June 25, 2026
YouTube/Warner Bros.
All nine 'Rocky' and 'Creed' movies are now streaming on Netflix.
The Fourth of July is supposedly a celebration of America's founding — and this year is a big one, in case you missed all those commemorative trains and wines — but for some of us, Philadelphia is the country we love.
Get in the patriotic spirit by watching these extremely Philly movies that recently arrived on streaming services. Arguably the only people who love Benjamin Franklin more than we do are the folks behind one of these picks:
The entire "Rocky" and "Creed" collection is newly available on Netflix and, while some of them technically aren't set in Philly, no franchise is more synonymous with the city. Pick up a fine prosciutto from the Italian Market and don your best gray sweats before hitting play on any (or all) of these nine odes to scrappy underdogs.
Get a glimpse of the Franklin Institute circa 2004 by revisiting the movie that launched a thousand memes. As you may recall, Nicolas Cage — excuse me, Benjamin Franklin Gates — conspires to steal the Declaration of Independence and follow the invisible map on its back to hidden Freemason loot in this delightfully stupid adventure. While his hunt starts in Washington, D.C., he and his crew pack in a full day of tourism during their sojourn in Philadelphia, including a sort of lunch at Reading Terminal Market. Stream it on Hulu:
An ideal pick for a Christmas in June or July movie night, "Trading Places" filmed all over Philadelphia during its 1982-1983 production. Billy Ray Valentine (Eddie Murphy) tries to scam money in Rittenhouse Square by posing as a blind Vietnam War veteran. Louis Winthorpe III (Dan Aykroyd) gets kicked out of his bank and onto the pavement outside the "Clothespin" statue on Market Street. The villainous Duke brothers (Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche) scheme inside their members-only club that's actually the Curtis Institute of Music. And most of them pass through the Community College of Philadelphia, dressed to look like a police station. Go sightseeing on Paramount+.
Written and directed by Philly native and Temple alum Cheryl Dunye, "The Watermelon Woman" is considered a key piece of the new queer cinema movement. Dunye also stars in the 1996 film as a video store clerk and aspiring filmmaker searching for an unnamed, fictional Black actress credited only as "the watermelon woman" in old Hollywood films. The shop where she works is an old TLA Video (RIP), and she interviews city residents in front of the Ritz Five movie theater and Philadelphia Museum of Art. It's now on the Criterion Channel, as part of the streamer's Pride programming.
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