40 of the best movies on Stan in 2022

In the face of immense competition in a crowded market, Australian streaming service Stan has managed to hold its own.

Thanks mostly to some outstanding streaming deals with MGM and Starz, the local streaming provider has managed to nab entire streaming catalogues from some of history’s biggest franchises, so there's plenty of good movies on Stan to sink your teeth into.

All this is to say, Stan is currently home to an absurd number of top-shelf movies but with over 1,300 films ready to stream (and loads of great TV shows too), it can be difficult to settle on just one. We’ve rounded up our picks for the very best movies on Stan.

In this Australian-made Stan exclusive, Emily Mortimer (Shutter Island) and Bella Heathcoate (Fifty Shades Darker) play a mother and daughter returning to the family home in rural Melbourne to look for the family’s missing grandmother, Edna. Upon the aging Matriarch’s return, the three generations of women are stalked by what seems to be a paranormal force.

Relic is the most exciting Australian horror since 2014’s breakout hit Babadook and it’s only streaming on Stan.

Thanks to this musical I know exactly how many minutes are in a year, should it ever come up in pub trivia (525,600 in case you were wondering). Rent the movie is based on Rent the musical, which is based on Puccini’s opera La Boheme. Yeah, there’s a bit of Rent-ception going on.

Set in 90s New York, a group of eclectic, struggling artists try their best to create art in a harsh world that says suits are more valuable in society than songs. There are bills to pay, homeless communities being torn down to make way for fancy schmancy apartments, as well as the heartbreaking realities of the AIDS crisis during that time. Despite the heavy themes it’s got a cracking rock opera soundtrack and was the breakthrough role for Idina Menzel, who you may now know as Elsa from Frozen.

This poignant slow burner will have you reaching for the tissues.

Sam and Tusker are travelling through England in their RV, visiting friends, looking at the stars and enjoying life as they know it… because it’s all about to change. With gorgeous performances from both Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth, SuperNova will have you sobbing into the laps of your nearest and dearest telling them how much you love them.

The less said about the plot for Kill List, the better.

Ben Wheatley’s (Sightseers) thriller is not for the faint of heart and ends up somewhere you will not see coming. It starts out as a fairly run-of-the-mill crime flick with some family drama thrown in but as you edge your way to the movie’s thrilling climax, things take a hard-left into a completely different territory.

Midsommar isn't the only "elevated horror" (also called art horror or prestige horror) films to hit in recent years, but it's one of the best.

Starring Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, Will Poulter and William Jackson Harper, the film follows on a handful of friends who travel to Sweden to experience a local midsummer festival. While Midsommar doesn't have the sheer shock value of Hereditary, Ari Aster's follow-up is just as visually powerful and emotionally meaty.

If you’ve been living on a remote Antarctic research station for the last 40 years you might not have heard of The Thing. This sci-fi horror classic follows Kurt Russell’s pragmatic helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady in a paranoid fight for survival. When a body-snatching alien begins assimilating the crew of a snowed-in research lab, MacReady quickly learns to shoot first and ask questions later as it becomes increasingly apparent that anyone could be… The Thing. 

Despite its age, The Thing remains one of the best horror movies of all time. Even if grotesque body horror isn’t your idea of a good time, Kurt Russel’s iconic beard will be.

We hate to say we told you so, but we’ve been championing Parasite ever since we first had the pleasure of seeing Bong Joon-ho’s masterpiece back in June 2019 at the Sydney Film Festival. It wasn’t until the film became the first non-English film to take Best Picture at the 2020 Academy Awards that the rest of the world started to pay attention.

Parasite refuses to be lumped into any one genre. One minute it’s a feel-good family comedy, in the next it’s a clever Ocean’s 11-style heist flick, and in the next, it’s a shocking and brutal thriller. One thing’s for certain, Parasite is the quintessential “less you know the better” film. Go in completely blind and you’ll have the ride of your life.

If you absolutely must know what all the fuss is about, we’ve explained it a little more here.

Welcome to the completely bonkers world of director David Lynch, where nothing much makes sense and you just gotta roll with it. Mulholland Drive is an excellent foray into surrealism and serves more as a series of vignettes than a linear storyline with a clear plot.

Did you love Lynch’s ‘90s series Twin Peaks? Great, this’ll be right up your alley. Do you prefer your movies to have a clear start, middle and end with a neat resolution? Ahh, give this a go anyway. You might find you enjoy a bit of surrealism after all. And Naomi Watts is really, really good in it.

Zed might be dead, baby, but don’t let that spoiler stop you from re-watching Tarantino’s quotable classic. Pulp Fiction interconnected character vignettes and cracking dialogue have stood the test of time.

While we edge ever closer to Tarantino’s 10th and final film (and a future of Tarantino novels, apparently), there’s never a bad time to slowly work your way through the director’s library of classic films. Stan actually has a fair few of his best, including Jackie Brown and Kill Bill 1 and 2.

You’ll be razzle dazzled with this impeccable musical starring Catherine Zeta Jones and Renee Zellweger. It’s got jazz, fishnets, murder - all the things that really make a musical.

Roxy Hart dreams of a life of more. Bored of her humdrum existence, she wants to perform on stage in the bars and jazz clubs just like her idol Velma Kelly. But when Velma ends up in jail for killing her husband and sister, Roxy never dreamed she’d end up right beside her for shooting dead her lover. But with the notoriously charming Billy Flynn (played by the equally charming Richard Gere) as her lawyer, Roxy hatches a scheme to get her out of the big house, and rise to fame at the same time.

I put off watching The Gift for the ages because Joel Edgerton’s goatee on the poster made me uncomfortable. I was a fool to wait so long.

Edgerton’s directorial debut is a fresh take on the psycho-stalker genre that has you questioning each character up until the very last moments. It’s made all the more gripping thanks to the unnerving performances of its three leads: Jason Bateman and Rebecca Hall as the picture-perfect suburban couple and Joel Edgerton as the disconcerting blast from the past, Gordo.

At times, the Stephen Knight-directed Locke feels like less a feature film and more of a stage play.  A suspense thriller set inside a single vehicle, the film stars Tom Hardy as a construction manager forced to reckon with the simultaneous unraveling of this personal and professional lives over the course of a single 90 minute road trip.

Coming off the back of The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan's Inception was probably always going to be a hit, but the cultural staying power of the director's mind heist thriller remains impressive even today.

Even if you're tired of hearing hot takes about the ending, there's still plenty to like Inception in 2022. The cast remains electric, the imagery is inventive and dynamic and Leonardo DiCaprio's central performance continues to propel this philosophically-weighted action flick forward.

This tongue-in-cheek documentary explores the grassroots movement behind The Satanic Temple, their noble fight against government corruption, and the organisation’s eventual global following.

Hail Satan? is only funny because its subjects, the movement’s most influential figures, allow it to be. This isn’t poking fun at the Satanists, quite the opposite. Hail Satan? feels like a rallying cry, if anything. When the credits roll, you might find yourself Googling your closest chapter of The Satanic Temple.

Navigating Louis Theroux’s documentaries can be a bit tumultuous; there are the generally curious explorations of interesting subcultures, then there are the darker deep-dives into the grittier side of modern society.

Choose carefully.

Stan currently has the Weird Weekend series, America’s Most Dangerous Pets, By Reason of Insanity, My Scientology Movie and many more.

Five years before he directed the best modern Star Wars movie, The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson had his sci-fi debut with Looper. 

In Looper, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a young Bruce Willis hunting down a… now Bruce Willis in this time-hopping action flick where time travel has become so commonplace, it has become a tool for black market smuggling and racketeering. Gordon-Levitt’s Joe is one of the titular Loopers, hitmen contracted by a crime syndicate in the future to assassinate targets who are sent back in time. For the Loopers who survive long enough into the future, there comes a time where they’re final contract is assassinating their future self, effectively ‘closing the loop.’ This is where we find Gordon-Levitt’s Joe at the start of the movie but his future self (Bruce Willis) refuses to go down without a fight.

Like most time travel movies, it’s best not to get to invested in how it all works. Just strap yourself in and enjoy the ride.

While the more-recent and female-led Ocean's Eight is available on Binge and Amazon Prime Video, the 2001 Ocean's Eleven and its two sequels (Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen) can be found on Stan. Featuring an all-star ensemble cast led by George Clooney at his most charismatic, the three films are iconic for good reason. 

2011's The Raid is fast becoming a cult classic among action movie fans for good reason. The grisly thriller has a simple set up with a violent punchline. A group of cops walk into a labyrinthine apartment complex with orders to take out the ruthless crime lord inside or die trying.

Before spin-offs like HBO's What We Do In The Shadows and Wellington Paranormal, there was this New Zealand mockumentary. Set in Wellington and starring Taika Waititi, Jonny Brugh and Jemaine Clement, What We Do In The Shadows is a riotous romp on the supernatural side of life.

This shagadelic romp might not seem very re-watchable but if you give it a chance, you’ll find that Mike Myers has still got what it takes to make you horny, baby.

Over the years, the Austin Powers series recycled the same old jokes ad-nauseam so you will no doubt see every gag and setup coming from a mile away but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable.

Based on the book of the same name and directed by Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street brings the high-stakes rise and fall of Jordan Belfort to life. It's a larger than life white collar crime caper with a tremendous performance by Leonardo DiCaprio to anchor it. What's not to like?

There was a time when Eddie Murphy’s rookie cop Axel Foley was the hottest fictional character in the world; we’re talking Marvel-tier fandom long before the Avengers existed. And it’s easy to see why. This is Eddie Murphy in his prime. His comedic timing and acting chops on display in Beverly Hills Cop are worlds apart from his later family-friendly fare, like The Nutty Professor and Dr Dolittle.

If you were too young to be part of the zeitgeist at the time, do yourself a favour and check it out but be warned, there’s a reason the infectious theme song was number one internationally in 1985 and dominated the ringtone scene in the Nokia 3310’s heyday.

Armando Iannucci (Veep and In The Loop) hits it out the park again with this satirical retelling of Joseph Stalin’s last days. Come for the premise and Iannucci’s razor-sharp dialogue, stay for the truly hilarious performances of Steve Buscemi and Jason Isaacs.

Long before he took a swing at the MCU with Thor: Ragnarok, or sunk his teeth into vampire lore with What We Do in the Shadows, Taika Waititi melted hearts with Boy.

Boy is a comedy that isn’t out-and-out silly like What We Do in the Shadows, rather more akin to Waititi’s more recent work Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Both are set in New Zealand, but they’re also some of the director’s more tearjerky films. Released back in 2010, Boy tells the story of a young Māori kid who idolises his estranged father, Alamein (and Michael Jackson). Initially overjoyed when Alamein (played by Waititi) returns home from prison, Boy soon discovers that the legend he manufactured in his mind doesn’t quite match up with reality.

It took almost twenty years for George Miller to bring the fourth Mad Max film to life, but the wait was worth it. A film of few words, Fury Road is basically one long car chase with Max Rockatansky (Tom Hardy) and Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) forced into an uneasy alliance as the pair flee across the desert, leaving mayhem in their wake.

Packed with notable initialisms, TWBB (There Will Be Blood) features the dynamic actor/director duo PTA (Paul Thomas Anderson) and DDL (Daniel Day-Lewis). PTA’s masterpiece begins at the turn of the 19th century, where one man’s ruthless quest for fortune in the explosive oil mining industry puts the lives of those working for him and against him at risk. It features one of the best performances from one of the best actors in the industry.

Starring Keanu Reeves as the titular assassin, John Wick is a visually kenetic and violently inventive action thriller that never lets up. With three sequels so far, the tale of John Wick is far from over, but Stan is the place to go if you're looking to see how the series got its start.

You come into my house on the day my daughter is to be married, and you ask me to binge all three The Godfather movies back-to-back on Stan? Yeah, sounds good.

Look, if you’re like us, you’ve spent the last 20 years nodding in silent agreement whenever people discuss what is widely considered one of the best movie franchises of all time, keeping the knowledge that you’ve never actually seen it sacred. Spare yourself the pain and give the series a watch. At the very least you can form your own opinion instead of clamming up and redirecting the conversation to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. 

Directed by Joe Cornish and starring John Boyega, Nick Frost and Jodie Whittaker, Attack the Block is a lighthearted and lean adventure-comedy that follows a group of street-savvy teens forced to become unlikely heroes after aliens crash land in a London housing project. It's a scrappy premise elevated to unexpected highs in the hands of a talented cast.

Samson and Delilah is a story about young love and surviving the odds that follows two Indigenous Australian 14-years olds as they elope to Alice Springs. This is an early one from Warwick Thornton, who went on to direct Sweet Country and The Sapphires.

Before the beefed-up action stars of the 2000s, there was a different kind of leading man. The floppy-haired wise guy. And none played a better floppy-haired wise guy than Brendan Fraser.

Fraser’s most recognisable role in the late 90s was Rick O’Connell, a roguish adventurer with a knack for vexing the reanimated high priest Imhotep across three films. The Mummy follows Rick, and the scholarly Carnahan siblings (Rachel Weisz and John Hannah), in a quest to escape the clutches of decaying Egyptian warriors and scores of flesh-eating scarab beetles. It offers plenty of chuckles and some genuinely thrilling chase sequences (like Imhotep’s tidal wave of sand) that hold up to this day.

The best Bond film. Don't fight me on this.

Based on the graphic novel by Mark Millar and directed by Matthew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class, Kingsmen), Kick-Ass is a irreverent and Tarantino-esque riff on the super hero formula that follows Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) as a teenage who decides to become a costumed vigilante and start fighting crime.

“Indiana Jones. I always knew someday you’d come walking back through my door. I never doubted that. Something made it inevitable.”

That’s right sports fans, everyone’s favourite wise-cracking, whip-snapping archaeologist has been excavated by Stan. You can catch all three movies starring the hunkiest, spelunkiest rogue to ever swing onto screens: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, The Last Crusade.

There’s also something called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Not too sure what that is but we can’t wait to find out.

While the most recent installment of the Vin Diesel-led action series has yet to make it to any Australian streaming services, those looking to catch up, rewatch or introduce the franchise to a friend will be able to find most of the earlier Fast & Furious films on Stan.

Another fish-out-of-water assassin story, Leon: The Professional follows French hitman Leon Montana (Jean Reno). The lone wolf becomes the unwitting guardian and eventual mentor for 12-year old Mathilda (Natalie Portman).

It’s not often the Coen Brothers release a movie with a completely straight face. Even some of their darkest films, such as Fargo, have a sense of humour. That’s what makes movies like No Country For Old Men so fascinating. It’s often easy to forget that these brutal dramas are from the same minds that brought us O Brother, Where Art Thou?

True Grit is one of those serious Coen Brother movies. It paints a harsh, unrelenting landscape with deeply flawed characters. It stars a young Hailee Steinfeld who crashed onto the scene, earning herself an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress at just 13 years old.

It only took nearly 30 years, but in 2020, the Wyld Stallyns finally got the band back together for Bill and Ted Face the Music with Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves reprising their roles as the titular time-travelling rock stars.

A lot’s changed for Bill and Ted in the 30 years since their Bogus Journey in 1991. For starters, they are both parents to two excellent daughters, Thea Preston (Samara Weaving) and Billie Logan (Brigette Lundy-Paine), secondly, time and space will collapse unless the Wyld Stallyns can write a “prophesied song” that will save the universe from collapse. In short, they’ve got a lot on their plate.

If you’re a little fatigued by the endless stream of reboots and revivals hitting screens, we urge you to give Bill and Ted Face the Music a chance. It’s a heart-warming and hilarious family-friendly flick that will have you grinning from ear to ear.

We can only vouch for the first two in the series but all three Shrek flicks are available to stream on Stan. Great news for fans of the big, green guy.

Shrek released around the time DVDs and DVD players were starting to become more affordable, so many a weekend was spent committing the lyrics to the Shrek in the Swamp Karaoke Dance Party to memory. It would have been an utter nightmare for all parents involved. Luckily for them, Stan doesn’t include the special features.

I mean, seriously, don’t even question me on this. Just re-watch The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie.