Our entertainment — and let’s be honest, our sanity — is more reliant on Netflix than ever before, and thus the whims and expirations of their licensing deals are a bit more urgent. These are the noteworthy titles scheduled to disappear from the service in May, so if you’re prioritizing your binge viewing for the near future, move them to the top of your queue.
‘The Place Beyond the Pines’ (May 15)
The “Blue Valentine” director Derek Cianfrance and his star Ryan Gosling reunited for this 2012 drama, which begins as a crime thriller in the “Drive” mode — with Gosling again cast as a moody stunt driver — before Cianfrance unexpectedly shifts the narrative, veering into a tricky, thoughtful mediation on guilt, responsibility and the price sons pay for the sins of their fathers. Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes stand out in stellar supporting roles.
‘Scandal’: Season 1-7 (May 18)
It’s odd of Netflix to drop one of Shonda Rhimes’s signature shows, considering the gigantic investment the service has made in her future output. But whatever the logic, this is your last chance to binge all 124 episodes of this seven-season soufflé of political thriller, character study and soap opera, featuring Kerry Washington (in an array of killer trench coats) as Olivia Pope, Washington, D.C.’s most feared and capable “fixer.”
‘Black Snake Moan’ (May 19)
The director Craig Brewer followed up the triumph of “Hustle & Flow” with this burbling stew of gutbucket blues, old-time religion and sweaty sexuality. Samuel L. Jackson is at his bristling best as a farmer and bluesman who attempts to reform a sex addict (Christina Ricci, terrific) by making her go cold turkey. The subject matter is provocative, and Brewer knows it — so he embraces it, giving the picture the pulpy flair and devil-may-care spirit of a lost ’70s exploitation movie.
‘The First Wives Club’ (May 19)
Diane Keaton, Bette Midler and Goldie Hawn are warm and winning as college friends who gleefully exact revenge against the scuzzy husbands who’ve left them for younger women. The director Hugh Wilson energetically conducts a busy, impressive cast (which also includes Sarah Jessica Parker, Marcia Gay Harden, Stockard Channing, Elizabeth Berkley, and J.K. Simmons and Timothy Olyphant in early roles), and the chemistry among the leads is palpable — they’re clearly having a great time, and that fun is infectious.
‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape’ (May 19)
Lasse Hallstrom’s film adaptation of the coming-of-age novel by Peter Hedges is a heartfelt (and heartbreaking) snapshot of small-town life and a sympathetic portrait of a family on the verge of collapse. Johnny Depp crafts one of his finest performances as the eldest son (and de facto patriarch) who is barely holding the ragtag clan together but is tempted by the notion of a life of his own. Leonardo DiCaprio netted his first Oscar nomination for his stunning work as his developmentally disabled younger brother.
‘Young Adult’ (May 19)
Plenty of movies center on selfish antiheroes, reveling in their bad behavior and antisocial inclinations before cruising them into an easy redemption. But few have given us a protagonist as unapologetically self-serving as Mavis Gary, the alcoholic novelist played to sneering perfection by Charlize Theron in this bleak comedy directed by Jason Reitman (from a clever screenplay by Diablo Cody). Patrick Wilson is charming as the ex-boyfriend she wants back, and Patton Oswalt shines as her reluctant partner in crime.
‘Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery’ (May 31)
In retrospect, it’s downright bizarre that Mike Myers’s greatest success would come from such a seemingly niche source. This 1997 sleeper hit was a low-budget spoof of Matt Helm, Derek Flint and other (mostly forgotten) James Bond knockoffs of the late 1960s. But in that film and its two sequels (also leaving Netflix this month), Myers built a bizarre universe of time-shifting narratives, memorable characters and ubiquitous catchphrases, creating one of the most enduring comic franchises of the era.
‘Looney Tunes: Back in Action’ (May 31)
One of the more baffling mysteries of our time is how “Space Jam” — a crass, witless, lead-footed feature-length commercial spot — has become a beloved family favorite while this follow-up, a superior Looney Tunes feature by every conceivable measure, is consigned to oblivion. But it’s a blast, with the director Joe Dante (whose “Gremlins” pictures were clearly informed by the controlled chaos of Bugs and Daffy) masterfully orchestrating the lunacy. Steve Martin goes for broke as the dastardly villain.
‘My Girl’ (May 31)
When this gentle coming-of-age drama was released in 1991, its makers had to contend with an unforeseen complication: the global stardom of Macaulay Culkin, who had shot his supporting role before the release of “Home Alone” and whose fate in the film overwhelmed the response to it (to put it mildly). It has taken years to refocus on the charming picture around him, and especially on the wonderful lead performance by Anna Chlumsky — years (and worlds) away from her delightfully foul-mouthed work on “Veep.”
‘The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!’ (May 31)
The final full-fledged collaboration between Jerry Zucker, Jim Abrahams and David Zucker — the manic comic madmen behind “Airplane!” and “Top Secret” — was this 1988 feature-length expansion of their short-lived but uproarious 1982 TV series, “Police Squad!” Sending up the voluminous clichés of hard-nosed action movies like “Dirty Harry” and “Telefon,” “The Naked Gun” (and its 1991 sequel, also leaving Netflix this month) solidified Leslie Nielsen’s standing as the straight-faced king of spoof movies, and the ZAZ team’s mastery of the mile-a-minute gagfest.
‘Outbreak’ (May 31)
Wolfgang Petersen’s 1995 thriller has become a rather ghoulish object of fervid rewatching over the past couple of months, dealing as it does with the attempted stifling of a deadly, contagious virus. If “Contagion” has proved the meticulously researched, uncomfortably realistic prediction of our new normal, this is the slick, easy “Hollywood” version. But it’s undeniably effective — particularly a harrowing early sequence dramatizing the virus’s easy spread in, of all places, a crowded movie theater. See you at the multiplex in, say, 2022?
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11 Great Movies and Shows Leaving Netflix in May - The New York Times
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