5 Must-Watch Movies and TV Shows Streaming Now

Welcome to Boston.com weekly broadcast guideEvery week, we recommend five must-see movies and TV shows available on streaming platforms like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO MaxPeacock, Paramount+ and more.

Many recommendations are for new shows, while others are for under-the-radar releases you might have missed or classics that are set to leave a streaming service at the end of the month.

Do you have a new favorite movie or series that you would like us to know about? Let us know in the comments or by email [email protected]. Looking for even more great streaming options? Check out previous editions of our list of must-see movies here.

Movies

“Goodwill hunting”

Next week sees the release of Matt Damon and Casey Affleck’s “The Instigators,” a delightful heist comedy shot in Boston. It’s been over 25 years since the two childhood friends teamed up for a Boston-set film, so before you enjoy “The Instigators,” fire up “Good Will Hunting” and marvel at the baby-faced Cambridge boys. Casey Affleck is the real star of “The Instigators,” and while he doesn’t have as much to play in Gus Van Sant’s drama, he makes his few lines count.

How to watch: “Good Will Hunting” is broadcast on Max.

“Midnight Race”

In an interview with Boston.com that will be published early next week alongside “The Instigators,” Matt Damon and Casey Affleck cited the 1988 action comedy “Midnight Run” as one of their main inspirations. Starring Robert De Niro as a streetwise bounty hunter and the late Charles Grodin (“Beethoven”) as a mob accountant who skipped bail, “Midnight Run” is a slyly well-constructed film, with every line of dialogue and every scene fitting together perfectly. Damon calls the film “a Swiss watch.” I consider it a must-see.

How to watch: “Midnight Run” is streaming on Prime Video.

TV

The 2024 Olympic Games

It may sound like cheating, but really, what more are you going to watch over the next two weeks than the Summer Olympics? More than 50 Olympians with New England ties are competing in everything from archery to swimming, with primetime coverage starting Friday night with a replay of the Opening Ceremony that afternoon. NBC has truly made Peacock the only place to watch all the competitions live, while the NBC Olympics app and its suite of terrestrial networks (NBC, USA, CNBC) will handle the lion’s share of the edited-for-user-friendliness delayed contests.

How to watch: The 2024 Olympics are streaming on Peacock.

“Loki”

In fact, you don’t need to watch any previous Marvel movies or series to understand what’s going on in “Deadpool & Wolverine,” the latest installment in the MCU. As I noted in my “Deadpool & Wolverine” review, viewers are expected to know more about Disney’s acquisition of Fox and its associated intellectual properties — including Deadpool, Wolverine and their fellow X-Men — than they do about any Marvel property. That said, if you want to catch up, the show to watch beforehand is “Loki,” which plays a significant role in a movie that doesn’t worry too much about plot.

In the series, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his friend Mobius (Owen Wilson) travel across timelines in coordination with the Time Variance Authority, a bureaucratic entity tasked with preventing the multiversal merger. In “Deadpool & Wolverine,” a rogue TVA agent played by Matthew Macfayden (“Succession”) attempts to accelerate the destruction of Deadpool’s universe after he loses his “anchor entity”: Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). Get it? Me neither, but “Loki” is hands down the best Marvel series on Disney+, so watch it anyway.

How to watch: “Loki” is streaming on Disney+.

“Veep”

On Friday, “Veep” creator Armando Iannucci wrote a thoughtful essay in the New York Times He explains why he’s not happy that real-life events in American politics have mirrored the plot of his HBO comedy — and he’s equally unhappy that people keep asking him about it. With apologies to the finest satirist currently working on television, the first thing I did after Joe Biden announced he wouldn’t seek re-election was turn on “Veep” to see what happens when Vice President Selina Meyer (the incomparable Julia Louis-Dreyfus) learns that the president she’s serving under isn’t seeking a second term. Let’s hope Kamala Harris doesn’t have a Jonah Ryan (Timothy Simons) in her life.

How to watch: “Veep” airs on Max.