The 3 New Netflix Movies You Need to Stream This Weekend (May 9–10), Including Remarkably Bright Creatures
This Mother’s Day weekend, Netflix and Watch With Us spotlight the women behind Hollywood’s biggest hits from the 1970s to today — and Sally Field reminds us why she endures, adding an understated new drama to a career that keeps soaring.
Netflix is using Mother 's Day weekend to shout out women who've headlined massive hits from the 70s through today (with an assist from Watch With Us). If you want to lean into that theme, here are three very different picks all streaming on Netflix right now: a gentle new drama with Sally Field and a scene-stealing cephalopod, Cameron Diaz at her hilarious peak, and Scarlett Johansson getting eerie and experimental.
Remarkably Bright Creatures (2026 )
Sally Field has nothing left to prove, but she went ahead and proved it anyway with this quiet heart-tugger. She plays Tova, a set-in-her-ways widow who takes a night job at an aquarium and ends up paired with Cameron (Lewis Pullman), a twentysomething she initially can't stand. The twist isn't just their age gap or workplace mismatch; it's that they're both carrying big absences. Tova is still walking around with the grief of losing her son, and Cameron's been searching for the dad who bailed on him years ago. Also in the mix: an opinionated orange octopus. Yes, really.
You can see where the movie is headed emotionally, but the pleasure is in how it gets there. Field and Pullman play against easy cliches, finding the prickly, specific edges of two people who haven't had smooth lives. Olivia Newman's direction keeps things tender without tipping into schmaltz, and the Vancouver, Canada backdrops are flat-out gorgeous. People love to dunk on uplifting movies; this one earns the lump in your throat.
Streaming on Netflix.
There's Something About Mary (1998 )
Cameron Diaz never got the awards love she probably deserved, but when you're the face of one of the most quotable comedies of the 90s, that stings a little less. Ben Stiller is Ted, the lifelong dope still hung up on his high-school crush, Mary (Diaz). Egged on by a buddy, he hires a private eye, Pat Healy (Matt Dillon), to track her down so he can make his big second impression. Small snag: Pat meets Mary first and decides he wants her for himself, kicking off a love triangle powered by sex jokes, shameless lies, the occasional camcorder-era humiliation, and one extremely infamous hair product mishap.
The Farrelly brothers swing at every kind of gag here — visual bits, throwaway wordplay, surprise cameos you don't see coming — and the hit rate is high. Underneath all the chaos is a sneaky-sweet story about a hapless guy trying to be worthy of the person he adores. Diaz pulls off a minor miracle: she makes Mary feel like a real human being who might actually fall for Ted, and she stays unflappable even after that, uh, bathroom-to-hair moment you absolutely remember.
Streaming on Netflix.
Under the Skin (2013)
Scarlett Johansson is best known for saving the world in those Marvel movies, but when she decides to go weird, she commits. Here, she's an unnamed woman roaming Scotland and picking up men — not for sex, but to lure them into a glossy black void where they either hang in eerie suspension or don't come back at all. She's clearly not human. The questions are what she is and why she's studying people, especially men, like specimens.
Jonathan Glazer's film is unsettling in a way that most horror never gets close to. Part of the chill is that it refuses to explain itself. Johansson barely speaks, playing the character with a flat, almost-but-not-quite-human presence that gets under your skin (sorry). The ending doesn't tie anything up with a bow, and that's the point — the movie leaves you with mysteries and trusts you to sit with them.
Streaming on Netflix.