With a seemingly endless amount of streaming options — not only the titles at our disposal, but services themselves — we’re highlighting the noteworthy titles that have recently hit platforms. Check out this week’s selections below and an archive of past round-ups here.
22 July (Paul Greengrass))
Paul Greengrass, director of United 93 and Bloody Sunday, returns to the realm of the “too soon?” with 22 July, a clichéd and rather problematic film–with a frankly reprehensible first act–that dramatizes the attacks in Oslo on that awful day in 2011 when 77 people, mainly at the Utøya island youth camp, were murdered by a nationalist gunman named Anders Behring Breivik. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Apostle (Gareth Evans))
Coming off of the success of The Raid: Redemption and its sequel, The Raid 2, the anticipated path for Welsh director Gareth Evans may not have been a horror film by way of 70s cult thrillers. Yet on closer inspection of his bone-cracking Indonesian action saga, the signs are all there. Both Raid films have a seedy side, often caked in dirt and dust, with a sense of being stuck in the wrong territory, or becoming completely engulfed in an abject world. The violence extends into horror, and Evans plays with tension building toward the release of action quite naturally. With his latest work, Apostle, Evans lets his freak flag billow gloriously in the cinematic wind; leaning into the perverse nature of his work, he fixates on tension and dread to craft a compelling journey enveloped in lunacy. – Mike M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Game Night (John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein)
A Hollywood comedy with genuine laughs and a semblance of directorial vision? Indeed, they still do exist as proved by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein’s Game Night, a bounce-back from their Vacation remake. With some heart at the center thanks to Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams’ genuinely joyful marriage, not to mention thrills (and creeps, courtesy of a brilliant Jesse Plemons), this set the comedy bar high for the rest of the year when it comes to studio output. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: HBO Go
The Kindergarten Teacher (Sara Colangelo)
A remake of the Israeli film of the same name, Sara Colangelo’s The Kindergarten Teacher pulls no punches. It leans full-tilt into its disturbing premise: a veteran kindergarten teacher becomes obsessed with a young student who has a gift for poetry. Maggie Gyllenhaal stars as the titular teacher and is the perfect actress for something like this. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Pontypool (Bruce McDonald)
Director Bruce McDonald’s masterpiece of horror, Pontypool, opens in a chillingly evocative sequence at a stop sign in the snow, which perfectly lays the groundwork for the claustrophobic terrors to come. Trapped in an Ontario radio station during a pounding blizzard, three employees try to keep their channel on the air as strange reports of mass violence and a possible virus outbreak are called into the news desk. Is this happening for real? Our heroes seal themselves inside the building, and yet the toxic outside world still manages to seep in through phone lines, infecting all those who hear it. As this smart and wonderfully original premise plays out, escalating gradually, body count growing, it evokes the feel of a radio drama, and not merely for obvious surface reasons. As chaos and violence envelopes the town of Pontypool, McDonald’s camera never leaves the building, allowing us to only hear about these surreal horrors secondhand. McDonald beautifully employs sound as a method of building intense mood and atmosphere, meanwhile still managing to prove himself on the gore front with Pontypool‘s brief but disturbingly visceral moments of splatter. – Tony H.
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Sorry to Bother You (Boots Riley)
Sorry to Bother You is a bold debut–in every sense of the word–for rapper-turned-director Boots Riley. There are truly radical, thrilling ideas both in the script and on screen, and also his boldness sometimes undercuts the character- and narrative-building aspects as we jump from compelling idea to idea. Mixing the droll comedy of Office Space with the race-backed satire of Putney Swope, and adding an imaginative dash of Michel Gondry (who gets a parody shout-out in an animated bit), at least something in Sorry to Bother You will surely strike a chord with any viewer, even if it doesn’t fully cohere. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
What Will People Say (Iram Haq)
The Toronto International Film Festival synopsis calls Iram Haq’s latest film What Will People Say an “empathetic story of family, community, and culture.” I would call it straight up social horror made scarier when you discover that it was partly inspired by the artist’s own life. That festival description had me anticipating a road to catharsis wherein a culture clash between strictly conservative Pakistani Muslim values and a more liberal European lifestyle would force young Nisha (Maria Mozhdah) and her parents (Adil Hussain’s Mirza and Ekavali Khanna’s Mother) to seek common ground and begin understanding where the other comes from. That is most assuredly not what happens, though. Instead we watch a nightmare unfold that often appears to possess just one logical end: death. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes
Also New to Streaming
Amazon
Hotel Artemis
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
Amazon Prime
MUBI (free for 30 days)
The Bridesmaid
Cinnamon
Tape
Ryuichi Sakamoto: Async at the Park Avenue Armory
Wild Plants
A Girl Cut In Two