The Most Streamed Movies in May

“Moana” is a Disney+ animation film about self-discovery, as an indigenous teenage girl sets out on a sea journey to save her people, with the help of a demigod named Maui. Enroute, Moana fulfills her quest for her ancestors and discovers something about herself. Auli’i Cravalho is the voice of Moana, while Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson voices Maui. The film holds a 95% Freshness rating among Rotten Tomatoes critics.

High-octane heist thriller starred Gerard Butler has a hard-drinking commander of an elite Los Angeles crime-fighting unit trying to stop a gang of military veterans leveraging their tactical skill to to hold up LA’s Federal Reserve Bank. Rotten Tomatoes critics found the caper flick lacking, though audiences liked it more.

Steven Spielberg’s spellbinding and often harrowing retelling of H.G. Wells’ classic sci-fi novel has Tom Cruise doing all he can to keep his family safe from alien destruction. Dakota Fanning played his daughter, and fans of the 1953 version of the film will recognize Gene Barry, the star of the earlier motion picture, at the end of the reboot.

The history of America from the 1950s through the 1970s is told through the experiences of a slow-witted man from Alabama who encounters celebrities of the day, serves in the Vietnam War, and inspires people with his optimism. The film was a blockbuster, grossing more than $330 million, and earning six Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.

“Kung Fu Panda 3,” the second sequel in the franchise, featured the voices of Jack Black, Bryan Cranston, Dustin Hoffman and J.K. Simmons. Black voiced Po, a fun-loving panda entrusted with instructing oafish, younger pandas in martial arts to battle a supernatural warrior (Simmons). Rotten Tomatoes critics awarded the movie with an 86% score.

It’s not too surprising that the scores of critics and audiences diverge on the most recent addition to the Rambo franchise. While critics dismissed the film’s excessive violence with a 27% Tomatometer rating, audiences gave it an 81% thumbs-up. In the fifth film of the series, Vietnam War vet John Rambo fights the Mexican cartel to find his young niece who was kidnapped.

Director/writer Guy Ritchie has mined the gangster genre frequently (“Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” “Snatch”), and “The Gentlemen” is his latest effort. In this film, American expat Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConnaughey) discovers that getting out of his lucrative marijuana business in London is more complicated than he thought. The movie also starred Charlie Hunnam and Michelle Dockery.

“Turning Red” was another triumph for the animators at Pixar, with Rotten Tomatoes critics awarding the film a score of 94%. The movie is about a 13-year-old balancing duty and respect to parents with the fun chaos of her teen years. All of which is made more complicated by the fact that she’s turned into a red panda.

Tommy Lee Jones returns as U.S. marshal Sam Gerard, whom we remember as the relentless pursuer of Harrison Ford’s Dr. Richard Kimball in “The Fugitive.” This time Gerard is tasked with tracking down Mark Sheridan (Wesley Snipes), accused of a double murder that Gerard doubts he committed. Rotten Tomatoes critics said the film paled in comparison to “The Fugitive.”

The most-streamed movie was Disney’s “Encanto,” clocking in at 449 million minutes. The animated film, about an enchanted town in Colombia, was one of the biggest hits in 2021, as the movie industry recovered from the impact of the pandemic. Critics and audiences alike on Rotten Tomatoes awarded the movie a score of at least 91%, buoyed by the songs of Lin Manuel Miranda.