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.
Chronicles of a Wandering Saint (Tomás Gómez Bustillo)
Tomás Gómez Bustillo’s charming, intelligent Chronicles of a Wandering Saint is a natural follow-up to the two short films for which he is known: Soy Buenos Aires (a strange, picaresque rags-to-riches tale) and Museum of Fleeting Wonders (a collection of dramatized paranormal happenings). In Chronicles, as in the two short films, he is primarily concerned with spiritual, ethical, and religious contrasts; scenarios in which miracles are mixed with coincidences, faith with rationality, and boredom with inspiration. But that is where the comparisons end; for Chronicles is in every way a more serious, controlled, and moving work of art, which stands with the very best of contemporary Argentine cinema. – Oliver W. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Daughters (Natalie Rae and Angela Patton)
Winner of both the Audience Award and in its U.S. Documentary section and the overall Festival Favorite Award at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, Natalie Rae and Angela Patton’s deeply moving documentary Daughters is now on Netflix. John Fink said in his review, “A striking film that evokes a wave of emotions, Natalie Rae and Angela Patton’s Daughters is another picture––à la Rudy Valdez’s The Sentence, Garrett Bradley’s Time, and Zara Katz and Lisa Riordan Seville’s A Women on the Outside––focusing directly on the impact prison sentences have on families”
Where to Stream: Netflix
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
Almost nine years to the day since Mad Max: Fury Road premiered in Cannes, George Miller returns to the Croisette with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. It’s a deafening roar of a film, full of the same improbable vehicles and breathless pursuits through the director’s signature dystopian outback, though now told through a lens that can feel a bit slick at times. It tells the story of how Imperator Furiosa (immortalized by Charlize Theron in 2015 and gamely reinterpreted here by Alyla Browne and Anya Taylor-Joy) came to be, tracking her journey from childhood and the Place of Abundance––an Edenic oasis of renewable energy and worrying red apples––to hardened warrior in the wastelands of Bullet Farm, Gastown, and The Citadel of Immortan Joe. The concerns that met the trailer––suggesting Miller had traded in his predecessor’s practical effects for CGI––are, I’m sorry to say, not entirely unfounded. But Furiosa can still boast moments to take the breath away. Did we need it? Probably not. Are the chase scenes still phenomenal? Absolutely. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Max
Here (Bas Devos)
For anyone keeping tabs on Bas Devos’ career, it’s notable that the drama of his latest film Here is set in motion by something as benign as a pot of soup. A charming portrait with a flânuerial spirit, the film follows a Brussels-based Romanian construction worker who, having decided to move home, cooks what’s left in his fridge, packages it up, then gifts it to family, friends and––much later––a Belgian-Chinese woman doing a PhD in moss. She is played by Liyo Gang and he is played by Stefan Gota. It’s 81 minutes long, has relatively little dialogue, and tugs the heartstrings in all the best ways. It might be the most benevolent film of this year. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Hypnosis (Ernst De Geer)
Toni Erdmann wasn’t the first film to skewer corporate culture, but the epic-length comedy struck a chord with many for how it used a fish-out-of-water conceit to rupture the rigid, dehumanizing nature of that world. It’s likely the first movie that comes to mind watching The Hypnosis, a similarly high-concept tale aimed at deconstructing the social conventions of the boardroom, and whether the pursuit of professional success is of greater concern than maintaining close relationships with loved ones. It proves so similar in thematic interests that I began to imagine an enterprising movie producer buying the rights to the screenplay, giving it a few tweaks, and attempting to make it as “2-ni Erdmann”––although, admittedly, seeing Sandra Hüller experiencing bizarre side effects after an experimental treatment to quit smoking would make for the oddest comedy sequel this side of Weekend at Bernie’s II. – Alistair R. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Genesis (Philippe Lesage)
Considering the sheer number of coming-of-age films premiering each year, many getting lost in the undistributed ether after small festival runs, so it’s small miracle when one manages to show us burgeoning adolescence in a new light when it comes to both style and structure. In only his third narrative feature Genesis, Canadian director Philippe Lesage expands on his prior film The Demons with the confidence of a helmer that has dozens of movies under their belt. Led by striking, star-making performances by Théodore Pellerin and Noée Abita, the film keys on the pangs of heartache and the euphoria of the million paths that lie ahead like few before it. You’ll also have this song stuck in your head for weeks.
Where to Stream: Prime Video
Mothers’ Instinct (Benoît Delhomme)
It wouldn’t take much to convince an unsuspecting audience member that Mothers’ Instinct is the latest dispatch from the Don’t Worry Darling cinematic universe. The directorial debut of cinematographer Benoît Delhomme initially appears to be a surface-level rendering of a bygone era, a vaguely defined late 1950s or early 1960s, in which the women are talked out of career prospects and encouraged to stay at home to be wives and mothers, first and foremost, kept at a distance from their husbands’ lives. But, of course, nefarious secrets are discovered to be closer to home and far lower in concept within this stylish melodrama, which hews far closer to the “women’s pictures” of the period depicted in both style and substance than the campier thriller it’s being presented as––though those looking for the latter will still get what they ordered courtesy of Anne Hathaway’s brilliantly rendered turn as grieving mother Céline. – Alistair R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
National Anthem (Luke Gilford)
At the beginning of National Anthem, writer-director Luke Gilford’s exquisite-looking and subversive debut feature, 21-year-old Dylan (Charlie Plummer) lives a particularly burdensome and monotonous life. Within his small, rural, isolated New Mexico community he supports his family by shoveling gravel at temporary construction gigs and returns to his one-bedroom home to feed and take care of Cassidy (Joey DeLeon), his younger brother. Most nights his alcoholic hairdresser mother goes out late and returns home with drunken flings, forcing her two sons to sleep on the couch. It’s a difficult, lonely existence, and throughout his primary caretaking Dylan sees no opportunity to escape. – Jake K-S (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Summer Solstice (Noah Schamus)
Summer Solstice took me by surprise when I first saw it at BFI Flare LGBTIQ+ Film Festival back in March. Fresh and funny, simple, but never slight, this meditative indie summer film explores the coming-into-oneself of Leo, a trans man navigating post-transition and the early stages of an acting career, and his relationship with old friend Eleanor, who knew him pre-transition and hasn’t seen him in some time. The film speaks with a voice that feels wise beyond its years, whilst openly admitting that it doesn’t have all the answers and doesn’t always know what direction to take. That voice belongs to Brookyln-based trans-nonbinary artist Noah Schamus, a first-time feature filmmaker with a background in docufiction hybrid shorts. That filmography is evident in the warm metatext that Schamus weaves through this arrestingly sensitive tale of finding where you fit and where you perhaps no longer fit. Continue reading Blake Simons’ interview.
Where to Stream: VOD
Twisters (Lee Isaac Chung)
When Lee Isaac Chung was announced as director of a legacy sequel to Twister, many were quick to bemoan the fact that we’re stuck in an age where helming a Best Picture nominee isn’t enough to ensure funding for your next, personal project. After all, the past few years have shown it’s an uphill battle for any filmmaker with indie cred to smuggle their personal touch into a franchise tentpole––just look at Chloe Zhao, whose strange, uneven MCU project Eternals fell short of even being interesting enough to become a cult curio à la Ang Lee’s Hulk. That specter of an increasingly compromised studio product must have been on Chung’s mind throughout making Twister$, so it’s both a surprise and relief that the DNA of a director who has previously only made intimate character dramas can be keenly felt throughout. – Alistair R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
Kino Film Collection
Patricia Rozema
Netflix
They Shot the Piano Player
VOD
Fly Me to the Moon
June Zero