April was a pretty wild month for HBO. Originally programming The Leftovers, Veep, and Silicon Valley all returned as well as the finale of one of their finest miniseries yet, Big Little Lies. So May is a little chiller for the premium cable/streaming service, but there’ll still be some fun stuff to watch!
25. Animals (Season Finale)
The second season of HBO’s animal-who-are-like-weird-people comes to a close this May.
24. The Wizard of Lies
The remarkable true story of the biggest financial scam in history comes to the small screen. Starring Robert De Niro as Bernie Madoff, the docudrama is sure to be very depressing for most people.
23. Mommy Dead and Dearest
Another in HBO’s feel-good film series is a documentary about the murder of Dee Dee Blanchard by her daughter Gypsy. The whole thing gets even more twisted when you find out that Dee Dee had been forcing Gypsy into faking a terminal illness for attention and donations.
22. HBO First Look: Alien: Covenant
HBO First Looks can be pretty interesting. This one is about the upcoming prequel sequel, Alien: Covenant.
21. HBO First Look: The Mummy
HBO is giving the First Look treatment to the upcoming re-reboot of The Mummy. This one stars Tom Cruise!
20. The Eiger Sanction
Is there anything better than watching Clint Eastwood kick ass and climb mountains? Watch him do both in this film.
19. High Plains Drifter
Clint Eastwood is the man with no name (but not that Man with No Name) as he rides into town to take care of some really bad hombres.
18. Sully
Tom Hanks does it again! This time as the incomparable Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, who saves an entire plane full of people from the outside and high on weed (two of these three statements are lies).
17. Storks
Have 3D animated movies gone too far? Storks is proof that perhaps they have. In this film, storks deliver packages for an Amazon-like service but they should be delivering babies! Because we should really be disseminating more fake information to our children.
16. Jason Bourne
Ten years and one Jeremy Renner later, Matt Damon is back as Jason Bourne. In this film he’s got to kick some serious ass to save the world, etc.
15. The Bourne Ultimatum
Probably the second best Bourne movie.
14. Legend
Not one but two Tom Hardies in this hardy film that’s not just for every Tom, Dick and Harry. It’s a British gangster film about twin gangster kingpins.
13. Notorious
The life and murder of Christopher “Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace is the center of this ambitious but uneven docudrama.
12. Nothing But Trouble
Whatever you do, do not Google this film and then use the Rotten Tomatoes score as a litmus test for whether or not you should watch it. We’re not even going to tell you what the score is (okay, it’s below 10%). It’s a classic pitch black comedy starring Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, John Candy and Demi Moore!
11. The Man with Two Brains
Steve Martin plays a pioneering neurosurgeon with a horrible wife (who can’t relate?). He then meets another neurosurgeon who offers to help him with his problem.
10. Good Will Hunting
A manic pixie dream therapist changes the life of a brilliant janitor.
9. Frank Miller’s Sin City
Four interrelated narratives collide violently in probably one of the greatest comic book adaptations of all time. Written by famous anarcho-libertarian scribe Frank Miller, the film’s got Bruce Willis and Mickey Rourke and, amazingly, actually looks like a comic book.
8. The Beguiled
Based on the 1966 novel of the same name, The Beguiled finds Clint Eastwood as a lothario Union soldier who ends up in the wrong confederate women’s boarding school. The movie is getting the remake treatment with Nicole Kidman and Colin Farrell in the starring roles this year.
7. Caught in the Crossfire
Who would have thought that a cops-and-robbers movie starring American Pie’s Chris Klein and rap superstar 50 Cent would have gone direct to DVD?
6. Inventing the Abbots
Small town Illinois teenagers from different sides of the tracks fool around in the 1950’s.
5. MacArthur
Seven years after Patton, came MacArthur starring Gregory Peck as the titular American General. The man’s life is told in flashback, from his time in World War II to his hunting down of communists to his timely death.
4. Appaloosa
Robert B. Parker’s novel comes to life with Ed Harris at the helm and starring alongside Viggo Mortensen. The film is more than a simple western, defying its genre trappings with a smoldering love triangle and intriguing psychology.
3. Scream 2
The self-referential, self-parodying slasher-comedy sequel doesn’t spin its wheels even without Matthew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich.
2. Scream 3
The last in the self-referential, self-parodying slasher-comedy trilogy spins its wheels without Matthew Lillard and Skeet Ulrich. Although, this one really wrung the performance from co-star David Arquette.
1. Tender Mercies
Tender Mercies has more than a few similarities to the Jeff Bridges-driven (and Oscar winning) drama Crazy Heart. Robert Duvall plays a washed up country music star who marries a widow and becomes a father to her young son. When the opry lights come back to haunt him, will he choose stardom or his family?
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