It’s showtime, baby. No, I mean it’s literally Showtime. I wonder if they make that joke in the Showtime offices. Do employees just walk around and shout “it’s showtime!” to each other? Do they high-five around the water cooler? Does their employment contract mandate the use of this expression? If I was the CEO of Showtime, it sure as hell would.
Anyway, here are the best movies on Showtime right now. If you’re watching with friends, please whisper the phrase “It’s showtime, baby” under your breath periodically throughout your chosen film. Your friends will think it’s hilarious.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
Why am I telling you the plot of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All at Once? You’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. All of our friends have seen it. Everyone they ever went to kindergarten with has seen it. Everyone in the country under the age of 40 has seen this film. Everyone over 40 saw it too, it just confused them so much that they didn’t understand it. Really, Mom, it’s not that hard to explain. It’s about a laundromat owner and mom, played by Michelle Yeoh, who has to jump through alternate realities to stop her estranged daughter from destroying the universe with a bagel. What’s so hard to understand?
1917
Sam Mendes’ 1917 technically stars George MacKay, but THE REAL STAR of this film is the camera they shot it with. Nothing else really matters. Set in 1917 during World War I, the film follows a young soldier who is tasked with transporting crucial military orders across a devastated European countryside. And he does it all in one take. Well, not REALLY—they hide a few cuts here and there, but the film is shot to look like they did it in one take. And it’s astounding.
Ladybird
Before there was Barbie, there was Greta Gerwig’s Ladybird. This coming of age drama stars Saoirse Ronan as a Catholic school girl in Sacramento who dreams of attending “cool people college” on the East Coast. Her mother isn’t too keen on the idea of her daughter leaving, and what results is essentially a two-hour “MOM, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND”-style emotional slugfest between the two. It’s heartbreaking and beautiful.
Shutter Island
Directed by Martin Scorsese, Shutter Island stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Teddy Daniels, a U.S. Marshal investigating the disappearance of a patient from a spooky psychiatric institution on the desolate Shutter Island. As Teddy explores the institution and meets the staff and patients within, he finds himself beginning to unravel, and increasingly struggles to figure out the difference between imagination and reality.
Snowpiercer
Bong Joon-ho’s Snowpiercer stars Chris Evans as the leader of a post-apocalyptic resistance movement on the world’s biggest choo-choo train. After a climate disaster plunged the world into a neverending winter, the remainder of humanity was confined to a self-sustaining train that circumnavigates the globe. Humanity’s rich and wealthy enjoy a life of luxury at the front of the train, while the unwashed masses are forced to cramp together in the dirty caboose. One day, the less fortunate passengers decide enough is enough and attempt to storm the front cars of the train in a bloody, glorious assault.
Good Time
Robert Pattinson plays the Street-Smartest Man Alive in Josh and Benny Safdie’s crime thriller Good Time. Connie Nikas (Pattinson) is a two-bit thug who lives in New York City with his brother Nick (Benny Safdie), who has an intellectual disability. In a desperate attempt to scrounge up some cash, Connie brings Nick along on a bank robbery. The robbery goes sideways and Nick is arrested, leading Connie to resort to morally bankrupt means to collect bail money.
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Steven Spielberg’s iconic adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark is widely regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time, and launched a series of sequels that are still being released to this day. Harrison Ford stars as Indiana Jones, an archaeology professor who moonlights as a Nazi-punching treasure hunter. When he gets wind that Hitler’s lackeys are attempting to uncover the biblical Ark of the Covenant, Indy and his punching hand decide to do something about it.
Midsommar
Ari Aster’s Midsommar is a masterpiece of daylight horror. The film follows a troubled young American woman (Florence Pugh) who journeys to a remote village in Sweden with her emotionally distant boyfriend and his college pals. The gang are attempting to study distant cultures as part of a school assignment, and a cult of Scandinavian pagans seems like the perfect choice. They soon discover that the cult’s dark practices actually make them the WORST choice. After the pagans drug the group with psychedelics, emotional wounds from past traumas begin to break open. Word of advice: if you visit a remote cult, DO NOT accidentally piss all over their sacred log. Seriously, don’t do it. Someone will end up wearing you as a skin suit.
Marcel the Shell With Shoes On
Directed by Dean Fleischer-Camp, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On follows the adorable exploits of an internet-famous shell named Marcel who wears little shoes and a leaf for a hat. A recently divorced documentary filmmaker follows Marcel (voiced by Jenny Slate) as he lives out his whimsical days taking care of his Nana Connie (Isabella Rossellini) and Alan, his pet ball of lint. After the documentarian uploads video of Marcel to YouTube, he quickly becomes an internet sensation. But the poor shell finds out the hard way that fame is often a double-edged sword, and his newfound life as an online star might be too much to handle.
The Shining
I mean, c’mon. It’s The Shining. You know, Stanley Kubrick’s take on the Stephen King story? The creepy little girls? “Red rum”? “Here’s Johnny”? I know you’ve seen it already, but it’s probably high time you watched it again, right? You know the plot, but I’ll tell you anyway. A struggling writer played by Jack Nicholson takes a custodial job at an isolated and very haunted hotel with his family and goes buck wild with an axe. It’s probably one of the top 10 Greatest Films of All Time according to message board bros. And listen, they might just have a point.
(featured Image: A24)
