With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit the interwebs. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
Ant-Man (Peyton Reed)
Having continually proven that they can repackage the same general structure and archetypes into their cinematic universe for increasing box-office returns, Marvel’s impetus to think completely outside the box is not strong. With varying creative results, Guardians of the Galaxy proved that the right ingredients in the formula can result in an entertaining ride, while the over-stuffed Age of Ultron did little more then exhaust. Their latest entry, Ant-Man, skews closer to the former in terms of being unburdened by an overarching, multi-film narrative, instead carrying a sense of genuine adventure. Delighting with inventive setpieces and an affable lead in Paul Rudd, Ant-Man is eccentric enough to amuse, but can often feel watered-down in execution. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Blue Caprice (Alexandre Moors)
In Blue Caprice, a taut character study of the two men behind the 2002 D.C. Sniper shootings, writer-director Alexandre Moors does an effective job of offering insight into the minds behind such senseless killings. Featuring two fantastic performances from Isaiah Washington and Tequan Richmond, playing the infamous criminals Allen Muhammad and Lee Malvo (respectively), the film strives to capture an uncomfortable mood. Featuring one of the best performances from the festival in the form of Washington’s frightening portrayal of Muhammad, Moors has crafted a multi-layered dissection of one of the countries most incomprehensible crimes. – Raffi A.
Where to Stream: Netflix
Catch Me Daddy (Daniel Wolfe)
Even though he’s absent until the film’s final sequence because the estranged daughter he’s hired bounty hunters to find is foremost in our attention, director Daniel Wolfe‘s quote explaining his story as “a man imprisoned by his own narrative” couldn’t be truer. Pakistani mobster—the only label befitting him after experiencing the violence wrought in his name—Tariq (Wasim Zakir) is behind everything from scared Laila (Sameena Jabeen Ahmed) and her white boyfriend Aaron (Connor McCarron) scraping together a trailer park life in hiding to son Zaheer (Ali Ahmad) and his cronies trailing them to the racist pair of muscle enlisted to provide those being squeezed for information pale faces (Barry Nunney‘s Barry and Gary Lewis‘ Tony). Catch Me Daddy is a goad pitting this man’s heart against a reputation not even blood can afford permission to tarnish. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon Prime
Ex Machina (Alex Garland)
Artificial intelligence is the anointed “next big thing” of our time, and so it makes sense that film would seek to address it. But whereas something like Avengers: Age of Ultron treats artificial intelligence as a way to create an “inhuman” force for evil, Ex Machina decides to use the creation of consciousness as a means of reflecting our own base humanity back at us. Smart, sleek, and spare, Ex Machina functions as a dagger elegantly carving out our own heart to show it back to us. – Brian R.
Where to Stream: Amazon Prime
Fantastic Four (Josh Trank)
Finally coming out at the end of another predictably superhero/remake/sequel-laden summer, Fantastic Four opens with its back against the wall. Though undeniably ambitious in spots, this beloved Marvel property – as produced by Fox – feels stitched together and disengaged. It plays like a product that was fussed with too much and then abandoned. We’re introduced to young Reed Richards, a boy genius determined to perfect his “teleport-er” machine. His teachers don’t understand him and his classmates think he’s a dork. Seven years later, a teenage Richards (Miles Teller) and his only friend Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) make a scene at the school science fair, attracting the attention of Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg. E Cathy) and his adopted daughter Sue (Kate Mara). – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Felt (Jason Banker)
Being challenged and shocked by a film can be both a blessing and a curse. Inevitably it will alienate many, but those that show up to the genre film festival known as Fantastic Fest are game. Mixing slow-building dread and mental health issues, Felt arrives as a needle prick of chaos. This is the kind of film that many will receive the main actress with open arms for giving things like a “brave” performance and more, but will shirk off the film as a whole as a bit too downtrodden to have much commercial or critical appeal. However, any time a film revolves around a creative person’s dealing with trauma, likely sexual in nature in Felt, and the ramifications it can have, you get a sense of who is in for a film that isn’t exactly a pleasure to watch but might offer insight or perspective in a way other directors shy away from. – Bill G. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Jimmy’s Hall (Ken Loach)
Jimmy’s Hall, rumored to be Ken Loach’s final film, condenses the various political ideologies and conflicts of post-civil war Ireland into a manageable historic overview for its viewers. The film opens with Jimmy Gralton’s return from the United States to his native Ireland. This sequence, which should establish the ethereal beauty of the landscape and the gravitas of the film’s titular character, is dominated by title cards explaining the historical context of Gralton’s life, British aggression, and ratified treaties. Loach’s approach here is jarring. This is the filmmaker who dropped us into the complexities of the Irish War of Independence and Civil War, two events directly informing the content of Jimmy’s Hall, in his Palme d’Or-winning feature The Wind that Shakes the Barley, without such an academic approach. – Zade C. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes
Junun (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Has the hype around a nearly wordless, 54-minute, India-set documentary ever been so high? This is what happens when Paul Thomas Anderson, a not-unpopular choice for the “greatest living American director” label, puts his hands on something. It’s for this reason and this reason alone that Junun, which chronicles the making of an album by regular collaborator Jonny Greenwood and Indian musicians, is already the subject of much discourse and will serve as the launching point for MUBI’s new theatrical-distribution arm. This is generally a modest work, perhaps only requiring a theatrical outlet when it comes to the excellent soundtrack, and Anderson mostly uses its loose framework as a playground for new-to-him forms — the documentary, first and foremost, but also (and more interestingly) the possibilities afforded by digital filmmaking. The images of a far-away land are genuinely curious (never just pretty-looking and postcard-like), the performers making the music at its center are terrific, the work they’ve produced is booming and unique, and, above all, everyone seems to be having a good time. If your expectations call for a new benchmark in his career, you might want to come back down to earth before diving in. – Nick N. (full review)
Where to Stream: iTunes
Krzysztof Kieślowski Collection
While his essential Three Colors Colors Trilogy has been available to stream for some time on Hulu’s Criterion channel, a batch of perhaps under-the-radar films from Krzysztof Kieślowski have recently been added. They include A Short Film About Love, A Short Film About Killing, The Scar, No End, The Double Life of Veronique, Camera Buff, and Blind Chance. As we await on a restoration of The Decalogue, dive in now.
Where to Stream: Hulu
Mediterranea (Jonas Carpignano)
Early into Mediterranea, Jonas Carpignano‘s debut feature, a pair of African immigrants who’ve recently arrived in Italy are standing on the platform of a rural train station. In the background, the sign indicating location reads “Rosarno.” For Italian viewers, this image will immediately trigger an association with the two-day race riots that erupted in the small Calabrian town of Rosarno in 2010, events which received massive media coverage and caused a scandal by exposing the inhuman treatment of the region’s immigrant workers. Though the riots were reported internationally as well, they’re unlikely to have remained as firmly imprinted in popular consciousness abroad as they domestically, where they represented the most extreme manifestation of a national and continental crisis that has only been worsening for decades. Neglecting this disparity in awareness is Mediterranea’s critical weakness. Though realized with great empathy and tact, the film fails to convey the catastrophic extent of the situation it addresses by keeping its narrative too tightly focused. – Giovanni M.C. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (Christopher McQuarrie)
Nineteen years in and the Mission: Impossible franchise shows no signs of slowing down. Much of the credit goes to the unbreakable Tom Cruise, a movie star who continues to succeed and persevere where fellow movie star contemporaries (Will Smith, Tom Hanks) have begun to falter. As written and directed by frequent Cruise collaborator Christopher McQuarrie, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation works simultaneously as a direct sequel to Brad Bird’s fourth Mission installment Ghost Protocol, a unabashed highlight reel of Cruise doing ridiculous stunts, and a clever homage to the spy films of lore. This time around Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and the gang (Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner, and Ving Rhames) are up against The Syndicate, an “anti-I.M.F.” run by a rogue ex-spy named Lane, played with impressive menace by Sean Harris. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Out 1 (Jacques Rivette)
If there’s any truth to the old chestnut that great works of art teach you how to experience them, few films exemplify it quite so fully as Jacques Rivette‘s Out 1. Then again, when so few films akin to Out 1 in the first place, comparisons will only go so far before discourse hits a wall. Or so I, in the two weeks since seeing it, have been inclined to think of a conspiracy-filled, paranoia-fueled, melancholy-drenched 13-hour movie that’s no less indebted to Fritz Lang and classic melodrama than Aeschylus and Balzac. If this weren’t a particularly good film, its restoration and subsequent theatrical release, which begins at New York’s BAMcinématek this evening, would still be something to celebrate — mostly as a signal that people with a power to save rare films are placing their resources where it counts. But given what is, to my mind, the grand scope of Rivette’s achievement — something that, if you feel it at all, might only be perceivable in full sight of the thing, when every piece can click together in one’s mind —Out 1 now stands as the great cinematic happening of 2015. – Nick N. (full review)
Where to Stream: Fandor
People Places Things (James Strouse)
Somewhere in Brooklyn, a semi-blocked graphic novelist named Will (Jemaine Clement) catches his wife Charlie (Stephanie Allynne) cheating on him with a “monologuist” named Gary (Michael Chernus) during their twin daughters’ 5th birthday party. There’s a fairly standard confrontation between these three people, resulting in a meek non-fight between the two men. One year later, Will is living alone in Astoria, doing his best to start over while making the most of his time with his children and teaching at the School of Visual Arts. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
The Stanford Prison Experiment (Kyle Patrick Alvarez)
In August of 1971, Dr. Philip Zimbardo conducted an experiment at Stanford University, in which 24 male students took on the role of either prison guard or prisoner in a simulated “prison” built in the halls of the university. Six days later, the whole thing was shut down. As written by Tim Talbott and directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez, The Stanford Prison Experiment is a straightforward breakdown of those six harrowing days. Little is sugar-coated here and it’s a smart move, the filmmakers confident in the natural tension the true story creates. Billy Crudup plays Zimbardo and does good work as a pioneer-of-sorts quickly spiraling out of control. Though at times a bit too villainous (blame some of that on ridiculous period facial hair), the veteran character actor carries the weight of his actions relatively well. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Also New to Streaming
Amazon
Criminal Activities
Kingdom of Shadows (review)
Man Up
TransFatty Lives (review)
Netflix
Dark Star: H.R. Giger’s World (review)
Dior and I
Wanted 18 (review)