The 10 best movies on Showtime to watch right now

Telling the story of a young girl and her mother as they try to survive in the shadow of Disney World, The Florida Project is a thoughtful, grounded meditation on what it means to live in severe poverty. The film features a pair of genuinely revelatory performances from a pair of non-actors who play the mother and daughter, as well as a truly stellar supporting turn from Willem Defoe. Few movies better grapple with what it means to be poor in America, or reckon with the way that poverty and America’s obsession with things like Disney World are inherently linked.

This unlikely Oscars juggernaut has more than earned its reputation as one of the best movies of the 2020s. In addition to feeling like a pretty definitive take on the multiverse, the film’s sprawling ambitions are equaled by its constant focus on the story of a single family. Following an overworked Chinese immigrant who is starting to regret every decision that got her to where she is now, the movie is really a reflection on the nature of regret and the constant need for kindness, especially in a world that can be lovely, scary, and bewildering, all at the same time.

Letting Steven Spielberg make a movie about his own childhood may seem like putting a hat on a hat, but one of the shocking things about The Fabelmans is how unsentimental it proves to be. The movie follows a young Sammy Fabelman as he falls in love with making movies and simultaneously watches his parents’ marriage crumble around him. The theme of divorce is everywhere in Spielberg’s filmography, and The Fabelmans retroactively reads like something of a codex for his entire filmography. On top of everything else that makes it great, though, The Fabelmans is a moving story about the way movie-making can isolate you from everyone around you.

Alex Garland’s second directorial effort may be his best, in part because it’s so willing to be indulgently strange. Annihilation tells the story of a woman who joins a team of explorers tasked with investigating a singular ecological phenomenon known as “The Shimmer.” Once the crew enters this region, which has been utterly transformed, they discover that their understanding of reality has to change. Where the movie goes from there is almost impossible to explain, but Annihilation is mind-bending in the best way. It’s also a thoughtful rumination on guilt and love, and the way those two are sometimes inextricably linked.