Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg)
There are a lot of ways A Different Man could go and a lot of things it could be. Aaron Schimberg’s uniquely uncomfortable, uncomfortably unique feature sometimes plays as a reverse-Frankenstein medical horror, a tragic life-imitates-art satire, and a spiraling relationship drama. To its ambitious and distinct credit, it attempts packaging them all into ominous-sounding harmony, as if Charlie Kauffman’s surrealist Escher concoctions became a Twilight Zone episode modeled after David Lynch’s Elephant Man or Beauty and the Beast. It’s a dark, hilarious, and deeply unsettling portrait of a disfigured man that’s also an unflinching mirror of a looks-focused industry. – Jake K. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Green Border (Agnieszka Holland)
Before the New York Film Festival premiere of her latest opus, Green Border, legendary director Agnieszka Holland wished everyone a good screening: “I would tell you to enjoy the film, but that would not be appropriate.” It was an apt warning for the harrowing, exquisite film that unfolded. Green Border focuses on the treatment of migrants trying to cross from Belarus to Poland so they can find asylum in the European Union. As a result, Holland is now on the shit list of nearly every high-ranking Polish politician, from the president to the Minister of Science and Higher Education. What a shame they’re so blinded by their station that they can’t even appreciate magnificent works of art. Green Border is a riveting, finely crafted, deeply human accounting of the atrocities we make permissible in the name of nationalism. – Lena W. (full review)
Where to Stream: Kino Film Collection
Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Paul Thomas Anderson’s disheveled period story of the quasi-romantic friendship between precocious 15-year-old Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) and immature, floundering 25-year-old Alana Kane (Alana Haim) brings the LA native back to his sun-kissed San Fernando roots. Hoffman and Haim, in their feature debuts, not only lead this film untethered to a big-name actor, but carry it with the ease of seasoned performers. Licorice Pizza is less a standard love story than a lyrical portrait of the thin, fragile line between adolescence and adulthood; of two people with one foot in one world and one foot in the other, intertwining somewhere in the middle at the most imperfect time. – Brianna Z.
Where to Stream: Tubi
My Old Ass (Megan Park)
Whatever these qualms, there’s still a good amount to appreciate about My Old Ass, a film first and foremost designed with likability in mind. From an unconventional leading man in Chad (Percy Hynes White) to the script’s frank depiction of queerness to adoration of Saoirse Ronan (which works far better than a Bieber-heavy interlude), Park’s instincts are often commendable. It’s a film that certainly doesn’t win points for originality––blending elements of On Golden Pond, Petite Maman, All of Us Strangers, About Time, CODA, and more to varying success––but if it gets you to give your parents an extra call, spend a little more time with your siblings, or enjoy life in the moment, many films have aspired to (or achieved) far less. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Prime Video
The Outrun (Nora Fingscheidt)
Maybe the smartest decision made in The Outrun, directed by Nora Fingscheidt, is its fractured narrative device. Based on the 2016 memoir of the same name by Amy Liptrot (co-writing with Fingscheidt), the film offers a frank, unwavering look at addiction with the great Saoirse Ronan (who also produces) in the lead role. We move forward and backward in time, often relieved to be clear from horrible sins of the past only to be thrust back into them minutes later. In this way, the picture reflects its subject with painful precision. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Pedro Páramo (Rodrigo Prieto)
The first problem is synonymous with that of the prestige literary adaptation, chiefly capital-T Theme. Beyond the obvious of making Pedro a stand-in for a number of strongman world leaders today, Pedro Páramo also casts a heavy hand when dealing with issues like Catholicism, making the connections between it and right-wing cruelty too obvious. – Ethan V. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Stonewalling (Ji Huang and Ryûji Otsuka)
There is a universal “art film” grammar prevalent across movie-making cultures––typically marked by a still camera, long takes, unvarnished settings, naturalistic acting, and general sobriety of tone. Stonewalling, by husband-and-wife directing duo Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka, is an exemplary example of this filmmaking scheme. It charts, without judgment, the multiplying consequences of an unplanned pregnancy in the life of a young Chinese woman. As a trilogy-capper alongside Egg and Stone (2012) and The Foolish Bird (2017), it also paints an immersive and insightful portrait of life in contemporary China with stunning, documentary-like realism. – Ankit J.
Where to Stream: OVID.tv
Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui)
Directed by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story recounts and examines the incredibly compelling, tragic, redemptive story of actor and activist Christopher Reeve. He was made famous playing the superhero Superman in Richard Donner/Richard Lester/Sidney J. Furie’squartet of films in the ’70s and ’80s. In 1995, Reeve was paralyzed from the neck down after being thrown from a horse during a competition. That terrible accident eventually sparked the creation of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, a non-profit whose goal is to cure spinal-cord injury and improve the quality of life for those with paralysis. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Used Cars (Robert Zemeckis)
As Robert Zemeckis’ unfairly maligned Here, a beautiful, ambitious family drama as sentimental as it is cynical, arrives in theaters, it’s prime time to catch up with his sophomore feature. Used Cars, following dueling salesmen literally on the other sides of the street who find a number of mischievous ways to grab attention for their respective inventory, is an early feat of pure entertainment from the master showman. Featuring a hilariously conniving Kurt Russell, the cutthroat sparring and backstabbing to get a dollar is, 45 years later, still a perfect summation of the worst impulses of the American way.
Where to Stream: Tubi
Also New to Streaming
Hulu
Poolman
Kino Film Collection
Speaking of Murder
Un Flic
Witness in the City
MUBI
An Odd Turn
In the Rearview
Fish Tank
Netflix
Sea of Love
Prime Video
The Eiger Sanction
Hi, Mom!
Look Back
The Mend
VOD
In the Summers