Including The Plague and Hoppers.
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Everett Collection (Walt Disney, IFC Films)
It’s awfully quiet out there on the PVOD front, reflecting the lack of interesting movies to hit the multiplexes in January and February. The truth is that we’re largely caught up on 2025 theatrical releases — you can see almost all of them at home for varying fees right now — and the industry has been a little slow to release 2026 movies on the home market. May will likely pick up the pace, but there are still a handful of new titles to watch as we wrap up April.
Maggie Gyllenhaal, 126 minutes
Critics largely hated this one, and audiences stayed away en masse. You know what that means? Future cult classic! This truly does feel like a movie that will be on someone’s list of underappreciated masterpieces in a few years, so why not see if that someone is you? Maggie Gyllenhaal directs Oscar winners Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale in this feminist reimagining of the 1935 film Bride of Frankenstein, itself a riff on the Mary Shelley classic. There have been a lot of monster movies out there lately. It would be a shame to let this undeniably ambitious one go unseen. Available on VOD.
Vanessa Caswill, 114 minutes
Colleen Hoover is trying to become the Nicholas Sparks of the 2020s with the success of the adaptation of her It Ends With Us and the high-profile launch of this romantic weeper. Maika Monroe plays a young woman released from prison after serving six years for the vehicular manslaughter of her boyfriend. Much to her surprise, she ends up in a relationship with the best friend of the man she killed, played by Tyriq Withers (Him). Critics were mixed, but they usually are about romantic dramas. | Available on VOD.
Ian Tuason, 94 minutes
One of the best horror films so far this year is this Canadian chamber piece about a woman named Evy (Nina Kiri) who hosts a podcast with her friend Justin (a never-seen Adam DiMarco). The pair receive a recording that purports to be from a couple dealing with a haunting, and the sounds of their supernatural nightmare bleed into Evy’s existence. A fantastic study in terrifying sound design; play this one loud. | Available on VOD.
Charlie Polinger, 98 minutes
A nuanced and insightful look at youth and bullying, this acclaimed debut premiered at Cannes last May before an acclaimed run near the end of 2025. Writer-director Polinger has a gift with child actors, drawing subtle performances out of Everett Blunck as the new kid at the Tom Lerner Water Polo Camp and Kayo Martin as the group’s sociopathic bully. The title refers to a game the boys play, pretending that one has a disease that makes them an object of ridicule. It’s a moving, daring drama. | Available on VOD.
Daniel Chong, 104 minutes
Pixar’s latest family-friendly charmer depicts a land war — over a patch of earth that was once occupied by beavers and other wildlife and that human developers are eager to blow up for a highway. Enter the plucky Mabel, who uses experimental technology to Avatar her way into a fake beaver’s body and mobilize the animals into fighting for their homes. Director Daniel Chong’s movie is a down-the-middle pitch as far as Pixar movies go. It’s nothing super-radical for the studio — even if, design-wise, the choice to shift the animals’ faces so the audience can understand what they’re “saying” is a truly inspired one. But kids will love it, and yes, it will probably make you cry. —Eric Vilas-Boas | Available on VOD.
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