As 2014 winds down, like most cinephiles, we’re looking to get our hands on the titles that may have slipped under the radar or simply gone unseen. With the proliferation of streaming options, it’s thankfully easier than ever to play catch-up, and to assist with the process, we’re bringing you a rundown of the best titles of the year available to watch.
Curated from Best Films of 2014 So Far list we published for the first half of the year, it also includes films we’ve enjoyed the past few months and some we’ve recently caught up on. This is far from a be-all and end-all year-end feature (that will come at the end of the year), but rather something that will hopefully be a helpful tool for readers to have a chance to seek out notable, perhaps underseen, titles from the year.
Note that we’re going by U.S. theatrical releases and the streaming services are limited to solely to the territory as well. If you want to stay up-to-date with new titles being made available, check out our weekly column. In the meantime, see our rundown below, which will be updated as new titles hit streaming services, so make sure to bookmark. One can also click titles to see our official reviews or additional coverage.
20,000 Days on Earth (Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard) // Amazon – iTunes
22 Jump Street (Phil Lord and Chris Miller) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
A Most Wanted Man (Anton Corbijn) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Abuse of Weakness (Catherine Breillat) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Babadook (Jennifer Kent) // iTunes
The Battered Bastards of Baseball (Chapman and Maclain Way) // Netflix
Blue Ruin (Jeremy Saulnier) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Borgman (Alex van Warmerdam) // Amazon Prime – iTunes – Google
The Boxtrolls (Anthony Stacchi, Graham Annable) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Boyhood (Richard Linklater) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Calvary (John Michael McDonagh) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Camp X-Ray (Peter Sattler) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Cheap Thrills (E.L. Katz) // Amazon Prime – iTunes – Google
Coherence (James Ward Byrkit) // Amazon Prime – iTunes – Google
Cold in July (Jim Mickle) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Congress (Ari Folman) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Double (Richard Ayoade) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Edge of Tomorrow (Doug Liman) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Enemy (Denis Villeneuve) // Amazon Prime – iTunes – Google
A Field in England (Ben Wheatley) // Amazon Prime – iTunes – Google
Force Majeure (Ruben Östlund) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Frank (Lenny Abrahamson) //Amazon – iTunes – Google
Gloria (Sebastián Lelio) //Amazon – iTunes – Google
God Help the Girl (Stuart Murdoch) //Amazon – iTunes – Google
Godzilla (Gareth Edwards) //Amazon – iTunes – Google
Gone Girl (David Fincher) //Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson) //Amazon – iTunes – Google
Grand Piano (Eugenio Mira) //Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Guest (Adam Wingard) // iTunes
Happy Christmas (Joe Swanberg) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Hellion (Kat Candler) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Hide Your Smiling Faces (Daniel Patrick Carbone) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Ida (Pawel Pawlikowski) // Netflix – Amazon Prime – iTunes – Google
The Immigrant (James Gray) // Netflix
The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz (Brian Knappenberger) // YouTube
It Felt Like Love (Eliza Hittman) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Jealousy (Philippe Garrel) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Jodorowsky’s Dune (Frank Pavich) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness (Mami Sunada) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Land Ho! (Aaron Katz and Martha Stephens) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Lego Movie (Phil Lord and Chris Miller) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Life Itself (Steve James) // iTunes
Like Father, Like Son (Hirokazu Koreeda) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Listen Up Philip (Alex Ross Perry) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Locke (Steven Knight) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Manakamana (Pacho Velez and Stephanie Spray) // Netflix – iTunes – Google
The Missing Picture (Rithy Panh) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Mistaken For Strangers (Tom Berninger) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Night Moves (Kelly Reichardt) // Amazon Prime – iTunes – Google
Noah (Darren Aronofsky) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Non-Stop (Jaume Collet-Serra) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Norte, the End of History (Lav Diaz) // Netflix – iTunes – Google
Nymphomaniac (Lars von Trier) // Netflix – iTunes
Nymphomaniac: Director’s Cut (Lars von Trier) // Amazon
Obvious Child (Gillian Robespierre) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
The One I Love (Charlie McDowell) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Palo Alto (Gia Coppola) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Rover (David Michôd) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Snowpiercer (Bon Joon-ho) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Starred Up (David Mackenzie) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Stranger by the Lake (Alain Guiraudie) // Netflix – Amazon
Tim’s Vermeer (Teller) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Trip to Italy (Michael Winterbottom) // Netflix – iTunes
They Came Together (David Wain) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer) // Amazon Prime – iTunes – Google
Venus in Fur (Roman Polanski) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Virunga (Orlando von Einsiedel) // Netflix
We are the Best! (Lukas Moodysson) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
What Now? Remind Me (Joachim Pinto) // iTunes
Why Don’t You Play In Hell? (Sion Sono) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Young & Beautiful (Francois Ozon) // Netflix – Amazon – iTunes – Google
Young Ones (Jake Paltrow) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
The Zero Theorem (Terry Gilliam) // Amazon – iTunes – Google
Have any suggestions? Comment below or tweet @TheFilmStage to submit titles for consideration. See all new streaming options here.