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.
Drive-Away Dolls (Ethan Coen)
The kind of movie made to stumble upon surfing cable at 2 am in a half-awake, half-intoxicated stupor, Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls aims for a lower artistic bar than anything the director (and certainly his brother) has previously approached, which accounts for much of its charm. Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke first completed the script some two decades ago––titled Drive-Away Dykes both then and now, if one goes by the end credits––and the film’s B-movie, pleasure-first appeal lies in the feeling that they simply dusted off a copy and immediately embarked on production. A slapdash narrative populated with eminently likable characters best described as joke-delivering caricatures, this marvelously queer road-trip comedy caper is a fleet-footed ride designed to pack in as much sex, violence, and psychedelic mind trips as an 84-minute runtime will allow. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Prime Video
Evil Does Not Exist (Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
Amongst a typically raucous lineup at this year’s Venice Film Festival comes Evil Does Not Exist, a work in which tensions rise over little more than the placement of a septic tank. It’s the latest from director Ryusuke Hamaguchi and his first since 2021’s miraculous double-punch of Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy and Drive My Car. Evil concerns a clash of urban and rural sensibilities: a story about a small but hardy group of people who wish to stop the development of a glamping site. Devotees of Kelly Reichardt’s sylvan melancholies will feel perfectly at home. – Rory O. (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: VOD
Hell Hole (John Adams, Toby Poser)
The parasitic creature at the center of The Adams Family’s Hell Hole (comprising John Adams and Toby Poser as directors/co-writers/stars, with daughter Lulu joining them on screenwriting duos while Zelda sits this one out) isn’t messing around. The second it seems its host is being threatened, it simply explodes its way out to find a new one. This means a lot of blood and gore and a couple effective jump scares––you never know how much of a threat is too much. Sometimes the beast simply wiggles a tentacle or two out of its victim’s orifices. Sometimes it stages a jail break. The only consistency is that it will take over the next, nearest male human in the hopes of finally reaching maturity. – Jared
Where to Stream: Shudder, AMC+
Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 (Kevin Costner)
Everything that emerged in the lead-up to Horizon––the project’s scale, its runtime (181 minutes), the colon and hyphen in its title––has been pointing to one word; but calling something ‘epic’ has less to do with quantity than some movies would like us to think. In the most sweeping sequences of Dances with Wolves, Costner left the character all alone on the plains, dwarfed by the landscape and increasingly aware of his own place in it. Horizon, by contrast, seldom takes that kind of time to think. There’s a distinct lack here, too, of cinematic urgency, the sense that, regardless of length, there is somewhere the film needs to get to. The resulting feeling of watching Horizon will be familiar to anyone who’s ever binged a prestige show; but if that is a snag the viewer’s willing to overcome, Costner leaves plenty to enjoy. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Max
Inside Out 2 (Kelsey Mann)
Much like the previous movie, Inside Out 2 has a predictably fun time journeying throughout the different corners of Riley’s brain. It also plays it pretty safe, careful not to disrupt too much about what its predecessor established, filtering in Michael Giacchino’s whimsical and soulful score to piano key stroke more of its connective tissue. You could argue it’s a more homogenized version of Turning Red without that movie’s vivid Chinese heritage, cultural details, and more pressing physical metaphors. But the idea that universal emotions––through the perspective of a young, overachieving white girl––provide a more “relatable” watching experience (or better understanding of puberty) is a bit fraught in this context. – Jake K. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Killer (John Woo)
Following last year’s Silent Night—a return to Hollywood filmmaking that was perhaps more successful in conceit than execution—John Woo returns once again, this time remaking his own action classic, The Killer. Relegated straight to streaming on Peacock, Woo still proves to have an adept eye for thrills with a number of impressive set pieces. Yet one can’t shake the feeling throughout its too-long two-hour runtime, burdened by the deadened, weightless digital look, that the film would’ve been better served not being compared to its masterful predecessor. Without the baggage, this is a serviceable action thriller that rises above the heap of streaming garbage.
Where to Stream: Peacock
Longlegs (Osgood Perkins)
Perkins’ previous films, such as The Blackcoat’s Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, worked because they eschewed the very pretense of a story that would otherwise drag them down. By living and dying on tame procedural, Longlegs fails to evoke any strong emotion. Perhaps that’s partially by design: Perkins seems intent, if not particularly careful, to emulate his protagonist in style and form. Harker is quiet and attentive, and the mise-en-scène invites audiences to follow suit. The issue is the degree to which the script introduces and discards portions of itself. Those Zodiac-type letters? Solved way too quickly, and out of the movie they go. – Matt C. (VOD
The Passengers of the Night (Mikhaël Hers)
One of the great performances of 2023 comes courtesy Charlotte Gainsbourg in Mikhaël Hers’ new drama The Passengers of the Night. Following a woman adrift in 1980s Paris (and even referencing one of the best films of the respective decade, Éric Rohmer’s Full Moon in Paris) reeling from a divorce while balancing job prospects, a relationship with her two teenage children, and a new teenager that enters her life, the drama is carefully attuned to the emotions of everyone that graces the screen. Passengers exudes a mature poeticism in every scene. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Stress Positions (Theda Hammel)
Between The Sweet East and, to some extent, American Fiction, cinephiles seem to be increasing their appetite for politically incorrect commentary. Even if you are not one such moviegoer, Stress Positions, the feature debut from Theda Hammel, does not fucking care. That’s an asset before it’s a problem, but its aimless narrative and discordant visual styles undercut this film’s sharpness. – Lena W. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
The Village Detective: A Song Cycle (Bill Morrison)
It is hard to overstate how important Bill Morrison’s work is to the language and history of cinema. As much a historian as he is a filmmaker, Morrison seeks out long-lost work and brings them back to life. In often merging these rescued images with beautiful, cerebral music, a new piece of art is built atop the old, offering both a celebration of what’s been found and what is still to come. Morrison’s new feature The Village Detective: A Song Cycle is a slight departure, though no less effective. This time around the discovered film is one that was never lost. In fact, it’s a movie rather well-known in its native country of Russia. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Kino Film Collection
Also New to Streaming
Hulu
The Supremes at Earl’s All-You-Can-Eat
Prime Video
Baraka
Jacknife
MUBI (free for 30 days)
Forty Shades of Blue
Netflix
Logan Lucky
Migration
Pearl
VOD
Crumb Catcher
Oddity