July is for the blockbusters. By the end of the month, three of the biggest movies of the year will be in theaters. These include Jurassic World Rebirth, Superman, and The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Both Jurassic World and Superman are well on their way to making half a billion dollars. Early tracking suggests Fantastic Four will do the same.
The three underrated movies below will not be box office juggernauts. Some are bypassing theaters and premiering directly on streaming. Two of the three are documentaries, including the terrific Jaws @ 50, which details the making of the seminal shark thriller. View the rest of our picks below.
Last month, Jaws celebrated its 50th anniversary. Steven Spielberg’s horror about a shark terrorizing a beach town remains one of the greatest and most influential blockbusters in cinematic history. The not-so-secret thing about Jaws is the troubled production that destroyed the film. After hearing some of the stories about the rough, it’s a miracle the movie made it to theaters.
For the anniversary, director Laurent Bouzereau takes fans behind the scenes of the masterpieceand its impact on Hollywood in Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story. The documentary features interviews with those who worked on the shoot, including Spielberg, and the long line of filmmakers it inspired, including James Cameron, Steven Soderbergh, and George Lucas. Jaws @ 50 is a must-watch for anyone who loves the making of movies and the drama behind the camera.
Stream Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story on Hulu.
On the list of least likely actors to headline a horror movie, Pete Davidson has to be near the top. The SNL veteran has been making audiences laugh for over a decade. However, in The Home, a psychological horror film from The Purge creator James DeMonaco, Davidson is venturing beyond his familiar territory. Davidson plays Max, a hardened twentysomething assigned to work in a retirement home to satisfy his community service requirements. Max’s job is to clean the entire home except for the forbidden fourth floor.
After noticing strange occurrences, Max takes a risk and heads to the fourth floor. What he discovers is a sinister secret he wasn’t supposed to learn. The trailer teases supernatural elements with body horror, but the real reason to watch is to see if Davidson has the range to thrive in this genre.
The Home opens in theaters on July 25, 2025.
Remember when Facebook events meant something? In 2019, Matty Roberts had an idea: What if people stormed Area 51? Roberts jokingly created the event, “Storm Area 51, They Can’t Stop All of Us,” to “see them aliens.” Little did Roberts know that his Facebook event would attract millions of people to RSVP. Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 recounts how an Internet meme became a worldwide phenomenon.
Despite being warned by the government, thousands of people showed up to music festivals in the area, and 150 people even made it to the gates of Area 51. The government can’t stop them all … or can they?
Stream Trainwreck: Storm Area 51 starting July 29 on Netflix.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.