When it comes time to pick a movie to watch with all of your friends, you’ve got plenty of options scattered across plenty of streaming services. Whether it’s comedy, thriller, action, or a cult classic, you can find something worth watching somewhere. These are a few good recommendations.
6
Rush Hour
Jackie Chan doesn’t do as many movies as he used to, especially not the kind focusing primarily on comedy. Though he has many iconic and memorable films, if you and your friends are looking for a good laugh alongside some action and nostalgia for a simpler time, the Rush Hour movies featuring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker are still a fantastic choice.
Full of well-choreographed action, amusing quips, and the ideal buddy cop scenario of two polar opposite dudes coming together to form the ultimate duo, you’re guaranteed to get at least one laugh out of even the most stoic person in your friend group. It’s a feel-good movie that has enough tension to keep you invested, even though you know it’s not the type of film where things will get too grim. The villains are easy to hate, and the heroes, easy to love.
The fact that there’s a whole trilogy to enjoy definitely helps a lot too, just in case you and your pals are looking to watch more than one movie. Don’t worry, none of the individual films are longer than two hours on their own. This is the perfect opportunity to get caught up on the whole series before Rush Hour 4 comes our way sometime soon!
You can watch the Rush Hour films on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, Fandango at Home, and YouTube in the case of the second and third movies.
5
Shutter Island
Do you love the feeling of having your mind blown? Of pondering where a movie is going and how it all ties together, only for it to all strike you at the very end like a bolt of lightning? If you love feeling that way and love having that kind of experience alongside all of your friends, then Shutter Island is a fantastic movie to watch. This psychological thriller film features Leonardo DiCaprio as a deputy U.S. Marshal investigating the disappearance of a patient from a mysterious psychiatric facility.
It’s probably one of his best performances, which is saying a lot for such an accomplished actor. Shutter Island will have you and all of your friends either pausing the movie or talking over it to debate your theories on what’s happening and why, or at least sitting down for an hour after the fact to discuss the mind-bending twists and turns that the film masterfully builds up to. This is one of the few films where I genuinely give people a funny look if they tell me they haven’t seen it.
Of course, being centered around a mystery, it’s the type of film that loses a lot of impact if you’ve already seen it, but even if you have, it’s also the type of movie that’s great to show off to people who haven’t seen it just to watch their reaction. If you’re interested in this psychological thriller and one of DiCaprio’s best movies, you can watch Shutter Island on YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, and Fandango at Home.
4
Napoleon Dynamite
There were many movies from the mid-2000s that got quoted religiously, almost like sacred texts to some monastic order. One such film was Napoleon Dynamite, an indie comedy film that quickly ascended to the realm of cult classics. This coming-of-age high-school story is beloved and has been voted one of the funniest movies of all time on at least a few lists.
I think the thing that really made the film stand out was just how accurately it captured the sheer awkwardness of being a teenager. Not to say that we were all as bad as the titular Napoleon, but I think we can all remember experiences somewhat similar to his own in the movie: talking to our crushes, going to school dances, getting into awkward situations with our friends, and having to perform on stage for school events.
It’s a zany film with a sense of humor that is, admittedly, hit or miss for some people. Heck, the movie ended up being the basis for a whole special problem, “The Napoleon Dynamite Problem”, in which the film is so quirky that researchers can’t actually predict whether or not anyone will like it based on their previous movie experiences. It’s up to you to know if your friend group will appreciate this film, which you can watch on Hulu, Google Play Movies, Fandango at Home, Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Disney+.
3
Akira
If your friend group is full of anime fans who have somehow not seen Akira, now is the time. This 1988 film is one of, if not the, most influential and iconic anime productions of all time. Trust me, you’ve seen the famous motorcycle power slide that Akira popularized more times than you know. The film is particularly notable for being absolutely gorgeous, the peak of the hand-drawn anime style of the older generation. It’s truly breathtaking.
As for what Akira is about, well… it’s incredibly complicated. The long and short of it is that a kid from a biker gang gains incredible telekinetic powers, making him a threat to everyone around him in his dystopian future world. His friend makes it his goal to save his buddy from both the government and his own power. The movie has a bit of everything—superpowered beings, military action, political intrigue, cyberpunk dystopia, and more.
Admittedly, it’s also the type of film that will probably leave you wondering what the heck just happened when it’s all over, but sometimes, that can be a good thing. It’ll definitely drive discussion among your friends as you try to make sense of the ending, which, while very dramatic, is a bit confusing. Who knows, maybe you’ll all want to read the manga after that to get the full picture.
Unfortunately, your viewing options are a little limited. Right now, Akira is only available on YouTube, The Roku Channel, Fandango at Home, and Crunchyroll.
2
Grown-Ups
Grown-Ups is a 2010 movie about, well, being a grown-up. But not in the “be responsible, never smile, all work and no play” type of way. It’s more realistic, more “adults are really just children doing all the things they weren’t allowed to do when they were kids.” I don’t know about you, but the movie is a lot more relatable to me now than it was fifteen years ago, when I was still in middle school.
This whole movie is about a group of friends from high school that reunite decades later at a lake house for an impromptu vacation. Their lives have all gone quite differently since they’ve separated. Some are successful. Others are struggling either in their jobs or in their relationships. Grown-Ups doesn’t shy away from getting a little serious about the real travails of mature life—all the hardships and struggles that just existing in this world includes.
But it’s also a great example of what really matters in life, how coming together with your friends and just being with people who make you laugh and smile can make everything worth it. Not every friend group gets up to shenanigans as reckless as the characters in Grown-Ups. However, the idea is still familiar to us all—we all like to kick back and relax with our friends, just having a good time, even if we have to put up with some of life’s problems tomorrow.
I daresay it’s one of the most fitting movies to watch as a friend group. If you’re interested, you can find it on several streaming services, including Peacock, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, YouTube, Google Play Movies, and more.
1
Inception
Inception is another DiCaprio film that’s similar to Shutter Island in many ways. It’s very psychological, asking deep questions and likely making you ponder mind-twisting things you normally wouldn’t. Still, it’s not really a mystery so much as a science-fiction action heist movie. The film is about a group of thieves who insert themselves into the subconscious minds of sleeping targets to steal valuable information from their dreams.
It gets pretty wonky—there are layers to the dream, with the thieves able to enter the dream of a target who is already dreaming in the first place. Time is exponentially dilated the further in they go, meaning they could spend days in the final layer of the dream but only seconds in the first layer. The subconscious of their target has automatic defenses that recognize intruders, and dying in the dream can have serious consequences for the dream-divers.
Inception raises a lot of really cool concepts to ponder with your friends about reality, human subconsciousness, and our perception of the world around us. While there isn’t really a mind-blowing twist like there is in Shutter Island, this movie will make you and your friends feel like philosophers every twenty minutes or so as you ponder some deep, implied questions about complicated matters.
Not to worry, though—the movie still has plenty of gripping action to mix things up, so it’s not like you’re just watching a psychology paper put on the big screen. If you want to watch Inception with your friends, you can stream it on Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, The Roku Channel, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, and several other platforms.
Naturally, there are dozens, even hundreds, of other good movies for you and your friends to watch besides these recommendations. Each streaming service has tons of options, and some, like Netflix, even have some original movies that you can’t watch anywhere else. However, the best course of action might be to take a vote and figure out what your friends really want to watch.
