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.
Alan Rudolph’s Dramas of Desire
One of America’s great, oft-unheralded filmmakers, Alan Rudolph deserves far more recognition than he’s accumulated thus far. We recently published two extensive interviews with the director and now the Criterion Channel has a mini-retrospective, featuring Remember My Name (1978), Trouble In Mind (1985), Afterglow (1997), and Breakfast of Champions (1999).
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Celebrating Gene Hackman
As we attempt to move on from a Gene Hackman-less world, the Criterion Channel has gathered some of his finest work to remember him by. Their series features The French Connection (1971), Scarecrow (1973), The Conversation (1974), Night Moves (1975), Eureka (1983), No Way Out (1987), and The Royal Tenenbaums (2001).
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Club Zero (Jessica Hausner)
Across her five previous features, Austrian director Jessica Hausner (Amour Fou, Lourdes, Little Joe) has developed a distinctly unique tone––one which carries through her sixth outing Club Zero. Led by Mia Wasikowska, the dark satire follows a nutrition teacher at an elite school whose relationship with five students takes a dangerous turn. While Hausner is perhaps intentionally poking the bear as it relates to eating disorders, one could swap out the subject of her new film to another topic du jour and still retain a cogent, one-of-a-kind look at cult mentality. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: Film Movement+
Emmanuelle (Audrey Diwan)
The most striking thing about Audrey Diwan’s reinterpretation of Emmanuelle––the infamous novel-turned-softcore franchise from fabulously named director Just Jaeckin––is that the original dramatic beats largely remain intact. Perhaps this is why it received a critical drubbing at its San Sebastian premiere: those expecting the drastically different, radically feminist take on this material you’d assume would materialize courtesy of the filmmaker behind the Golden Lion-winning Happening would be disappointed by an unexpected faith towards its source. The way Diwan and co-writer Rebecca Zlotowski recontextualize this material is also out-of-step with recent cinephile backlash towards the lack of sexuality in contemporary cinema. As soon as the film opens with Emmanuelle (Noémie Merlant) joining the mile-high club, the tryst framed as dispassionately as its heroine’s blank expression, you can sense many viewers immediately checking out of a film which removes any ounce of titillation or sensuality from a narrative inherently defined by it. Like this iteration of Emmanuelle herself, Diwan’s film feels unmoored from sexual desire, laboriously going through the motions as it mimics many of the beats (and hook-ups) from material that was unabashed about its sensual nature. – Alistair R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Every Little Thing (Sally Aitken)
Sometimes, you must admit you’re a bit of a softie. I came to this realization while tearing up at the end of the new documentary Every Little Thing. In form, it’s largely unremarkable. Yet something connected with me about this work––that something being a sensitivity to animals (after all both of my cats joined me for the viewing) which primed me to like the film at least a little bit. What can one do? The documentary takes on as its subject Terry Masear, the founder of Los Angeles Hummingbird Rescue, a non-profit dedicated to healing countless injured creatures. Every Little Thing is, to say the least, as modest in scope as that sounds. Functioning as a portrait of this great woman, but also a nature doc-of-sorts––with a lot of up-close, slow-motion hummingbird footage to make animal fans squee––the film is lodged somewhat awkwardly in several modes. The editing patterns––which basically come down to drone shots of Los Angeles then archival footage then stuff that looks like reality TV––makes the film feel a little shapeless, as if it’s striving to reach feature-length throughout. – Ethan V. (full review)
Where to Stream: Kino Film Collection
Female Perversions (Susan Streitfeld)
After getting her start in collaborations with Derek Jarman, Sally Potter, and Joanna Hogg––and before she would breakthrough in films by Danny Boyle, Cameron Crowe, Spike Jonze, Jim Jarmusch, and more––Tilda Swinton made her U.S. debut with an erotic drama that unfortunately has gone little-seen. Susan Streitfeld’s 1996 feature Female Perversions, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival, has been restored and has now arrived digitally following a theatrical and home video release. The evocative film follows Swinton as a bi-sexual lawyer on the edge of professional breakthrough, personal breakdown, and sexual awakening, with a cast also including Amy Madigan, Karen Sillas, Frances Fisher, Laila Robins, Paulina Porizkova, and Clancy Brown.
Where to Stream: VOD
Kingdom of Heaven: Director’s Cut (4K Remaster) (Ridley Scott)
20 years ago, 20th Century Fox began the summer-blockbuster season with a sword-and-sandals epic about the Crusades. Kingdom of Heaven‘s pedigree was impressive, if not bulletproof. Ridley Scott was only five years on from his Best Picture-winning Gladiator (not to mention immediate hit follow-ups Hannibal and Black Hawk Down, both in 2001) and newly minted movie star Orlando Bloom had plum, stand-out roles in two successful franchises (one of which had just won Best Picture itself). Still, it was a risky endeavor. Even riskier when considering the filmmakers’ challenging of religious truths and customs at a time when many had allowed fear to give way to hate, using their faith as a rationalization for terrible sins. – Dan M. (full feature)
Where to Stream: VOD
Johnnie To Essentials
Genre-hopping Hong Kong auteur Johnnie To gets a well-deserved retrospective on the Criterion Channel this month, featuring The Heroic Trio (1993), Executioners (1993), PTU (2003), Breaking News (2004), Throw Down (2004), Election (2005), Exiled (2006), Mad Detective (2007), Life Without Principle (2011), Drug War (2012), Blind Detective (2013), and Three (2016).
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Magic Farm (Amalia Ulman)
Remember Vice News? It was like CNN with neck tattoos and no 401K. The now-defunct outlet sent its platoon of journalists (who could have moonlighted as American Apparel models) all over the globe to bring you the stories traditional media was just too boring to cover. It was Williamsburg-based world news that spawned countless copycats and influencers who strive to deliver the same type of personality-based interest stories in its wake. In Magic Farm, Amalia Ulman takes aim at this kind of hipster media and the eccentric characters that gravitate towards it. But the larger scope of Ulman’s second feature stretches the writer-director a bit thin, lacking the cohesion and focus of her debut El Planeta. – Kent W. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Presence (Steven Soderbergh)
For a prolific artist, a surge of creativity can often be synonymous with a dip in quality. Though not if you are Steven Soderbergh. He’s only continued to reinvent himself and forge ahead with new technology, subjects, and structural gambles. His latest film, Presence, is a haunting ghost tale wrapped in a nuanced family drama, and one of his most formally ambitious attempts yet. What if the camera, operated by Peter Andrews (aka Soderbergh), was the ghost? And every single shot in the film was a single take from this perspective? And, to further add to the self-imposed constraints, the ghost never leaves the house? From the very first shot, as we see the presence rapidly move through every room in the yet-to-be-sold empty house, laying the foundation for the horrors to take place, one senses Soderbergh is having a total blast with this concept. Reuniting after Kimi, David Koepp’s rollercoaster of a script is also one that doesn’t forget to flesh out its characters, making for a funny, disturbing, and nimble genre exercise that further proves Soderbergh is one of the most inventive directors to play the game. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Rebel: Director’s Cut (Robert Allen Schnitzer)
Set in the fall of 1969, director Robert Allen Schnitzer’s counterculture thriller features Sylvester Stallone in his first significant film role. He plays Jerry, a young activist who joins in with a group of domestic terrorists planning to blow up the headquarters of a defense firm that is supporting the Vietnam War. It’s a shaggy piece of independent cinema that captures a specific moment in time. Footage of protests underline the central narrative, which directly draws from the Weather Underground. Stallone is appealing and conflicted, surrounded by actors who are a bit less memorable if no less talented. Rebel is not unlike its central group: disorganized, idealistic, and full of passion. – Dan M.
Where to Stream: VOD
Sinners (Ryan Coogler)
Yet Sinners mainly feels so refreshing when this richness of text can easily be overlooked for enjoyment of an unholy hybrid of period drama and horror freakout, Coogler showing as much reverence for the genre as he does the centuries of music which guide this story (and Ludwig Göransson’s excellent score). Most importantly, he remembers that the archetypal vampire tale is an inherently horny one, and he pulls some tricks from Luca Guadagnino’s book for making sexually explicit stories which play even more erotically from what they withhold. Every sex scene features fully clothed actors, but all contain dialogue, or specific kinky details, which serve to remind us that, Dracula onwards, the best vampire stories are carnal ones where characters’ lust is baked into the premise. – Alistair R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Surfer (Lorcan Finnegan)
In The Surfer, an exploitation film set to pressure-cook, a mild-mannered man is pitted against a group who even Andrew Tate might find a touch extreme. It’s set in South Australia on fictional Luna Bay, the kind of place where if the heat doesn’t get you, something else probably will. The water shines turquoise-blue but the beaches look like scorched earth. Into this furnace arrives an unnamed man (Nicolas Cage) hoping for nothing more than to view a cliffside property and catch a wave, but the locals have other ideas: “Don’t live here, don’t surf here,” one says, offering about as much hospitality as a switchblade. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Việt and Nam (Trương Minh Quý)
The opening shot of Việt and Nam, writer-director Trương Minh Quý’s sophomore film, is a feat of cinematic restraint. Nearly imperceivable white specs of dust begin to appear, few and far between, drifting from the top of a pitch-black screen to the bottom, where the faintest trace of something can be made out in the swallowing darkness. The sound design is cavernous and close, heaving with breath and trickling with the noise of running water. A boy incrementally appears, walking gradually from one corner of the screen to the other. He has another boy on his back. A dream is gently relayed in voiceover. Then, without the frame ever having truly revealed itself, it’s gone. – Luke H. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Vulcanizadora (Joel Potrykus)
Like the punk-rock cousin of Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy, Joel Potrykus’ Vulcanizadora also concerns a voyage in the woods that pinpoints the exact moment an old friendship abruptly dies. The film also represents a maturing-of-sorts for the Michigan-based provocateur, revisiting characters first introduced in his 2014 film Buzzard and a few themes explored in his lesser-known 2016 feature The Alchemist Cookbook. Like many artists shifting from early to mid-career, Potrykus explores themes of having a family––or, in this case, abandoning it––while still retaining the edge present in his nascent works. It suggests a conundrum of sorts, but while other indie filmmakers start small and work towards scaling-up, this filmmaker refreshingly hasn’t. (His 2018 masterpiece Relaxer took place in the corner of an apartment, rather than expanding his slacker universe). – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
This Woman (Alan Zhang)
A boldly intimate and startlingly slippery directorial debut, Alan Zhang’s This Woman skirts the line between documentary and fiction to tell the story of a woman contending with modern life in China amid a marriage she seeks more from––or perhaps doesn’t want at all. With a fragmented narrative structure, Beibei (Li Hehe) is a character (or subject) that can be hard to completely grasp, but that mystery is part of the pull of this confrontational work. As Zhang explores generational differences between mothers and daughters as well as societal pressures at large, a detailed portrait emerges of life China, a country which sadly has not yet approved of the film’s release. One imagines that if more women saw Beibei’s unfiltered liberty to express her deepest desires, a new era of self-empowerment would dawn. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: Metrograph at Home
We Were Dangerous (Josephine Stewart-Te Whiu)
The Matron (Rima Te Wiata) of Te Motu School for Incorrigible and Delinquent Girls truly believes she’s doing the work of God through her three education principles: “Christianize, civilize, and assimilate.” Why? Because they saved her as an adrift Māori teenager in search of purpose. She renounced her heritage, embraced the idea that the British colonization of New Zealand was a blessing, and devoted her life to instilling that same white indoctrination into the young girls put under her care. Maybe only one will take to it and come out a “respectable woman” in the end, but in her mind, one success is worth an infinite number of failures. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
The Criterion Channel
3 Women
Addams Family Values
Big Ben Beat
A Bigger Splash
Deep End
Henry Gamble’s Birthday Party
Hummingbirds
The Italian Straw Hat
It Happened Tomorrow
Paris qui dort
Poison
Quatorze juillet
Rude Boy
Sexy Beast
The Slumber Party Massacre
Spacewoman
Sunrise/Sunset
The Swimmer
The Talented Mr. Ripley
Tea and Sympathy
The Trip
The Trip to Greece
The Trip to Italy
The Trip to Spain
Hulu
Predator: Killer of Killers
Kino Film Collection
Don’t Call Me Son
Max
Mountainhead
Parthenope
Metrograph at Home
Plympton’s Twisted Toons
Three by Terence Davies
MUBI (free for 30 days)
Camp X-Ray
I Am Divine
The Living End
Keep the Lights On
Majorie Prime
Party Girl
Stranger by the Lake
Totally F***ed Up
Peacock
The Ballad of Wallis Island
Prime Video
The Accountant 2
VOD
Gazer
Holy Cow
Julie Keeps Quiet