Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

5 shows to stream this week: classic blockbusters, and a unique comedy special

Online streaming is bigger than ever, and with so many streaming services adding new shows and movies every week, it can be nearly impossible to sort through the good and the bad. If you need something to watch and don’t want to wade through the endless sea of digital muck that washes up on the internet’s shores, follow our picks below for the best new shows and movies worth a watch.

This week, ’90s films Jurassic Park and Independence Day find their way online, Bo Burnham returns with a new special, and a comedian with only a year to live gets his shot at the stage.

Recommended Videos

Jurassic Park

jurassic park image
Image used with permission by copyright holder

At the time of its release, Steven Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster Jurassic Park stunned audiences with its advanced CGI. Time hasn’t dulled it’s brilliance one bit. If you’re unfamiliar with this classic, the film begins with eccentric billionaire John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) showing off his dinosaur-themed park on a remote island. To certify to investors that the park is safe, Hammond invites paleontologist Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and biologist Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) to tour the island. To Grant and Sattler’s shock, the dinosaurs on the island are real, cloned from blood found in fossilized mosquitoes. Their wonder turns to fear, however, when a tropical storm hits and a saboteur knocks out the power. Although its dinosaurs may not shock modern audiences the way they did in the ’90s, Jurassic Park holds up as one of the great summer blockbusters, with a perfect blend of action, humor, and humanity.

Amazon Netflix

Bo Burnham: Make Happy

bo burnham make happy
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Bo Burnham’s career is a Cinderella story for the internet age. After posting some musical performances online, Burnham became an overnight celebrity. Many internet sensations fizzle out after cashing in on their fame, but Burnham has built a solid career out of his distinct blend of music and comedy. His latest special, Make Happy, finds the performer a little older and a little more reflective, meditating on the nature of celebrity and performance. It’s not all dour; Burnham’s comedy veers often into the absurd, like a ballad about the problems of being a straight, white man in America. Music and comedy are tough to balance, but Burnham walks that tightrope deftly; his songs are funny, catchy, and even a little poignant from time to time.

Netflix

Love & Mercy

love and mercy image
Lionsgate

Although Beatles vs. Stones is one of the most famous pop culture debates, it’s largely a creation of fans and observers; The Beatles’ real musical rivalry was with Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys, as the two groups consciously tried to one-up each other’s advances in production and songwriting. Wilson’s masterstroke was Pet Sounds, a baroque art rock album that changed the rules of pop music. The biopic Love & Mercy covers two periods of Wilson’s life: the recording of Pet Sounds in the ’60s, when a young Wilson (Paul Dano) was experimenting with production techniques and drugs, and the ’80s, when an older Wilson (John Cusack) is heavily medicated and under the care of his domineering psychiatrist (Paul Giamatti). Jumping back and forth between the two periods, the film chronicles Wilson’s brilliant creative process, his fall into mental illness, and his attempt to recover control of his life.

Amazon

Independence Day

independence day image
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The ’90s was a great era for big-budget spectacle films, a trend that started with Jurassic Park and reached its cheesy-yet-brilliant apex in Independence Day. The film opens on July 2, 1996, as an alien mothership appears in Earth’s orbit. Before long, the aliens attack, devastating most of the world’s great cities and leaving the survivors — including an Air Force pilot (Will Smith), a computer scientist (Jeff Goldblum), and the President of the United states (Bill Pullman) — to fight back. There’s not much in the way of character development or great writing in Independence Day, but to be fair, that’s not what it aims for. It’s two hours of explosive and weirdly patriotic set pieces, a relic from a time before unique blockbusters gave way to the rise of shared universes and sequel after sequel. The film comes to HBO (not so coincidentally) right before its long awaited sequel, Independence Day: Resurgence, hits theaters.

Amazon HBO

Quincy Jones: Burning the Light

quincy jones image
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The background story for Quincy Jones’s first (and probably only) comedy special is about as far from funny as possible. An aspiring comedian, Jones was diagnosed with terminal cancer. His friends started a Kickstarter to raise money for a stand-up special, and they got a boost when Ellen Degeneres picked up their story and promoted it. The finished product, Burning the Light, features an unsurprising amount of gallows humor, such as Jones joking that celiac disease would be a worse diagnosis because gluten-free pasta is awful. Jones’s delivery is confident, and the material varied enough that the special never gets bogged down in talk of death.

HBO

Will Nicol
Will Nicol is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends. He covers a variety of subjects, particularly emerging technologies, movies…
One of the best TVs ever made is below $2,000, and comes with expert delivery
Panasonic Z95A

When you look through our current list of the best TVs, there are exactly two TVs that should stand out to you, even if you're a casual skimmer. The first is the Sony A95L QD-OLED, simply because it is at the top of the list. The second is the Panasonic Z95A, not because it's the runner-up (which it is) but because it's... Panasonic. It's just not a brand we see making winning TVs, but wow, what a winner the Z95A is. We immediately called it one of the best TVs ever made, something that will be apparent to your eyes if you get it. Now, what's exciting about this TV right now is that it has a low price. You can get the 65-inch version of the TV for $1,998 right now, a savings of over $1,200 off its usual $3,200 price point. You can even get a deluxe delivery and unpack for free if you select the right option on the sales page (accessible by tapping the button below). But, this deal has been around for some time now, since around the start of summer. With Prime Day here and ending soon, it's very likely the time for this deal to end as well. If you want one of the best TVs ever for under $2,000, be sure to tap the button below now.

$1,998 at Amazon

Read more
An amazing TV under $1,000 has a sub $500 Prime Day price (and it’s ending soon)
TCL QM6K

We're now in the final moments of Amazon's summer Prime Day 2025 event, and finding critical last-minute deals. Here's one that almost fundamentally changes how you'll likely think about a product. See, we have a whole list of the best TVs under $1,000, a price point that a ton of people that love TVs just don't feel comfortable crossing. Then, we have a separate list for budget TVs, the best TVs under $500. Even though prices (which move up and down!) are quantitative data points, the differences between a sub $1,000 and a sub $500 TV feel almost categorical in nature, like the difference between water and steam. This deal take the $600 55-inch TCL QM6K (one of the TVs in our 'under $1,000' list) and pushes its price down by $152. This puts it at a price of $448, which is an all time low for it on Amazon, transforms it into an 'under $500' TV. Tap the button below to get the transformative deal while Prime Day is still here or continue reading to see why we liked it so much even when it was over $500.

$448 at Amazon

Read more
Our favorite soundbar is 41% off for Prime Day, but time is running out
Samsung HW-Q990D Dolby Atmos Soundbar.

There are a lot of soundbar deals that are still available as we approach the end of Prime Day, but this is the one that you should target -- the Samsung HW-Q990D with a huge 41% discount from Amazon, slashing its price from $1,998 all the way down to just $1,178. It's still expensive, but if you want to make an investment to dramatically improve your home theater setup's audio, you shouldn't miss this chance at $820 in savings. You have to hurry though, as there are only a few hours left before the shopping event closes.

$1,178 at Amazon

Read more