The temperature keeps rising as we head into summer, and the quality of movies leaving streaming services is going up with it. This month sees a truckload of great movies departing Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, and other services, with something for every kind of movie fan.
From all-time classics like Billy Wilder’s The Apartment and Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory to new gems like Lady Bird and the Blade movies, there’s plenty to dig into before the end of the month. There’s also Ernst Lubitsch’s delightful 1933 thruple comedy Design for Living as well as Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Pulse, one of our favorite horror movies of all time.
Here are our picks for the 17 best movies you should watch before they leave streaming services at the end of May. If you watch one of them and enjoy it, let us know in the comments!
Billy Wilder’s 1960 rom-com is often considered one of the greatest films ever made. That reputation is well earned.
The movie follows Bud Baxter (Jack Lemmon), a solitary office worker who lets executives at his company use his apartment for their extramarital affairs. He thinks this will help him move up in the massive insurance firm he works at. While he does get some material gains at work, the result is his superiors take more and more advantage of his time and space, leaving Bud unable to sleep in his own bed or access his own home.
When Bud falls for an elevator operator in the building (Shirley MacLaine), his desire to forge a relationship with her gives him the confidence to try to take control of his life back. But when Bud discovers she’s been having an affair in The Apartment with his boss (Fred MacMurray), things get even more complicated.
A heartfelt and hilarious romantic comedy, Wilder deftly
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