The Best Movies Streaming Right Now: The Harder They Fall, Finch, And More

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

Another week has concluded, and thank heavens for that. Whenever Friday rolls around, I like to round up a few streaming titles you can check out over the weekend. I'm here to give you a wide variety of options, and this week we have a post-apocalyptic drama, an animated documentary, a violent thriller, a cool new Western, and an underrated sci-fi remake. Like I said: options! So keep on reading if you want to check out five of the best movies streaming right now, and learn where to stream them. And oh yeah, TGIF. 

Now Streaming on Netflix

Stylish as hell and featuring an uber-cool performance from Jonathan Majors, "The Harder They Fall" is a Western with a twist: it features historical figures who are predominantly Black. While the story being told here is 100% fiction, the figures who inhabit it all existed – although most people probably haven't heard of them, since history tends to focus more on the white individuals of the era. Majors is Nat Love, an outlaw who has made a name for himself by robbing other outlaws. Nat has a vendetta against the violent Rufus Buck (Idris Elba), and when Buck gets sprung by prison by his gang members, including Regina King (who is having a blast playing a heavy for a change) and Lakeith Stanfield (who has a unique, laid-back twist on playing a villainous character), Nat and his pals saddle up for revenge. Story-wise, there's not much here that hasn't been featured in countless other Westerns. But the Black-led cast and the glossy style make the whole endeavor feel fresh and fun. 

For fans of: "Unforgiven," "Django Unchained," Jonathan Majors being so cool it hurts. 

Now Streaming on Apple TV+

"Finch" is a nice surprise. This small-scale post-apocalyptic tale finds Tom Hanks living in the ruins of America with only his beloved dog for company. But Hanks' character, a brilliant scientist, knows his time is growing short – gamma radiation has poisoned him, and he doesn't want to leave his dog alone. The solution: build a robot to watch over the dog! I know this premise sounds a little wonky, but "Finch" works, and works well. Hanks continues to be one of our very best actors, and the robot, named Jeff, is a delight, thanks to the motion-capture and voice performance of Caleb Landry Jones. Hanks, the dog, and the robot hit the road in a souped-up RV, and their journey across the mostly-deserted country is both melancholy and poignant. And, while this might be a spoiler, I feel the need to put some minds at ease: the dog lives, so don't worry about that.

For fans of: "Cast Away," "Nomadland," very good dogs. 

Now Streaming on HBO Max

A box office flop when released in 2002, Steven Soderbergh's remake of "Solaris" found an audience later, and rightfully so: it's pretty damn great. Soderbergh's approach is different from the original film, and that's perfectly fine – why try to just do the same thing all over again? George Clooney plays a clinical psychologist in a state of perpetual grief over the death of his wife (Natascha McElhone). Clooney's character gets a message from an old friend who is on board a space station near the planet Solaris, asking Clooney to come to the station to help with an unusual problem. It's all very vague, but Clooney accepts the invitation. Once onboard the station, odd, impossible things begin to happen, and nothing is as it seems. Deliberately paced and intentionally cold, "Solaris" is cerebral sci-fi at its best.

For fans of: "Arrival," "Interstellar," George Clooney's ass. 

Now Streaming on Hulu, Paramount+, The Roku Channel (free with ads)

"The Hunted" feels like a film that time forgot, which is a little odd, since it was directed by William Friedkin, stars Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio del Toro, and absolutely rules. Similar to "First Blood," "The Hunted" has a mentally unstable soldier being tracked by the man who helped train him. Unrelentingly violent and tense, "The Hunted" has del Toro playing a Delta Force assassin who begins to suffer from PTSD following his brutal missions. This leads him to hide out in the woods, paranoid that the government is coming to kill him. They're not – not at first, at least. But after del Toro brutally murders some hunters, both the police and the government are on his trail, with Tommy Lee Jones, playing a former civilian instructor of military survival and combat training turned tracker, being brought into help with the manhunt. Jones' character met del Toro years ago and even helped train him, which makes this a personal mission. Bleak and bloody, "The Hunted" underperformed at the box office, but it's ripe for rediscovery. 

For fans of: "First Blood," "The Fugitive," knives. 

Now Streaming on Netflix

First thing's first: "Camp Confidential: America's Secret Nazis" is a terrible title. It sounds like some hacky, junky History Channel special with questionable sources. And that's not what this is! Instead, this brief (less than an hour) documentary is a fascinating look at how America smuggled Nazis out of Germany into the states and treated them less like prisoners of war and more like old friends. Blending audio recordings from actual witnesses and an animation style that I admit took me a little while to get used to, the film tells the little-known story of a secret prison camp that was staffed almost entirely with immigrants. Not just any immigrants, either – but Jewish immigrants who had fled Germany to get away from the Nazis, and then promptly joined the American armed forces. Many of these soldiers spoke German, and were thus recruited for a top-secret assignment. When high-ranking Nazis were brought to the camp, the Jewish soldiers were tasked with befriending them. Why? To obtain top secret information, particularly in regards to Germany's rocket technology. The Jewish soldiers were, understandably, not too thrilled with having to get chummy with Nazis. But as they recount here, they felt as both immigrants and soldiers they had no way to refuse. And this wasn't exactly what you might picture as a prison camp. It was more like a private resort, complete with a swimming pool and a tennis court. Eventually, this entire endeavor would lead directly to the space race, with captured Nazi scientist Wernher von Braun making major contributions to NASA. The doc underscores the fact that von Braun was well aware of Nazi death camps, and that he even relied on slave labor to assist with his experiments during the war. In short, he wasn't a good guy. But America needed him, or so they thought. They particularly didn't want him to fall into the hand of the Soviet Union. The bleakness of all this is underscored by actual footage of a post-moon landing parade in America where von Braun, who, again, was a member of the Nazi party, is hailed as a hero and hoisted upon the shoulders of American citizens. 

For fans of: "Tower," "The War," little-known bits of history