his sister-in-law’s death and subsequent custodianship of his nephew, Đạo (Nguyễn Thịnh). Most people would be rattled by these events. Thiện rises to the occasion with preternatural nonchalance. His comfort with this solemn trust is not by any means the movie’s most fantastical quality. Ân follows in the footsteps of the greats of slow cinema, notably Tsai Ming-liang, Edward Yang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, both in terms of taking his sweet time allowing Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell’s story to breathe, and in terms of judiciously applying surrealist brushstrokes to an aesthetic that verges on neo-realist. Static compositions provide structure for Ân’s hypnagogic digressions; there is a rigid formality to much of the filmmaking here, and from that flows a handful of languid sequences that flirt with otherworldliness. Ân obscures God’s presence in the world through meticulous, thoughtful filmmaking. This is perhaps the intent behind Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell’s combination of long takes and still frames: To force the audience to look at each image for minutes at a time like they’re poring over a Where’s Waldo? book, combing for proof of the Alpha and the Omega in Saigon’s neon lights and unfeeling concrete, or deep-green jungles teeming with life. The second half of the film follows Thiện on the road to find his estranged brother, and if a three-hour jaunt through Vietnam in search of faith and family sounds like an insurmountable challenge, Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell is anything but. It’s a journey jammed with pleasures we can all appreciate, and canopied by questions we all ask.–Andy Crump
Release Date: March 22, 2024
Director: Radu Jude
Stars: Ilinca Manolache, Nina Hoss, Uwe Boll
Rating: R
Runtime: 164 minutes


Radu Jude’s literalized mouthful Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World depicts, perhaps, the most accurate representation of the dystopia we live in, and the supposed impending dystopia that we’re in the process of arriving at. Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World largely centers on a day in the life of young Romanian woman Angela (Ilinca Manolache), an overworked, underpaid film production assistant, driving around Bucharest to cast for a work accident film. The film has been commissioned by a major company obviously attempting to cover the tracks left by lax safety precautions for their workers, fronted by a suit named Doris Goethe (Nina Hoss)—funnily, a direct relation to the influential German writer. Between meetings, Angela films intentionally provocative and popular TikToks playing the character of an Andrew Tate wannabe named Bóbita. Throughout the black-and-white cinematography of the present day, where we follow Angela around and find ourselves lulled to sleep by the rhythmic movements of her hands on the steering wheel and the changing gears, Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World slips in and out of the story of another Angela: The 1981 Romanian film Angela Goes On. Directed by Lucian Bratu, the older film chronicles the seemingly humdrum routine of the eponymous woman (played by Dorina Lazar) working as a taxi driver. But it was, at the time, a quietly subversive work depicting the reality of life under poverty, having been made during the oppressive and censoring regime of Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu. Jude considers the films of both Angelas in conversation with one another: Two films about two women doing similar jobs during drastically different political periods in the same country. Jude even slows down parts of the older film for audiences to catch what the Romanian censors at the time did not. Jude’s film is hypnotic, patient and playful, bending the rules of filmmaking, overlaying fiction on top of fiction, blending mixed media—even interjecting a surprise and charming cameo from notorious German director Uwe Boll, whom Angela convinces to appear in one of her Bóbita TikToks while he shoots an inane green screen action sequence on a backlot. In the reality depicted by Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, the world will not end with a whimper or a bang, but as work accident victims idle, filming an insurance video in the rain; while the crew bickers among themselves; while the film’s PA risks crashing their car due to loss of sleep out on field work; while young people make TikToks displaying a tenuous grasp on the concept of satire; while nothing is being done to improve the lives of the people who still very much live on this planet.–Brianna Zigler
Release Date: February 9, 2024
Director: Trần Anh Hùng
Stars: Juliette Binoche, Benoît Magimel
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 136 minutes
While ASMR is most heavily associated with the pleasures of sound, it would be nothing without the aesthetics. The way a cake spatula smooths a dollop of buttery frosting; the way egg noodles gleam under a coating of soy sauce. It might sound reductive to compare Vietnamese-French director Trần Anh Hùng’s lyrical work with a social media fad, but there is now an entire micro-industry dedicated to the way human beings have always lusted after the sensual impressions of food, an idea which is as much in conversation within The Taste of Things as that of the romance between its two leads. If there were no plot at all, The Taste of Things could still very easily coast on the visual and auditory pleasures of its subject: The culinary arts, to which Trần’s camera and microphone dedicate sumptuous displays of rich textures and decadent sizzles of in-process cookery, much of it spearheaded by veteran kitchen cook Eugénie (Juliette Binoche). Taking place in late 19th century France at the estate of the so-called “Napoleon of Culinary Arts” Dodin Bouffant (Benoît Magimel), The Taste of Things focuses on its residents. For Dodin and Eugénie, cooking is an erotic, romantic, intimate act. After the first meal of the film is enjoyed by Dodin and some colleagues, they all bemoan Eugénie’s welcome yet absent company at their dinner. Eugénie assures them she is speaking to them through her food. While Eugénie prepares a lavish spread for Dodin and his friends, she momentarily loses herself, seemingly to the understandable exhaustion that comes with dancing and careening through a hot kitchen. DP Jonathan Ricquebourg glides the camera around Eugénie and co., giving the banquet preparation a sense of precise choreography akin to ballet, all the way to the angle at which a wooden spoon slips through a pan of rich, creamy sauce. Throughout the narrative’s drama, the chemistry between Binoche and Magimel is as palpable as the food that their characters prepare together. And while the film remains free of explicit sex or nudity (though, one scene cheekily parallels Binoche’s nude silhouette with the curvature of a poached pear), the insinuations and implications carried by the appearance, sound and intent behind the cooking are far more sensuous. The Taste of Things is abundantly, if maybe overwhelmingly, accessible; it’s not particularly challenging to watch a film that’s quite literally as gratifying as a home-cooked meal.–Brianna Zigler
Release Date: February 23, 2024
Director: Ethan Coen
Stars: Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Vaswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp, Matt Damon
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy
Ethan Coen’s solo fictional directorial debut Drive-Away Dolls is an end-to-end comedy, a road film about two twenty-something lesbians unwittingly ensnared in someone else’s caper, dodging a couple of criminals while growing as people. Margaret Qualley is Jamie, a free spirit of uncertain employment who we meet while she’s stepping out on her partner, police officer Sukie (Beanie Feldstein). Geraldine Viswanathan is her upright and uptight friend Marian, who works an ambiguous office job where she’s tired of her coworkers as well as the big city (Philadelphia in 1999). After Sukie catches Jamie cheating, gives her a black eye at a bar, and kicks her out of their shared apartment, Jamie tags along on Marian’s road trip to visit her aunt in Tallahassee using Curlie’s (Bill Camp) driveaway service. Their journey of self-discovery is eventually impacted by two goons (Joey Slotnick as Arliss and C.J. Wilson as Flint) working for The Chief (Colman Domingo), who are on their trail to recover some sensitive objects hidden in the car. Drive-Away Dolls is funny all the time. There is a goofiness of circumstance, fools and jesters brought together because of their employment and other people’s decisions. It’s never stiff or stuffy, but often very smart. The dialogue is terrific (written by Coen and his wife/frequent editor Tricia Cooke) at distinguishing the personalities of each character, big and small, making them feel like real (sometimes real odd) people rather than just archetypes (and every archetype presented is fleshed out for maximum value). On top of that, Drive-Away Dolls is a sometimes tender, sometimes thrilling, tightly-paced comedy that, despite clocking in at under 90 minutes, feels downright luxuriant at times. With Drive-Away Dolls, Tricia Cooke and Ethan Coen channel their influences and experiences into a tight, satisfying, humorous road movie. A knowing and humorous tone never loses its flair, with an artistic touch and commitment that makes you buy into the jokes in the first place. It is a refreshing comical experience threading together the absurd and the authentic.–Kevin Fox Jr.
Release Date: March 1, 2024
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Stars: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Léa Seydoux, Souheila Yacoub, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 166 minutes

Set aside the complicated calculus of food, shelter and family needs. It’s time to shell out the big bucks and head to the local IMAX. To borrow from Kidman’s AMC commercial more explicitly, though you might not be “somehow reborn,” there will be “dazzling images,” sound you can feel and you will be taken somewhere you’ve “never been before” (at least, not since Dune). As befits a Part Two, Villeneuve’s film picks up in medias res, with Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), his mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) and the Fremen encountering and dealing with a murderous Harkonnen hunting party while trying to reach the Fremen stronghold. From this encounter, Villaneuve nimbly guides the narrative from one key moment to the next, a veritable dragonfly ornithopter of plot advancement (with a few slower moments to allow the burgeoning relationship with Paul and Zendaya’s Chani to breathe). If the outcome of each narrative stop feels very much fated, that in turn feels appropriate given the messianic prophecy undergirding the entire tale.  Dune: Part Two’s production design is as much center stage as its star-studded cast. Villaneuve pummels the viewer with the sheer scale and brutal, industrial efficiency of the Harkonnen operation—well, it would be efficient if not for those pesky Fremen—yet all of it is engulfed in turn by Arrakis itself. Meanwhile, the sound design and throbbing aural cues evoke the weight and oppressiveness of a centuries-spanning empire, the suffocating cunning of “90 generations” of Bene Gesserit schemes and the inescapable gravity Arrakis and its spice-producing leviathans exert on both. For those torn on whether it’s worth venturing forth to the multiplex, consider Dune: Part Two a compelling two-hour-and-forty-six-minute argument in the “for” column. And that “indescribable feeling” you get when “the lights begin to dim?” That’s cinematic escape velocity, instantly achieved. Next stop, Arrakis.–Michael Burgin
Release Date: November 22, 2023
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Stars: Soma Santoki, Masaki Suda, Aimyon, Yoshino Kimura, Shōhei Hino, Ko Shibasaki, Takuya Kimura
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 124 minutes


Genzaburo Yoshino’s 1937 novel How Do You Live? is a time capsule, preserving the virtues of the society it was made and circulated in. It’s about how to live as a good person in this world, about the childhood experience of discovering difference, disparity, and loss—and, thus, turning to philosophy. The influence of the text is apparent in Miyazaki’s work at Ghibli. While the protagonist of his latest film, Mahito (Soma Santoki), is styled around Miyazaki’s childhood, Miyazaki himself appears as he is today more directly in the figure of Mahito’s granduncle (Shōhei Hino), a man who built a mysterious library on the family estate decades ago before disappearing into his stories forever. The Boy and the Heron, released in Japan with the same name as Yoshino’s novel, becomes a firm reminder of the need to grow up, but one that recognizes the importance of the ephemeral experiences of childhood. Unlike Miyazaki’s semi-biographical 2013 swan song The Wind Rises, the quasi-autobiographical The Boy and the Heron is styled as the fantasy Bildungsroman that he became famous for—with a mature, edgier bent. The opening sequence depicts a 1943 firebombing, rendered with striking animation that entirely breaks with the art style of the rest of the film, veering into the abstract. Mahito’s ill mother dies in the flames. Afterwards, the 12-year-old moves to the countryside as his father Shoichi (Takuya Kimura), an industrialist contributing to the war effort, remarries his late mother’s younger sister, Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura). Unlike the bucolic farmland of My Neighbor Totoro that imagines a space closer to nature or the remnants of a nostalgic past in Spirited Away that facilitates its fantastical traversal, the impetus for Mahito’s journey is an act of self-harm. The spirits find Mahito, feverish and delirious, on the family’s rural estate. A particularly nettlesome gray heron (Masaki Suda) harasses the boy, drawing him towards the site of his coming-of-age journey. His guide hereafter is apprehensive, the fantasies tainted with death and decay. From here, the script (trans. Don Brown) is perhaps Miyazaki’s best. Sharing its outline with all these past films, The Boy and the Heron utilizes a different narrative mode: The mythic. This is a fantasy world that deals in archetypes instead of history orientated by the polemics of fascists and philosophers. Everything is handled with delicate ambivalence, all implicit, the intentions left ambiguous. It is an open text begging to be read. Some may get the impression the film says nothing at all, but The Boy and the Heron is ultimately something more enduring than an edification. Synthesizing the virtues Yoshino wrote of a pre-war Japan with the terror of growing up in its collapsing empire, Miyazaki draws the world in its entirety. Through decades of refining his craft and iterating on this familiar story, Miyazaki has honed The Boy and the Heron into a platonic form—the kind held by Mahito’s philosopher-storyteller granduncle, who creates whole worlds with his small stone building blocks. To see The Boy and the Heron is to see Miyazaki. The film is as complicated as the man it is about, and this is what makes The Boy and the Heron a masterwork. I can see him still writing his stories, still drawing his airplanes.–Autumn Wright
Jacob Oller is Movies Editor at Paste Magazine. You can follow him on Twitter at @jacoboller.
For all the latest movie news, reviews, lists and features, follow @PasteMovies.
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