May 2026 Movies and TV Shows Ranked!

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]Summer is upon us. Another month has flown by. That means it's time to stop and rank all 15 May new movies and TV shows that I watched from the worst to the best.

[00:00:16]Hi, my name is Sean and I love to talk about movies and TV way too much. With that in mind, go ahead and join me down below in the comment section. Let me know your ranking of the May new movies and TV shows that you watched. Also, if I missed a movie or TV show that you think I would like, let me know about it down below in the comment section and maybe I can try and catch up on some of those things over the summer. With that said, let's get started. In last place, The Mandalorian and Grou. As a point of reference, I'm just a little bit busier this year than in previous years, so I'm doing a lot more self-filtering.

[00:00:48]If there's things I didn't think I would like that did look interesting to me, I just didn't watch them. So, while Mandalorian and Grou is in last place, there's almost certainly quite a few other things that came out this month that had I watched them would be below it, I just skipped them because I was pretty sure I wasn't going to like them.

[00:01:06]There was self-filtering leading to this movie being in last place. With that said, uh this is a very frustrating movie for me because I think it would have been a perfectly fine couple of episodes of the TV show The Mandalorian, but I don't understand why they decided to take something that worked on television, convert it over into a movie without elevating it in any sense to where it's just another romp. It's just another little adventure. It doesn't tie into a bigger story. There's not like big character moments. There's not big reveals, revelations, anything like that. It's just another weekly adventure. It could be a couple episodes of the show, two, three episodes of the show, edited it together. There's nothing to take it to the next level. Like, why did we promote this story to a movie rather than say, "Here's a big event of a story. Let's make it into the mo a movie." It's a It's a film that just inherently feels like television. And there's nothing wrong with television, but television is this. And a big screen movie is this.

[00:02:17]And to me, Star Wars movies should be special. They should feel like events as they did for the first 35 years of my life. And actually more than that. And Star Wars has gone from feeling like events to just episodes. And this is an extreme version of that because they literally just took a TV show and basically converted two, three episodes into a movie and did nothing to take it to any sort of higher level. I get to do a lot of things now that I couldn't do before. Create things that weren't possible to create before. I was always and I will be on this, but I've always been sort of at the limit of what is possible uh in terms of storytelling.

[00:03:01]>> I just don't understand why you would do that and not just keep it as a TV show or if you're going to make a movie, make it a movie with substance, weight, and ramifications.

[00:03:12]Why make a movie that's so inconsequential?

[00:03:16]14. Jack Ryan Ghost War. This one is kind of a little bit of the same sort of situation to where like Mandalorian and Grou, it's fine. Like I enjoy the nature of Mandalorian Grou. I like the nature, the vibe of Ghost War. Both of them delivered the same sort of experience that their TV shows delivered.

[00:03:40]But in both cases, it just feels like we gave a promotion to a TV show and gave it movie runtime without it actually feeling like it's that much bigger or substantial or meaningful. It's just the TV package with this with a movie runtime.

[00:04:00]I don't I don't get it. I I think that works in certain ways just a pinch better with Jack Ryan because that the nature of you can have a self-contained story in a way that fits that world a little bit better, but only a pinch better. Um, I still just feel like I I don't understand why we did this and didn't just make it another season of the show. And also in general, the this version, the John Krosinski version of Jack Ryan, they keep leaning into just making him a little bit too much of the action hero rather than the analyst.

[00:04:31]that's forced into action and he's always got the bulletproof vest and the machine gun and stuff like that and it takes away some of the distinctive of what makes Jack Ryan interesting and just makes him the another action hero that's not quite as um you know abrasive about it or whatever or man direct to get into action is a little bit more hesitant to do it.

[00:04:54]You know, I watched the movie just a couple weeks back, and there's just not much I remembered about it because it just felt like more Jack Ryan stuff, but just with less depth than normal.

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[00:06:30]See website for more details. 13. The Devil Wears Prada 2. I'd never seen the original The Devil Wears Prada until a week before I saw the new movie. So, I have no history with this franchise. The original um you know was a movie that get kind of lived up to the hype of being able to dive into a world that I wouldn't naturally be interested in and tell a compelling story about characters that you're invested in. The the sequel was good. It was nice to catch up with everyone.

[00:07:04]There's some fun to be back into that world, spending more time with the characters. I think it just kind of missed kind of some of those central ideas that were so potent in the original one of watching this person in pursuit of greatness kind of lose herself a little bit, but also discover herself a little bit. And that doesn't translate into the sequel because the character's already been on that journey and she's now established in life. And I didn't feel like they had a equally compelling arc for the second movie. So, it's like more time with the characters, more time in the world. There's the superficial fun, but it didn't have the substance, the heart of the original.

[00:07:41]12. Reckless. This is the latest Scott Atkins action film. And what's really fun about this one is that superficially speaking, it's designed to play from one perspective, like it's just another Scott Atkins revenge film about a guy that got out of prison and now he's out for revenge against all the people that set him up and put him to prison. But that's not what the movie's about. It's actually like this comedy of errors and misunderstandings that push him into that situation where everyone thinks that's the plot of what's happening this day, but it's not.

[00:08:19]And it's kind of designed to be like a mini version of a blending of Scott uh Scott Atkins action movie with kind of Guy Richie, early Guy Richie, underground crime humor, hyper stylized sort of stuff. There's a number of ways it does transitions and introduces characters that is very lively and colorful. And I was able to interview Scott Atkins about this movie and he got the original script for it. He was so excited about it because he was going to be working with Vinnie Jones a little bit. So, one more tied to The World of Guy Richie, but then he had his writing partner come in and intentionally make his character stupider.

[00:08:55]>> Um, and I I insisted that my writing partner's too small. rewrite it to make my character a complete and utter buffoon. Um because that's something that I just fancied having a crack at two bollocks.

[00:09:12]>> And that little touch I think really works in the film of it plays more like an overt comedy. Scott Atkins gets to play a lot funnier than normal, but you still get him kicking people in the face and shootouts and stuff like that. So, it's not like reinventing the action genre, but if you like Scott Atkins movies, it brings something new to the table by being a little bit more of a comedy and having that Guy Richie stylized flavor to it. It's also great to see, you know, Vinnie Jones, who's so fun in this genre as kind of a mob boss in it. So, just like a solid direct to video action. 11. Back Rooms, the movie that lit the box office on fire this weekend and a movie that is a perfect example of the kind of revolution that is currently taking place in the in Hollywood in viewer behavior in audience patterns where this is a true Gen Z movie. a movie made by someone that's like even on the younger side of Gen Z made this movie and it is a movie made for Gen Z and Gen Alpha that when the trailer dropped and everything, it wasn't really on my radar and you know, I've got a 14-year-old son. I work with teenagers at my church and these high school boys that I know and my son's friends were like, "You see back rooms? Did you see back rooms? Did you see back rooms?" and they knew all about it and I knew very little about it because I'm an old man and they're the target audience for it and that was the first indication me like what's going on here like why is there something that they're super exciting but they won't stop talking about it but that it's not really on my radar all that much and you see the generational shift taking place both in film making as well as who's controlling the box office and it's a new generation and it's a new style of movie it's a new flavor to it that people my age don't fully get it, but it absolutely is being eaten up by Gen Elam. As for the movie itself, um that like real creepy environment, the thing it did great is creating a very immersive experience where you feel like what as you're watching people walk into the back rooms, you feel this sense of like, don't get lost, don't get lost.

[00:11:22]Like how wait, how many turns did you make? There's a left, a right, through the door, through the hole, down the hallway. Do I remember this? and trying to not get lost, which is a very interesting way to put the audience in the experience of the pre people in the movie. And then what it does in the back end of the movie of kind of visualizing memory, I thought was fantastic. The final answers and kind of the actual third act of the chase is, you know, you have to have a big third act chase or whatever. You have to have some answers.

[00:11:51]I didn't find that stuff particularly fulfilling, but it does do a great job of building dread and having a couple of great ways of visualizing something in a way that elicits a a response like the some of the images are really unsettling in the kitchen and then it puts you in the experience of being lost in the background really.

[00:12:10]The boys season five and I was real frustrated with season 4 where it felt a little bit like they'd lost themselves a little bit and the satire was just kind of turning into echoing real world events rather than making a comment about something and having a punchline or an insight. It was just like look January 6th. Felt season five was able to course correct a lot of that. kicks off really strong with the prison break, but I also feel like season 5 made it really clear that they o stretched out the Homelander plotline too long and that meant they had to keep going further and further with it and they just went too far and it it just got to a point time with Homelander is God and he's the president and he like what they're doing with the state religion.

[00:12:59]It just it it kind of just like we're going way too far down a path on this one. you feel like we should have probably closed out the Homelander plot line with season 3. The the finale itself, I think, ultimately felt pretty safe. The conclusions for individual characters made sense, but it felt like because it took so long to get there, maybe some of the impact, the weight, the oomph of it was kind of lost. So, ultimately, I I liked the season. It did a lot of things right, but it felt wasn't as big of an impactful finale because it just felt like it took too long to get where we were going. Nine.

[00:13:36]Man on Fire. This is the latest adaptation of I I believe a book from the early 80s, most famously um made by Tony Scott about 25 years ago with Denzel Washington and Dakota Fanning.

[00:13:50]And now this time we're doing the high-end television version of it on Netflix. And I I don't feel like I have a whole lot to say about it. I like this kind of thing. I liked the show. I enjoyed it. The actor lead actor did a great job with it. Um I don't know that doing the what eight episode, seven episode version of it made for a better experience with the story.

[00:14:20]that the doing the 2hour version just had like a tightness to it, an oomph to it, urgency, a momentum to it that when you do the seven-hour version, it felt, you know, just kind of a couple times we're like, are we spinning our wheels a couple episodes to to get us to the seven episodes? Uh, but just generally speaking, I enjoyed it. Um, gets you invested. There's a conspiracy that gets you angry about the the corruption, the betrayal, leading to ultimate satisfaction with the resolution at the end of it. But I just think the packaging of the movie version just has more oomph than the stretched out a little bit miniseries version eight.

[00:14:57]Power Ballad. This had a limited release this past weekend. It has a wide release next Friday. So, I'll talk about it briefly here and then I'll talk about it again in June where more people would have seen it where it's been released a little bit wider. I saw this at South by Southwest back in March. And essentially, it's a comedy about Paul Rudd, Jonas Brother kind of write a song together and then the Jonas Brother who's kind of a famous pop singer steals the song and Paul Rudd's trying to get credit for it. It has a number of overt similarities to The Wedding Singer, like overtly, as well as a movie called Music and Lyrics, but where both of those are romcoms, this is not really a romcom. There's a mini bromance side to it, but it's not really even about that. It's um you kind of a about the relationship between these two characters, but it's much it's not really about their friendship because it's only a small part of the movie, but just like it's it's funny. It's an interesting look at kind of where creativity comes from. Well done film that has a certain charm to it. Has a nice music to it at the same time.

[00:16:09]Seven. Punisher. One last kill. The latest Marvel special presentation. I love the Punisher. Uh I love John Bernthal playing the character. I don't always love the characterization and what they've done with his version of the character, which is to say, for some reason, he's been playing the character for 10 years. And for 10 years, they've been going, and now he's really the Punisher in ways that make it feel like he's actually only reverted since he first debuted in Daredevil season 2 over a decade ago. that feels like the purest version of the Punisher he's played and they've only like pulled him backwards where he's constantly trying to stop being the Punisher. He's constantly trying to retire. He's constantly like what will my mission be? When the whole concept of the punisher is a man who's on a mission to punish scumbags and criminals and he hasn't started that mission yet even though he's 10 years. All that saying, um, they do that once again in this that he's finished his, uh, revenge against the people that conspired against his family. So, what's he going to do? And I don't know why they did that. I don't know why they keep doing this exact same arc cuz if you swapped that out, changed out his emotional arc for this 45minute long episode basically for he he's feeling bad that his friend died, regret over the consequences of his war. All of a sudden, I would bump this up a couple spots because it's not rehashing what we've done so many times before, but they rehashed it once again and he's not on full Punisher mode. And so, it's like, WHAT? WHY WON'T YOU LET HIM GO? CUZ ONCE HE GETS going and like it's the raid, it's the pressure cooker with John Bernthal Punisher. He's even doing stuff where he's using people's human shields like in the video game from 20 years ago. So much in here that I love, but they keep repeating this same plot point about him not wanting to be Punisher and needing a mission. We've already played that out four times before. Six, The Sheep Detective. This is one I almost missed uh because it's just been a busy month and we wanted to go see it Mother's Day weekend and the shows were all sold out and so we ended up going this past Tuesday for $5 Tuesday. the kids are out for school, so finally we're able to go check out the movie. And it's just a real cute, charming little detective story that um manages to be have a a a death at the center of it without that sidelining the emotions of it. It's still being able to be a cute, charming, talking animal movie. It's a who done it. Uh it's it's stories about, you know, accepting people, not judging people on from the outside. And uh you know, like I said, it's just a nice charming little story.

[00:18:53]Fun detail about it. The script is actually written by Craig Maisin, who's the showrunner for The Last of Us, and he did Chernobyl. And then for 15 years, he was famous for doing a bunch of comedy. He did Hangover 2 and stuff like that. And now he did The Sheep Detective, which you know, screenwriters can have a lot of versatility in what they're able to write. So I I just found it a charming little who done it for the whole family. One Spoon of Chocolate.

[00:19:19]This is the latest film from Rizza and it stars Shmik Moore as well as Paris Jackson, Michael Jackson's daughter. I went into this one knowing fairly little about it. I saw the Rotten Tomato score was really low, so had very modest expectations for it. And by the end of it, I just kind of loved this movie. Um, it it's just very much my kind of thing.

[00:19:44]It is Rizza's version of Walking Tall or Death Wish, these revenge, slowburn revenge thrillers from the 1970s.

[00:19:54]Apparently, he's had the idea for this movie in his his head for a while and thought about even setting it in the 1960s as a period piece. The movie we got is set in the present, but it still has that feeling, that vibe of these movies from decades past where someone shows up in town not really wanting any trouble, but they're in a town that wants all kinds of trouble and there's all kinds of conspiracies. So, a person gets pulled into this thing that they don't want to be a part of. And the injustice, the cruelty ratchets up, make a bunch of villains that you hate, and then the last 30 minutes is just our guy destroying them. And it's so satisfying.

[00:20:30]It's so my kind of thing. And then this, like I said, the fun to tell. Paris Jackson is in it. And the movie came out like a week after Michael. So it was like watch Michael and then his daughter is is in a movie and uh it's kind of like just interesting to see grown up acting in movies, has a music career and everything like that. So kind of a fun detail. But if you like old school like legitimate 70s8s like mean nasty revenge thrillers that are a little bit slow burns. They're not, you know, modern fastpaced with a slow burn and then big explosive finale. That's what this is.

[00:21:02]Mortal Kombat 2. This is a film I was very excited to check out because I had multiple people message me who saw a test screening saying like, "This is the movie we wanted the first movie to see be." And then I talked to Lewis Tan, the star of the first movie, and he basically said the same thing of like, "Yeah, we set out to like really listen to the feedback and make the movie that will make the fans happy." And they delayed the movie to May because they just felt like we're really happy with what how the film was turning out.

[00:21:30]I saw the movie and that's the way I felt about it's like yes this is what I wanted the last one to be and it's about the tournament and they made it about central characters from the video games and like we got two different lead characters really we got Johnny Cage who's kind of our anchor to the real world and then Katana who's kind of ex telling a story that expands the fantasy side of the story and so you kind of have both sides building out the lore the ramifications of this tournament on other realms, plus the reluctant hero trying to find himself. It gets that tone just right of like taking it seriously, but also having a little bit of fun with the silliness of all of it. So, for me, like we got gore, fatalities, an enormous number of fights. This is what I want from a Mortal Kombat. In third, Spider Noir. Now, to be perfectly clear, I've only seen half the season. and I've seen the first four episodes. So, uh, take this review with a little bit of a grain of salt. Um, I'm sharing my thoughts as they are currently. Could go up, could go down based off the back half of it.

[00:22:35]Um, but I know people wanted to know my thoughts on it. Like, are you watching?

[00:22:39]Are you going to review it? Here's the reality. I'm trying to just watch it like a normal person, which is to say, my wife wants to watch it. My son Liam wants to watch it. And so, whenever all four of us are free to watch it, we're watching episodes. and my son was out of town for the weekend at his grandparents, so he couldn't watch all of it. It's kind of as simple as that.

[00:22:57]Uh I was interested enough to not want to just binge it as quick as possible just to get content out.

[00:23:03]All that said, it is just such a refreshing, fun, different take on the world of a superhero story for all of the obvious reasons. It's set in the 1930s doing a Spider-Man noir. That is like exactly what it is. It is a noir detective story in the 1930s with Spider-Man skin on top of the whole thing and Nicholas Cage doing his thing.

[00:23:36]And it's just so fun. Thus far, we've been going back and forth. One episode black and white, one episode color, back half. I think we're going to go all in on the black and white for the last four episodes, but I actually really like the way they did the color with that specific look to it. The the color palette and the the muted nature of it.

[00:23:53]I I think that looks really cool, too.

[00:23:55]But the the black and white is the true experience here. But I was a little nervous in the first episode because it kicks off and it does the classic thing.

[00:24:03]Well, he's retired and he's got to figure out how to be Spider Noir again.

[00:24:07]And we seen a lot of those recently where the it takes the character four episodes to get back to being the hero.

[00:24:13]No, no, no. That's not what we're doing here. Episode one starts with him as Spider Noir in the costume. The end of it, he's fighting a super villain. He's fight, you know, guy with powers and everything. By the end of episode two, he's back in the suit doing his thing.

[00:24:27]And so it doesn't stretch that out or do the version of it like where where we're um embarrassed to show characters in the costumes or we want to like withhold the thing that we signed up for. Like, no, no, no. You get all the spider noir all throughout this whole thing. You get the ratat banter of that style of whatever you would call that style of dialogue between characters. So, you know, there's times that not everything works.

[00:24:49]There's some things that maybe feel a little bit forced or whatever. And episode 4 felt like it lost a little bit of momentum, but overall just such a nice, fun, refreshing spin on a genre that is very oversaturated and is in need of a breath of fresh air like this.

[00:25:05]Our runner up, Daredevil Born Again season 2. I've said it a zillion times before, but Daredevil on Netflix was basically my favorite TV show of the last decade. Daredevil Born Again season 1 was very disappointing for me because they started on such like a a broke with such a broken foundation. Did the best they could to fix it, but there was still issues because they started from such a faulty place. And with season two, they were just able to tell another great Daredevil story.

[00:25:36]And the thing that was that much better in season two is that they had great side characters again. Where the original Netflix run had great side characters, Born Again season 1 didn't or they had a couple that maybe could be, but they didn't know how to use them quite right. And season 3 or excuse me, season two gets us back to that. Of course, Matt Murdoch, Karen Wilson, great characters, but then also you have Swordsman, you have Bullseye, you um what is it? The Gandalfeni side. What is that? One getting people mixed up. Um like you have all these side characters that when we spend time with them, we're just as interested as when we're following the main characters and you feel it tension ratcheting up. You have the complexity of multiple. So, it just it felt like all the stuff I loved about the original run. There's still some some hiccups and stuff, some holdups because of the the foundation they're building off of that is still frustrating a bit, but a dramatically better, more consistent version of it that paid off one. But coming in at number one, Obsession, the movie that cannot be stopped at the box office.

[00:26:42]This movie is doing things that are absolutely unprecedented.

[00:26:48]And when I say that, I mean this movie in its third weekend at the box office, it went up.

[00:26:56]It went up from its second week that also went up from its first week outside of Christmas, which behaves a little weird at the box office. This has not happened since ET came out 45 years ago. That's how far back you have to go to find another example of this taking place. And when Stephen Spielberg did it, Steven Spielberg was already Steven Spielberg, director of Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Arc, Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

[00:27:28]This is a true The product itself is just is 100% it. It's not Stars. It's not a big property. It's just they put out a movie that is so interesting and compelling that everybody wants to check it out. Everyone wants to join the conversation. Everyone wants to be a part of this. And so, as for the movie itself, it's just a a fantastic concept for a horror movie that takes something that's been played out many times before, the wish that turns into a nightmare, and it plays out on like this simple version of it of like the even the classic version of it. I wish that she would love me. And then it turns it into the perfect version of a horror movie of that playing out.

[00:28:11]And even the complexities of the relationships, the dynamic of like, well, is Bear a villain? When did he stop being a victim and become a villain? What choices? And who did like there's the right nuances to the complexities of the relationships, the choices that he makes that makes it interesting to think about to compelling. Um, there's so many little great moments of the performances that are just so unsettling. They're so creepy in just the right ways and so memeable. So, just a a wonderfully crafted movie executed and a perfect example of how for less than a million dollars, if you've got a a great script and the right actors, you can do something incredible. Absolutely love love love seeing a movie like this. just knocked it out of the park. And as someone that uh was watching Superman and Lois from day one, it's so great to see one of the stars of that show just take off and her career is is about to explode. I mean, she's been the talk of the town. That movie so much works because of her performance. So, man, she's going to have it her career is about to explode. Who knows what she's going to get cast in next, but it's going to be interesting. So, it comes in at number one. Let me know your ranking down below in the comment section. Thank you so much for watching and keep talking movies and TV too much.