Hulu is a good streamer to subscribe to if you like a steady diet of new releases and classic films that never go out of style.
That’s especially true this week, when the streamer just premiered new comedy Never Change!, about adults who have to return to high school to receive their diplomas.
Hulu also just added the classic comedic thriller Catch Me If You Can, which sees Leonardo DiCaprio’s suave con artist assume all sorts of identities so he can outrun Tom Hanks’ FBI agent.
Watch With Us also recommends the classic ‘90s drama The Remains of the Day, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson as two British servants who grow closer to each other over the years.
‘Catch Me If You Can’ (2002)
Some stories are too good to be true – in Frank Abagnale Jr.’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) case, it’s hard to separate fact from fiction. In the 1960s, Frank was a fast-talking teen who successfully conned people into thinking he was a pilot and a doctor. Why? Well, for money, of course; living a jet-setting life doesn’t come cheap. But Frank’s need to be other people masks a deep hurt, something that keeps him running from lawmen like Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks), an FBI agent who is determined to get his man. Throughout the decade, Carl pursues Frank relentlessly, but deep down, he begins to respect a man whose crimes hurt him more than anyone else.
Based on Abagnale Jr.’s 1980 autobiography of the same name, Catch Me If You Can is based on a true story that’s largely been debunked by experts since the film’s release in 2002. That doesn’t matter when the story is this good – and when everyone involved in the movie is clearly having the time of their lives. Director Steven Spielberg is known as a master entertainer of big-budget spectacles like Jaws and Jurassic Park, but he’s never been lighter or freer than he is here. Ditto for DiCaprio and Hanks, who play a deft cat-and-mouse game with all the glee of small children opening their presents at Christmastime. The movie is a gift that keeps giving; from John Williams’ jazzy score or Christopher Walken’s note-perfect supporting performance as Frank’s small-time criminal father, you’ll think it’s Christmas, too.
Catch Me If You Can is streaming on Hulu.
‘Never Change!’ (2026)
One of my worst nightmares is being forced to return to high school to finish coursework that somehow was never completed. That’s almost exactly the premise of the new comedy Never Change!, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival at the beginning of the month and is now streaming on Hulu. In 2008, a tornado shut down North Meadows High School, disrupting the final weeks of high school seniors Sunny (John Reynolds), Katie (Sofia Black-D’Elia) and the rest of their small class. Almost 20 years later, they found out they have to finish those last two weeks of high school or else their diplomas will be rescinded.
One person’s nightmare is another’s comedic premise, and Never Change! mines the odd concept for all its worth. There are gags about school shootings and a staging of a horrible play overseen by Topher Grace wearing a deliberately hideous wig. The film’s humor is similar to Wet Hot American Summer’s, with some envelope-pushing and absurdist jokes thrown around to see if they’ll stick. Some fail miserably (you’ll groan at least once), but enough gags land to make Never Change! a worthwhile if instantly forgettable comedy.
Never Change! is streaming on Hulu.
‘The Remains of the Day’ (1993)
In 1930s Great Britain, house servants still existed, and no one was better at it than James Stevens (Anthony Hopkins). As the head butler at Darlington Hall, he is dedicated solely to his profession and makes no time for such trivial things as a personal life. That threatens to change with the arrival of Sally Kenton (Emma Thompson), a young maid whose warm demeanor disturbs Stevens for reasons he’s not even sure of. Could it be love? Stevens has never even acknowledged that he has those kinds of feelings, let alone expressed them. But is Kenton’s arrival the catalyst for him to finally change after all these years?
Based on Kazuo Ishiguro’s Booker Prize-winning book of the same name, The Remains of the Day is all about repressed emotions, pregnant pauses and stolen glances that suggest rather than tell what’s going on. The film depicts a specific time and place where duty was still favored over emotions, and men like Stevens were almost invisible to the people he loyally served for decades. Hopkins is a two-time Oscar winner for The Silence of the Lambs and The Father, but he deserved another statuette for his brilliant, subtle work as a man who can’t quite open himself to love. It’s a beautiful and haunting performance, just like the film itself.
The Remains of the Day is streaming on Hulu.
