At the beginning of (and during) every month, Showtime adds new movies and TV shows to its library. We figure you might want to know about them. For more comprehensive coverage of the best titles available on Showtime and elsewhere, check out Vulture’s What to Stream Now hub, which is updated throughout the month.
The horror, the horror: Penny Dreadful (Season 3)
If there’s one thing that’s certain about the future of Showtime’s Victorian horror drama, it’s that there will be a lot of gore, and probably just as much weird sex. But with that as the baseline, the Eva Green and Josh Hartnett vehicle could really go anywhere. And hey, Showtime posted the first episode already. Premieres May 1.
Quirky delights: The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Wes Anderson riffs on J.D. Salinger’s Glass clan with the story of three high-achieving kids from a deeply dysfunctional family reuniting with their estranged father. Anderson puts his mannered directorial style to good work in the film, which unpacks the family’s neurosis with all the assurance of a child prodigy diagramming sentences. Available May 1.
Yee-haw: 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
James Mangold tries his hand at a Western with Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, and Ben Foster. It’s a classic kind of setup, full of shoot-’em-ups, standoffs, horse riding, and trains, but it has more heart than your average cowboy flick. If you want a good yarn, here’s a good place to start. Available May 1.
Riding: The D Train (2015)
While trying to put together his high-school reunion, Jack Black makes that classic mistake we’ve all made — accidentally sleeping with James Marsden. Truly, it’s a risk we all face, every day of our lives, as Marsden’s chiseled majesty haunts our every waking moment. Be warned, if you fall into the trap, all you get is a moody comedy-drama in recompense. Available May 7.
Intolerable cruelty: The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015)
A dramatization of the infamous 1971 study that turned college students against each other in a simulation of a prison environment, this movie digs deep into the worst parts of human behavior. Director Kyle Patrick Alvarez keeps the film in the claustrophobic environment of the experiment, while the cast keeps the project from collapsing into total despair. As Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri put it, “They eke out some humanity from this most inhuman of stories.” Available May 14.
TELEVISION
Penny Dreadful (Season 3 Premiere) (May 1)
House of Lies (New Episodes) (Sundays)
Dice (New Episodes) (Sundays)
Brand: A Second Coming (2015) (May 6)
Just Let Go – Lenny Kravitz Live (2016) (May 13)
Stretch and Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives (2016) (May 18)
Brad Williams: Daddy Issues (2016) (May 20)
MOVIES
Lost in Translation (2003) (May 1)
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) (May 1)
Hot Rod (2007) (May 1)
Shaft (1971) (May 1)
3:10 to Yuma (2007) (May 1)
The D Train (2015) (May 7)
The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015) (May 14)
Good Kill (2014) (May 27)
