The new movies on Peacock change so often that it can be a real challenge to catch the underappreciated gems before they leave just as quickly as they arrived. Peacock also tends to favor its newest movies over some of the classic titles that deserve more love. That’s why we’ve put together this list of the three underrated movies on Peacock that you need to watch in February.
Our choices this month include a Civil War film that is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year, as well as a rom-com in honor of Valentine’s Day, and a twisty crime thriller with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen.
Glory (1989)
Training Day may be one of Denzel Washington‘s most famous movies, but it wasn’t the first film for which he earned an Oscar for his performance. Washington won Best Supporting Actor for his turn in Glory as Private Silas Trip, a soldier in one of the first all-Black regiments in the Union Army during the Civil War. Matthew Broderick stars as Robert Gould Shaw, a Union officer who is promoted Colonel as the leader of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment.
Over time, Shaw comes to truly admire the men under his command, including Trip, Sergeant Major John Rawlins (Morgan Freeman), and Corporal Thomas Searles (the late Andre Braugher, who is reliably great). Shaw is also forced to confront the racism among his fellow Union officers while winning the trust of the men under his command. This film is based on a true story and shows there are no happy endings in war.
Watch Glory on Peacock.
The Five-Year Engagement (2012)
While 2012 was not a lifetime ago, it was long enough for the supporting cast of The Five-Year Engagement to become bigger stars in their own right. Good luck getting Chris Pratt, Alison Brie, Mindy Kaling, Kevin Hart, Randall Park, Dakota Johnson, and Kumail Nanjiani to ever play such minor supporting characters again. But in this film, they are all secondary to Jason Segel’s Tom Solomon and Emily Blunt’s Violet Barnes.
When the story begins, Tom and Violet are already happily engaged. But their impending nuptials are overshadowed when Violet’s sister, Suzie (Brie), rushes to get married to Tom’s best friend, Alex (Pratt). From there, Tom agrees to put his dreams of being a head chef and their marriage on hold so Violet can enter a post-doctorate psychology program. This puts an extraordinary amount of pressure on their relationship, and forces Tom and Violet to question whether they should stay together.
Watch The Five-Year Engagement on Peacock.
Duplicity (2009)
You don’t have to take notes during Duplicity, but you definitely have to pay attention to realize who’s conning who. Julia Roberts and Clive Owen lead the cast as CIA officer Clare Stenwick and MI5 agent Ray Koval, respectively. After a brief fling years earlier, Clare and Ray reunite as they leave the world of international security behind to embrace life in corporate espionage.
It turns out that Clare and Ray’s new profession is just as cutthroat as their old one, and even they aren’t prepared for the lengths their new employers will go to protect their secrets and smoke out any informants. Clare and Ray thought they knew everything about the spy game, but they’re about to get a rude awakening.
Watch Duplicity on Peacock.
