Challengers, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Madame Web on Netflix, and every new movie to watch at home this weekend (2024)

Greetings, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.

This week, Challengers, Luca Guadagnino’s erotic sports drama starring Zendaya (Dune: Part Two), arrives on VOD follow its theatrical premiere last month. If watching a feuding throuple fight and flirt with one another to one of the best scores ever composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross doesn’t sound like your idea of a good time, not to worry: There’s plenty of other new releases to watch this weekend. We’ve got the serial killer crime drama He Went That Way on Hulu, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire on VOD, and Madame Web on Netflix, if you’re into that!

Here’s everything new that’s available to watch this weekend!

New on Netflix

Madame Web

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Sony Pictures

Genre: Superhero action
Run time: 1h 54m
Director: S.J. Clarkson
Cast: Dakota Johnson, Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced

Sony’s latest entry in its Spidey-less Spidey Universe stars Dakota Johnson as Cassie Webb, a paramedic living in Manhattan who gains the ability to see visions of the future after a near-death experience. When a mysterious superpowered stranger (who was with Cassie’s mom when she was in the Amazon researching spiders right before she died) begins hunting a trio of young girls, Cassie takes it upon herself to protect them.

From our review:

Madame Web might be the most shameless superhero movie of all time. Far from just the cash-in that it seemed like a few years ago when this movie headlined by an F-tier superhero was first announced, Sony’s latest Marvel offshoot is a two-hour post-credits scene, made only intermittently tolerable by Dakota Johnson’s underappreciated knack for comedy.

Thelma the Unicorn

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Netflix

Genre: Musical comedy
Run time: 1h 33m
Directors: Jared Hess, Lynn Wang
Cast: Brittany Howard, Will Forte, Jemaine Clement

This animated musical comedy follows Thelma (Brittany Howard), a small-time pony that experiences an unexpected makeover into a pink and purple unicorn. Determined to chase her dream of musical stardom, Thelma convinces the entire world that she’s a unicorn, but a jealous narwhal named Nikki (Ally Dixon) becomes bent on stealing back the spotlight.

New on Hulu

He Went That Way

Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu

Image: Vertical Entertainment

Genre: Crime drama
Run time: 1h 35m
Director: Jeffrey Darling
Cast: Zachary Quinto, Jacob Elordi, Patrick J. Adams

Jacob Elordi (Saltburn) and Zachary Quinto (Star Trek) star in this crime thriller about Bobby Falls, a serial killer who hitches a ride with Jim Goodwin, an animal trainer in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The trailer hints at the film’s ultimate conclusion, as well as a tense series of events including murder, robbery, and fine dinner food.

The Sweet East

Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu

Image: Utopia

Genre: Road film
Run time: 1h 44m
Director: Sean Price Williams
Cast: Talia Ryder, Earl Cave, Simon Rex

After being separated from her classmates during a school trip, a high school senior named Lillian (Talia Ryder) embarks on an impromptu road journey where she crosses paths with anarchists, skinheads, movie producer, and other eccentric strangers.

New on Starz

The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

Where to watch: Available to stream on Starz

Photo: Murray Close/Lionsgate

Genre: Dystopian action
Run time: 2h 37m
Director: Francis Lawrence
Cast: Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Peter Dinklage

Francis Lawrence returns to the world of The Hunger Games to tell the story of the early years of Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), who would go on to become the president of Panem and the nemesis of Katniss Everdeen.

Set 60 years before the events of the first film, The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes recalls the fateful meeting between Coriolanus and Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a tribute from District 12 who would leave a profound impact on his life and worldview.

From our review,

Collins’ book and Lawrence’s movie don’t redo the action of the Hunger Games events; they dissect them, then force us to sit on the Capitol side of the equation. They demand to know why we were even drawn to the love triangle, the pretty dresses, and the themed arenas in the first place. We’ve always been the spectators, after all, watching Katniss’ story from a safe distance. The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes shows us what happens if we get too carried away by propaganda, luxury, and the promise of safety. In that way, it’s a fitting end to the franchise — and a fitting end to the way the genre evolved into a beast of its own.

New on Shudder

Nightwatch: Demons Are Forever

Where to watch: Available to stream on Shudder

Image: Shudder

Genre: Horror
Run time: 1h 50m
Director: Ole Bornedal
Cast: Fanny Leander Bornedal, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Alex Høgh Andersen

Years after her parents were almost killed by a police inspector-turned-serial killer, Emma (Fanny Leander Bornedal) accepts a night watch job at the same forensic department where they once worked. Upon confronting her parent’s tormentor, Emma inadvertently reawakens his bloodlust, unleashing a terrible evil that threatens to destroy both her and anyone who gets in the way.

New to rent

Challengers

Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Image: MGM/YouTube

Genre: Sports drama
Run time: 2h 11m
Director: Luca Guadagnino
Cast: Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, Mike Faist

Luca Guadagnino’s sensual sports drama, about a love triangle in professional tennis, has set certain circles of the world on fire since its release in late April and is one of the best movies of the year. Now, you can enjoy it at home.

From our review:

That script is a terrific three-course meal for Faist and O’Connor. They get to trade off face and heel roles from scene to scene and era to era, as Art and Patrick help and hurt each other in equal measure. But it’s an absolute smorgasbord for Zendaya, who even in starring roles has never been given this much room to stretch. Tashi is a gratifyingly rich character, both righteously angry over the thwarting of her ambitions and cruelly angry at all the men who have the nerve to keep on playing the game that was taken away from her. She’s hungry for affection and withholding it at the same time, by turns sensually curious and coldly dispassionate, ambitious and exhausted, conflicted and confident. She’s the kind of character that media master’s theses are made of, and unpicking Tashi’s conflicting motives and how she integrates them is likely to become a pop culture obsession in the months to come.

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Image: Warner Bros. Pictures

Genre: Monster action
Run time: 1h 55m
Director: Adam Wingard
Cast: Godzilla, Kong, Rebecca Hall

The boys are back in town — the boys being Godzilla and Kong, of course. Godzilla vs. Kong director Adam Wingard returns for this team-up movie, where the big lads must work together to stop an invasion from Hollow Earth.

From our review:

Godzilla x Kong (yes, it’s styled like that, like a streetwear collab) is beyond “good” or “bad” or “movies.” It’s an arena show, a pro wrestler shouting in the squared circle, thumping their chest and raising the jumbotron hype meter before doing their signature move. Through brutally efficient pacing that minimizes what the script doesn’t care about (people, mostly) and maximizes what it does (giant monsters doing wrestling moves), it constantly eschews connection in favor of escalation. It’s an achievement in absurd spectacle, a comically silly way to spend $135 million. I hope Warner Bros. keeps burning money this way.

Sasquatch Sunset

Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Image: Square Peg/ZBI

Genre: Fantasy
Run time: 1h 30m
Directors: Nathan Zellner, David Zellner
Cast: Riley Keough, Jesse Eisenberg, Christophe Zajac-Denek

An irreverent comedy from the Zellner brothers (Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter), Sasquatch Sunset follows a group of four sasquatch as they try and make it in Northern California forest. Along the way, they have to deal with poisonous mushrooms, mountain lions, and relentless sasquatch horniness.

Sting

Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Image: Well Go USA Entertainment

Genre: Horror
Run time: 1h 32m
Director: Kiah Roache-Turner
Cast: Alyla Browne, Penelope Mitchell, Ryan Corr

Alyla Browne (who plays a young Furiosa in Greg Miller’s upcoming apocalyptic action film), stars in this horror-thriller as a rebellious 12-year-old who adopts a small spider after discovering it in her apartment. Simple, right? Well it would be, that is if the spider were just a regular ’ol terrestrial one and not an extraterrestrial arachnid with a penchant for eating birds, small children, and grown adults. Grab the Raid can!