Elvis, Netflix’s Day Shift, and every other new movie you can stream from home this weekend

This week, the new movies available to watch at home are led by a big theatrical release finally coming to home video, and an exciting Netflix movie that’s a bit of a throwback.

First, we have to talk about Elvis. Baz Luhrmann’s maximalist approach is a pitch-perfect vehicle for a story of one of American pop culture’s most legendary figures, and it’s finally available to watch at home if you, like me, have been unable to go to theaters.

The other highlight is Netflix’s Day Shift, a vampire-hunting action-comedy-horror hybrid from first-time director and legendary stunt performer J.J. Perry, starring Jamie Foxx, Dave Franco, and Snoop Dogg. It’s a blast, and a throwback to a bygone era of action moviemaking.

In addition to those two, there is a pair of kids movies, a documentary about Princess Diana, David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future and Alex Garland’s Men at reduced rental prices, and much more.

Let’s get into it!

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Elvis

Where to watch: Available to rent or purchase for $19.99 on Amazon, Apple, Vudu

Image: Warner Bros.

Baz Luhrmann’s biopic of the King of Rock ’n’ Roll stars Austin Butler (Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) as the legendary musician and Tom Hanks as his promoter, Colonel Tom Parker. From our review:

It turns out that the crucial casting choice is not the actor, but the director. Baz Luhrmann is exactly what an Elvis biography needs: He has no restraint, no shame, and no self-consciousness. He’s the only filmmaker who could address the legend of Elvis Presley with the simultaneous high camp and emotive sincerity it deserves.

While you’re in the mood, why not check out our list of great biopics about musicians, or the best movies from Elvis’s acting career?

Day Shift

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Netflix

This new action-horror-comedy is the directorial debut of longtime stunt performer and action coordinator J.J. Perry. It’s in many ways a throwback to buddy comedy action movies from 30 years ago, but with modernized choreography. Jamie Foxx plays a vampire hunter in desperate need of cash, teaming up with a Vampire Hunters’ Union rep (Dave Franco) and an old friend (Snoop Dogg) to try and secure a big score.

From our review:

The refreshingly low stakes and the way the mundane and the supernatural effortlessly intermix here are just two of the ways Day Shift will remind savvy viewers of the many ’80s and ’90s video-store staples the film is so clearly a love letter to. The Lost Boys, Dead Heat, and Fright Night all get their separate homages, among other movies. Some of these references are presented in subtle ways meant for only the most dedicated film geeks. Others are roaring, affectionate shoutouts.

Secret Headquarters

Where to watch: Available to stream on Paramount Plus

Photo: Hopper Stone/Paramount Pictures

Owen Wilson is an Iron Man and Green Lantern hybrid in this kid-centric superhero movie, from Catfish and Nerve directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost.

From our review:

When Secret Headquarters indulges the fun of kids with superpowered gadgets, it shines. When it narrows the focus to the conflict between Charlie and his dad, and the toll that being a masked vigilante takes on family life, the movie stands out from other entries in the “kids discover superpowers and/or super-gadgets” subgenre. It could use a little less focus on the serious adult issues of it all, but when Joost and Schulman narrow the plot to smaller stakes and sillier antics, Secret Headquarters proves itself to be a fun, heartwarming romp.

Crimes of the Future

Where to watch: Available to rent for $5.99 on Apple, Amazon, Google

Image: NEON

David Cronenberg’s latest body horror venture stars Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, and Kristen Stewart. There’s no better time to revisit Cronenberg’s history with the genre he’s long championed.

From our review:

There are discomfiting moments, horrific moments, and even some flashes of gnarliness in his relatively recent movies, like Maps to the Stars and Cosmopolis (both with Stewart’s Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson; Taylor Lautner must be doing kick-flips as he waits by the phone.) But Crimes is Cronenberg’s first full-on sci-fi/horror movie since 1999’s playful gaming odyssey eXistenZ. His return to genre territory is both more extreme and less. eXistenZ is a more user-friendly trip for the squeamish, but in spite of Crimes’ explicitly surgical moments, it’s a more contemplative, sometimes recessive film. You could even call it a mood piece.

Men

Where to watch: Available to rent for $5.99 on Amazon, Apple, Vudu

Photo: Kevin Baker/A24

Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation) returns with this horror movie about a young woman (Jessie Buckley) who flees to the countryside after a traumatic experience with her husband, only to encounter a very strange group of men (Rory Kinnear) who share the same face.

From our review:

Meaning and purpose aside, Men is a sensualist’s dream. Garland and cinematographer Rob Hardy (who also shot Ex Machina and Annihilation) give the film a gaspingly intense visual crispness, with vivid colors and endlessly startling imagery. Simple shots of a moss-covered tree or the raindrop ripples in a puddle are almost overwhelmingly beautiful. The music, by Ben Salisbury and Portishead’s Geoff Barrow — who also collaborated on Garland’s previous two films — blends ambient noise and music with Buckley’s vocalizations, sometimes to hauntingly beautiful effect, as when she explores a tunnel’s echo by harmonizing with her own voice. Later, a shriek of pent-up emotional pain slips so completely into the soundtrack that it might as well be something Harper is thinking more than something she’s actually doing.

Happy Birthday

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Netflix

This surreal Telugu-language crime comedy takes place in a fictional country where a law is passed mandating gun ownership. The movie follows a group of people at a fancy hotel that requires customers to have guns, and a series incidents that ensue.

Code Name: Emperor

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Netflix

This action thriller from Spain follows a moral dilemma for a secret agent when he is asked to frame an innocent politician.

Heartsong

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Netflix

Heartsong is a musical romantic drama from Turkey, following a nomadic folk musician of the Dom people who falls in love with the bride of a wedding he has been hired to perform at. The movie features plenty of Dom folk music.

Bank Robbers: The Last Great Heist

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Netflix

Argentina’s most famous bank robbery is investigated in this true-crime doc, when five masked robbers held 23 people hostage and robbed a bank in broad daylight in 2006.

Pakka Commercial

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Netflix

Another Telugu-language comedy on Netflix this week, this one is a courtroom action comedy about a lawyer who takes on a controversial client. His relationship with the client brings him into conflict with his ex-judge father.

Stay on Board: The Leo Baker Story

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Netflix

This documentary tells the story of groundbreaking skateboarder Leo Baker, who won gold at the 2014 Summer X Games and is also one of the most prominent trans athletes in sports.

13: The Musical

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Photo: Alan Markfield/Netflix

The movie adaptation of Jason Robert Brown, Robert Horn, and Dan Elish’s 2007 stage musical follows a boy who moves from New York to Indiana and wants to have a bar mitzvah to be remembered in his new environment.

The Princess

Where to watch: Available to stream on HBO Max

Image: HBO

Not to be confused with the recently released Hulu action movie of the same name, this The Princess is a documentary about Princess Diana from Oscar-nominated documentarian Ed Perkins (Black Sheep).

I Love My Dad

Where to watch: Available to rent for $6.99 on Apple, Vudu

Image: Magnolia Pictures

An irreverent comedy based on a true story, Patton Oswalt plays a father who tries to connect with his estranged son by posing as a woman online. Yes, he tries to catfish his own son (played by writer/director James Morosini, whose real experience the story is based on).

Wifelike

Where to watch: Available to rent for $5.99 on Apple, Amazon, Vudu

Image: Paramount Pictures

An R-rated science fiction thriller, Wifelike follows a detective (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who recently lost his wife, and has been assigned an AI companion (Elena Kampouris) that is designed to act like her. As a result, he gets pulled into a conflict with a resistance group attempting to end this practice, as the AI companion starts to recollect memories that are not exactly hers.

From our review:

Rather than developing the uneasy, imbalanced relationship between these two specific characters, Wifelike excavates some barely concealed subtext and proudly lays it out as text: Men subjugate women, and if their attempts to do that are stymied, they’ll invent new women to subjugate some more. There are moments where the movie seems ready to provocatively recast grief and loneliness as catch-all excuses for male misdeeds, but Bird backs away from it by not including any major characters who are genuinely grieving. It’s just another interesting idea the movie raises and drops.