Seven movies to watch at home this week: Game Night, Clue, Hot Fuzz and more

Few were expecting much when this comedy came out but once you’ve seen it, you’ll want to watch it again and again and again.

Fire up those remotes and add these movies to your home cinema watch list – picked to make you forget about the crappy world outside and give either those side muscles or smile muscles a workout.

Here are this week’s selection of seven comfort viewing flicks.

GAME NIGHT

Game’s on

Game Night really was one of the unexpected delights of 2018, a raucously funny ensemble comedy with a stellar cast including Rachel McAdams, Jason Bateman and Sharon Horgan, and a bonkers story that’s just mad enough to be believed. It’s so hilarious it could send you to the brink of wetting your pants.

A group’s regular game night gets hijacked when one of them is kidnapped by gangsters in a scheme that may or may not be fake. McAdams and Bateman have incredible chemistry and there’s a seemingly one-shot indoor footy game that’s choreographed astonishingly well. Stream it: iTunes

CLUE

No, really? Who did it?

The spirit of comical farce is as alive and well as Mr Boddy was dead – eventually. Who would’ve thought a movie based on a board game could be this entertaining and fun (well, the people who made Battleship, but those guys were really wrong), thanks largely to its rhythmic dialogue and mega-talented cast including Madeline Kahn, Leslie Warren and Tim Curry.

Six strangers — a butler, a maid and a cook — gather in a spooky mansion on a rainy day, and they all have a motive to do away with the blackmailer. But is it Miss Scarlett in the hallway with the candlestick or Mr Green in the library with the wrench? Stream it: iTunes/Google Play/YouTube

Missed last week’s at-home movies selection? Find it here

BABE

Not bacon

That’ll do, pig, that’ll do. No sentence has ever conveyed approval more than taciturn Farmer Hoggett’s praise of Babe, the little pig that uses civility and kindness instead of fear and intimidation. Good guys don’t finish last.

This Aussie classic is a family friendly romp that instils in us a sense of general wholesomeness and hope, as if the world outside your front door isn’t a petri dish of deadly disease. Stream it: Foxtel Now

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HOT FUZZ

Mmmm... ice cream

The middle part of Edgar Wright’s Cornetto trilogy, Hot Fuzz once again pairs up Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, this time as a couple of very different cops investigating a series of murders in a quiet, rural English town.

A fast-paced and generous homage of buddy cop movies, Hot Fuzz is part-satire and a whole lot of love story to a genre that Wright clearly adores, a genre that’s given us so many hours of fun – including these two hours. Stream it: Netflix/Amazon Prime Video

Looking for things to pass the time? The best shows to watch, the funniest videos, the best hacks? Find it all at our Life (goes on) in Lockdown section

AMELIE

I feel like creme brulee all of a sudden

Whimsy doesn’t have to be twee – if you get the balance right, it’s like it plants a seed of joy in your heart, sprouting into a warm hug. Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s fairytale-like movie stars the pixie-like Audrey Tautou, who after her global breakout here was wasted by Hollywood in The Da Vinci Code.

Amelie is someone who was socially isolated and developed an active imagination to fill her time and cope with her loneliness, concocting elaborate stories and plots she then stealthily puts into practice around Paris. Stream it: SBS On Demand

FIRST WIVES CLUB

Girl power

You don’t ooooowwwwwn me! Never mind that it’s an empowering message (I mean that’s important but don’t let worthiness get in the way of entertainment), First Wives’ Club’s real appeal is watching three tossed aside spouses plot revenge against their no-good husbands.

Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn and Bette Midler are absolute stars in this iconic 1990s comedy that sasses, invokes that fuzzy warm feeling and gets you up on your feet, dancing along. Stream it: Netflix/Foxtel Now

THE APARTMENT

Classic for a reason

There’s a reason why this Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon movie has not just stood, but aced the test of time, held up as a gold standard for rom-coms thanks to its gleeful character dynamics and the whip-fast cadence of its dialogue. The Apartment was quite forward for its era, one of the reasons why it plays so well today.

Lemmon is an agreeable office worker, frequently taken advantage of by his managers while MacLaine plays an elevator operator involved with Lemmon’s married boss. Their chemistry is off the charts. Stream it: Stan

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