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.
Ballad of a White Cow (Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam)
The cruelty of the Iranian justice system is in the spotlight again in Ballad of a White Cow, the compelling debut of directing team Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam that unfurled in competition at Berlin. Just last year, Mohamad Rasoulof won the festival’s top prize for his anti-capital punishment polemic There Is No Evil, a masterful weaving of four storylines that showed how a morally bankrupt state corrodes those forced to carry out its functions, a searing portrait of the banality of evil. – Ed F. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Bigbug (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
Bigbug is set in the year 2045 and centers on a group of mismatched suburbanites (Elsa Zylberstein, Isabelle Nanty, Stéphane De Groodt, and Youssef Hadji) who, through various circumstances, all become located in one home at the most inopportune time. Unbeknownst to them, domestic robots inside the household have detected outside danger and taken the precaution of locking them all in together. In pure Buñuelian fashion, forcing this group into a confined place and making them cohabitate for an extended period of time leads to mounting tensions, panic setting in, and desperate attempts to escape, no matter the cost. There’s also a lot of horniness. – Mitchell B. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Catch the Fair One (Josef Kubota Wladyka)
Josef Kubota Wladyka’s second feature, Catch the Fair One, follows a boxer, Kaylee (real-life boxing champion Kali Reis), trying to find and save her sister from the throngs of the sex-trafficking trade. The film jumps into the clutches of terror, pain, crime, and revenge over 85 minutes pitting good versus evil until lines begin to blur as Kaylee travels deeper into this underworld. – Michael F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Fabian: Going to the Dogs (Dominik Graf)
In the first hour of Dominik Graf’s Fabian: Going to the Dogs, we see the title character running around 1920s Berlin, bumping into eccentric characters at bars and nightclubs while the camera moves and cuts at a whirlwind pace. It’s a time of indulgence and recklessness for Fabian and other young people in Germany, and then he finds himself standing face to face with a young woman in the back of a club. The camera cuts to a rapid-fire montage of both characters together and in love, scenes from later in the film we haven’t gotten to yet. Up to this point, Fabian was living in the present; without warning he begins to see a future, and we get to see it too. – C.J. P. (full feature)
Where to Stream: Metrograph at Home
Flee (Jonas Poher Rasmussen)
There have, of course, been a great many animated films about deeply serious subjects—many in recent years, from Persepolis to Anomalisa to Waltz with Bashir. Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Flee now comfortably fits on this shelf of profoundly affecting films. Indeed, Flee ranks as one of the most uniquely memorable animated films of this last decade: remarkably successful as a study of the refugee experience, as a coming-of-age drama set against a backdrop of fear and danger, and as a tribute to one individual’s ability to survive and even flourish. An extraordinary achievement. – Chris S.
Where to Stream: Hulu
Hive (Blerta Basholli)
Hive has a similar based-on-a-true-story inspirational narrative as many English-language crowdpleasers: through sheer force of will, a resilient woman triumphs against great personal and systemic obstacles. These sorts of films are cranked out by studios, particularly in the UK, all the time (just last year we had Misbehaviour), usually in glossy packaging and with a comedic bent. Hive, however, trades that gloss for a handheld camera and a washed-out colour palette. It removes the laughs, because this is post-war Kosovo, and life is tough and grey for beekeeper Fahrije (Yllka Gashi). – Orla S. (full review)
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Identifying Features (Fernanda Valadez)
Fernanda Valadez’s Identifying Features is without a doubt one of the most visually striking and haunting films of the year. It follows worried mother Magdalena (Mercedes Hernández) in search of her missing adult son who attempted to cross the border from Mexico to the United States. It’s a perilous journey during which we see how Magdalena is just one of so many desperate people in the same situation, treated as unimportant by the powers that be. – Orla S.
Where to Stream: HBO Max
Kimi (Steven Soderbergh)
The double-edged sword of modern technology—the simplification it can offer our lives and its all-consuming pervasiveness—is at the heart of Kimi, Steven Soderbergh’s acutely efficient and effective pandemic-set paranoia thriller, but that is not the only thing on its mind. Powered by an affecting lead performance from Zoë Kravitz, its brisk narrative also contends with no shortage of other topics: debilitating, trauma-induced anxiety; pandemic-spurred loneliness; bureaucratic gaslighting; and, least importantly but most humorously, the annoyance of background distractions on Zoom work meetings. As an impressive melding of grounded, relatable stakes and heightened B-movie jolts, one wonders why it took this long for the director to team with writer David Koepp, whose inclination towards pure entertainment is an ideal match with Soderbergh’s fleet-footed, slick sensibilities. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: HBO Max
Red Rocket (Sean Baker)
Few directors on the planet are making films that feel as lived-in as Sean Baker. Perhaps that is why Tangerine, The Florida Project, and Red Rocket resonate so strongly. More than verisimilitude, though, it is Baker’s understanding of the complexities of human nature that pushes his work to the level of excellence. Simon Rex’s Mikey Saber, an ex-porn star whose eye for a hustle is ever-present, behaves exactly how he should—uncaringly destructive to himself and others, but with a lovable grin. Part of the joy we derive from watching Red Rocket is our realization that Mikey is going to make the selfish move every single damn time. So very, very wrong; so very, very 2021. It cements Baker as one of cinema’s brightest lights, and features a lead performance that remains endearing even when Mikey is at his worst, not to mention a magnificent debut from Suzanna Son. In its final sequence, Rocket reveals Mikey to be something rare: a character completely true to himself. Deluded, but true. Thus Red Rocket is more than a comedy. It is a modern classic exploring the flaws and desires of a man who in his relentless selfishness and overwhelming confidence is a quintessential American. Might sound crazy, but it ain’t no lie. – Chris S.
Where to Stream: VOD
The Sky Is Everywhere (Josephine Decker)
There’s breathless, relentless energy to the work of Josephine Decker, a trait usually accompanied by a sense of the unexpected, never quite knowing where her narrative may turn or how her characters could express their mercurial emotions. Her latest film The Sky Is Everywhere, adapted by Jandy Nelson from her own novel, features a strong sense of the former without ever offering the latter. What results is an aesthetically imaginative, narratively banal YA adaptation hitting too-familiar beats despite its relatively invigorating style. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Apple TV+
Spencer (Pablo Larraín)
Over the course of his diverse filmography, Pablo Larraín has become the reigning raconteur of public figures wrestling with the constraints of their public image, and of women who refuse to fit into society’s easy definitions. Spencer is a marriage of both impulses in glorious form. Kristen Stewart delivers a career-best performance, disappearing completely into the role and bringing forth a Diana Spencer we’ve rarely seen before. She plays every moment with such raw ache and gravity that it completely dominates each frame, steals every scene she’s in. Around Stewart’s stunning performance Larraín deftly mingles dream sequences and reality, weaving us an unforgettable vision of someone trapped in a nightmarish version of a fairy tale and fighting with everything she has to find her way back to herself. – Jonah W.
Where to Stream: Hulu
The Woman Who Ran (Hong Sangsoo)
In many of Hong Sangsoo’s films, female characters are forced to listen as listless, drunken men endlessly whine about their relationship problems and professional failures. The Woman Who Ran flips the script by focusing its narrative almost entirely on a trio of calm, reflective conversations between women who politely dance around confrontation. Favoring breezy, dialogue-heavy scenes, each segment gets disrupted by a disgruntled man clamoring for underserved respect. But this subtle masterpiece doesn’t dwell on such hurtful distractions. Instead it functions as a loving respite from the exhaustion they produce, as in a beautiful final scene where one character avoids rehashing old heartbreak and ventures back into a movie theater to enjoy the tranquil ending of a film she’s just finished. Sometimes cinema truly is the only escape. – Glenn H.
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Also New to Streaming
MUBI (free for 30 days)
…and God Created Woman
I Am Not Your Negro
Tomorrow’s Promise
The Night Doctor
MAAT
Peacock
VOD