A vast buffet of noteworthy titles are leaving Netflix in the United States this month, including romantic comedies, pricey blockbusters and stoner favorites. (Dates reflect the first day titles are unavailable and are subject to change.)
‘About Time’ (May 1)
Richard Curtis has carved out something of a niche as the foremost practitioner of the contemporary British rom-com, a stake he claimed with his “Four Weddings and a Funeral” screenplay and continued to hone by writing and directing the likes of “Notting Hill” (also leaving Netflix this month) and “Love, Actually.” If those titles make you twitch, this one will not change your opinion of Mr. Curtis and his work. But those who adore such Anglophile delights will similarly enjoy this 2013 favorite, which fuses his signature brand of Brit character comedy with a lightly fantastical time-travel premise, in which Domhnall Gleeson uses his familial gift of temporal flexibility to romance Rachel McAdams. Both are attractive and likable, though it takes only a handful of scenes for Bill Nighy and Tom Hollander to steal the picture.
‘Definitely, Maybe’ (May 1)
Before he was a mainstay of superhero movies, Ryan Reynolds was a romantic comedy leading man, and this 2008 charmer from the writer and director Adam Brooks is the best demonstration of his skill set in the genre. He stars as a single dad whose daughter (a disarming Abigail Breslin) starts asking questions about her mom, prompting him to tell her the not-quite-whole truth about his single days and search for love. His improvisational cleanup of the bachelor life details are a good running gag (albeit one that seems swiped from the contemporaneous “How I Met Your Mother”), but the real juice here comes from the casting, matching Reynolds with three potential life partners in the form of Elizabeth Banks, Rachel Weisz and Isla Fisher — each of them beguiling in their own way.
‘Friday’ / ‘Next Friday’ (May 1)
Stream ‘Friday’ here and ‘Next Friday’ here.
Strange as it may seem, there was once a time when the idea of Ice Cube starring in a screen comedy seemed peculiar. If anything, “Friday” seemed, upon its 1995 release, like a riff on his film debut in “Boyz N The Hood”— set in the same South Central Los Angeles milieu (and even sharing a co-star, Nia Long) but in an altogether different style. Cube stars as Craig, a newly unemployed nice guy; Chris Tucker is Smokey, his motor-mouthed best buddy, who makes it his mission to get straight-arrow Craig high for the first time. The director F. Gary Gray (“Set It Off,” “Straight Outta Compton”) gets the laid-back hangout vibe just right, and Cube and Tucker generate palpable buddy chemistry. The 2000 follow-up, “Next Friday,” doesn’t quite measure up, due mostly to the absence of Tucker. But his substitute, Mike Epps, blends in nicely, and Cube is as charismatic as ever.
‘King Kong’ (May 1)
Peter Jackson’s love for the original, 1933 “King Kong” became part of his super-director origin story after the worldwide sensation of his original “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. So it came as no surprise that he turned his attention next to this no-expense-spared 2005 remake. Unlike the story’s 1976 iteration, which updated the story to a contemporary setting, Jackson’s film keeps the original time frame intact, along with the surrounding story about a frustrated filmmaker (Jack Black), a would-be starlet (Naomi Watts) and the man who falls for her (Adrien Brody). (The titular great ape is played by Andy Serkis, a sensation as Gollum in the “Lord” movies.) “King Kong” isn’t as fleet-footed as it could be, but Jackson’s affection for the material is clear, and his first-rate cast goes all in — especially Watts and Serkis, who make their interspecies love story entirely probable.
‘Queen & Slim’ (May 1)
This 2019 romantic drama, written by Lena Waithe and directed by Melina Matsoukas, feels strikingly, urgently of its moment, telling the story of a Black couple (Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith) whose uneventful first date is interrupted by a bloodthirsty cop whom they kill in self-defense. They go on the lam, becoming folk heroes along the way, and this story about racist policing and social protest has grown only more pointed with time. Kaluuya and Turner-Smith are electric, teasing out the wrinkles and nuances of what could have been stock characters, and Matsoukas’s direction is, by turns, both dirt-on-the-floor realistic and surprisingly lyrical.
‘This Is 40’ (May 1)
Judd Apatow’s feature comedies have always had a messy streak — an interest in pursuing peculiar detours and character moments that separate his work from that of his more joke-oriented peers. That inclination came to its full flower with this 2012 comedy-drama, a semi-sequel to his hit “Knocked Up,” that focuses on the supporting characters Pete (Paul Rudd), Debbie (Leslie Mann) and their daughters, Sadie (Maude Apatow) and Charlotte (Iris Apatow). That Mann is Apatow’s real-life wife, and the younger Apatows are their daughters, gives you an idea of how personal the project is, with Apatow using the milestone birthdays of Paul and Debbie as a starting point for a funny and poignant examination of aging, monogamy, sex and family. Albert Brooks, Megan Fox, John Lithgow, Melissa McCarthy and Jason Segel are among the impressive supporting cast.
‘Waterworld’ (May 1)
Some movies are judged for what’s onscreen. Others, like this 1995 postapocalyptic adventure from the director Kevin Reynolds, are judged for what it took to get them there. “Waterworld” was the most expensive movie ever made at the time it was produced, and it was treated as an out-of-control fiasco by a scandal-thirsty entertainment press. But shooting on the water is no picnic — just ask Steven Spielberg, whose production of “Jaws” suffered similar setbacks — and the practical production that elevated those costs makes it a refreshing novelty now. Kevin Costner, with whom Reynolds had worked previously on “Fandango” and “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” is an appropriately sturdy anchor, and Dennis Hopper is a hoot as the cackling villain.
‘Wedding Crashers’ (May 1)
Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson established themselves as something of a 21st century Abbott & Costello (or, at the very least, Cheech & Chong) with this bawdy 2005 smash directed and co-written by David Dobkin. Like other great comedy duos, Vaughn and Wilson are a smoothly compatible mismatch; Vaughn’s energy is cranked up, a sparking live wire, while Wilson is an easy-breezy roll-with-it type. They generate consistent laughs as two unapologetic bachelors who find that the best way to meet desperate women is to show up at weddings uninvited. The premise is inherently misogynistic, but the boys play it with giggly good cheer, while Rachel McAdams and Isla Fisher provide fine counterbalance as the women against whom they meet their match.
‘The Lost City’ (May 9)
Seemingly every review for this 2022 comedy mentioned “Romancing the Stone,” but you can’t blame the reviewers; the premise is a clear lift from that 1984 hit, again telling the story of a shut-in romance novelist (Sandra Bullock) and her unexpected insertion into the kind of eroticized globe-trotting adventure she typically only writes about. The main shift is that this time, she is paired with the gorgeous but lunkheaded Fabio-esque hunk who models for her book covers, played with game good humor by Channing Tatum. (The closest analogue in this film for the “Stone” leading man, Michael Douglas, is Brad Pitt, in an uproarious cameo as a for-hire mercenary.) The results aren’t exactly surprising, but they’re wickedly entertaining; Bullock and Tatum’s chemistry is off the charts, and the directors Adam and Aaron Nee (“Band of Robbers”) keep things moving at a good clip.
‘Madam Secretary’: Seasons 1-6 (May 15)
Fans of utopian political drama who are between their umpteenth rewatches of “The West Wing” might find this six-season CBS favorite to be an acceptable substitute. Téa Leoni — easily one of the most underrated and undervalued actors of her generation — is terrific as Elizabeth McCord, a former C.I.A. analyst who is appointed secretary of state (and, in the show’s final season, is elected president). It’s an hourlong network drama for grown-ups, that most disregarded but pleasurable of genres. But it is tackled with genuine stakes and intelligence by its creator, Barbara Hall (“Judging Amy”), and acted with verve by an excellent supporting cast, including Tim Daly and Bebe Neuwirth.
‘The Sum of All Fears’ (May 16)
Jack Ryan is something akin to an American James Bond, at least in terms of being a reliable rite of passage for promising young actors on their way to greater stardom, most recently Chris Pine and John Krasinski. After Alec Baldwin (and Harrison Ford, the exception, who wasn’t especially young or up-and-coming), Ben Affleck stepped into the role of Tom Clancy’s C.I.A. analyst in this reboot/origin story from the director Phil Alden Robinson (“Sneakers”). Affleck is an awkward fit into the role, but it ultimately works, while Robinson’s energetic direction and Morgan Freeman’s offhand gravitas as Ryan’s boss seal the deal.
‘A Simple Favor’ (May 19)
“Another Simple Favor,” the new sequel to this 2018 mash-up of noir thriller and buddy comedy, hits Amazon as a Prime Video original on May 1. But for the time being, viewers will have to catch the original on Netflix. They’ll find a delightfully sleazy little item, with Anna Kendrick as a helicopter mom who unlocks her dark side with the help of a super-sophisticated fellow mom (Blake Lively), always clad in natty men’s suits and sipping a chilled martini. It’s all marginally ridiculous but acted with a wink by Kendrick and Lively and orchestrated with genuine wit by the director Paul Feig (“Spy,” “Bridesmaids”).
Also leaving:
“Annie, “Apollo 13,” “Blade Runner: The Final Cut,” “Dallas Buyers Club,” “Erin Brockovich,” “The Flintstones,” “Fury,” “Maid in Manhattan,” “Out of Africa,” “Public Enemies,” “Schindler’s List,” “Spider-Man,” “Spider-Man 2,” “Spider-Man 3,” “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “Whiplash,” “The Whale,” “The Wiz” (May 1); “The Peanut Butter Falcon” (May 5); “Crossroads” (May 15); “Tully” (May 16).
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