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.
Aporia (Jared Moshé)
What would your life be like if you didn’t go to work the day an accident would otherwise change everything? How much of your future might shift if you decide to simply alter your schedules to better accommodate picking up your child from school? One question seems bigger than the other, yet the second may actually impact what occurs next more. Because you can’t know for certain. And there aren’t any do-overs. Perhaps it’s better that way, to accept and move on rather than risk an even worse fate. Or is it? That’s what writer-director Jared Moshé seeks to contemplate with his grounded science fiction drama Aporia. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Barbie (Greta Gerwig)
Gerwig is undoubtedly doing the thing: making Barbieland a hyper-stylized reality full of musical numbers, unique props, and arcane lore. The world she’s built for her Barbies, under either government system, is really funny, dense with jokes and asides and winks towards the brand’s long, complicated history. It’s a relief to watch a big-budget movie this summer that spent its money on a unique visual language. There’s not just one dream house, but a whole cul-de-sac of dream houses. The hills are alive with the sound of Barbie! At its sharpest, Gerwig and Baumbach’s script harken back to the former’s work in coming-of-age comedies––Frances Ha, Mistress America, even Lady Bird. Gosling gets the majority of the laugh lines, Ken’s men’s-rights awakening pushing his limited brain capacity to its very limit as he learns how to oppress. – Fran H. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
El Conde (Pablo Larraín)
No one hates to report an underwhelming Pablo Larraín like I do, but his newest—a socio-political fantasy in which Augusto Pinochet is actually a vindictive vampire who’s been fighting the voice of the people ever since his beloved King Louis XVI was guillotined in the town square centuries ago—only earns its weight in cinematography. At age 75, Ed Lachman still refuses to turn in a below-average assignment. While El Conde suffers in nearly every other department (especially the empty screenwriting, which bafflingly took home Best Screenplay at Venice), Lachman’s crisp black-and-white aesthetic takes advantage of the imaginative nature of the story. If for nothing else, watch for the opening sequence—at least 10 minutes of showstopping, surreal cinematography set to a feverishly fun recharacterization of the Chilean dictator that eventually brings us into the present of the narrative… where it all falls apart. – Luke H.
Where to Stream: Netflix
Corsage (Marie Kreutzer)
In Corsage, Vicky Krieps delivers a performance brimming with salty despondency and inner life. Gasping for breath in the garment from which this film takes its title, the Luxembourgish actress stars as Elisabeth Eugenie, the 19th-century Hungarian queen and Hapsburg empress tasked with quietly presiding over a kingdom in its early stages of unraveling. The director is Marie Kreutzer, an Austrian filmmaker whose previous effort, The Ground Beneath My Feet, told another story of a woman and an unraveling. While that film competed for the Golden Bear, Corsage took Kreutzer all the way to Cannes, making a splash in Un Certain Regard and justifiably rewarding Krieps for her work. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Inside (Vasilis Katsoupis)
In terms of the sheer range of directors he has worked with, there may be no more impressive a career than Willem Dafoe’s. In-between his recent collaborations with Abel Ferrara, Wes Anderson, Robert Eggers, Walter Hill, Lars von Trier, Yorgos Lanthimos, and Guillermo del Toro, he’s found time to elevate new voices in cinema. The latest is Vasilis Katsoupis, whose debut feature Inside premiered earlier this year. Scripted by Ben Hopkins, it tells the story of Nemo (Dafoe), an art thief trapped in a New York penthouse after his heist doesn’t go as planned. Locked inside with nothing but priceless works of art, he must use all his cunning and invention to survive.
Where to Stream: Prime Video
Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller)
That George Miller returned to resurrect his Mad Max saga three decades after its last entry (the divisive Beyond Thunderdome) is, in itself, a certain sort of feat. That he produced an anti-patriarchal, post-apocalyptic, action-fantasy epic worthy of mainstream appeal is damn near achieving the impossible. But with the help of a stellar cast (led by Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron) and enough stunt people to fill ten movies, Miller introduced a new generation to his fully imagined world and all the carefully choreographed fight sequences and face-melting destruction that come with it. The fact that a film of such gloriously creative weirdness could become both a critical and box-office success makes me think there’s hope for us all. – Amanda W.
Where to Stream: Hulu
Retribution (Nimrod Antal)
Wholly possible that it was a script kicking around since the mid-2000s pitched as “Speed meets Phone Booth” with a few hence-added references to “the dark web” and “crypto accounts,” the new Liam Neeson thriller Retribution likely won’t surprise anyone. It’s at least notable for bearing the return of sturdy journeyman Nimrod Antal to English-language thrillers (Neeson’s go-to director Jaume Collet-Serra serves instead as producer this time), and certainly shows a more competent hand behind the camera than that of the Blacklight variety. – Ethan V. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Rotting in the Sun (Sebastián Silva)
From its hilarious use of social media montages to the oversized white Telfar bag that seems to almost swallow one of its characters whole, Sebastián Silva’s Rotting in the Sun is the kind of film that would be best served by a review comprised entirely of emojis. And I mean that as the highest of compliments. There isn’t a single frame in the film that hasn’t been meticulously manicured in order to achieve what social media tries to do: create a vision of uniqueness while relishing in manufactured mundanity. That Silva achieves to both criticize the overuse of online personas (particularly in the white gay world) while becoming a piece meant to be meme-d and TikTok-ed into oblivion is truly remarkable. – Jose S. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Shortcomings (Randall Park)
Without Justin Hong-Kee Min, Shortcomings would be sour to watch. His character, Ben, floats through Randall Park’s directorial debut with a mountain of unlikability. Throughout the audience has watched Ben be awful to his girlfriend, his best friend, his best friend’s new girlfriend, a new date, a woman he dates for three weeks, and so on and so forth. He isn’t amicable in any way, opting instead for self-serving, sarcastic remarks that place him above the person, place, or thing he’s discussing. Somehow, though, Shortcomings is enjoyable, at times even delightful. – Michael F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Talk to Me (Danny and Michael Philippou)
Featuring a great premise from which to build a franchise, YouTube creators Danny and Michael Philippou’s directorial debut Talk To Me is a refreshing retread, imagining tantalizing “micro-possessions” that get stronger the more you use them. The premise is simple enough: a possessed hand that seems to have been passed down for generations opens a supernatural portal to the unknown, which can offer a brief moment of clarity before it inflicts unthinkable violence. As far as the violence goes, the film checks all the boxes with a murder/suicide opening sequence at an out-of-control house party, setting the affair in motion without giving away what’s to come. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Theater Camp (Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman)
Welcome to AdirondACTS Theater Camp in gorgeous upstate New York. Led by founder Joan Rubinsky (Amy Sedaris), the kids, a menagerie of the precocious and hyperactive, are about to put on a production of Bye Bye Birdie. The stage lights are on and––oh, wait. Never mind. Joan has just suffered a seizure from the strobing, so she’s in the hospital. Apparently the “documentary” filmmakers have only been on location for a day. Alas, we only know that because a title card tells us. We don’t really get to see anything, and via another card we learn Joan’s techbro of a son, Troy (Jimmy Tatro), has arrived to salvage the camp. – Matt C. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
The Unknown Country (Morrisa Maltz)
Beginning with a departure in the dead of night in the middle of winter, and ending perhaps where its lead Tana (Lily Gladstone) was destined to go, Morrisa Maltz’s road trip film The Unknown Country was one of the most exciting offerings at SXSW. In a haunting exploration of biography and geography, Tana traverses a landscape from South Dakota to Texas, along the way stopping to examine lives well-lived as the film enters a quasi-documentary mode. The world proves quite a free place for Tana and we are given delightful, sometimes inspiring, sometimes heartbreaking insights into the people we pass by. They tell us their life stories as Tana flows between hotels, diners, gas stations, beer gardens, and convenience stores. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)
No, The Wolf of Wall Street does not glamorize the antics of Jordan Belfort. But it does revel in them, just like the bloodsuckers who loved him. Leonardo DiCaprio gives his best performance as one of cinema’s great irredeemable assholes, a Quaalude-popping destroyer who, in some ways, feels like the ultimate American businessman. When Wolf finally comes to a close, at nearly the three-hour-marker, this feeling crystallizes. We watch a post-prison Belfort work his magic to a new group of wannabes, and as Scorsese’s camera lingers on their wide-eyed expressions, realize why this film, the director’s later-period classic, is so important: because it captures the allure of money and power in a manner that feels fresh, vital, and now. Everyone involved — Scorsese, DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Thelma Schoonmaker — are at the top of their game. And the result is a film that will feel as relevant in 20 years as Goodfellas does today. What filmgoer could have hoped for more? – Chris S.
Where to Stream: Netflix
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