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.
Allen Sunshine (Harley Chamandy)
Directed with a sense of tranquil serenity and grounded maturity one might be accustomed to finding in the work of a seasoned director, Allen Sunshine is, quite remarkably, the debut feature of 25-year-old Harley Chamandy. The Montreal-born, New York-based filmmaker received the 2024 Werner Herzog Film Prize for his feature following its Munich Film Festival premiere earlier this year. Having participated in Herzog’s workshop as a 17-year-old, Chamandy’s shared affinity with the legendary German director for the natural world is quite apparent. Shot on 16mm by Kenny Suleimanagich, who brings a painterly touch in capturing the woodland landscape, Allen Sunshine is an affecting, understated look at picking up a life destroyed, and finding a connection with the people that can help put the pieces back together. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
An Almost Christmas Story (David Lowery)
It wouldn’t be the Christmas season without an Alfonso Cuarón-backed holiday short film directed by a prominent director arriving on Disney+. Following Alice Rohrwacher’s Oscar-nominated short Le pupille a few years ago, David Lowery has now helmed An Almost Christmas Story, a delightfully low-key, bittersweet 21-minute short he co-wrote with Cuarón and Jack Thorne. Featuring the voices of John C. Reilly, Alex Ross Perry, Natasha Lyonne, Mamoudou Athie, Jim Gaffigan, and more, the home-spun quality of the animation shines through, with settings and locations having a cardboard box aesthetic, as if made from the unwrapped boxes under your Christmas tree. As a bonus, you’ll be delighted by the folksy holiday tunes performed by John C. Reilly.
Where to Stream: Disney+
Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard)
In good-spirited fashion, nothing offends. But nothing lands, either. It simply lacks inspiration, which is strange for an Audiard film, the likes of which are never the same. That’s what made the prospect of Emilia exciting and, doubly, its emptiness so flattening. For as patently fierce as it tries to be, it has no bite, no intrigue, no grip on the viewer. – Luke H. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Look Into My Eyes (Lana Wilson)
Ask enough people what they think about psychics and clairvoyants, and you’ll probably get eye-rolls. Whether referencing the storefront tarot readers or the more seriously minded seers who perform seances and communicate with those who have transitioned into the afterlife, the impression of this spiritual trade is generally disbelief. What’s unique about director Lana Wilson’s latest documentary, which primarily highlights seven psychics living in various parts of New York City, is that it never aims to persuade you against that reaction. In this deeply moving, compassionate exploration, determining whether this small and goofy group actually has real powers is beside the point. – Jake K. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Magpie (Sam Yates)
Daisy Ridley’s latest role finds her as a mother caring for her second child while her first child, an actor, heads off to film a role with a major female star. As her husband, which she’s becoming increasingly estranged from, cares for their eldest daughter on set, he begins to develop a relationship, or so he thinks, with the star. While the first two acts of Magpie hit too-familiar beats, the third act elevates the drama into a table-turning noir of sorts with Ridley finally able to take control in a relationship that has gone off the rails. Directed with a simmering intensity by Sam Yates, famous for this Andrew Scott-led Uncle Vanya theater adaptation, Magpie is a strong calling card even if it feels half-formed.
Where to Stream: VOD
Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)
If you dove head first into Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis, you would get a concussion. The filmmaker’s supposed opus––a glitzy, gargantuan, long-gestating project that he conceived of in the late ‘70s, attempted to make more than once in the ‘80s, rewrote countless times over the last four decades, and eventually self-financed for $120 million due to lack of external support––has had cinephiles like myself drooling over its scope and potential for years. Alas, there is no deep end in this pool. Don’t let that deter you though. Receive it with a healthy dose of doubt and let it reshape (and perhaps healthily lower) your expectations. Because, at the end of the day, for better and for worse, in awe and in tired confusion, Megalopolis is a garish wonder to behold. – Luke H. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Merchant Ivory (Stephen Soucy)
The best moments of Merchant Ivory––a documentary directed by Stephen Soucy concerning the legendary production company––feel like their most-successful pictures: restrained and revealing at the same time. Mostly told chronologically and split into chapters with talking heads to drive the narrative, the film dutifully recounts the agony and ecstasy of Merchant Ivory Productions. Sections are devoted to producer Ismail Merchant, director James Ivory, writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and composer Richard Robbins. Dedicated crew members and stars sing their praises while softly criticizing their methods of madness, most of the latter directed at Merchant. Highlights include recollections of Merchant’s culling together funds for each production, often starting a film before all the money was put together. Or Jhabvala’s brutal judgment: Ivory recalls her dislike of Maurice from pre-production onward, all because the novel wasn’t, in her opinion, up to snuff. Somewhat ironically, Maurice is perhaps the most important film the company ever made, something Soucy rightly underlines here. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Red Island (Robin Campillo)
Robin Campillo’s strengths as both a writer and a director revolve around his ability to personalize the most sprawling of ensemble pieces, never allowing viewers to get lost despite the dozens of characters his stories introduce. Following his prior film BPM, among the finest of the past decade, he has returned with another work that, while rooted in autobiography, has no interest in merely bringing his own formative memories to the screen. But while his previous feature put each of the characters in a wider shared journey within the ACT UP movement, Red Island isn’t able to tie its vast ensemble quite as neatly; many central figures remain underdeveloped throughout, and a sudden shift in focus in the closing chapter only highlights how lacking for insight the movie is when it comes to exploring the post-colonial political backdrop of its Southern African setting. – Alistair R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Rule of Two Walls (David Gutnik)
How does culture survive in the midst of a war? Rule of Two Walls––written, directed, and edited by David Gutnik––asks the question and attempts to answer it. Filmed in Ukraine from April to November 2022 (just after Russia invaded the country on February 24 of that year), the film is a narrative feature driven by documentary footage. The film’s title references the safest place in the home when there is no proper shelter: the corridor. A narrow space between two walls is the best chance of surviving incoming artillery. We follow a group of Ukrainian artists that has decided to stay in country and use the conflict as a means to create and express themselves. Their fears. Their hopes. Music played loud, full of pain and unease. Paintings depicting the murders of women and children. Since its start in 2014, the Russo-Ukrainian War has been fueled by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s insistence that Ukraine has no identity of its own. That it is essentially just a part of Russia, going by a different name. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Rumours (Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson)
While Guy Maddin and Evan & Galen Johnson’s latest endeavor brings the most star power they’ve had in a film thus far (Cate Blanchett and Alicia Vikander among them), Rumours loses none of the trio’s singular sense of humor. Following political leaders who become stranded as the apocalypse may be underway, it’s a wacky yet grounded look at the crumbling veneer of power and influence when there’s no one left to lead. Luke Hicks said in his review, “If you do know the longtime Canadian experimentalist’s filmography, then you know nothing seems less likely than Rumours, his grand, Cannes competition-grade entrance into (supposedly) normcore feature filmmaking which, when discussing Maddin, encompasses everything inside and most things outside Schrader’s Tarkovsky Ring. Even less likely is the idea that Maddin would take on modern, real-world events, the film opening on the press podium of the G7 summit, albeit one led by slightly fictionalized, more blatantly vapid versions of the leaders they represent.”
Where to Stream: VOD
Saturday Night (Jason Reitman)
Studio 60 has become an easy joke, but watching Saturday Night, the hagiographic origin story (or Air-like IP-biopic entry) about the comedy institution’s first night on air, I found myself yearning for the manic, unearned liberal sanctimony of Sorkin’s show. The takeaway from Jason Reitman’s new film is, to quote Peter Griffin, “Oh my God, who the hell cares?” – Ethan V. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Taste of Things (Trần Anh Hùng)
One of the most purely pleasurable films of 2023, Trần Anh Hùng’s The Taste of Things brings Juliette Binoche and Benoît Magimel together one of the best culinary cinematic experiences since Babette’s Feast. Rory O’Connor said in his review, “Last time Benoît Magimel appeared in the Cannes competition, a vision in Albert Serra’s Pacifiction, he played a foreign diplomat who stalked an island of French Polynesia like a trashy king. If Serra’s otherworldy film told a cautionary tale about feckless Euro-decadence, Magimel’s latest is more like a revelry. Adapted from Marcel Rouf’s 1924 novel The Passionate Epicure, The Taste of Things is a film about the pleasures of preparing food and consuming it, the idea of cooking as an act of giving and even of love––if a leitmotif exists in this film’s script, it is the sigh of ecstasy.”
Where to Stream: Hulu
Thelma (Josh Margolin)
At the beginning of Thelma––a loveable, low-stakes joyride from director Josh Margolin––the movie’s eponymous 93-year-old grandmother sits on the couch with her grandson Daniel and marvels at Tom Cruise. They’re watching a recent Mission: Impossible sequel on her tiny television and can’t fathom Cruise’s running and jumping daredevil-ism at his weathered age. Thelma may live alone, need hearing aids, play solitaire, have trouble typing out an email, and get flustered when pop-up ads surprise her online. But much like America’s most extreme action star, she knows she’s still got it, too. – Jake K. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Widow Clicquot (Thomas Napper)
The first thing we learn at the start of Thomas Napper’s Widow Clicquot is that Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin Clicquot (Haley Bennett) loved her husband François (Tom Sturridge). The second thing we learn is that the vineyard that held his name was synonymous with himself. Not just in death––as the film begins with Barbe dressing for his funeral––but in life too. It is where he spent all his time. Where he welcomed his new wife into every breath he took. And where he will live on in her memory as she preserves the vines to ensure he’s never forgotten. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix (on Saturday)
Also New to Streaming
Hulu
The End We Start From
Kino Film Collection
Hieronymus Bosch
Taking Venice
Netflix
Close to You
Rob Peace
Peacock
Twisters
Tubi
Flight
VOD
Goodrich
Your Monster