Bros, Netflix’s School for Good and Evil, and every other movie you can stream from home this weekend

This week, the YA fantasy film The School for Good and Evil premieres on Netflix. If mythical creatures, wizards, and magic aren’t your cup of tea, not to worry — there’s plenty of other films available on streaming and VOD this week to choose from.

The new rom-com Bros starring Billy Eichner is available to rent on VOD. The new documentary Descendant is available to stream on Netflix, as well as the Australian crime thriller The Stranger starring Sean Harris and Joel Edgerton and the Korean romance drama 20th Century Girl. The maternal horror film Matriarch is streaming on Hulu, the documentary Mama’s Boy is available to watch on HBO Max, and the latest installment in the found-footage horror series V/H/S, V/H/S/99, is streaming this weekend on Shudder. There’s tons more to stream, rent, and watch, so why not take a look at everything this weekend has to offer?

Bros

Where to watch: Available to rent for $19.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Photo: Nicole Rivelli/Universal Pictures

Billy Eichner executive produces and stars in this romantic comedy as Bobby, a man with commitment issues who pursues a relationship with Aaron Shepard (Luke Macfarlane), a man with his own share of hangups about being in a relationship. It is among the first gay romantic comedies to be released by a major studio and features an openly LGBTQ principal cast.

From our review:

Eichner’s best when his ravings are instigated by more organic means. That can mean pushing his way through a crowd of clubgoers (“THEY WON’T STOP VOGUEING!”) or finding himself incapable of not having the last word when Aaron’s mother, an elementary school teacher, says second graders are too young to learn about queer history. He’s also, as it turns out, a fairly tender romantic lead with a lovely singing voice, delivering an eleventh-hour musical performance that feels like an instant rom-com classic, even if its meaning (some sort of convoluted subversion of Lin-Manuel’s “Love is love is love is love” speech, about how “love is not actually love”) remains murky at best.

The School for Good and Evil

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Helen Sloan/Netflix

The School for Good and Evil, the 2022 fantasy film based on Soman Chainani’s 2013 novel of the same name, reads like the premise of the Harry Potter series fed through a juice processor. Just replace “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry” with “The School for Good and Evil,” switch out Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy with two childhood friends named Sophie and Agatha, and substitute in professor Clarissa Dovey (Kerry Washington) and Lady Leonora Lesso (Charlize Theron) for Minerva McGonagall and Severus Snape and voilà — the same great YA fantasy taste with no problematic pulp!

From our review:

The School for Good and Evil is a fairy tale for people who love fairy tales, but who also want to see them dissected and weighed thoughtfully. It’s a fairy tale where the witchy outcast girl can be a hero, and the girl who wants to be a princess falls in love with her inner dark side. It’s a fairy tale for those who know that one of the most powerful and most underrated forms of true love is the friendship between two teenage girls. For anyone who scribbled indulgent stories about princesses and witches in the margins of their middle school notes and reread fairy-tale retellings over and over again, every minute is a joy.

Bullet Train

Where to watch: Available to rent for $5.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Photo: Scott Garfield/Sony Pictures

Brad Pitt stars in this action thriller as a repentant hitman codenamed “Ladybug” trying to complete an assignment aboard a high-speed train to Kyoto while surrounded by a bunch of goofy, eccentric assassins looking to kill him.

From our review:

Cartoonish as it is, Bullet Train is committed to letting its core cast make as big an impression as they can through quirks and fights, as Olkewicz’s knotty script ping-pongs between past and present. The film is presented as a mystery — there’s a John Wick-style legend of a Russian gangster who rose through the ranks of the Japanese underworld, and it ties into several characters’ backstories. But really, the story is more of a bloody series of Rube Goldberg machines, each activating in turn, then pausing every now and then to tip over another inanimate object. Inevitably, it’ll bite someone in the ass — usually Ladybug.

Bodies Bodies Bodies

Where to watch: Available to rent for $4.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Photo: Gwen Capistran/A24

A young woman named Bee (Maria Bakalova) and her girlfriend, Sophie (Amandla Stenberg), are invited out to a hurricane party at a secluded mansion by Sophie’s friends: a spoiled group of rich 20-somethings with a penchant for drama. Upon playing a find-the-killer murder-mystery party game, the group quickly learns that a real killer is in their midst.

From our review:

Bodies Bodies Bodies starts to play like a compressed Scream, sped up as if the filmmakers believe they’re playing to a generation that can’t keep both eyes on a full-length feature film. The filmmakers make the compelling choice to ratchet up both the bloodshed and the absurdity in tandem. Rather than letting satire give way to horror-movie tension, they make the recriminations and defensiveness increasingly louder and more ridiculous as the characters feel more endangered. At one point, mortal peril is interrupted by the equally shocking betrayal that one friend may be hate-listening to another’s podcast.

The Stranger

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Netflix

Sean Harris (Mission: Impossible – Fallout) stars in this 2022 Australian thriller as Henry Teague, a man haunted by a lifetime of bad decisions and deleterious physical labor who falls into the employment of Mark (Joel Edgerton) after befriending an associate on a late-night long-distance bus ride. Unbeknownst to Mark, Henry is in fact a key suspect in one of the largest organized manhunts in Australia’s history.

Descendant

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Netflix

Documentary filmmaker Margaret Brown’s 2022 film follows the director’s search for the remnants of the last known slave ship to arrive in the United States in her hometown of Mobile, Alabama. Along the way, Brown interviews the descendants of the enslaved Africans aboard the ship, who seek justice and healing through the act of unearthing its remains.

20th Century Girl

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Seo Ji Hyung/Netflix

This Korean romance drama follows the story of Na Bo-ra (Kim Yoo-jung), a young woman who recalls her first love as a teenager in 1999 after receiving a mysterious videotape.

Matriarch

Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu

Image: Hulu

After surviving an overdose, Laura (Jemima Rooper) returns to her home to recover and rekindle her relationship with her estranged mother (Kate Dickie). Upon arriving, she soon realizes that something terrible and inhuman has change the denizens of the village, and at the epicenter is none other than own mother — or rather, perhaps, something impersonating her.

Mama’s Boy

Where to watch: Available to stream on HBO Max

Photo: Travers Jacobs/HBO

This documentary follows the story of Dustin Lance Black, the Academy Award-winning screenwriter behind 2008’s Milk, as he recounts his conservative Mormon upbringing, his coming out as a gay man, and his journey of healing, love, and reconciliation with his polio-stricken mother, Anne.

The Fastest Woman on Earth

Where to watch: Available to stream on HBO Max

Image: HBO Max

Filmed over the course of seven years, this documentary follows the story of Jessi Combs, a professional racer and TV personality who pilots a custom car built with a repurposed fighter jet engine with the goal of one day breaking the record for the fastest woman alive.

The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks

Where to watch: Available to stream on Peacock

Photo: Don Cravens via Getty Images

Based on Jeanne Theoharis’ 2015 biography, this documentary co-directed by Yoruba Richen (The Green Book: Guide to Freedom) and Johanna Hamilton (1971) tells the story of civil rights icon Rosa Parks’ life up to and after her historic role in the Montgomery bus boycott. Composed of interviews with those who knew her and archival footage, The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks is a testament not only to the film’s namesake, but to an era of history-making civil disobedience.

Raymond & Ray

Where to watch: Available to stream on Apple TV Plus

Image: Apple Studios

Ethan Hawke (The Good Lord Bird) and Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting) star in this comedy-drama as two half-brothers who meet and reconcile following the death and funeral of their mutually estranged father.

V/H/S/99

Where to watch: Available to stream on Shudder

Image: Shudder

The fifth installment in Bloody Disgusting’s ongoing series of found-footage horror anthology, V/H/S/99 features several new and returning directors including Johannes Roberts (Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City), Tyler MacIntyre (Tragedy Girls), Flying Lotus (Kuso), and more as they explore five horrifying stories set around the turn of the millennium.

Beyond the Neon

Where to watch: Available to rent for $3.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Image: Gravitas Ventures

Based on a true story, this found-footage crime drama follows reckless YouTuber Joey (Joseph Saladino) and his film crew, who embark on a dangerous mission to expose a human sex trafficking ring in Las Vegas. Looking to reunite a Las Vegas escort with her missing sister, Joey gets more than he bargains for.

The Book Keepers

Where to watch: Available to rent for $2.99 on Amazon; available to purchase for $9.99 on Apple

Image: First Run Features

This documentary follows the story of Dick Wall, a man determined to honor his late wife’s life by speaking on her behalf for her debut memoir book tour. Joined by his filmmaker son, The Book Keepers is an affecting documentary about the power and persistence of love and family in the wake of death.