Starz may not get the same attention as competitors like HBO (now on, uhh, Max) or Showtime (now on Paramount+), but it remains a popular cable and streaming alternative, a place that’s been growing a fan base through original programming and a robust rotation of recent theatrical titles. But how do you know what’s worth watching when it comes to the dozens of movies on its streaming service? We’re here to help with a regularly updated list of the 20 best films currently streaming on Starz.
This Month’s Critic’s Pick
Carlito’s Way
Year: 1993
Run time: 2 hours, 24 minutes
Director: Brian De Palma
Arguably Brian De Palma’s last masterpiece, this 1993 film stars Al Pacino as the unforgettable Carlito Brigante, a Puerto Rican career criminal who wants out of the life, planning to go straight and retire. Of course, his past won’t let him do that. One of Pacino’s best performances is supported by great work from Sean Penn.
8 Mile
Year: 2002
Run time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
Director: Curtis Hanson
Eminem stars in this semi-biographical story of a white rapper named B-Rabbit who comes up through the rap-battle scene in Detroit to rule the world. The title refers to a road in the Motor City that divides it from the suburbs. Most people remember this flick for the Oscar-winning “Lose Yourself,†but it’s more than just that killer track.
The 40-Year-Old Virgin
Year: 2005
Run time: 1 hour, 56 minutes
Director: Judd Apatow
Judd Apatow has made several funny movies and a great TV show (Freaks and Geeks), but this remains his best and funniest movie front to back. Steve Carell can try to go dramatic all he wants, but he will always be remembered for having his chest hair waxed. Carell is great, but the supporting cast really makes this one, including Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, and Catherine Keener.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
Year: 2023
Run time: 1 hour, 46 minutes
Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
It took about two generations, but Judy Blume’s beloved coming-of-age novel finally found its filmmaker in Kelly Fremon Craig, who found a way to convey this timeless story with sensitivity and grace. Abby Ryder Fortson is fantastic as the title character, a teen girl trying to navigate one of the most complex chapters that life presents us. This one is smart in ways that movies about teens aren’t usually allowed to be. And Rachel McAdams should have gotten an Oscar nomination for it.
Casino
Year: 1995
Run time: 2 hours, 58 minutes
Director: Martin Scorsese
Often in the massive shadow of Scorsese’s masterful ’90s crime saga from a few years earlier, time has been kind to this epic tale of the founding of Las Vegas, a film that features some of the master’s most ambitious filmmaking. Robert De Niro plays Ace Rothstein, the guy who ended up managing the Tangiers in Vegas just as the mob was taking full control of the city in the desert. Sharon Stone does her career-best work here, and Joe Pesci is pretty phenomenal too.
Django Unchained
Year: 2012
Run time: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Q.T. loves to play with history with revisionist epics like Inglourious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in … Hollywood. This heavily stylized tribute to spaghetti westerns is another example of the writer-director’s love for rewriting history books. Jamie Foxx stars as a slave who escapes and trains with a bounty hunter (Oscar winner Christoph Waltz) to get his revenge. Sharply written and gorgeously shot by Robert Richardson, this is one of Tarantino’s most consistent films.
Friday Night Lights
Year: 2004
Run time: 1 hour, 57 minutes
Director: Peter Berg
Peter Berg co-wrote and directed this excellent adaptation of the book of the same name by Buzz Bissinger, which would also be adapted into the beloved NBC drama. Billy Bob Thornton plays Coach Gary Gaines, the head of the 1988 Permian High School Panthers team, which overachieved on its way to a state championship. This one regularly ranks on lists of the best sports movies of all time.
Happy Gilmore
Year: 1996
Run time: 1 hour, 31 minutes
Director: Dennis Dugan
Netflix may have all those new Adam Sandler comedies, but let’s not forget the classics. Just ignore (most of) the recent stuff and go back to the beginning, watching what is still Sandler’s funniest movie overall. Forever quotable and still funny more than 25 years later, Happy Gilmore now seems to be the comedy landmark of this phase of the Sandman’s career. Note: Billy Madison, the sibling in the Early Sandler era, is also on Starz.
Jaws
Year: 1975
Run time: 2 hours, 4 minutes
Director: Steven Spielberg
The movie that ushered in the blockbuster era is often viewed more in terms of how it changed the industry than the fact that it’s, well, perfect. Seriously — you don’t need to change a single frame, line-reading, or edit in Jaws, a film that works to raise tension from its very first scene. There’s a reason people are still writing books about Jaws.
John Wick: Chapter 4
Year: 2023
Run time: 2 hours, 49 minutes
Director: Chad Stahelski
It’s rare when a franchise reaches its action peak in its fourth film, but that’s arguably the case here as John Wick rocked in 2023 with this fourth and potentially final chapter. The series that started with a retired assassin destroying the people who killed his dog climaxes in a string of showdowns that are each more remarkably staged than the one before. It’s one of the best action movies of its era.
The Karate Kid
Year: 1984
Run time: 2 hours, 7 minutes
Director: John G. Avildsen
The massive success of Cobra Kai on Netflix brought young viewers back to the original films about the kid who learns karate from Mr. Miyagi. The 1984 original is still, by far, the best, starring Ralph Macchio and the great Pat Morita. Less successful are the sequels, but the 1986 follow-up is also on Starz, for the record.
Nightcrawler
Year: 2014
Run time: 1 hour, 57 minutes
Director: Dan Gilroy
Jake Gyllenhaal does arguably the best work of his career as Lou Bloom, a Los Angeles stringer who discovers that the violent events he records late at night in the City of Angels can make him a TV-news star. Propulsive and kind of terrifying, this is a brilliant examination of the underbelly of journalism and the people on the fringe of society who are willing to cross any moral boundary to find their brief time in the light.
Nope
Year: 2022
Run time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Director: Jordan Peele
The genius behind Get Out and Us delivered his most controversial film in 2022, a story that blends an alien invasion with a commentary on movie-watching and spectacle in general. Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer are fantastic in this story of people beset upon by an alien species that likes to watch. Brilliantly structured and gorgeously shot, this is blockbuster-horror filmmaking at its finest.
The Northman
Year: 2022
Run time: 2 hours, 16 minutes
Director: Robert Eggers
This 2022 epic from the director of The Lighthouse stars Alexander Skarsgård as a Viking prince who returns to his homeland with vengeance on his mind. A retelling of the myth that inspired Hamlet, this visually striking tale also stars Nicole Kidman, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Ethan Hawke, Björk, and Willem Dafoe. It’s one of those films that history will likely be very kind to as the years pass.
Planet of the Apes
Year: 1968
Run time: 1 hour, 52 minutes
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner
With the May 2024 release of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, this series has found life for the first time in years. Why not go back to where it all began with the Charlton Heston sci-fi flick about an astronaut who lands on a planet run by simians? With one of the most infamous endings of all time, this movie became an instant classic, launching a franchise, and the four classic sequels are also on Starz. Apes-a-thon!
A River Runs Through It
Year: 1992
Run time: 2 hours, 3 minutes
Director: Robert Redford
Robert Redford directed one of the most beloved films of his career in this 1992 family drama based on the 1976 novella of the same name. It’s the story of two sons of a Presbyterian minister and how they come of age in the Rocky Mountains between World War I and the Great Depression. A winner of the Oscar for Best Cinematography, it stars Tom Skerritt, Craig Sheffer, and an early great performance from Brad Pitt.
Saw X
Year: 2023
Run time: 1 hour, 58 minutes
Director: Kevin Greutert
How did this happen? How is the tenth film in a horror franchise the best since the first? Let’s be honest: Most of the Saw sequels are atrocious. The tenth kinda rocks. Getting back to the basics of the franchise — characters in a single setting, simpler storytelling, a twist ending — and giving Tobin Bell his most emotionally resonant beats to date combine to make for one of the best (and easily the most unexpected) horror flicks of 2023.
Speed
Year: 1994
Run time: 1 hour, 56 minutes
Director: Jan de Bont
Jan de Bont directed one of the best movies of the ’90s and gave dozens of imitators a template when he released this simple but fantastic flick. In fact, its simplicity is one of its charms. A bus is equipped with a bomb that will explode if it drops below 50 miles per hour, and Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock are the only people who can stop it.
Spotlight
Year: 2015
Run time: 2 hours, 8 minutes
Director: Tom McCarthy
It took journalists who wouldn’t back down to expose the rampant child sex abuse in Boston and around the world. Tom McCarthy co-wrote and directed the story of how Boston Globe writers toppled an entire evil empire in a film that was so moving and powerful that it won the Oscar for Best Picture. It’s an incredibly solid drama — and better than a reputation that has somehow deemed it a lesser Best Picture winner.
There’s Something About Mary
Year: 1998
Run time: 1 hour, 59 minutes
Director: the Farrelly brothers
The best movie of the Farrelly brothers’ career came out in 1998 and immediately became a comedy classic. Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz are charming in a film that has a bit of a stalker edge nowadays but remains consistently hysterical in terms of how far it’s willing to go to get a laugh. Matt Dillon, Lee Evans, and Chris Elliott are fantastic too.