Season’s greetings and What to Stream This Weekend
Season’s greetings, Polygon readers. We’re smack-dab in the sleepy, liminal interzone between the Christmas holiday and New Year’s Eve. Be that as it may, that doesn’t mean there aren’t a couple new movies on streaming to watch this weekend as we barrell into 2024.
This week, The Holdovers, the new Christmas comedy-drama starring Paul Giamatti, is finally available to stream on Peacock. That’s not all: The supernatural horror-thriller It Lives Inside arrives on Hulu this week alongside the new Ray Romano-directed comedy Somewhere in Queens. Finally, a controversial crime thriller starring Jim Caviezel is now streaming on Prime Video. And… that’s it for this week!
Here’s everything new to watch this weekend.
New on Hulu
It Lives Inside
Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu
Genre: Supernatural horror
Run time: 1h 39m
Director: Bishal Dutta
Cast: Megan Suri, Neeru Bajwa, Mohana Krishnan
This horror movie follows two young girls at an American high school who each relate to their Indian heritage in a different way: One embraces it, and one rejects it. When a Pishach, a vengeful spirit imprisoned in a strange glass jar, latches onto one of them, the other must reconnect with her past in order to stop it. It Lives Inside is the feature debut from Bishal Dutta, known previously for his work as a writer on the 2017 drama series Triads.
Somewhere in Queens
Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu
Genre: Comedy
Run time: 1h 46m
Director: Ray Romano
Cast: Ray Romano, Laurie Metcalf, Jacob Ward
Ray Romano directs and stars in this new coming-of-age comedy about Leo, a father trying desperately to help his son apply for college and win a basketball scholarship. After going to extreme lengths, from alienating the rest of his family to cajoling his son’s ex (Sadie Stanley) to get back together with him, Leo must learn to allow his son to make his own decisions. From the trailer, it comes across as an earnest comedy about learning to embrace the peculiarities of one’s own family and accepting the uncertainty of what life has to offer.
New on Prime Video
Sound of Freedom
Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime Video
Genre: Crime thriller
Run time: 2h 11m
Director: Alejandro Gómez Monteverde
Cast: Jim Caviezel, Mira Sorvino, Bill Camp
One of the most surprising box-office hits of the year, Sound of Freedom purports to be a true story about a mission to stopping child trafficking. The truth is much more complicated than that.
New on Peacock
The Holdovers
Where to watch: Available to stream on Peacock
Genre: Comedy drama
Run time: 2h 13m
Director: Alexander Payne
Cast: Paul Giamatti, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Dominic Sessa
A strong late awards-season contender, The Holdovers is a holiday-themed comedy about three people left at a New England boarding school for Christmas in 1970, all pushing through their own personal drama to survive the holiday. It’s also one half of this season’s best double feature.
From our list of the best movies of the year:
The Holdovers is full of sudden twists, mostly backstory reveals suitable for a particularly startling stage play. But the real surprise is how personal and specific it becomes, and excellent writing and acting help it dodge the expected parameters for this kind of story. Eventually, it settles into a three-hander between Professor Hunham (Giamatti), his troubled adolescent student Angus (Dominic Sessa, in an intense star-making performance), and Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the school’s head cook, an older Black woman mourning her son’s recent death in the military.