It’s late September, and no matter who you are, summer is definitely over. If you’re a student, school is back in session. If you’re a worker, your vacation days are probably all used up until Christmas. And if you’re a baby, well, I’m amazed you’re reading this right now.
Weekends still provide a relief from it all, though, and what better way to unwind and relax than by watching a good movie from the comfort of your sofa. These three movies on Netflix aren’t classics, but they do a good job of transporting you away from your worries, if only for a couple of hours.
Need more recommendations? Then check out the best new movies to stream this week, as well as the best shows on Netflix, best shows on Hulu, best shows on Amazon Prime Video, and best shows on Disney+.
Dragnet (1987)
Tom Hanks’s career can be divided into two parts: the movies he made before Big, and the ones he made after that hit 1988 movie. Pre-Big, Hanks was a bit of a goofball, and he made several lowbrow comedies like Bachelor Party and The Man with One Red Shoe that have a special place in my heart. Dragnet isn’t as fun or funny as those movies, but it still works, and that’s largely due to Hanks.
He plays second fiddle to Dan Ackroyd, who assumes the role of Detective Joe Friday made famous by Jack Webb in the 1950s TV series of the same name. Both men are thrown together when they are assigned the same case: a pornographic magazine, Bait, has its entire print run stolen, and a secret organization by the name of P.A.G.A.N. is suspect No. 1. But as they delve further into the case, both detectives discover something far more nefarious at play.
Dragnet is streaming on Netflix.
The Circle (2017)
The Hanks lovefest continues with The Circle, a film made 30 years after Dragnet. This time, he’s on the wrong side of the law as Eamon Bailey, the seemingly benevolent CEO of the tech and social media company SeeChange. In a none-too-subtle parallel to Facebook and Meta, SeeChange is about to introduce technology that will strip away everyone’s privacy via a social media program that can find anyone in the world in under 15 minutes.
Nobody knows this, of course, save for a handful of people, and that includes Mae Holland (Emma Watson), who is a rising star in the company. But once Mae realizes she has to expose Eamon’s plan, and in the process sabotage her own career, which her family is dependent on, will she make the right decision? The Circle is ridiculous, but it’s also watchable, and you can tell Hanks relishes playing the baddie for once.
The Circle is streaming on Netflix.
The Prince of Egypt (1998)
There’s no dispute that Disney dominated the animation industry in the 1990s. The Mouse House pumped out one classic after another, and weak competitors like Ferngully: The Last Rainforest and Quest for Camelot crashed and burned at the box office. But by the end of the decade, one competitor, DreamWorks, dared to challenge the hegemony of Walt’s company, and with 1998’s The Prince of Egypt, it equaled anything the studio put out in the preceding decade.
The movie dramatizes the ancient tale of Moses, who is abandoned by his mother, Miriam, as a baby to avoid getting slaughtered by the Pharoah Seti. Found floating down a river in a basket, he is eventually raised alongside Rameses to become a prince of Egypt. Yet a higher calling awaits Moses as he follows the commands of God to free the Hebrews.
Sounds heavy, huh? Yet The Prince of Egypt is surprisingly light and fun, condensing intimidating Biblical text into a nimble two-hour movie. The score by Hans Zimmer is suitably majestic, and the voice acting, particularly by Ralph Fiennes as Rameses, is terrific.
The Prince of Egypt is streaming on Netflix.
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