Godzilla x Kong, Netflix’s Beverly Hills Cop and all the new movies to watch

Greetings, Polygon readers! Each week we round up the most notable new releases on streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies you can watch at home.

This week, Beverly Hills Cop 4: Axel Foleythe new buddy cop action film with Eddie Murphy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, premieres on Netflix alongside The Imaginarythe latest animated fantasy from former Studio Ghibli animator and current director Yoshiyuki Momose. There are plenty of other exciting new releases this week, including Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire on Max, Space Cadet on Prime Video, the Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black on Peacock and much more.

Here’s everything new to see this weekend!

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New on Netflix

Beverly Hills Cop 4: Axel Foley

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon/Netflix

Genre: Action comedy
Duration: 1 hour 55 minutes
Director: Mark Molloy
Pour: Eddie Murphy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Taylor Paige

Eddie Murphy reprises his role as police detective Alex “Axel” Foley in the first Beverly Hills Cop sequel in 30 years. This time, Axel teams up with Bobby Abbott (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), his new partner and ex-boyfriend of his estranged daughter, to uncover a conspiracy that threatens all of Los Angeles.

The Imaginary

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix from July 5th

Image: Studio Ponoc/Netflix

Genre: fantasy
Duration: 1 hour 45 minutes
Director: Yoshiyuki Momose
Pour: Kokoro Terada, Rio Suzuki, Sakura Ando

From Studio Ponoc, the Japanese animation studio behind Mary and the Witches’ Flower, The Imaginary follows a young girl and her imaginary friend as they delve deeper into the vivid world of the girl’s imagination. But every imaginary friend faces the same impending fate: they disappear when their creator forgets them.

From our test report:

The Imaginary is visually and narratively not as rich as Mary and the Witches’ Floweror as transcendent as Miyazaki projects like The Boy and the Heron. But it feels like a step in the right direction for Ponoc, an attempt to find its own voice and footing. It may not be remembered with the same enthusiasm decades from now as Ghibli’s early projects, but if Ponoc continues to experiment and branch out, it could well be remembered as the first step toward creating its own distinctive creative legacy and stepping out of Ghibli’s shadow. In the meantime, it’s a dizzyingly thrilling experience for young anime fans, a film meant to visualize what it feels like to daydream as a child, to immerse yourself in a world of absolute fantasy where everything else falls away.

Support

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix from July 5th

Photo: Cleo Bouza/Netflix

Genre: Love drama
Duration: 1 hour 46 minutes
Director: Marcos Carnival
Pour: Nicolás Furtado, Nancy Dupláa, Soledad Villamil

This Argentinian romantic drama is about a young autistic museum guide who falls in love with his charming new colleague Eva. She’s had her fingers burned in love before, but the two are swept up in an unexpected whirlwind of emotions as they try to make their relationship work.

New on Hulu

The monk and the weapon

Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu 5th July

Image: Sights along the roadside

Genre: comedy
Duration: 1 hour 47 minutes
Director: Dorji from Pawo Tea
Pour: Tandin Wangchuk, Deki Lhamo, Pema Zangmo Sherpa

Set in Bhutan in the mid-2000s after the king’s abdication, this satirical comedy tells the story of a young monk and an American gun collector who vie for ownership of a rare antique rifle. Meanwhile, the people of Bhutan hold mock elections as part of their hesitant transition from a monarchy to a democracy.

New at Max

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Where to watch: Available to stream on Max 4th of July

Image: Warner Bros. Pictures

Genre: Monster action
Duration: 1 hour 55 minutes
Director: Adam Wingard
Pour: Godzilla, Kong, Rebecca Hall

The boys are back in town – by boys we mean Godzilla and Kong, of course. Godzilla vs. Kong Director Adam Wingard returns for this team-up film in which the big guys must work together to stop an invasion from Hollow Earth.

From our test report:

Godzilla x Kong (yes, it’s styled that way, like a streetwear collaboration) is beyond “good” or “bad” or “movies.” It’s an arena show, a pro wrestler screaming in the ring, pounding his chest, and making the jumbotron hype meter rise before doing his signature move. Through brutally efficient pacing that minimizes what the script doesn’t care about (people, mostly) and maximizes what it does (giant monsters doing wrestling moves), it constantly avoids connections in favor of escalation. It’s a performance in absurd spectacle form, a comically silly way to spend $135 million. I hope Warner Bros. keeps burning money like that.

New on Prime Video

Space Cadet

Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime Video 4th of July

Image: Amazon Prime Video

Genre: Romantic comedy
Duration: 1 hour 50 minutes
Director: Liz W. Garcia
Pour: Emma Roberts, Tom Hopper, Poppy Liu

Director Liz W. Garcia had absolutely Naturally blond in her head when she imagined Space Cadet. Party girl Rex (Emma Roberts) from Florida finally gets the chance to fulfill her dream of becoming an astronaut – but she doesn’t realize that her best friend has faked her resume. But she is determined to see the stars, so she throws herself into NASA’s demanding astronaut candidate program with a lot of heart and guts.

New on MGM Plus

Snack bar

Where to watch: Available to stream on Paramount Plus

Image: Paramount Home Entertainment

Genre: comedy
Duration: 1 hour 52 minutes
Director: Adam Rehmeier
Pour: Conor Sherry, Gabriel LaBelle, Mika Abdalla

A loosely autobiographical coming-of-age comedy from 1991. Snack bar follows two teenagers (The Fabelmans“Gabriel LaBelle and newbie Conor Sherry open a poolside snack shop one summer. They both fall in love with the same hot lifeguard, putting their friendship – and their business – to the test.

New at Paramount Plus

Memory

Where to watch: Available to stream on Paramount Plus

Image: Ketchup Entertainment

Genre: theatre
Duration: 1 hour 43 minutes
Director: Michel Franco
Pour: Jessica Chastain, Peter Sarsgaard, Merritt Wever

Jessica Chastain (Zero dark thirty) stars in this new film about a troubled social worker who meets Saul (Peter Sarsgaard), a former classmate suffering from early dementia. When she is hired to care for Saul, the two develop an unlikely bond over their shared trauma.

New to Peacock

Back to Black

Where to watch: Available to stream on peacock 5th July

Image: Focus Features

Genre: Biopic drama
Duration: 2h 2m
Director: Sam Taylor Johnson
Pour: Marisa Abela, Eddie Marsan, Jack O’Connell

Back to Black follows the life of Amy Winehouse, especially around her second album (Back to Blackhence the title) and her subsequent stay in rehab. Marisa Abela plays the legendary singer and rocks her signature beehive updo.

New to rent

Arsonist

Where to watch: Available for rent on Amazon, Appleand Vudu

Image: Vertical Entertainment

Genre: Historical drama
Duration: 2h 1m
Director: Karim Ainouz
Pour: Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, Eddie Marsan

King Henry VIII is known for many things, but the most well-known fact about him is this: he married six women during his life, two of whom he had executed. Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina) plays Katherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII (Jude Law), who must fight for her survival as the king’s behavior becomes increasingly unpredictable and paranoid in the years before the end of his reign.

Kidnapped: The kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara

Where to watch: Available to rent from Amazon. Appleand Vudu

Photo: Anna Camerlingo/Cohen Media Group

Genre: Historical drama
Duration: 2h 14m
Director: Marco Bellocchio
Pour: Paolo Pierobon, Fausto Russo Alesi, Barbara Ronchi

Based on a true storyThis historical drama tells the story of a young Jewish child in 19th-century Italy who is secretly baptized and kidnapped by the Pope to be raised as a Catholic. While his parents fight in vain to bring him home, the boy’s abduction sparks a larger political struggle between the papacy and supporters of the country’s unification.