You can tell the Super Bowl is this week because there’s no major movie trying to compete. All the movie stars are too busy appearing in ads. (Even the biggest new release, Love Hurts, made our movie critic question if it’s actually a movie.) But if you want some good football counterculture, there are several notable options, from a moving documentary about the West Bank to a live-reading of The Muppets Movie. Here’s everything to watch this weekend.
Featured Presentations
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Super Bowl LIX
Don’t miss one of the few remaining monocultural events and the opportunity to come together over football, Buffalo wings, ludicrously expensive commercials, and Kendrick Lamar — this year’s halftime-show headliner — potentially slandering Drake on the highest-profile stage imaginable. America! —Jen Chaney
➼ Kendrick Lamar is probably having the best week of his life, at least professionally. He going from winning five Grammys for “Not Like Us” to the tune of the crowd singing “a minor” to headlining the Super Bowl.
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No Other Land
This riveting, award-winning documentary made by an Israeli-Palestinian collective, about the years-long dismantling of several West Bank villages by the occupying IDF, was the toast of the festival circuit for most of 2024. Now it’s finally getting a proper theatrical release. —Bilge Ebiri
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Heart Eyes
Couples having a bad time on Valentine’s Day? Now that’s a twist. In Heart Eyes, a masked murderer is hell-bent on stalking and killing couples on the lovey-dovey holiday, but for some reason a pair of platonic co-workers (Olivia Holt and Mason Gooding) are in the murderer’s crosshairs. Maybe this killer is some kind of twisted cupid.
The Three-Sentence Review
Clean Slate
Clean Slate has gone all in on feel-good, and the effect on the series as a whole is that it’s both happier and emptier. The result of that choice for Desiree (Laverne Cox), though, is that she’s living in an America that does not look much like the America of 2025. Honestly, good for her.
(Read the rest of Kathryn’s review here.)
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Parthenope
Paolo Sorrentino, master Italian sensualist, follows the life of a transcendently beautiful woman who finds that the way people respond to her is more a curse than a blessing. Sorrentino’s flair for the absurd and the way he invests his symbols with unlikely emotion make this a keeper. — B.E.
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Apple Cider Vinegar
The Anna Delvey series Inventing Anna was a hit for the streamer, so there’s nothing to suggest Apple Cider Vinegar, another series about another scammer, wouldn’t follow suit. The show focuses on the real-life figure Belle Gibson (played by Kaitlyn Dever), who sold her followers on the (not true) fact that she had brain cancer and was using a diet-and-wellness approach to heal herself.
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Newtopia
For all those who watched Train to Busan and thought, What if there were more romance? or Warm Bodies and wondered, What if the action scenes were gnarlier?, there’s Newtopia. The South Korean dark comedy walks a fine genre line, following a broken-up couple trying to navigate a zombie outbreak. Whether they find their way back to each other is the question in this Seoul-set series. —Roxana Hadadi
Back in Theaters
Parasite
Forget about this year’s awards mess and tap back into Bong Joon Ho’s Best Picture–winning Parasite. Remember 2019, the year before the world turned upside down? This time, watch the film in Imax.
Comedy Corner
The Muppet Script
There have been a lot of great events in the past few weeks supporting those affected by the California wildfires. If you’re looking to help from your house, a handful of comedians like Paul F. Tompkins, Nina West, Bobby Moynihan, and David Dastmalchian are coming together for a live reading of 1979’s The Muppet Movie. You can tune in to the livestream for $15, and a portion of the proceeds will go to GiveDirectly.
Finally Streaming
We Live in Time
Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield falling in love onscreen — who wouldn’t want to watch that? But their characters’ romance is challenged as Pugh’s Almut receives a diagnosis of ovarian cancer and the two have to navigate what to do with the time they may or may not have.
➼ Plus, the 2024 Cannes Grand Prix winner All We Imagine as Light is now on digital platforms.
Want more? Read our recommendations from the week of January 31.