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.
Caught Stealing (Darren Aronofsky)
An oft-exhilarating take on the worn genre––with the occasional caving to a tired trope––Aronofsky’s newest joins the upper echelons of lonely-man-with-cat(s) cinema, in the ranks of The Long Goodbye, Inside Llewyn Davis, and Children of Men. It doesn’t sit quite so high in the much-busier upper echelons of crime cinema, but that’s a major bar to clear. As it turns out, the cat and sobriety end up being blessings in disguise. The entangled web of crazed killers, on the other hand… – Luke H. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
A Confucian Confusion and Mahjong (Edward Yang)
A Confucian Confusion befuddles this easy narrative. It forgoes the grand re-memory of A Brighter Summer Day (1991) for something like a “little comedy.” Its follow-up Mahjong is even sharper, toothy and obtuse, a jut, a pang. Just as readily as Yang finds improbable elevator desire in the fallout of A Confucian Confusion, Mahjong frustrates any expectation over the possibility of ending happily. To expect it to kiss is to ignore its metric truck-ton of anxieties––over a world turning more modern, over what modernity is forced to be, under the tangled loom of AIDS and the tractor beam of Western capitalism. “Kissing gives a man bad luck,” says the beautiful and damned Hong Kong (Chang Chen). The film is bad luck. – Frank F. (read full feature)
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Directed by John Carpenter, 2000s Horror, and Body Horror
It’s October, which means time to start that queue of horror films you’ve been saving up. The Criterion Channel has another treasure trove of genre offerings, including a stellar, 14-film John Carpenter retrospective, ranging from Starman to In the Mouth of Madness to Ghosts of Mars. They are spotlighting 2000s horror, including What Lies Beneath, Trouble Every Day, [•REC], Lake Mungo, and Triangle, as well as Body Horror series with Altered States, Possession, Bug, Teeth, and more.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
The Lost Bus (Paul Greengrass)
In The Lost Bus, the latest propulsive and sweat-inducing disaster thriller from Paul Greengrass, a few electric sparks from a major power line hit dry weeds and spread into an uncontainable wildfire that mercilessly engulfs Paradise, California. The town’s name boasts a tragic irony––the monstrous flames of the 2018 Camp Fire turned the arid, mountainous region into a nearly unthinkable hellscape that claimed 85 lives and required $13.5 billion in damages. Based on stories that emerged from the wreckage, some taken from Lizzie Johnson’s detailed account Paradise: One Town’s Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire, the movie counteracts the devastation by centering an act of heroism through the lens of an underdog story that functions like a temporary balm on the state’s otherwise depressing, scorched-earth reality. – Jake K. (full review)
Where to Stream: Apple TV+
Milisuthando (Milisuthando Bongela)
Conveying complex political and social issues through an immensely personal lens, Milisuthando Bongela’s debut feature is a sweeping, staggeringly original attempt to unpack the oppressive grip of apartheid in South Africa. Across its five chapters, some look back on history with a newfound awareness of a colonial past and its generational damage while others take a pared-down, avant-garde approach in reckoning with the present and future by giving space to weighty conversations. Milisuthando is the kind of documentary that should be essential viewing––not only in American history classes, where apartheid is often a footnote, but in filmmaking education to show how the most affecting way to convey monumental struggle is through a singularly individual perspective. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Play Dirty (Shane Black)
Lethal Weapon scribe Shane Black is back in the director’s chair with this new adaptation of the Parker novels from Donald E. Westlake. Mark Wahlberg stars as Parker, a thief with a plan. When he and his team are double-crossed, he aims to get even and get rich at the same time. This is mean, funny stuff in line with what Black does best. – Dan M.
Where to Stream: Prime Video
Rabbit Trap (Bryn Chainey)
It’s always thrilling when a horror film explores the power and possibility of sound. Much modern horror is too quiet, missing the opportunity to create an immersive soundscape that fully transports viewers into its world. Writer-director Bryn Chainey’s debut feature Rabbit Trap tells a wholly immersive horror story, using its soundscape to send viewers through time and space, this world and the next. – Jourdain S. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Steve (Tim Mielants)
It’s a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for Steve (Cillian Murphy). As the headmaster at Stanton Wood, a boarding school for troubled young men, he shows up to work and is greeted by bickering students, physical altercations, and an under-appreciated staff that needs his help. He also learns from a couple trustees that the board is shutting down Stanton Wood for good in six months. And, oh yeah, a documentary crew has already set up shop throughout the hallways and classrooms to interview kids and teachers for an exposé on this chaotic operation. – Jake K. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Suspended Time (Olivier Assayas)
The memes won’t let you forget, but 2019 was half a decade ago. That was also the year Olivier Assayas’ Wasp Network––an odd return to the realm of his TV series Carlos, and subsequently picked up by Narcos-era Netflix––premiered at the Venice Film Festival. That was Assayas’ last feature, making the intervening period (Irma Vep for HBO aside) the longest dry patch of his 38-year career. The dexterous director returns this week to the Berlinale with the aptly titled Suspended Time, a personal essay wrapped up in an effortless comedy that shows no signs whatsoever of long gestation. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Threesome (Chad Hartigan)
A big swing and nearly a miss, Chad Hartigan’s The Threesome is not without its charms even as it can overstay its welcome. A rom-com that offers a more serious tone for characters either in a state of arrested development or a new kind of adulthood that defies labels, it has much in common with Hartigan’s previous films, which live and breathe as hangout movies. His latest, written by Ethan Ogilby, starts to wane as characters continue bantering over the predicament they find themselves in time and again, leading to an awkward balancing act. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Twinless (James Sweeney)
Twinless starts like a prototypical Sundance movie––grim and serious, plus unexpected levity. That’s the general formula for a festival that might as well have manufactured the term “dramedy.” In this case there’s an offscreen car accident and quick cut to a funeral. Roman (Dylan O’Brien) stands grieving beside his mother (Lauren Graham) as the casket containing his gay identical twin brother, Rocky, is lowered into the ground. It’s a somber affair––tears, tissues, a violinist’s rendition of “Danny Boy”––until the song pauses abruptly on a false note, engendering awkward silence. It’s the first permission you have to laugh, then to recognize the faint absurdity of a gathering in which mourners approach Roman and bawl at his uncanny likeness to the deceased. – Jake K-S. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
The Criterion Channel
Christiane F.
Directed by Charles Burnett
Directed by Kira Muratova
Hong Kong Action Classics
Kino Film Collection
Killer of Sheep
Lips of Blood
Max
Bring Her Back
Metrograph
Lazaro at Night
MUBI
Licorice Pizza
Peacock
Honey Don’t
VOD
Spinal Tap II: The End Continues
The Toxic Avenger