With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’ve taken it upon ourselves to highlight the titles that have recently hit the interwebs. Every week, one will be able to see the cream of the crop (or perhaps some simply interesting picks) of streaming titles (new and old) across platforms such as Netflix, iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
Everest (Baltasar Kormákur)
Curtain raisers seldom come more bombastic than the last two films to open the Venice Film Festival, Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity in 2013, and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman last year. Attempting to maintain that level of volume this year on the Lido is Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur’s Everest, a grand-scale, by-the-numbers 3D epic about the doomed 1996 expedition to climb the titular peak. The performers play it strong, but one feels the air is a little thin. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Horse Money (Pedro Costa)
Even though this film carries over some of the characters, the Fontainhas trilogy remains its own entity, as Horse Money comes as something entirely new, with all traces of the docu-fiction labels thrown toward In Vanda’s Room and Colossal Youth vanishing. Instead, Horse Money is likely the Pedro Costa film that best exemplifies the influence of classical Hollywood genre cinema on his work, with both the ghostly hospital where Ventura resides and the looming hell-tunnel he frequently travels feeling like they came straight out of a Jacques Tourneur or Fritz Lang film. – Ethan V. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Gangs of Wasseypur (Anurag Kashyap)
Director Anurag Kashyap’s Gangs of Wasseypur is a five-hour, two-part, wildly blood-drenched saga. A densely plotted multigenerational gangster epic, Gangs is a stunning achievement, whether taken collectively or individually. Over the course of these five hours, we experience prison escapes, drug-addled sibling rivalries, revenge killings, tense life-or-death meetings, a Sonny-at-the-tollbooth-style esque massacre, lying politicians, “money and debauchery,” and a dash of Bollywood, with a unique use of music and lyrics to comment on the action (“This barter of bloody blows will make you cry”). Director Kashyap has succeeded in creating a gangster drama that feels fresh and realistic – no easy feat. Yes, it is unwieldy, and Part 2 lacks the visceral impact of Part 1, but there’s no doubt that Gangs of Wasseypur is an exhilarating creation and not-to-be-missed cinematic event. – Christopher S. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
The Martian (Ridley Scott)
If the last few years are any indication, Hollywood has a revitalized interest in turning their head towards the vastness of space. Rather than a focus on alien-occupied science-fiction, we’ve seen a string of major-budget fall releases that question our place in the universe and the boundless exploration therein. The latest in this category, Ridley Scott‘s The Martian, lacks the wall-to-wall tension of Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity or the ambition of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, but for the most part, it’s a rollicking space procedural that depends on some logic, and a great deal of luck. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
The Mend (John Magary)
With its iris-in first shot, quick succession of establishing scenarios, and punk-rock opening credits, The Mend initially strikes like a lightning bolt, only to settle into a burned-out, melancholy groove so thorough — so specific in atmosphere, tempo, cinematographic sense, and the certain musicality of its editing, while also terribly relatable in its anger and sadness — that one is prompted to ask: where did this even come from? Given a summary of writer-director John Magary’s feature debut — in which two distant brothers reconnect in a New York apartment as both struggle with romantic relationships — it sounds, well, familiar. The devil is in the details: a tight-as-a-drum-snare script, filled with lines that bounce around the mind for weeks (or months) after; the balance of Josh Lucas, Stephen Plunkett, and Lucy Owen’s performances (vicious bitterness, subdued bitterness, and a frayed sense of adulthood, respectively); numerous passages syncing sound, image, and headspace; or the shocking behavior of primary and tertiary characters, which lends it an anything-can-happen feeling. (Or something like that. Maybe you should just see the movie to figure it out for yourself.) Magary’s follow-up, whatever it may be and whenever it may come, is greatly anticipated. – Nick N.
Where to Stream: Netflix
Queen of Earth (Alex Ross Perry)
To say nothing of Impolex, a creative riff on Gravity’s Rainbow, Alex Ross Perry’s The Color Wheel and Listen Up Philip, two incisive takedowns of a particular kind of self-loathing narcissist, were somewhat limited by a directorial approach that evokes the words “thesis-driven.” For all his sharp observational power and unhinged humor and all the talent on display, they suggested, respectively, a writer-director unafraid to let accusations of misanthropy interfere with character diagnoses and one unafraid of rapidly expanding his skill set and making increasing use of available tools. But it isn’t until Queen of Earth that these came together. The camera is often placed excruciatingly close to actresses Elisabeth Moss and Katherine Waterston, providing an inescapable sense of claustrophobia, and dreams, hallucinations, and flashbacks interrupted the story with the confidence of his well-documented literary idols. At the same time, Queen of Earth makes so full a use of a learned filmic language that influences – Fassbinder, Polanski, Bergman, Altman, Allen – pile up in such numbers that they seize to be of any use. If Perry’s first three films suggested ambition and confidence, his fourth suggests the birth of a great director. – Forrest C.
Where to Stream: Netflix
Selma (Ava DuVernay)
If 2014 is considered the “year of outrage,” the 2015 wide-release date for Selma arrives far too late. A visceral frontline examination of Martin Luther King Jr’s civil rights marches in Selma, met with extreme violence (including murder) as Alabama’s good ol’ boys fight to maintain status quo prior to President Johnson’s intervention and the passage of the Voter Rights Act. Undoubtedly this film will provoke conversations within a current context (one early moment seems eerily similar to Eric Garner’s final moments), and Ava DuVernay’s direction ads a sense of raw immediacy to Paul Webb’s script. It also presents King (David Oyelowo), George Wallace (Tim Roth), and Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) as complex, flawed men, each with their own motivations and ideals of justice. – John F.
Where to Stream: Amazon Prime
Sleeping With Other People (Leslye Headland)
An outrageously hilarious comedy that refuses to compromise centers on a platonic relationship between Lainey (Alison Brie) and Jake (Jason Sudeikis), two sex addicts who lost their virginity to each other back in college. Writer-director Leslye Headland (Bachelorette) delivers some of the year’s wittiest one-liners in this high-energy romantic comedy with a dirty mind, while Brie and Sudeikis help deliver both bite and charm. – John F.
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Sicario (Denis Villeneuve)
With each film, Denis Villeneuve proves his talent for crafting extremely effective visceral spectacles, ensnaring the viewer through expert engineering of mood and action. Yet, with each film, he undermines his achievement by attempting to aggrandize his narratives with weighty undercurrents that are, in fact, desperately vacuous. While Sicario is no exception, unlike the insufferably pretentious Enemy, it delivers a constant, exhilarating stream of elaborate and exquisitely photographed thrills that ends up largely compensating for the would-be profundity. – Giovanni M.C. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Starboard Light (Nick Fitzhugh)
A lovely little doc that shines a light on a particular summer home in Cape Cod, Starboard Light digs into the idea of memories and the importance of where they take place. Directed by Nick Fitzhugh, the film offers a viewpoint on family that is both relatable and distinct. – Dan M.
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes
Trash (Stephen Daldry)
It’s not every day that a three-time Oscar nominee for directing decides on a foreign language film to be his next project, but that’s exactly what Stephen Daldry of Billy Elliot, The Hours, and The Reader fame has done. Following in the footsteps of fellow Brit Danny Boyle—whose journey to India for Slumdog Millionaire earned his sole nomination and subsequently an Oscar win—Daldry takes on the novel Trash written by Andy Mulligan about three impoverished boys working as garbage pickers who find something in their nameless city’s landfill that sparks a police manhunt with grave political stakes. Adapted by Richard Curtis and situated in Brazil with corruption regarding its looming Olympics, this effectively tense adventure also delivers the heart and heroism audiences love. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
The Walk (Robert Zemeckis)
The knowledge that Philippe Petit survived his 1,350-foot-high, 45-minute-long, eight-interval walk across the twin towers of New York’s in-construction World Trade Center on August 7, 1974 is hardly an issue for The Walk, a film so admiring of and respectful to its subject that no option but success ever seems possible. Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Petit is the first thing to follow a borderline anachronistic TriStar logo — a rare ‘90s throwback that ultimately feels fitting, given the relaxed-yet-methodical approach from Robert Zemeckis, bucking current studio filmmaking trends — and the way his grin, perhaps just a bit shit-eating, fills the IMAX screen couldn’t more loudly tell us that we’re under his spell. (Nor could his French accent — which sounds not unlike this writer’s brother after he’s had a few drinks and someone mentions the great European nation — more loudly telegraph that this is also an actor’s interpretation.) A showman is always a storyteller, and striking the (ahem) balance between showing and telling will make way for some of this picture’s greatest strengths and central weaknesses. – Nick N. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Also New to Streaming
Amazon
The Green Inferno (review)
Hotel Transylvania 2
The Intern
Sinister 2
Netflix
How to Survive a Plague
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl