With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’re highlighting the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.
A24 Films on Kanopy
With FilmStruck sadly heading into its early grave last night, one may be looking for more options for streaming. One of the best alternatives is Kanopy, which can be accessed for free with a library card in select areas. They’ve also just added a wealth of A24 films (72, to be exact) ranging from this year’s First Reformed and Lean on Pete all the way back to their first offerings like Enemy and Spring Breakers.
Where to Stream: Kanopy
De Palma (Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow)
Recently, Kent Jones’ Hitchcock /Truffaut — a documentary on the famous interview sessions between the two directors — boasted perhaps the most chaotic, dignity-threatening queue of any film screened at Cannes. There is a craving for this sort of thing among cinephiles it seems and it’s easy to see why. Directors just seem to open up much more when speaking to one of their own kind. Brian De Palma, the subject of this fine documentary, says that they’re “the only ones who understand what we go through.” Over the last five years, fellow directors Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow shot over 30 hours of interviews with the movie icon and have distilled them down into this rich feature-length documentary. De Palma is a fascinating, revealing and compelling overview of a remarkably eclectic career, but it’s also a seldom-heard first-hand account of what it’s like to work inside and outside the Hollywood system. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Happy as Lazzaro (Alice Rohrwacher)
The films of Alice Rohrwacher have always been rich with the sensory magic of growing up, but that atmosphere has, up to this point, been enhanced with the knowledge that puberty was approaching, just out of sight, with all the subtlety of a B52 bomber. With her newest, Lazarro Felice, she has largely forgone that period of adolescence, while somehow not forgoing that sense of everyday magic. What emerges is not simply a next step in her oeuvre and creative growth but a fully formed expression of her virtuosic talents. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection (Julien Faraut)
From the years 1973 to 1981 the great film critic Serge Daney held the position of editor of Cahiers du cinéma, that most revered and storied of film journals. He also wrote a tennis column. That idea of a shared symbiotic passion for the worlds of cinema and sport—and how the two might be connected—provides the basis for Julien Faraut’s experimental documentary In the Realm of Perfection, a witty and contagiously impassioned ethnographical study of the game and, in particular, the 1985 finals at Roland Garros. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Let the Corpses Tan (Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani)
With their third feature, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani tackle the poliziotteschi genre instead of the giallo (here’s hoping for the peplum next). The picture is focused on the fallout of a gold bar robbery in the Mediterranean; a gang of thieves, artists and motorcycle cops colliding to a naturally bloody end. Adapted from a novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette and Jean-Pierre Bastid, yet still not providing too much in the way of narrative, this writer could at least discern plot points involving a Rabid Dogs-like kidnapping, a Treasure of Sierra Madre-inspired descent into greedy violence and, of course, some psychosexual hijinks that likely invokes every genre picture of the past fifty years. If there’s a driving force one can find, perhaps it’s just the greed in a man’s eyes at the sight of gold. – Ethan V. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes
Mandy (Panos Cosmatos)
In an era of dime-a-dozen Nicolas Cage movies, you may think you know what you’re getting when sitting down for his latest feature. Rest assured, nothing could prepare you for the experience of Mandy. I’m not even referring to the gory and gleeful shocks–of which the back half has many–but rather Panos Cosmatos’ intoxicating, singular version, which mixes beauty and batshit insanity for an LSD-fueled descent into darkness like no other. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Shudder
MGM Films (and More) for Free on YouTube
If you don’t mind intermittent ads, a batch of films are now available for free and legally on YouTube, including much of MGM’s library and more. Highlights include The Terminator, the Rocky series, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s I Wish, Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin, Johnnie To’s Drug War, and more.
Where to Stream: YouTube
A Paris Education (Jean-Paul Civeyrac)
Halfway through writer-director Jean-Paul Civeyrac’s cinephile coming-of-age story A Paris Education, a girl confronts a budding filmmaker: “You seem out of touch with reality… like you live an armchair life.” It is not the first time aspiring cineastes in Civeyrac’s IndieLisboa entry get scolded for being self-centered navel-gazers, nor does the slap feel entirely undeserved. A mélange between Garrel’s Regular Lovers (with which it shares a gorgeous black and white cinematography, courtesy of DP Pierre-Hubert Martin) and Mia Hansen-Løve’s Eden (of which it echoes the same affection for deranged, self-destructive loners), A Paris Education follows the solipsistic journeys of a few film students whose only real concern in life seem to be whether or not they’ll ever join the ranks of the auteurs they binge-watch before reality catches up with their dreams. – Leonardo G. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes
The World is Yours (Romain Gavras)
I have often been a touch skeptical that Gavras’ work, however unique and strangely beautiful, is, in essence, some finely crafted brand of poverty porn. Sure the director is the son of a Greek immigrant but hadn’t his father already won an Oscar and was about to win the Palme d’Or when Romain came into the world? Who are we to judge and, whatever the case, I am certain of the man’s adoration for the lifestyles he depicts, not to mention his auteur credentials. Many have tried to mimic this look (mostly arbitrarily but some, admittedly, with relative success (The Blaze)) but not one pretender has shown anything close to Gavras’ poetic, fetishistic eye for the absurd homoeroticism of male working-class tribes. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Also New to Streaming
Amazon
The Captain
The House with a Clock in its Walls
The Predator
Amazon Prime
MUBI (free for 30 days)
The Convent
Dharma Guns
Accident
King & Country
Lovers of the Arctic Circle
Red Amnesia
Continue: Where to Stream the Best Films of 2018
