Wondering what’s new for June 2014 in Netflix Instant? There’s plenty, but I’m here to give you some recommendations, since Netflix likes to make it difficult for you to figure out what’s new in their service in movies and television series.

Since my cohort Ryan Midnight is busy right now trying to sell a sectional sofa, I’m stepping in this month, so along with June’s picks I’m going to give you some selections from the new crop of May movies and televisions shows, too.

Some of my favorite picks include Wayne’s World, Oldboy, Adventures In Babysitting, Romancing The Stone, The Craft, and Ever After. Tons more listed here below.

As Midnight always says, go forth and add to your queue!

Top Netflix Picks for June 2014 (in alphabetical order)

• Apocalypse Now (1979) – One of the most memorable Vietnam War films, the Francis Ford Coppola-directed Apocalypse Now stars Martin Sheen as a U.S. Army Captain on a top-secret jungle mission to find and kill a U.S. Army Special Forces Colonel (Marlon Brando) who’s gone rogue and is commanding his own troops.
• Blood and Chocolate (2007) – Drama about a Romanian-born 19-year-od teenage girl who’s a werewolf. Stars Hugh Dancy, who plays Will Graham on the NBC series Hannibal, which is why this movie caught my eye.
• Clear and Present Danger (1994) – Based on the Tom Clancy page-turner, Harrison Ford returns to the action franchise for the second time around as Jack Ryan, here as the newly appointed Acting Deputy Director of the CIA. U.S. good, foreigners bad.
• Cold Mountain (2003) – Lots of big Oscar-winners/nominees in this American Civil War drama, where Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, and Renée Zellweger all have horrible accents. Also has minor but memorable roles by Natalie Portman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jena Malone, Donald Sutherland, Brendan Gleeson, Jack White, and Giovanni Ribisi. Zellweger won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the film.
• The Craft (1996) – If you were a goth chick in the mid-1990s, it was probably because of this movie, where Neve Campbell, Robin Tunney, Fairuza Balk, and Rachel True play four Catholic high school classmates who happened to be witches. Together, they form a powerful coven and then shit gets real.
• Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998) – Oh Drew Barrymore, how I love thee. Here the typically pix Barrymore plays the downtrodden Danielle, a Cinderella type character complete with evil stepmother and bitch-ass stepsisters. This Cinderella can hold her own though and from the start, it’s Team Danielle all the way. Highly recommend this one.
• First Knight (1995) – When you’re done with Ever After, go straight to this Camelot tale, starring Sean Connery as King Arthur, Richard Gere as Lancelot, Julia Ormond (who was hot off the hells of her steamy love scene with long-haired Adonis Brad Pitt in Legends of the Fall) as Guinevere. Guin and Lance fall in love, but she’s betrothed to King Arthur, who is 100 years old for some reason. Ok, so maybe it’s not the perfect Camelot movie — that goes to Monty Python and the Holy Grail — but it’s enjoyable nonetheless.
• Lady Vengeance (2005) – The final installment of Park Chan-wook’s The Vengeance Trilogy film trilogy, best known for Oldboy (also new to Instant this month). A young woman who serves jail time for a murder she didn’t commit gets released from prison and plots her vengeance against the actual murderer.
• The Mean Season (1985) – I remember this one starring Kurt Russell being played on HBO a lot back in the 1980s. Released the same year as Russell’s Big Trouble In Little China, the actor plays a Miami reporter covering the murders of a serial killer and can you guess what happens? Oh yes you can. Damn this movie scared the crap out of me as a kid and I’ve been frightened of the thought of those airboats on the Florida Everglades ever since. Mariel Hemingway stars as Russell’s girlfriend who wants his to stop covering these these crimes.
• Mission: Impossible 3 (2006) – Tom Cruise returns for another impossible mission that turns out to be highly possible. Here’s what you need to know: Simon Pegg is in this movie.
• Oldboy (2003) – There’s a reason why everyone who sees this movie loves it. It’s fucking awesome. Now, this is the original Oldboy by Park Chan-wook and is the second film of The Vengeance Trilogy trilogy. In this story, a businessman is abducted and inexplicably imprisoned in a hotel room for 15 years, after which he’s released and he’s hellbent on revenge. Oh so good.
• Picture Perfect (1997) – If you’re nostalgic for the 1990s, check out this one, Friends star Jennifer Aniston’s first entry into Leading Lady Rom-Com Land. To impress her boss, she pretends to be in a relationship with a man she’s not in a relationship with and actually she only just met him, but can you guess what happens in the end??? I bet you can’t. Kevin Bacon plays her boss and man does he have nice hair in this one.
• Popeye (1980) – This was an interesting one – a live-action musical comedy adaptation of the Popeye comic strip directed by Robert Altman, starring Robin Williams as Popeye the Sailor Man and Shelley Duvall as his lady love Olive Oyl. This was Williams’ first feature film, done while he was still playing the quirky alien Mork on the TV sitcom Mork & Mindy.
• Rudy (1993) – Rudy! Rudy! Rudy! If you want to see an inspiration film that will leave you crying and cheering, check out Rudy, starring Sean Astin long before he became Frodo’s bitch Samwise Gamgee in The Lord Of The Rings films. Astin plays the titular character student who dreams of playing football for Notre Dame, but has been told he’s too small to play football.
• Wayne’s World (1992) – Party time, excellent!!! I love me some Wayne’s World. I’ve seen this comedy so many times it’s insane. Director Penelope Spheeris talks Mike Myers and Dana Carvey to the big screen as rockhead slackers Wayne and Garth, the characters they created on SNL. Tia Carrere (schwing!) stars Wayne’s love interest, while Rob Lowe is the villain and Donna Dixon (aka, Mrs. Dan Ackroyd, best known as Tom Hanks’ obsession on TV’s Bosom Buddies.
• And coming June 6, the must awaiting second season of the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black. If you’re not familiar with the series, here’s the official scoop (and of course, you can burn through the first season all this week in preparation for Season 2):

Top Netflix Picks for May 2014

• Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) – Star Trek. Into. Darkness. This is a Star Trek movie. Instant queuing into the Instant Queue (or whatever it’s called now), even though I own this is several formats, but now that it’s on Netflix, I can watch it anywhere anytime! Oh, yeah, this is the sequel to JJ Abrams’ 2009 reboot Star Trek and I love love love it.
• Adventures in Babysitting (1987) – Don’t fuck with the babysitter! This is one of my favorite 80s movies. Eliaabeth Shue, who at this time was best known for being the object of Ralph Macchio’s Karate Kid affections, stars as Chris, who after being ditched by her boyfriend takes a babysitting gig that turns into an all-night dangerous adventure in the city with kids in tow.
• Backdraft (1991) – Directed by directed by Ron Howard, the film stars Kurt Russell (you can’t go wrong with Kurt Russell), William Baldwin, and Robert De Niro as Chicago firefighters who come up against a serial arsonist.
• Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) – Like whoa, Keanu Reeves stars in this Francis Ford Coppola adaptation of the classic and best-known vampire tale, Dracula. This is classic 1990s casting right here with Reeves as Jonathan Harker and Winona Ryder as Mina, but most importantly Gary Oldman (who went on to become Commissioner Jim Gordon in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy) is Count Dracula, and that right there is reason enough to check out this film.
• Candyman (1992) Candyman…Candyman…Candyman…Candyman… let me not play around here. Based on a short story by Clive Barker, this horror film stars Tony Todd as Candyman, an urban legend who can be summoned if his name is said five times while looking in a mirror. The problem is, once he shows up, you’re fucked. Virginia Madsen stars as a graduate student researching the Candyman myth.
• Cursed (2005) – Starring Christina Ricci and a pre-Zombieland Jesse Eisenberg, this horror film from Wes Craven centers on a werewolf running wild in Los Angeles. Very underrated film that did poor at the box office, but was actually very highly enjoyable.
• Forrest Gump (1994) – One of the greatest film dramas of all time, Forrest Gump is not to be missed. Tom Hanks won the Best Actor Oscar for his role as the title character, a gentle soul who humble beginnings lead him through a series of amazing journeys and once-in-a-lifetime experiences through history’s most famous moments. Must-see.
• Gladiator (2000) – Directed by Ridley Scott, Russell Crowe, a Roman general turned slave turned gladiator, thanks to Joaquin Phoenix’s dickbag Emperior Commodus (think King Joffrey). Lots of action, fighting, violence. I had to pick this film because when my little sister was 3 years old, Gladiator was her favorite movie. Yes, I said 3. At the time, the movie was being played at lot on cable, so she’d wake our father up in the morning going “Gladiator? Gladiator?” so that he’d turn the TV on and find it playing for her. For her 4th birthday, I finally broke down and got it for her on DVD so she could just watch it repeatedly. You should see the photos of her jumping up and down with glee at this gift. Yes, 4th birthday. I got her Gladiator and a pair of pink ballet slippers.
• Heavy Metal (1981) – It’s your one way ticket to midnight, call it heavy metal (thank you, Sammy Hagar). Being a young metalhead in the 1980s, you’d have to expect Heavy Metal to be a natural selection for me, especially since it played for years as a midnight movie when I was a teen The animated cult film, an anthology of scifi/fantasy stories, had everything I love: hard rock/heavy metal music, science fiction, high fantasy, sex, a grimy New York City tale, aliens, R-rated animation based on the magazine Heavy Metal, a voice cast with some of my favorite comedians — Harold Ramis, Eugene Levy, John Candy — and it was a Canadian production (love the Canadians).
• Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) | Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2003) – Though released as two films, when put together they make one great movie. From the manic mind of Quentin Tarantino, Kill Bill combines the filmmaker’s influences to make a fantastic martial arts movies starring Uma Thurman, who’s main objective is to kill Bill, her former lover who destroyed her life. A classic revenge stories with that great Tarantino dialogue, combined with great action and fight sequences. I prefer Vol. 1 over its successor and feel that it’s a perfect film on its own, even though it leaves us with a “to be continued…”.
• Romancing the Stone (1984) | The Jewel of the Nile (1985) Directed by Robert Zemeckis, Romancing the Stone introduces us to Kathleen Turner’s romance novelist, who takes off to save her kidnapped sister in Colombia where she hires Michael Douglas’s Jack to help her. The unlikely pair end up on a wild adventure, which they have more of in the sequel when they end up in an African desert. The first film is a classic that has great dialogue, action, adventure, and comedic moments in all the right places. The sequel doesn’t measure up to its predecessor, but it’s still cool to see Turner and Douglas back on the screen together. Danny DeVito also stars.
• Single White Female (1992) – Jennifer Jason Leigh answers Bridget Fonda’s ad for a roommate and instead of being, you know, like normal and stuff, she’s bat-shit crazy and becomes Fonda’s doppelganger. So basically Leigh is nearly every close girlfriend I had in the 90s. Bonus: (Stephen Tobolowsky is in this film, although he’s a sleazy asshole in this one). Double bonus: a great death by stiletto scene.
• St. Elmo’s Fire (1985) – I can see a new horizon!!!!!! Ok, I’ll be honest with you, this movie kinda sucked. But Rob Lowe, oh god is he so hawt is this movie. And how can you not fall in love with Andrew McCarthy? Ok, fine, I’ll admit, I watch this movie many many time, but these characters just pissed me off so much. Why are they so stupid??? The Joel Schumacher-film starred members of “The Brat Pack” — Lowe, McCarthy, Emilio Estevez, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, Mare Winningham — as a group of college friends who are finding their way in the world post-graduation.

Check back next month for a whole new batch of selections and recommendations for you to check out!