The 30 Best Movies on Peacock Right Now

This article is updated frequently as movies leave and enter Peacock. New titles are indicated with an asterisk.

Who’s ready for another streaming service? NBCUniversal jumped into the crowded pool in 2020 with the launch of Peacock, a destination for everything from classic monster movies to episodes of 30 Rock to original programming. But as with all of these services, it can all be a little overwhelming. The truth is that Peacock’s film catalogue is a little thin and a little strange (there’s an amazing number of B-movies like Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus), but it does have some of the weight of the Universal brand and all its history, including classic franchises and recent hits (and the service will likely have more when licensing deals expire with other streaming platforms). But until the selection expands, you can’t go wrong with any of the following films.

This Month’s Editor’s Pick

*Dazed and Confused

Year: 1993
Runtime: 1h 42m
Director: Richard Linklater

Richard Linklater’s masterful comedy about teenage life is almost thirty years old! The story of the final day of high school in 1976 has lost none of its heart or humor, thanks in large part to an incredible ensemble that includes future stars Ben Affleck, Milla Jovovich, Parker Posey, Joey Lauren Adams, and Matthew McConaughey. It’s hysterical and kind of perfect.

The Act of Killing

Year: 2013
Runtime: 2h 39m
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer

You’ve never seen a documentary quite like The Act of Killing. One of the best films of the 2010s, Joshua Oppenheimer’s film unpacks the Indonesian genocides of the 1960s and how the men who perpetrated them have never faced consequences. These men act out their crimes in reenactments, leading to what’s almost an exorcism for both the killer and the survivors. It’s breathtaking.

Apocalypto

Year: 2006
Runtime: 2h 17m
Director: Mel Gibson

Mel Gibson, king of the brutal historical blockbuster, took an honest risk when he helmed this story of the Yucatan in Mexico around 1502. Told entirely in the Mayan language, Apocalypto is the story of Jaguar Paw, a young hunter whose tribe is invaded by outsiders. The film made an absolute fortune at the box office and has a loyal following.

Asteroid City

Year: 2023
Runtime: 1h 45m
Director: Wes Anderson

One of the best films from one of the country’s best directors was underrated on its 2023 release and not readily available on streaming services, so take this chance while you can. The plot is secondary here to the mood, along with a stunning performance from Jason Schwartzman. It’s really a story about storytelling, and, like so much lately, a bit of a COVID allegory in its exploration of an impossible event that restructures everything.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans

Year: 2009
Runtime: 2h 2m
Director: Werner Herzog

Director Werner Herzog was an unexpected choice for an unexpected sequel to Abel Ferrara’s 1992 film Bad Lieutenant, but this isn’t your normal sequel. In fact, it has nothing really to do with that first film other than it also centering a corrupt cop. Nicolas Cage gives one of his most unhinged and impressive performances here, and that’s really saying something.

Bernie

Year: 2011
Runtime: 1h 44m
Director: Richard Linklater

Richard Linklater directed this black comedy based on the true story of Bernie Tiede (Jack Black), a man who befriended an elderly Texas woman named Marjorie Nugent (Shirley MacLaine) and ended up murdering her. It’s a quirky little movie with one of Black’s best performances and a great supporting turn by Matthew McConaughey.

Burning

Year: 2018
Runtime: 2h 28m
Director: Lee Chang-dong

The best foreign language film of 2018 has finally landed on Peacock and should definitely be seen by anyone who fell in love with Steven Yeun’s Oscar-nominated work in Minari or his stellar acting on Netflix’s Beef. Lee Chang-dong adopts a novella by Haruki Murakami into a riveting dissection of class and gender in modern Korea. Yeun is mesmerizing as the mysterious Ben, someone who our protagonist starts to think might be a killer. Don’t miss this one.

Conclave

Year: 2024
Runtime: 2h
Director: Edward Berger

A surprising arthouse hit, this drama has been racking up awards while being exclusively on Peacock for subscribers. Ralph Fiennes stars as the cardinal in charge of a conclave to elect a new pope. Fiennes does some of the best work of his career, supported by great turns from Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Isabella Rossellini, and more.

Donnie Darko

Year: 2004
Runtime: 2h 13m
Director: Richard Kelly

It’s a mad world in Richard Kelly’s sci-fi hit starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Swayze, and Jena Malone. Darko made almost nothing in theaters but developed a loyal following on the home market, becoming one of the more acclaimed sci-fi films of the ‘00s. Join in the conversation that seems to constantly surround this film (and maybe Kelly will be encouraged to make another one soon — he hasn’t directed in over a decade). Note that the version on Peacock is the slightly inferior director’s cut, but still worth a look.

Fitzcarraldo

Year: 1982
Runtime: 2h 37m
Director: Werner Herzog

The production of this film (chronicled in the great doc Burden of Dreams) is almost more interesting than the movie as director Werner Herzog actually had a crew haul a 320-ton steamship up a hill and fought on the regular with the maniacal star Klaus Kinski. The cool thing about the movie is you can see the chaotic production right there on the screen, as Herzog captures the insanity of his subject matter in a way that required a little instability.

Glengarry Glen Ross

Year: 1992
Runtime: 1h 40m
Director: James Foley

David Mamet wrote the adaptation of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play and pulled off the rare trick of a nearly perfect version of a stage hit. It helps a great deal to have a cast of legends, and this one includes Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alex Baldwin, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, and Jonathan Pryce — every single one of them perfect in their part.

The Harry Potter movies

Year: Various
Runtime: Various
Director: Various

J.K. Rowling is horrible now, but the books and films that emerged from her work continue to maintain and even build an incredibly loyal audience. They have a habit of rolling on and off streaming sites, and they’re back on Peacock for now, waiting for the entire family to have a marathon of the story of the Boy Who Lived. Like any massive franchise, they’re a rollercoaster of quality, but Prisoner of Azkaban and Goblet of Fire rule.

Ichi the Killer

Year: 2001
Runtime: 2h 9m
Director: Takashi Miike

Despite being one of Takashi Miike’s breakthrough films internationally, his action flick is still banned in several countries around the world. You may think you know what you’re in for, but Ichi is its own special category of crazy, as anyone who’s seen it can attest. When it was released, it was the kind of film that one had to special order from online companies, and now it can be streamed directly to your phone while you’re on the bus. Isn’t technology wonderful?

*The Master

Year: 2012
Runtime: 2h 17m
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson

One of P.T. Anderson’s best films, and one of the best films of the 2010s by anybody, is this drama starring Joaquin Phoenix, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Amy Adams. Originally seen as a dissection of the creation of Scientology, The Master is a lot more than that, breaking down leader/follower relationships, trauma, and doubt in ways that only one of our best filmmakers could. It’s a masterpiece.

Mighty Aphrodite

Year: 1995
Runtime: 1h 34m
Director: Woody Allen

Peacock added an array of Woody Allen movies recently, and Mighty Aphrodite is the best of the bunch, a film that won Mira Sorvino an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress. She plays a prostitute in this loose adaptation of Pygmalion that also won Sorvino a Golden Globe and a gaggle of critics awards. She’s wonderful here and reason alone to watch it.

Night of the Living Dead

Year: 1968
Runtime: 1h 37m
Director: Clive Barker

It’s really hard to overstate the impact that George A. Romero’s classic black-and-white masterpiece had on not just the zombie genre but DIY microbudget horror filmmaking. So many people have been chasing that game-changing impact of Night of the Living Dead in the half-century since it came out, but it’s the original that’s passed the test of time.

Nightbreed

Year: 1990
Runtime: 1h 42m
Director: Clive Barker

Clive Barker wrote and directed an adaptation of his Cabal and released it to a much more muted response than greeted his hit Hellraiser. Over the years, Nightbreed has developed a loyal following, in part due to the various versions of it now available. The one on Amazon is the theatrical, in which Craig Sheffer plays a man who becomes convinced his therapist is a serial killer, and his own investigation leads him to a tribe of monsters. Good times.

The Northman

Year: 2022
Runtime: 2h 17m
Director: Robert Eggers

This epic from the director of The Lighthouse stars Alexander Skarsgard 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, Bjork, and Willem Dafoe. It’s one of those films that history will likely be very kind to as the years pass.

Nosferatu the Vampyre

Year: 1979
Runtime: 2h 4m
Director: Werner Herzog

In 1979, Werner Herzog released his daring vision of the classic F.W. Murnau film Nosferatu. Klaus Kinski plays Count Dracula, Isabelle Adjani is Lucy Harker, and Bruno Ganz is Jonathan Harker in this unforgettable mood piece, a movie that’s so unsettling that one wonders if Kinski might actually be a bloodsucker. It remains one of Herzog’s most popular films for a reason.

*Paddington

Year: 2014
Runtime: 1h 35m
Director: Paul King

One of the sweetest family films ever made adapts the classic talking bear to modern London when Paddington (Ben Whishaw) finds his way there from “Darkest Peru,” looking for a new home. He finds one with an average family led by Hugh Bonneville and Sally Hawkins, but crosses paths with a nefarious taxidermist (a wonderful Nicole Kidman) who tries to take him down. This is such a gently funny and likable movie. You kind of have to be a jerk to hate it.

Passion Fish

Year: 1992
Runtime: 2h 15m
Director: John Sayles

The brilliant writer/director John Sayles delivered one of his most beloved films in the 1992 drama about a soap opera star (Mary McDonnell) who has been paralyzed after being hit by a cab. She returns to her family home, where she crosses paths with a nurse (Alfre Woodard) who refuses to give up on her. It’s moving in a way that feels genuine, never manipulative.

*Pride & Prejudice

Year: 2005
Runtime: 2h 8m
Director: Joe Wright

One of the best Jane Austen adaptations ever remains this 2005 version of one of her most beloved novels, the film that put Keira Knightley on the map. Directed by Joe Wright, this version is relatively faithful to the source, but it’s filmed with such passion and grace that it’s easy to get lost in it again and again.

The Proposition

Year: 2005
Runtime: 1h 44m
Director: John Hillcoat

There aren’t a lot of great Westerns on any streaming service, but this more modern one is worth your time. John Hillcoat directs a gritty, vicious script by Nick Cave (of The Bad Seeds fame) and draws excellent performances from a cast that includes Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone, Emily Watson, John Hurt, and a movie-stealing Danny Huston. With riveting cinematography by Benoit Delhomme, The Proposition is a Western that looks phenomenal, unfolding like a visualization of one of Cave’s albums.

Short Term 12

Year: 2013
Runtime: 1h 36m
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton

Long before she would be Captain Marvel, Brie Larson played a worker at a group home for troubled teenagers in this powerful drama. Based on his own experience, Destin Daniel Cretton wrote and directed this critical darling that now looks like a launchpad for a generation of stars including Larson, Lakeith Stanfield, Rami Malek, Stephanie Beatriz, John Gallagher Jr., and Kaitlyn Dever.

Sign o’ the Times

Year: 1987
Runtime: 1h 25m
Director: Prince

One of the best concert films of all time is sitting on Peacock waiting for you to jam to it. Largely produced as a tie-in to the 1987 album of the same name, which wasn’t selling like they hoped, this film captures Prince at his most electric, and has really stood the test of time.

Sophie’s Choice

Year: 1982
Runtime: 2h 30m
Director: Alan Pakula

Meryl Streep gives one of the best performances of all time in this story of a writer (Peter MacNicol) living in Brooklyn who befriends an Auschwitz survivor (Streep) and her beau (Kevin Kline) shortly after the Holocaust. Through flashbacks, we see Sophie’s harrowing journey, including what the title heartbreakingly refers to — a phrase that has been co-opted in the four decades since to refer to any difficult decision.

Speak No Evil

Year: 2024
Runtime: 1h 50m
Director: James Watkins

This American remake turns the brutality of the 2022 Danish original into more of a traditional thriller, but it’s still a pretty taut piece of filmmaking. It helps a project like this to have a great cast, and this one is led by a phenomenal turn from James McAvoy as half of a British couple who basically terrorizes new friends played by Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis. It’s a commentary on trusting your instincts, and what can go wrong when you don’t speak up.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Year: 1974
Runtime: 1h 23m
Director: Tobe Hooper

What’s so stunning about this horror masterpiece is what it doesn’t show. So many people remember this flick as a gore-filled nightmare, but Hooper actually lets your mind do most of the work, rarely showing as much as the film’s reputation. It’s still an unforgettable film, one that changed the indie horror landscape forever.

Train to Busan

Year: 2016
Runtime: 1h 58m
Director: Yeon Sang-ho

A legitimate phenomenon that has grossed almost $100 million worldwide, this 2016 South Korean movie is one of the best zombie flicks of its era. It’s simple — zombies on a train — but that’s one of the reasons it works so well. It has a propulsive, non-stop energy and it feels like its legacy is just getting started.

*The Wild Robot

Year: 2024
Runtime: 1h 41m
Director: Chris Sanders

Based on the hit novel of the same name from 2016, this sci-fi gem was one of the best animated films of 2024, winning multiple awards in that category. Lupita Nyong’o voices Roz, a robot that’s crashed on a remote plant where she ends up the de facto mother for an orphaned goose named Brightbill. Gorgeous and moving, this is one of the best family films on any streamer.

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