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.
All That’s Left of You (Cherien Dabis)
A sprawling, gripping drama that starts with the foundation of the state of Israel and the displacement of Palestinian families in Jaffa, then ends two years shy of the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, Cherien Dabis’ All That’s Left of You considers generational trauma on both an intimate and epic scale. Following more than seven decades in the life of the Hammad family, orange-growers who were expelled from their land in Jaffa in 1948, the film is a gateway to understanding decades of Palestinian trauma borne of the immense Jewish trauma of the Holocaust. The film ultimately grows from anger into a call for reconciliation, with a moving ending that does not diminish either generational trauma but lands in a place of surprising nuance. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
BlackBerry (Matt Johnson)
In BlackBerry, the rise of a blue-chip tech company sets the stage for the dissolution of a longstanding friendship. Sound familiar? Just wait ‘til you hear the score. Directed by Matt Johnson, it tells the true story of Mike Lazaridis and Douglas Fregin, software engineers who founded the company RIM in the mid-80s and later invented a cellphone that could handle email. The film begins on the day when they meet Jim Basillie (Glenn Howerton), a Rottweiler who, alongside Lazaridis’ genius, turned RIM’s invention (only later christened BlackBerry) into the world’s most ubiquitous mobile device––at least for a time. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Hot Milk (Rebecca Lenkiewicz)
A mother-daughter relationship is rarely a love story, at least not in any of the ways art has dramatized it thus far. Sure, a mother loves her daughter deeply (and vice-versa), but it is a sentiment defined by ambivalence and often laced with resentment. British writer Deborah Levy’s 2016 novel Hot Milk speaks to the very core of that ambivalence; seasoned screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Ida, She Said) has now adapted the acclaimed book into her first foray as a director. Set during a hot and heavy summer in Almería on the southeastern coast of Spain, the blistering Hot Milk follows 25-year-old Sofia (Emma Mackey) and her partially paralyzed mother Rose (Fiona Shaw) as they navigate everyday ailing and maternal traumas, always together and somehow always apart. – Savina P. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Is This Thing On? (Bradley Cooper)
Bradley Cooper’s Is This Thing On? opens with both a simple and incredibly complex question: is this thing over? Alex and Tess Novak (Will Arnett and Laura Dern) are at their wits’ end after decades of marriage. They love their ruffian boys, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that they hate their lives together. So the answer is easy: yes, it’s over. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. – Luke H. (full review)
Where to Steam: Hulu
Magellan (Lav Diaz)
With a Western star at the center and a breezy runtime of 163 minutes, it’s easy to label Magellan Lav Diaz’s most “accessible film.” If you’re a diehard, however, it’s clearly the thing he’s worked towards his entire career. Amidst a corpus dedicated to excising the demons of a country without an identity and brutally colonized many times over, he finally turns his attention to the Philippines’ original sin. Ever the shit-stirrer, Diaz spits on the myth of Ferdinand Magellan and paints him as he was: a weak, pathetic man who stumbled his way into destabilization, all the while castigating us for wanting to see it. It’s no accident that Magellan begins with an indigenous woman being startled by an offscreen noise, staring into the camera, screaming, and running away: even the prying eyes of “compassion” are complicit, and Diaz lets you know it. –– Brandon S.
Where to Stream: VOD
Roofman (Derek Cianfrance)
Derek Cianfrance’s place in the current American cinema landscape might be somewhat minuscule, but it’s still one worth acknowledging. His small filmography of only four features and one HBO miniseries displays remarkable tonal and stylistic consistency: post-Cassavetes grit cranked so high it becomes practically Sirkian melodrama, focused on a heavy preoccupation with generational trauma and broken families. His last work, the Mark Ruffalo-led Emmy-winner I Know This Much is True, was spread across six hours, perhaps piling up misfortune to the point of misery-porn self-parody. Yet it was still wholly moving and authentic, evincing how the director ultimately succeeds despite himself. – Ethan V. (full review)
Where to Stream: Prime Video
Serious People (Pasqual Gutierrez, Ben Mullinkosson)
Humourously exploring the life of an up-and-coming music video director who is juggling his work and his pregnant wife, Serious People premiered at Sundance Film Festival and is now streaming on MUBI. While there’s a repetitive nature to the comedy, it’s worth staying for the hilarious, climactic punchline as our lead gets in far over his head.
Where to Stream: MUBI
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Il Dono
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Short Sharp Shock
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By Design
Scarlet