Now Stream This: 'Magnolia', 'Wonder Boys', 'Mars Attacks!', And More

(Welcome to Now Stream This, a column dedicated to the best movies streaming on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and every other streaming service out there.) 

In dire need of something to stream, right now? Right this very minute? Then you're in luck! As usual, I've scoured the best streaming services and brought back the best streaming options available for your viewing pleasure. Here you'll find a saga from Paul Thomas Anderson; a dramadey about writer's block; an underrated film from M. Night Shyamalan; a John Carpenter classic; a horror movie unlike any other; a star-studded alien invasion comedy; and more!

These are the best movies streaming right now. Let's get streaming.

Release Date: 1999Genre: Ensemble dramaDirector: Paul Thomas AndersonCast: Jeremy Blackman, Tom Cruise, Melinda Dillon, Philip Baker Hall, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ricky Jay, William H. Macy, Alfred Molina, Julianne Moore, John C. Reilly, Jason Robards, Melora WaltersPaul Thomas Anderson's lovely, lengthy zig-zag in and out of the lives of several California residents is ambitious to a fault. While Anderson has said in recent years he thinks the film is probably too long, the length is part of what makes Magnolia so special. It's one of those game-changing movies; the type of film that opens your eyes to a whole new world of movie making. I can distinctly remember seeing the film in theaters in 1999, then coming out of the theater and just standing there as it rained, completely blown away by what I had seen. Here is a film about love, and loss, and biblical plagues. A film about human frailty, and regret, and deplorable behavior. Magnolia has a pulse; it is a living, breathing thing. And what a cast! Tom Cruise gives unquestionably the best performance of his career here, and he doesn't even do a single death-defying stunt.For fans of: Short Cuts, Boogie Nights, Inherent Vice, frogs.

Release Date: 2000Genre: DramadeyDirector: Curtis HansonCast: Michael Douglas, Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Katie Holmes, Rip Torn, Robert Downey Jr.

The late, great Curtis Hanson helms this funny, charming adaptation of Michael Chabon's novel. Michael Douglas is an English professor toting around a monster of a novel he can't finish due to writer's block. His wife just left him, his publisher wants the book, and he just discovered he got the woman he was having an affair with (Frances McDormand) pregnant. If that weren't enough, he also gets wrapped up in a misadventure with a student (Tobey Maguire) on a quest to find Marilyn Monroe's coat. It's not easy to adapt prose like Chabon's to the screen, but Hanson and screenwriter Steve Kloves pull it off deftly, crafting a literary-yet-cinematic saga that's ultimately about people and the actions (and inactions) they take.

For fans of: The World According to Garp, The Ice Storm, You Can Count on Me, Robert Downey Jr. playing someone other than Tony Stark.

Release Date: 2004Genre: Supernatural thriller (with a twist!)Director: M. Night ShyamalanCast: Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, Bryce Dallas Howard, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Brendan Gleeson

I will always go to bat for The Village. For many, this film was the beginning of the end for M. Night Shyamalan (although he's since bounced back with the general public). People were apparently fed-up with Shyamalan's twist ending routine, and the marketing for The Village didn't help much. This film was sold as an out-and-out horror film, full of jump scares and terrifying monsters. But that's not what The Village is. It is instead a quiet, reflective, beautiful film about grief and fear (two emotions which are often intertwined). Yes, there's a twist at the end – two twists, in fact. But that doesn't matter. What matters is the achingly human story Shyamalan tells about a community living in fear. Bryce Dallas Howard is phenomenal here, playing a young blind girl who sees more than most people around her. Other highlights include stunning, painterly cinematography from Roger Deakins and a beautiful, string-based score from James Newton Howard. If you've avoided this film because of bad hype, or haven't seen it since 2004, I urge you to give it a chance. It's much, much better than its reputation suggests.

For fans of: The New World, Signs, The Witch, Joaquin Phoenix mumbling.

Release Date: 1981Genre: Sci-fi action-filmDirector: John CarpenterCast: Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau

They don't make 'em like this anymore. John Carpenter is primarily known for horror, but he also occasionally branched out to make weird, wonderful genre pictures that star Kurt Russell. Russell is Snake Plissken, the ultimate badass, complete with an eye patch. In the future, New York has been turned into a prison island (makes sense!), and unfortunately, the American president (Donald Pleasence) has been shot down and taken prisoner somewhere in NYC. The government forces Snake to go in and rescue him, and to do so, Snake will have to fight off an entire island full of freaks and weirdos. It's a blast, and features another propulsive-yet-sparse musical core from Carpenter himself.

For fans of: Assault on Precinct 13, Escape from L.A., Big Trouble in Little China, the song "Bandstand Boogie".

Release Date: 1974Genre: HorrorDirector: Tobe HooperCast: Marilyn Burns, Allen Danziger, Paul A. Partain, William Vail, Teri McMinn, Edwin Neal, Jim Siedow, Gunnar Hansen, John DuganThe Texas Chainsaw Massacre is one of those rare horror films that feels wrong. It feels like we're watching something we really should not be seeing; like someone smuggled out a real snuff film and packaged it as a normal movie. Tobe Hooper's low-budget nightmare finds a group of young people fending off a cannibal family featuring a chainsaw-wielding behemoth. The grit and grain all over the film stock lends an unsettling air of authenticity – Texas Chainsaw looks grimy. Almost as if you could wipe a white cloth across the screen and have it come away caked in filth. For pure, visceral terror, you can't beat this film.For fans of: The Hills Have Eyes, Eaten Alive, Night of the Living Dead, feeling the need to take a shower after watching a movie.

Release Date: 2016Genre: Biographical dramaDirector: Antonio CamposCast: Rebecca Hall, Michael C. Hall, Tracy Letts, Maria Dizzia, J. Smith-Cameron, John Cullum, Timothy Simons

No, not the killer car one. Christine chronicles the true story of Christine Chubbuck, a television reporter who killed herself live on the air. Christine takes a few liberties with the true story, and it's not even the best movie made about Chubbuck (that would be Robert Greene's incredible Kate Plays Christine). But what Christine does have is Rebecca Hall, an actress in a class of her own. Hall doesn't just play characters, she embodies them, almost painfully so. And that's certainly true here, as she plays Christine as a lonely, mentally unwell individual spiraling out of control. Christine is worth seeing for Hall's performance alone.

For fans of: Kate Plays Christine, Network, Certain Women, Rebecca Hall giving a performance so good it leaves you stunned.

Release Date: 2017Genre: Foreign language supernatural dramaDirector: Joachim TrierCast: Eili Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelsen, Ellen Dorrit Petersen

This eerie, haunting, slightly hokey drama from Joachim Trier focuses on Thelma (Eili Harboe), a college student who leaves home for university and falls in love with another girl. The romance has an unpredictable side-effect: it unleashes supernatural powers within Thelma. This is a film that's constantly playing games with the audience – it takes a long time for us to catch onto Thelma's true nature, and that's part of the fun of the film. Ultimately, Thelma is an icy, stylish horror-drama that will inevitably get a pointless American remake.

For fans of: Carrie, Personal Shopper, The Midnight Swim, genuinely surprising twists.

Release Date: 1996Genre: Sci-fi comedy full of deathDirector: Tim BurtonCast: Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Rod Steiger, Tom Jones, Lukas Haas, Natalie Portman, Jim BrownTim Burton's surprisingly mean-spirited Mars Attacks! exists for one reason: to kill famous people in comically macabre ways. Burton stacks the film with a star-studded cast, then has them bumped off one by one by ghoulish, cartoonish alien invaders. I'll admit to being turned-off by Mars Attacks! when I first saw it in 1996, but the film has grown on me. For one thing, it's a Tim Burton movie where Burton isn't on autopilot, going through the usual motions. For another, there's just something morbidly funny about all the chaos and carnage Burton conjures up here. It's hard to not like a movie that features a scene where aliens keep repeating, "Don't not run, we are your friends!" while their in the middle of turning people into skeletons with laser guns.For fans of: Beetlejuice, Gremlins, Plan 9 From Outer Space, the acting skills of Tom Jones.  

Release Date: 2015Genre: DocumentaryDirector: Bryan Carberry, Clay TweelCast: John Wood, Shannon WhisnantFinders Keepers follows a story that's almost too strange to be true. But it is true. One day, self-styled entrepreneur Shannon Whisnant purchased a grill. Inside the grill, he made a shocking discovery: a mummified human leg. The leg belonged to John Wood, and when Wood found out Whisnant had his missing limb, he asked for it back. Now, if this happened to you, you might kindly hand the leg over. But Whisnant had other things in mind, leading to a battle between the two men. If this all sounds crazy, it is. But Finders Keepers chronicles it all in a funny, surprising way. A lesser film would've ended up involving nothing more than the directors pointing and laughing at their odd subjects. But Finders Keepers finds just the right balance to discover the honest humanity lurking beneath this very, very weird story.For fans of: The King of Kong, Winnebago Man, American Movie, unexpected discoveries.

Release Date: 2016Genre: "Found Footage"Director: Matt JohnsonCast: Matt Johnson, Owen Williams, Andy Appelle

Did you know the moon landing was faked? It wasn't, of course, but that's the set-up of the very clever found footage thriller Operation Avalanche. In the film, two agents from the CIA's AV department infiltrate NASA in 1969, and get roped into helping stage a fake moon landing in the process. Operation Avalanche starts off on a lighthearted, comical note, and director Matt Johnson finds many ways to stage funny scenarios about the out-of-their-depth agents trying to find ways to make their fake moon landing look real. But eventually, the film slowly pulls the rug out from the audience and turns into something much darker.

For fans of: The Parallax View, Capricorn One, Lunopolis, cameo appearances from Stanley Kubrick.