The best movies on Hulu to watch and enjoy

Publish date: 2023-01-14

Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority

With with close to 40 million subscribers in the US, Hulu is one of the biggest premium video streaming services. In addition to its many exclusive, current and classic TV shows, it’s also the home for thousands of movies as well, some of which are also exclusive to the service. But which are the best movies on Hulu?

Read more: How to get Hulu for free

With Hulu’s ad-based subscription tier priced at just $6.99 a month, more people will likely be checking out Hulu’s catalog of films. We have picked our top 10 best movies on Hulu to stream and enjoy, and they are a mix of classic movies with more recent films.

If you want to sign up for Hulu, make sure to also consider the Disney Plus-Hulu-ESPN Plus bundle, which gives you three great streaming services for one lower price. You can sign up for the bundle at the link below.

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The best movies on Hulu

Editor’s note: We will be updating this post as movies leave Hulu and others join the service’s film library.

Run

This Hulu original film is a thriller about a mother and a daughter. The always great Sarah Paulson plays the mother, who is taking care of her daughter (newcomer Kiera Allen) who suffers from paralysis and other medical issues. At least, that’s what she thinks. As she, and we, slowly learn in the movie, her mother may be keeping some secrets from her.

The Princess Bride

20th Century Fox

This 1987 classic family film still holds up after over 30 years. It takes place in what looks like a generic fantasy land and has what appears at first to be a very basic love story. However, director Rob Reiner, in his adaptation of this novel, takes a ton of different fantasy tale tropes and turns them upside down. Combined with some great humor and terrific performances, this film is definitely one of the best you can watch on Hulu.

Akira

Japanese anime became a huge part of American culture starting in the 1990s and part of the reason was the release of this incredible 1988 sci-fi film based on the best-selling Japanese manga comic book of the same name from Katsuhiro Otomo. Set in the year 2019 in a future version of Tokyo, Akira still has some incredible visuals even when looked upon in today’s CGI animated films. It has some powerful imagery that will not leave your head anytime soon, thanks in part to the movie’s main character Tetsuo, who has to deal with his new and powerful psychic abilities. Hulu gives you the choice of watching Akira with subtitles and the original Japanese audio, or in an English dubbed version. It’s not only one of the best movies on Hulu, but the best anime film on Hulu.

Shrek

Like The Princess Bride, Shrek is a film that takes apart typical children’s fantasy storylines and characters and puts them back together in new and unexpected ways. The 2001 CGI animated film centers on Shrek, an ogre who lives in the forest and just wants to be left alone.

Shrek might be a monster in other fantasy tales, but in this, he turns out to be the hero, as he is recruited to rescue Princess Fiona. He gets some help from a very talkative donkey, but Shrek soon realizes there’s more going on than just rescuing a princess.

The animation and voice performances from folks like Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz are excellent, and its popularity spawned several sequels and spin-offs, some of which are also available to watch on Hulu.

Parasite

The 2019 winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture is now available to stream on Hulu. It’s one of the more controversial winners of the Best Picture Oscar, mainly because it’s the first foreign-language movie to receive this honor. South Korean director Bong Joon-ho also won the Best Director Oscar for this movie, along with Best Screenplay, with co-writer Han Jin-won. The movie takes a unique look at the divide between certain people, as a poor family tries to enter the lives of a rich family. It’s definitely one of the best movies on Hulu.

Shirley

Here’s a recent and intelligent drama movie from 2020. It stars Elizabeth Moss, who also stars in Hulu’s biggest original TV show The Handmaid’s Tale. In this movie, she plays the real-life author Shirley Jackson (The Lottery, The Haunting of Hill House). However, the movie Shirley is a fictional account of a young couple and how they come to live with Jackson and her husband Stanley Hyman. The couple soon start interacting more with Shirley and her husband, even as Shirley starts to write a new novel based in part on their new live-in house members. Moss is the reason to watch this movie as she gives a terrific performance as Jackson, haunted by both others as well as her own personality.

Skyfall

Before Daniel Craig ended his run as the most recent James Bond with No Time To Day, he gave perhaps his best performance as secret agent 007 in this 2012 movie. It shows Bond at both the height of his physical and mental powers, and also at his lowest. However, he needs to recover quickly after the UK’s spy headquarters MI6 is bombed, and a rogue agent has set his sights on killing the organization’s leader, M.

Deadpool

This 2016 film is certainly one of the best movies on Hulu. It turned the Marvel Comics mercenary Deadpool into a major cultural phenomenon, thanks to some over-the-top adult humor that wasn’t afraid to make fun of everything, including itself. It also helps that the Merc with a Mouth is portrayed by Ryan Reynolds, who became a bankable box office star with this movie. His portrayal of Wade Wilson is perfect. Indeed this movie is the perfect mix of adult comedy and high-end superhero action. You can watch the (almost) as good sequel, Deadpool 2, on Hulu.

Starship Troopers

This 1997 film from Robocop director Paul Verhoeven was not a big hit at the box office, and film critics were mixed at best with their initial reviews. However, the years have been much kinder to this sci-fi action film (based loosely on Robert Heinlein’s 1950s novel). The basic plot is simple: In the future, a group of teenagers just out of high school have to sign up for the military to fight off an invasion of giant bugs. Verhoeven uses this premise to make some satirical points against letting fascist governments run things. Oh, and there are still plenty of bugs to kill on screen.

Pig

Nicolas Cage gives one of his best performances of recent years in this 2021 film. He plays a truffle hunter who lives off the grid in the deep forests of Oregon. He is helped greatly by his pig, who detects the truffles.  However, the pig later gets kidnapped and Cage’s character has to leave his wilderness paradise to find his prized truffle hunting partner. This is one of the best movies on Hulu and one of the most emotional, as we learn throughout the movie why Cage’s character left society. The movie also makes some digs at the high-end restaurant scene.

Best movies on Hulu — honorable mentions

There’s are quite a few great movies on the service that didn’t make our top 10 list: Here’s a look at just some of them you can stream now on Hulu.

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