Plenty of new to Peacock movies are arriving in September 2023, including a wide selection of horror movies as spooky season gets underway. As always, Peacock draws extensively from corporate sibling Universal, which is especially helpful in offering classic monster movies. Not all of those movies are classics, of course, and the sheer amount of new movies on Peacock every month can be daunting to navigate.
So why not let critics navigate for you? Here are seven of this month’s new to Peacock movies with ratings of 90% or higher on Rotten Tomatoes, the site that aggregates reviews from movie critics. They all get the highest stamp of approval from the people who know movies best.
The Birds
Alfred Hitchcock’s contribution to the animal-attack horror subgenre is no cheesy pun-filled romp. It’s one of the master of suspense’s greatest movies, a chilling examination of what happens when nature turns against humans without warning. It could also be viewed as the psychosexual exploration of the mind of a troubled woman, seemingly vibrant socialite Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren). After meeting lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) in a San Francisco pet store, she follows him to his family home in the small town of Bodega Bay, where birds soon start behaving very strangely.
As the birds become more aggressive toward humans, the characters’ relationships and mental states break down as well. Hitchcock depicts this mayhem methodically, forgoing a musical score to emphasize the stark isolation of the human inhabitants of Bodega Bay. The attacks and the emotional toll they take are both terrifying.
Genre: Horror
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 94%
Stream on Peacock
Chicken Run
With a sequel set to premiere on Netflix in December, now is the perfect time to catch up on this delightful animated comedy from stop-motion studio Aardman. This was Aardman’s first feature-film effort following the popular Wallace and Gromit shorts, and it captures the same dry British wit along with a family-friendly story about chickens who are desperate to escape from captivity on a farm in the English countryside.
Directors Nick Park and Peter Lord tell a fun, fast-paced story that recalls classic prison-break movies like Stalag 17 and The Great Escape, reimagined to apply to life on a chicken farm. Determined leader Ginger (Julia Sawalha) pins her hopes on American rooster Rocky (Mel Gibson), who crashes into the farm and claims that he can teach the chickens to fly. The creative, detailed animation mixes with clever humor for a satisfying comedic adventure.
Genre: Animation
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%
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Get Out
Jordan Peele made a bold transition from comedy to horror with his acclaimed directorial debut. There’s still plenty of humor in this movie starring Daniel Kaluuya as Black photographer Chris, who notices something seriously amiss when he travels to an upscale suburb in upstate New York to meet the family of his white girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams). Peele satirizes the condescending perspective of wealthy white self-described liberals when faced with actual people of color, and the movie takes that patronizing attitude to a terrifying new outcome.
Peele draws on horror classics like The Stepford Wives and The Wicker Man, delivering effective scares along with modern social commentary. He deconstructs horror conventions while also smartly making use of them to tell an urgent, scathing contemporary story.
Genre: Horror
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 98%
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Ghostbusters
Over the years, Ghostbusters has grown into a major franchise, with an expansive legacy and an intricate mythology, but the original movie is best appreciated as a goofy supernatural comedy without such grand ambitions. Whether they’re fighting supernatural forces or just casually riffing, comedy legends Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis are a joy to watch together. Their chemistry is what elevates Ghostbusters to classic status, and the lore about the looming end of the world is just a bonus.
Joined by Ernie Hudson, the stars play a team of paranormal investigators tackling an infestation of spectral entities in New York City. The ghosts themselves are more silly than scary, including the green menace known as Slimer and the giant dessert mascot the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. They fit in perfectly with the sardonic humor.
Genre: Comedy
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95%
Stream on Peacock
United 93
September is the appropriate month to revisit filmmaker Paul Greengrass’ sobering drama about the hijacking of United Airlines Flight 93 on September 11, 2001. With documentary-style immediacy, Greengrass works hard to recreate the events of that day as closely as possible, only filling in necessary gaps when records aren’t available. The result is a movie that places the audience right alongside the passengers and flight and ground crew as terrorists take over the plane and attempt to crash it into a U.S. federal building.
Greengrass assiduously avoids sensationalizing any aspect of the tragedy, instead focusing on procedural details and the resolve of the passengers who were able to avert a more substantial loss of life by fighting back against the hijackers. The movie serves as a reminder of quiet heroism in the face of unimaginable danger.
Genre: Drama
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%
Stream on Peacock
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