If you’re looking for good movies streaming this month, you’re going to find a treasure chest on Hulu. The streaming service regularly has a healthy selection of new releases, classics and hidden gems, but April is positively jam-packed with all of the above. From one of the best horror movies of last year to a Scorsese classic that’s only become more relevant with time — and a pair of 2024 thrillers that slipped under the radar, here’s a hand-picked selection of the best new movies on Hulu in April.
“Oddity” (2024)
Hulu is getting a trio of 2024 IFC Films/Shudder movies in April (“Azrael” and “In a Violent Nature” are the other two), and “Oddity” is easily the crown jewel of the batch — and of Shudder’s 2024 lineup. Carolyn Bracken stars as Dani, a blind psychic medium and owner of a curio shop, who uses the cursed and haunted items in her care to seek vengeance on those who murdered her twin sister. (Bracken also stars as the sister in flashbacks and absolutely nails both performances.)
Directed by “Caveat” filmmaker Damian McCarthy in his sophomore feature, “Oddity” is a treasure; so spooky, so playful, and an absolute steam engine of creepiness and tension-building. It’s refreshing too, striking a tone all its own (the closest parallel is probably “Tales From the Crypt,” but that’s still not quite it) and never going quite where you expect. On that note, I’ve also found it’s one of those great movies that benefits from repeat viewing, when you can really settle into the texture of what the movie is rather than what you thought it would be. So, whether you’ve seen it before or you’re watching for the first time, “Oddity” is the perfect pick if you’re looking for a spooky stream this month.
“The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013)
If recent events have you pondering the absurdity and horror of the stock market (and the society we’ve built to revolve around it), one of cinema’s great filmmakers made a masterful dark comedy all about those very issues back in 2013. With “The Wolf of Wall Street,” Martin Scorsese once again teamed with Leonardo DiCaprio and the filmmaker behind “Casino,” “Goodfellas” and “The Departed” turns his attention to a new type of crime, moving his lens from mafios to white collar miscreants. He also assembled a knockout ensemble around DiCaprio, including a generational find in then-little-known Margot Robbie, an inspired and career-changing use of Jonah Hill, as well as Jon Bernthal, Rob Reiner, Matthew McConaughey, Cristin Milioti, Jon Favreau, Kyle Chandler and Joanna Lumley, among many others.
With his epic ensemble, Scorsese scathingly, but hilariously, adapted the true story of sideways stockbroker Jordan Belfort, and all the ways society majorly rewarded and minorly punished his life of excess, fraud and malignant self-indulgence. Scorsese did it without holding the audience’s hand and telling us it’s all going to be OK; a choice that earned clipped gasps of misguided moral outrage from folks who missed the point when it first came out, and one of the elements of the film that has aged best in the years since. It was a damning portrait of American priorities when it landed in theaters, more than 10 years ago. It has only become more relevant since then, as the old boys club of big business burrowed its way even deeper into the political and cultural foundations of America, making it an even darker comedy in 2025.
“Jurassic Park” (1993)
There’s never a bad time to watch Steven Spielberg’s just-about-perfect 1993 dinosaur creature feature, but considering “Jurassic World Rebirth” is upon us, now might be a particularly good moment to get started for those hoping to revisit the franchise first. Sam Neill and Laura Dern star as two paleontologists whose dreams turn to nightmare material when they’re recruited to visit a theme park where dinosaurs are resurrected in the flesh, only for the dinos to bust loose and rain down prehistoric carnage. If you were lucky enough to see this in theaters when it dropped, it was a transcendent experience. But all these years later, it still plays like gangbusters, even on the small screen, a cinematic giant that still dwarfs all the sequels that came since — even the one Spielberg directed himself.
Speaking of which, Hulu also has “The Lost World” and “Jurassic Park III” this month, though you’ll have to look elsewhere for the “Jurassic World” films. (and then, be sure to head to Netflix for the excellent animated series “Camp Cretaceous” and “Chaos Theory,” which take place alongside the events of the “Jurassic World” films.)
“No Hard Feelings” (2023)
This one’s been generating some interest on Netflix in recent weeks, but it makes the jump to Hulu on April 21.If you’re looking for a movie that will just make you laugh, “No Hard Feelings” is one of the most straight-up funny theatrical comedies we’ve had in a minute, starring none other than generational talent Jennifer Lawrence. And dear god, we need to give her a break from the gripping dramas more often. Lawrence is fully committed with impeccable timing, and just charming enough to pull off her intentionally gross character, Maddie, who winds up desperate for money to keep her house and accepts money from a pair of rich helicopter parents to date their socially anxious 19-year-old son, Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman, who does really nimble work, moving between the outrageous comedy and the heart Percy brings to it all).
It’s a raunchy comedy the likes of which rarely gets made anymore, and it pulls off a tight-walk balance in the process. Coming off of his similarly could-be-icky feature debut “Good Boys” (and a much longer career in TV comedy, including “The Office” and more recently, co-creating “Jury Duty”), writer-director Gene Stupinsky proves he’s got a savvy command of getting the laugh without losing the audience — and emerges as one of our funniest working filmmakers.
“The Order” (2024)
This dark, steely thriller slipped just about entirely under the radar last year, despite a stand-out cast, sturdy craftsmanship and a heck of a timely subject matter. Set in 1980s Pacific Northwest, “The Order” stars Jude Law as Terry Husk, a weathered cowboy cop on the hunt for The Order, a white supremacist group with plans to declare war on America and overthrow the U.S. government to rebuild the nation in their image. Led by Bob Matthews (Nicholas Hoult, in one of his most understated Sucky Guy roles), The Order stages a series of heists, robberies and bombings, building a war chest in the process.
Tight, tense and unrelentingly grim, “The Order” isn’t flashy, but it is effective — another chilling true crime drama from “Snowtown” and “True History of the Kelly Gang” director Justin Kurzel, who always sidesteps lurid sensationalism in favor of a visceral glimpse at the dark side of human nature.
“Gone Girl” (2014)
There’s a double-dose of excellent Gillian Flynn films on Hulu this month, so after you watch “Gone Girl,” be sure to check out the heist thriller “Widows” too. Based on Flynn’s mega-hit bestseller of the same name, “Gone Girl” sees David Fincher at the helm, his last studio film and major theatrical release before Netflix locked him into streaming mode for the time being.
And what a twisty-turny experience it is, starring an impeccably cast Ben Affleck as Nick Dunn, and a stellar Rosamund Pike as Amy, his missing wife, who held many secrets behind her mask of perfection before she disappeared. Even though the film is more than 10 years old, and the book is older still, I’m gonna leave it there for fear of spoilers, because if you don’t know where “Gone Girl” is going, it’s one of the most thrilling, darkly funny misadventures you can have in two-and-a-half hours.
“Lake George” (2024)
The question you need to ask yourself is, do I want to spend a feature-length amount of time just kind of hanging out with Carrie Coon and Shea Whigham? If the answer is no, please go reflect. If the answer is yes, well, you should probably watch “Lake George.” The low-fi crime thriller stars a pair of our best working actors in a Southern California-set two-hander that reminds me of the type of post-“Pulp Fiction” indie crime movies we used to get a lot of in the early 2000s.
Whigham stars as Don, a disgraced family man who’s reluctantly tasked with killing Phyllis (Coon) at the behest of some gangsters. When the two actually meet, they strike up an unexpected, bittersweet bond and turn the tables on the criminals keeping them down. A bit of a buddy road movie that never quite teeters into romance, “Lake George” is a pleasure because it’s a pleasure to watch these two share the screen and get into ill-advised antics together.