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.
After Yang (kogonada)
Following his serenely stunning drama Columbus, video-essayist-turned-director kogonada headed to the future with After Yang. The gorgeous, moving drama about what makes up a family premiered at last year’s Cannes (where our own Rory O’Connor was mixed) and after a few tweaks recently landed at Sundance, where it received quite a rapturous response. Starring Colin Farrell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, Justin H. Min, Sarita Choudhury, Haley Lu Richardson, and Clifton Collins Jr., it follows Farrell as Jake, a father who attempts to repair the malfunction Yang, an android that was a companion to his young daughter. In his second feature, kogonada perfectly depicts quite a seemingly realistic near-future while still retaining the peaceful artistic sensibilities of his debut. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: Showtime
Dear Mr. Brody (Keith Maitland)
See an exclusive clip above.
Long before the days of going viral with a scam to share wealth with whomever retweets a comment, there was Michael J. Brody Jr., an Oleomargarine heir and alleged hippie millionaire who pledged to give away his wealth without thinking through an orderly process. Surrounding himself by “yes” men, he becomes a subject of fascination on news programs in the New York City area, eventually capturing the attention of producer Ed Pressman, who takes ownership of the letters as research for a future narrative film about Brody. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Drive My Car (Ryūsuke Hamaguchi)
A totally bewitching, irreducible film, Drive My Car accumulates its overwhelming emotional weight from innumerable elements: the ever-shifting visage of Hidetoshi Nishijima; the stoic intimacy of Tōko Miura; the revolving supporting cast, each figure more distinct and transfixing than the last; the relaxed counterpoint of Eiko Ishibashi’s score. What Ryūsuke Hamaguchi has done here is nothing short of miraculous, a synthesis of all these elements to create something both supremely cathartic and continually tantalizing, fully delivering on its particular narrative throughlines while capturing all manner of mysterious routes that constantly move into the great unknown. – Ryan S.
Huda’s Salon (Hany Abu-Assad)
Long live the socially minded political thriller! Thanks to filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad, this long-underserved sub-genre––once perfected by directors like Hitchcock, Pakula, and Weir––feels briefly resurrected thanks to his new picture Huda’s Salon. Set in the West Bank and based on true events, the film concerns Palestinian housewife Reem (Maisa Abd Elhadi) and the circumstances that are set in motion after a fateful trip to a local salon run by a woman named Huda (Manal Awad). – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Isabella (Matías Piñeiro)
Women from Shakespeare’s oeuvre find themselves reincarnated in modern-day South America through the recent works of Argentine director Matías Piñeiro (Hermia & Helena, The Princess of France, Viola), which operate with non-linear structures concentrated on the intersection between the professional and intimate lives of actresses or aspiring artists. His unassumingly sumptuous new feature Isabella–which channels the central sister-brother dilemma in the British author’s Measure for Measure–examines two women’s unexpressed self-doubt, their aversion to risk, and conflicted career aspirations in an initially puzzling but ultimately rewarding fragmented narrative. – Carlos A. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
I Was a Simple Man (Christopher Makoto Yogi)
With his sublime sophomore effort, I Was a Simple Man, director Christopher Makoto Yogi sees Hawai’i not purely as tropical paradise, but a tranquil, sacred place with a spiritual identity constantly being threatened by cultural erasure and American imperialism. Oscillating between eerily pristine widescreen shots of Honolulu’s skyline and ghostly portraits of rural life, the film’s haunting cinematography echoes this tension through competing textures and hues. Still, Yogi’s quietly radical aesthetic manages to capture the soulful humanity of a tormented individual feverishly slipping from one world to the next. – Glenn H.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
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: VOD
The Long Walk (Mattie Do)
Modernization and traditional living collide to strong political effect in Mattie Do’s third feature film The Long Walk. Its first few images see both an unidentified flying ship traveling at warp speed and a rusted-up scooter. We see dirt roads and vegetables being sold in plastic bags in a farmer’s market but currency is now paid through a digital microchip in your wrist. “Oh you’re using an old government chip,” the tender tells The Old Man (Yannawoutthi Chanthalangsy). It seems it’s already out-of-date. Things move fast in The Long Walk while others stay relatively the same. – Soham G. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Pink Cloud (Iuli Gerbase)
Iuli Gerbase’s The Pink Cloud starts off with a disclaimer: “This film was written in 2017 and shot in 2019. Any resemblance to real life is purely coincidental.” Indeed, it doesn’t take long before the uncanny connections between Gerbase’s film and the real-life COVID-19 pandemic become quite unsettlingly clear, in what feels like the simultaneously most accurate and most dystopic depiction of life during a pandemic (namely, during lockdowns of the first part of 2020). – Brianna Z. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Pre-Code Paramount
One of the most notable additions to this month’s Criterion Channel lineup is a series dedicated to the films of Paramount prior to the introduction of the Hollywood Production Code. From Lubitsch (Trouble in Paradise and Design for Living) to Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich (Morocco) to Dorothy Arzner (Merrily We Go to Hell) and beyond, one can partake in risqué delights, 30s-style, with this 20-film series.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
West Side Story (Steven Spielberg)
Leave it to the master. We didn’t need a remake of a classic; we didn’t really want a remake of a classic. And yet. Steven Spielberg’s long-in-the-making re-interpretation of West Side Story is his best film in a decade, arguably the best by anyone this year. Lush color, vibrant sets, and more star-making performances than you could count on one hand, this thing bristles with life. Janusz Kaminski shoots the film like he’s trying to get out of the way of Justin Peck’s beautiful choreography. At once an ode to the original film and a blistering new adaptation, West Side Story is a marvel. – Dan M.
Where to Stream: HBO Max, Disney+
Also New to Streaming
Amazon Prime
Hulu
The Criterion Channel
MUBI (free for 30 days)
VOD