Top 5 March Movie Releases, Ranked — From Beetlejuice to Modern Classics
Think March is a cinematic lull? Think again. Across a century of releases, the month has delivered standout hits — including two Best Picture winners, one from just a few years ago. The Watch With Us team spotlights the March movies that prove spring can steal the spotlight.
March doesn't have the built-in hype of awards season or summer, but the month has quietly delivered some all-timers. In fact, two Best Picture winners first hit theaters in March — one of them only a few years ago. Here are my five favorites that dropped in March, ranked. And yeah, a couple of these feel like summer blockbusters that just showed up early.
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Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)
Release date: March 22, 2022
Not exactly the kind of movie that usually steamrolls awards season — and yet it did. This is one of two Best Picture winners on this list. Michelle Yeoh won Best Actress, Ke Huy Quan took Supporting Actor, and Jamie Lee Curtis grabbed Supporting Actress. There was plenty of chatter that Stephanie Hsu should have edged out Curtis for that last one.
The cast gets to play with multiple versions of themselves across the multiverse, but the story stays anchored to Yeoh's Evelyn Quan Wang, whose marriage to Waymond (Quan) is wobbling while things with her daughter, Joy (Hsu), are fraying. Before she fully disappears into the grind of her life, a warning lands in her lap: a universe-killing threat is on the way, and she's the one person who might stop it.
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The Matrix ( 1999)
Release date: March 31, 1999
1999 was supposed to belong to Star Wars: Episode I, but this is the sci-fi movie that actually rewired brains. The effects were jaw-dropping, but it's the ideas and the curveballs that stuck. Keanu Reeves plays Thomas Anderson, a hacker who goes by Neo, a guy who can feel something is fundamentally off about reality. He's heard whispers about a thing called the Matrix.
Enter Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), a resistance leader, and Trinity ( Carrie- Anne Moss), an icy-cool mystery with killer moves. They crack open Neo's world and show him the truth: almost everything he believes is a lie, and relentless enforcers led by Agent Smith (Hugo Weaving) are determined to erase them.
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Beetlejuice (1988)
Release date: March 30, 1988
Tim Burton's supernatural comedy hit theaters a little over a year before he and Michael Keaton did Batman together. Honestly, Keaton's turn here as Beetlejuice — or, if you want to be accurate about it, Betelgeuse — might be the role that refuses to fade, which is wild considering how little actual screen time he has.
The movie really belongs to Adam and Barbara Maitland (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis), a young couple who die and wind up haunting their own dream house. The new owners, the Deetzes, move in; their daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder) can see and hear the Maitlands, but her parents can't. When the elder Deetzes make life-after-death miserable, the Maitlands consider summoning Beetlejuice for help. You can guess how well that goes.
Where to watch: Available to rent or buy on Prime Video.
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Fargo (1996)
Release date: March 8, 1996
This is where Frances McDormand's Oscar run really started — she won the first of her three Best Actress trophies here — while Joel and Ethan Coen walked away with Best Original Screenplay for their snowy, skewed crime comedy.
McDormand plays Marge Gunderson, the very pregnant police chief of Brainerd, who isn't exactly swimming in violent felonies on a regular basis. Meanwhile, car salesman Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) lights the fuse on a spectacularly dumb plan: he hires two volatile knuckleheads, Carl Showalter (Steve Buscemi) and Gaear Grimsrud (Peter Stormare), to kidnap his wife, Jean (Kristin Rudrud), so her rich dad, Wade Gustafson (Harve Presnell), will pay up. Shockingly, it does not go smoothly. What was supposed to be a clean scam snowballs into a bloody, grimly funny mess.
Where to watch: Streaming on Prime Video.
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The Godfather (1972)
Release date: March 24, 1972
Yeah, this is the obvious pick — and still the right one. The Godfather took home Best Picture, Marlon Brando won Best Actor, and Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo shared Best Adapted Screenplay.
Post-World War II, Vito Corleone (Brando) is easing out of his reign as head of the Corleone family. His youngest, Michael (Al Pacino ), a decorated veteran, wasn't supposed to be part of the life. Then someone tries to kill Vito, and choice goes out the window. If Michael can't at least match his father's cold-blooded instincts, his time on top will be brief and brutal.
Where to watch: Streaming on Paramount+.