Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Netflix’s The Conference, and every new movie to watch at home this weekend

Happy Friday, Polygon readers!

Each week, we round up the most notable releases new to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, the long-awaited seventh installment in the explosive spy action series starring Tom Cruise, is finally available to digitally purchase following its theatrical premiere earlier this year. Expend4bles, the aptly titled fourth entry in the Expendables action franchise, is also available to purchase this week. There’s plenty more new releases to check out this week on streaming, including a new German horror film on Netflix as well as the streaming premiere of Slotherhouse on Hulu.

Here’s everything new to watch this weekend!

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New on Netflix

The Conference

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Netflix

Genre: Horror comedy
Run time: 1h 40m
Director: Patrik Eklund
Cast: Katia Winter, Eva Melander, Adam Lundgren

What’s worse than a team-building conference where everyone is getting on everyone else’s nerves? How about a conference set on a secluded farm where, amid accusations of corruption, a masked murderer walks among them searching for his next kill?

Once Upon a Star

Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix

Image: Netflix

Genre: Drama
Run time: 2h 17m
Director: Nonzee Nimibutr
Cast: Darina Boonchu, Sukollawat Kanarot, Nuengthida Sophon

New on Hulu

Slotherhouse

Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu

Image: Hulu

Genre: Slasher comedy
Run time: 1h 33m
Director: Matthew Goodhue
Cast: Stefan Kapicic, Lisa Ambalavanar, Olivia Rouyre

When a sorority girl adopts a sloth, a bunch of people start dying, posing the question: What if a slasher movie, but a sloth maybe did it?

Daliland

Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu

Image: Magnolia Pictures

Genre: Drama
Run time: 1h 37m
Director: Mary Harron
Cast: Ben Kingsley, Barbara Sukowa, Christopher Briney

This biographical drama stars Ben Kingsley as Salvador Dali, the eccentric and prolific surrealist painter whose work captivated the world. The story is seen through the perspective of James (Christopher Briney), a young art assistant working in a New York gallery in the ’70s, who meets and befriends Dali amid his tempestuous split from his wife Gala (Barbara Sukowa).

New on Prime Video

The Burial

Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime Video

Image: Amazon Studios

Genre: Legal drama
Run time: 2h 6m
Director: Maggie Betts
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Tommy Lee Jones, Jurnee Smollett

Inspired by true events, this legal drama stars Jamie Foxx as Willie E. Gary, a personal injury lawyer who agrees to help the owner of a troubled funeral business (Tommy Lee Jones) who is being preyed upon by a corporate conglomerate over a contractual dispute.

New on Paramount Plus

The Starling Girl

Where to watch: Available to stream on Paramount Plus

Image: Bleecker Street Media

Genre: Drama
Run time: 1h 57m
Director: Laurel Parmet
Cast: Eliza Scanlen, Lewis Pullman, Wrenn Schmidt

A 17-year-old girl (Eliza Scanlen) struggles with the strict upbringing of living in a fundamentalist Christian community in Kentucky and her burgeoning desire to pursue dance and live a life unrestrained by religious expectations. Amid these changes, the girl gross closer to her youth minister, Owen (Lewis Pullman), who has just returned from working as a missionary abroad.

New on AMC Plus

Lakota Nation vs. United States

Where to watch: Available to stream on AMC Plus

Image: IFC Films

Genre: Documentary
Run time: 2h
Directors: Jesse Short Bull, Laura Tomaselli
Cast: Candi Brings Plenty, Krystal Two Bulls, Nick Estes

This documentary follows the struggle of the Lakota Indians who, for over a century, have fought to reclaim their sacred land that was stolen from them in violation of treaty agreements.

New on Starz

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

Where to watch: Available to stream on Starz

Photo: Dana Hawley/Lionsgate

Genre: Coming-of-age dramedy
Run time: 1h 46m
Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
Cast: Abby Ryder Fortson, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates

Judy Blume’s iconic coming-of-age story gets this adaptation from Kelly Fremon Craig (The Edge of Seventeen), starring Abby Ryder Fortson (the original Cassie from the Ant-Man movies) as Margaret and Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, and Benny Safdie as her family.

New to rent

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One

Where to watch: Available to purchase on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Image: Skydance/Paramount Pictures

Genre: Spy action thriller
Run time: 2h 43m
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames

Ethan Hunt is back in the first of a two-parter in the franchise (the second is slated for a 2024 release). This time, Hunt and the IMF square off against a rogue AI.

From our review,

Like its predecessors — particularly Christopher McQuarrie’s two previous entries in the series — the film has married its prospects to Tom Cruise, and to his famous commitment to actually doing his own stunts. Ethan Hunt’s incredible feats often look real because they essentially are real. Everything else in these movies is in furtherance of that commitment. The supporting characters are there to make Hunt feel sufficiently human; the villain is there to make Hunt feel sufficiently tested; the plot is meant to shuttle Ethan from one explosion to the next.

Expend4bles

Where to watch: Available to purchase on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Photo: Yana Blajeva/Lionsgate

Genre: Action
Run time: 1h 43m
Director: Scott Waugh
Cast: Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson

The fourth entry in the brash franchise has the best action scenes yet, hands the reigns over to Jason Statham, and brings in Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais for some extra martial arts bona fides.

From our review,

Expend4bles stretches the franchise to its limits, and those limits frankly don’t reach very far. There’s a level of self-awareness to Expendables films that can make their paper-thin plotting and characterization excusable — in the end, they’re just a reason to see certain action legends interact with each other. But in a decade-plus of homage, the series hasn’t developed any stylistic flourishes of its own. Mission: Impossible movies have their signature stunts, Fast and Furious movies have their improbable applications of cars, but the Expendables lacks a comparable calling card. There’s nothing for fans to look forward to beyond Jason Statham’s resilient charm and Sylvester Stallone’s braggadocio. And frankly, there are plenty of other places for people who want those things to get them.

It Lives Inside

Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Genre: Supernatural horror
Run time: 1h 39m
Director: Bishal Dutta
Cast: Megan Suri, Neeru Bajwa, Mohana Krishnan

This horror movie follows two young girls at an American high school who each relate to their Indian heritage in a different way: One embraces it, one rejects it. When a spirit latches onto one of them, the other hopes to stop it.

Dark Harvest

Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Image: MGM/United Artist Releasing

Genre: Fantasy horror
Run time: 1h 33m
Director: David Slade
Cast: Casey Likes, E’myri Crutchfield, Dustin Ceithamer

Director David Slade (30 Days of Night) returns with an all new fantasy horror movie based on Norman Partridge’s 2006 novel. In a sleepy unnamed Midwestern hamlet, the teenage boys gather for a yearly ritual every October: To hunt down “Sawtooth Jack,” a vicious creature with a pumpkin for a head, and kill him before midnight to ensure that the town will be free from misfortune. Will they be able to succeed this year, and what other dark secrets lurk behind this bizarre tradition?

Dear David

Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu

Genre: Supernatural horror
Run time: 1h 34m
Director: John McPhail
Cast: Augustus Prew, Andrea Bang, René Escobar Jr.

This is one of those “viral Twitter threads got turned into a movie” situations. This time, there’s a ghost haunting, and Justin Long as the … head of BuzzFeed?

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• Source: https://www.polygon.com/2023/10/13/23911259/new-movies-watch-mission-impossible-dead-reckoning-netflix-the-conference-expendables-4