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.
All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia)
Following up her enigmatic, beautiful debut A Night of Knowing Nothing, Payal Kapadia shows an entirely different register with her dazzling Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize winner All We Imagine as Light. Luke Hicks said in his review, “Writer-director Payal Kapadia isn’t interested in the flashy world of Mumbai that gets so much global attention. Per its opening soundscape, All We Imagine as Light means to bask in the luminescence of life found among India’s lower classes, which means acknowledging the inequality and socio-economic injustice that defines their everyday as much as it means showcasing their intrinsic glow and dogged refusal to let the inalienable love, beauty, and camaraderie of existence be taken from them.”
Where to Stream: VOD
Dìdi (弟弟) (Sean Wang)
While trying to chat up classmate Madi (Mahaela Park) on AIM, Chris (Izaac Wang) skims her MySpace for an “in”. Then, beneath all the Paramore pictures and low-res GIFs is a list of her favorite movies. Oh, A Walk to Remember is one of them. He fakes loving it; “its helllllla good,” he says. Now he has to maintain that––at least for a few scenes. This sort of thing happens throughout Sean Wang’s feature directorial debut. The character moments flow on a moment-to-moment basis and the period detail is quite good beneath it. Ultimately, Dìdi (弟弟) works despite its untapped potential. – Matt C. (full review)
Where to Stream: Prime Video
Farewell My Concubine (Chen Kaige)
Premiering 30 years ago last year, Chen Kaige’s enchanting, Palme d’Or-winning, and Oscar-nominated drama Farewell My Concubine finally returned in its original cut, stunningly restored in 4K, to theaters. Starring Leslie Cheung, Fengyi Zhang, and Gong Li, the drama was cut by 20 minutes after Harvey Scissorhands had his way with it. Now restored to its original glory, it’s now available on Film Movement+.
Where to Stream: Film Movement+
Flipside (Chris Wilcha)
There is no surprise twist in Chris Wilcha’s Flipside, a documentary making its world premiere at the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival. This is not a true-crime doc or a story of unearthed family secrets. (Although there is lots of ephemera excavated after years of quasi-hoarding.) Instead of a twist, though, there is an audience awakening, one that takes a rather standard there-are-places-I-remember doc into surprisingly resonant territory. Ultimately, Flipside is a moving, funny, inventive film that may cause viewers to follow Wilcha’s lead and ask tough questions about their own lives. That is no small feat for a documentarian. – Chris S. (full review)
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
The Graduates (Hannah Peterson)
The Graduates is a quiet film. Written and directed by Hannah Peterson, it tells the story of a high school one year after a deadly shooting. Genevieve (Mina Sundwall)––whose boyfriend Tyler was one of the victims––has been struggling to get through her final year, anxious to graduate and hopefully start anew at college. Her mother (Maria Dizzia) walks on eggshells, doing whatever she can to help Genevieve past this impossible trauma and keep her grades and test scores up enough to get her out. Meanwhile, Tyler’s best friend Ben (Alex Hibbert) has returned from a stay away, reforming his friendship with Genevieve. Finally, the school basketball coach (John Cho) does his best to push himself and his team through the season. Tyler was his son. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Jazzy (Morrisa Maltz)
Expanding the cinematic universe of her first feature The Unknown Country, Morrisa Maltz’s Jazzy is a beautifully crafted portrait of childhood in South Dakota, conjuring an aesthetic that at times recalls the ethereal works of Sofia Coppola. Made in close collaboration with her subjects, Jazzy expands one of the documentary interstitials featured in her previous film, creating a portrait of a country that is known through the eyes of two tween girls growing up in a material community. For much of the film, adults are heard but remain offscreen, the fathers are unseen, and the film’s third act contains a catharsis that recalls how The Unknown Country resolved itself. Maltz often collaborates with a population she is not part of, her films often revolving around the idea of community––those you find or get back together with. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Matt and Mara (Kazik Radwanski)
Kazik Radwanski’s misty-eyed, mostly improvised tale of friends-not-quite-lovers excels at capturing intricacies of the unspoken. There’s a warming tenderness and quiet sadness to Deragh Campbell and Matt Johnson’s restrained interactions. In the final moments, Mara places a crumpled receipt inside a book and returns it to its shelf. Sometimes that’s what a good film is: a leaf through our feelings. Matt and Mara is there on the shelf now, for when we feel like opening that book again. – Blake S.
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Mountains (Monica Sorelle)
A low-key, poetic exploration of life’s ironies, Monica Sorelle’s feature debut Mountains frames the disappearance of Miami’s Little Haiti with a warm, compassionate gaze recalling the masters of social realism––akin to Roberto Rossellini with the touch of Ousmane Sembène’s lighter films. With a title drawn from a Haitian proverb “behind mountains there are mountains,” the film retains a light touch, somewhat more sad than mad as Little Haiti disappears in the city’s building boom. A modest dream home is unobtainable once the real estate vultures circle the neighborhood and Xavier Sr. (Atibon Nazaire), a demolition worker, plays a role in changing his neighborhood permanently, making way for young Whole Foods-shopping professionals to displace families and small businesses. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Not an Artist (Jeremy Teicher, Alexi Pappas)
What does it mean to be an artist? Jeremy Teicher and Alexi Pappas’ ramshackle yet endearing latest film takes an eccentric exploration of the question. Capturing an artist-in-residency program led by the mysterious, wealthy Abbot (RZA), the most compelling passages center on his cult-like, unwavering passion for pulling the true artistry out of those participating––or proving they even have any at all. A special nod to Matt Walsh, who also co-wrote the script, for portraying yet another good-natured character stuck in a situation of pure desperation, as he does so well. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: VOD
Past Lives (Celine Song)
Whether miniscule or major, the millions of decisions we make form the winding path of our lives. Specific reasons for taking certain forks in the road can often be lost to the sea of time, swelling back up only as our memory allows. A triptych not-quite-romance crossing nearly a quarter-century, playwright Celine Song’s directorial debut Past Lives examines such universal experience with keen cultural specificity, telling the story of childhood friends who twice reconnect later in life. It’s a warm, patient film culminating in a quietly powerful, reflective finale, though its sum is greater than its parts when the first two sections register a touch underdeveloped. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Prime Video
September 5 (Tim Fehlbaum)
Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5 stars John Magaro, Peter Sarsgaard, Leonie Benesch, and Ben Chaplin as ABC sports journalists unexpectedly put in the position of narrativizing the hostage crisis of the 1972 Munich Olympics. It’s an effective thriller––one couldn’t accuse it of being boring––but takes what feels like the safest possible approach to its fraught subject matter. – Lucia A. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Suze (Dane Clark, Linsey Stewart)
Nearly two years after its festival premiere Dane Clark and Linsey Stewart’s humorous and thoughtful dramedy Suze is finally getting a release. Led by Michaela Watkins in her finest performance yet, the film captures a unique perspective on shared heartbreak, following single mother who is in low spirits after her daughter heads to college. Meanwhile, through a series of unfortunate circumstances, she takes in her daughter’s ex-boyfriend (Charlie Gillespie) who is reeling from their breakup. While formally Clark and Stewart may not be exploring anything new, there’s a real emotional perceptiveness and sense of empathy as the unexpected scenario builds, while never losing a sense of when to inject the right dose of comedy. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: VOD
We Heart Herzog
The great Werner Herzog has received a worthy retrospective on Metrograph’s streaming channel, including Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), Cobra Verde (1987), The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974), Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970), Fata Morgana (1971), Fitzcarraldo (1982), Heart of Glass (1976), Land of Silence and Darkness (1971), Lessons of Darkness (1992), Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997), My Best Fiend (1999), Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979), Stroszek (1977), and Woyzeck (1979).
Where to Stream: Metrograph at Home
Wolf Man (Leigh Whannell)
An actor since 1996 and self-made horror screenwriter since 2003, Whannell shifted to directing in 2015 with the third chapter of Insidious, by far his least-impressive film. Since then he’s found his footing with the hit sci-fi film Upgrade and breathtaking remake of The Invisible Man. Wolf Man follows much more in his recent creative lineage than Insidious: Chapter 3. That success is largely thanks to Whannell’s storytelling chops (however clichéd, he manages to make them work) and Stefan Duscio’s phenomenal cinematography, which cooks a frightening wonder into the Oregon forest and keeps you locked in during impending jumpscare moments. You know you should look away, but the frame is just too nice. – Luke H. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
The Criterion Channel
All Shall Be Well
Argentine Noir
Celebrate Black History
Directed by Axelle Ropert
Directed by Buster Keaton
Directed by Joan Micklin Silver
New York Love Stories
Phantom Thread
Remorques
Sara Gómez’s Revolutionary Cuba
Starring Claudette Colbert
Toute une nuit
Wildcat
Hulu
In the Summers
Kill
Kino Film Collection
Murder in Harlem
Oscar Micheaux: Superhero of Black Filmmaking
Max
We Live in Time
Metrograph at Home
Bad Romance
Spotlight on Black Cinema
MUBI (free for 30 days)
L’avance
You Hide Me
The Nature of Love
Asako I & II
Slow
Unrest
Welcome to Chechnya
Netflix
Magic Mike XXL
The Nice Guys
Parasite
Prime Video
Freddy Got Fingered
The Thin Red Line
Wish You Were Here