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.
The Beast (Bertrand Bonello)
Where to begin with Bertrand Bonello’s wonderful The Beast? It’s been so gratifying to see the initial reaction to the French filmmaker’s tenth feature, after several decades of increasingly remarkable work––the majority of it dark, beautiful, and sleazy. In fact, for what a discomforting and despairing experience much of The Beast is, when I’ve thought back its moments of real, uncomplicated cinematic pleasure, its verve and sense of joyousness, are what mark my memories. It’s romantic, without a capital-R. – David K. (full review)
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Challengers (Luca Guadagnino)
Luca Guadagnino’s Challengers opens in an intentionally disorienting manner: We are in New Rochelle, New York for a tennis challenger. Wearing cheap shorts that resemble boxers, Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) battles Art Donaldson (Mike Faist), clad in head-to-toe Uniqlo, while the glamorous Tashi Donaldson (Zendaya) watches tensely from the stands. Flashbacks, first from a few days prior, and then way back to 13 years ago, slowly fill in the gaps on how these two former best friends ended up in such a position: playing against one another in a mid-tier tennis challenger comically sponsored by a tire brand. – Caleb H. (full review)
Where to Stream: MGM+
Daddio (Christy Hall)
Daddio, written and directed by Christy Hall, is a two-hander that bristles with energy from the start. A young professional (Dakota Johnson) steps into a yellow cab at the JFK Airport. Her melancholy makes her mysterious, and her boisterous, reflective cabbie (Sean Penn) can’t help but engage. Here we have actors acting, the kind of special effect no computer will ever be able to replicate. There are surprises, jokes, tears, and a volatile text conversation as the vehicle navigates the bottle-neck tunnel traffic into Manhattan. A lovely, enigmatic score from Dickon Hinchliffe underlines an emotional ride with a deeply satisfying conclusion. Johnson and Penn could not be more different as performers. It’s an oil-and-water clash that pays off in dividends. These are artists at the top of their game. A ride well worth taking. – Dan M.
Where to Stream: VOD
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
As Paul Thomas Anderson continues his epic shoot for his biggest-budgeted film yet, which just may be a modern interpretation of Thomas Pynchon’s Vineland, the Criterion Channel is spotlighting some of his finest films (though not his finest, which would be his previous Pynchon adaptation) with Magnolia (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), There Will Be Blood (2007), The Master (2012), and Licorice Pizza (2021).
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Ghostlight (Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson)
Watch an exclusive clip above.
A masterfully crafted work with nearly no false notes, Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson’s Ghostlight is a tender drama bearing profound moments of humor and small triumphs. The smartly constructed script by O’Sullivan buries the lede, revealing new narrative information with each layer as we watch a nuclear family slowly come apart and, later, find solace in the wake of their son’s suicide. Anchored by a real-life family, the film feels as if it’s been meticulously workshopped with the same intimate collaboration that gave O’Sullivan and Thompson’s last feature, Saint Frances, its authentic nuances. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (Wes Ball)
The recent Planet of the Apes prequel trilogy fizzled out by its third installment, as any form of social allegory it carried over from the original franchise had all but disappeared, with Matt Reeves’ War completing the saga’s slow transition into generic dystopian survival epic. Because the recent Fox-Disney merger has ensured that the only movies getting produced and released theatrically under the former studio’s new ownership are tied to familiar brand names, we’re returning to this post-apocalyptic Earth 300 years after the death of Andy Serkis’ Caesar for what is being tipped as the start of a new trilogy, bridging the gap between recent reboots and the original Charlton Heston vehicle. Surprisingly, for a project that was likely greenlit for non-creative reasons, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has surprisingly lofty aims, aiming to unpack the legacy of an ape-led revolution many generations later, when sharp divides have arisen between those who believe the facts, and those who choose to invest in a more fantastical legend. – Alistair R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Janet Planet (Annie Baker)
About halfway through playwright Annie Baker’s self-assured and pitch-perfect directorial debut Janet Planet, 11-year-old Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) rolls over in bed and turns to her mother Janet (Julianne Nicholson) with an innocent prompt. “You know what’s funny?” she asks. “Every moment of my life is hell.” At such a gentle moment, in such a casual way, she delivers a melodramatic gut-punch. You can’t help choking out a laugh. – Jake K-S. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
MaXXXine (Ti West)
If knives weren’t already being sharpened for Ti West prior to MaXXXine––the third installment in his X series of exploitation throwbacks––they likely will be at the ready once discerning horror fans experience it. On the surface, this is West returning to the same bloody ground as his terrific 2009 breakout The House of the Devil, only with a much starrier cast in tow for this 1985-set slasher mystery. Like that movie, the backdrop here is Reagan-era Satanic Panic, a fitting bedfellow for a story that begins in the adult entertainment industry––that other key scourge for social conservatives in the decade that style forgot. Wider ties between The House of the Devil and MaXXXine, beyond their shared cultural contexts, are few and far between, yet it’s hard not to regard this movie as something of a self-aware victory lap for its director; West isn’t just returning to a milieu that will remind long-term fans of where it all began, but telling a rags-to-riches Hollywood story that knowingly carves out his place within the genre’s storied history. – Alistair R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Mary Heilmann: Waves, Roads and Hallucinations (Matt Creed)
Following the recent Anselm and Frida, documentary portraits of great painters will likely never get old. The latest one to arrive is dedicated to perhaps a more overlooked artist deserving of broader recognition. Matt Creed’s short, sweet, and warm Mary Heilmann: Waves, Roads and Hallucinations captures the artistic breakthroughs of the American abstract painter. Weaving through talking heads, archival, and vérité footage, backed by a dreamy score that feels in harmony with her colorful work, the documentary certainly doesn’t break any formal molds. Yet, with enough humor as Heilmann recounts her early days utilizing drugs to spark creativity, as well as showing how she’s still finding new ways for people to interact with her art, the result is a concise, informative look at finding inspiration by connecting with a natural world many take for granted.
Where to Stream: VOD
The Nest (Sean Durkin)
One of Sundance’s most stunning break-outs in the past decade was Martha Marcy May Marlene, Sean Durkin’s remarkably crafted, psychologically deft exploration of an upstate New York cult starring Elizabeth Olsen. After nearly a decade, the director finally returns to the festival with his feature follow-up The Nest, another exquisitely mounted drama that revels in letting minute character details slowly become elucidated as Durkin puts trust into his audience to pick up the pieces along the way. In peeling back the layers of a fractured family and the soulless drive for wealth, the emptiness underneath is patiently revealed, so much so that it backs itself into a heavy-handed corner. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free 30-day trial)
The Old Oak (Ken Loach)
In The Old Oak, an English man and a Syrian woman become unlikely friends on one side of a simmering culture war. It’s the latest from Ken Loach and, if reports are true, it will be the 86-year-old director’s last. The Old Oak is, of course, a timely story about modern Britain, immigration, and xenophobia. It’s also a parting statement from Loach––one last rallying cry for solidarity––and a fitting coda to his six-decade long career. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Kino Film Collection
Omen (Baloji Tshiani)
When considering a film, it can be healthy to have some skepticism, no matter what genre or subject matter is at hand. With regards to Omen, we have a Belgian-Congolese co-production, a highly intriguing contradiction to consider between the colonizer and the colonized that is itself part of the film’s text. Seeing a bevy of Western names in the end credits didn’t do much to ease these concerns about playing into the assumptions of a, say, European festival audience. Yet Omen is a respectable work all the same, an assured first feature by rapper-turned-actor Baloji Tshiani that never falters in ambition or surprise. – Ethan V. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free 30-day trial)
The People’s Joker (Vera Drew)
It’s a genuine miracle that The People’s Joker has managed to make it to screens unscathed, especially considering the legal battles which dogged the 2023 TIFF premiere could easily have left it trapped in the vault forever. Many of the rave reactions from that festival were written solely within the context of such lingering threat, with many critics doubling-up as armchair legal experts, not analyzing the qualities of Vera Drew’s film so much as they were assessing the likelihood of whether anybody else would ever see it. Now that this unauthorized take on the DC mythos is defiantly arriving on screens––albeit with a lengthy legal scrawl preceding the action itself––it’s immediately obvious that writing about it solely within the context of whether it constitutes a serious copyright violation is something of an insult. – Alistair R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Pictures of Ghosts (Kleber Mendonça Filho)
If the death of cinema is imminent, at least Kleber Mendonça Filho can play it out with some vintage Tropicália. It’s becoming a nice leitmotif of the Brazilian director’s career, whose ultraviolent Bacurau curtain-raised with Gal Costa’s “Não Identificado,” and latest effort Pictures of Ghosts, which premiered as a Special Screening at Cannes, eases in with Tom Zé’s deceptively jaunty “Happy End.” This is a first-person, arguably selfish movie––in that associated genre, the docu-essay––where Mendonça Filho seems to be waving a teary-eyed goodbye to valuable associations and possessions, perhaps only those of individual sentimental resonance. Yet it’s “selfish” in a productive manner, almost as a function of self-care, like a sunny afternoon lounging on the settee revisiting one’s favorite LPs. – David K. (full review)
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
The Plagiarists (Peter Parlow)
The Plagiarists was directed by Peter Parlow and was co-written by James N. Kienitz Wilkins and Robin Schavoir, who each seem to have taken great pleasure in concocting this slippery set-up. The opening of their film suggests a horror movie but it soon becomes apparent that Parlow is more interested in putting their characters’ progressive, middle-class sensibilities under the microscope, at least for the first while. The lovers are named Anna (Lucy Kaminsky) and Tyler (Eamon Monaghan)–a novelist without a novel and a filmmaker without a film, respectively. The man offering to help them is named Clip (played by the silky voiced Michael “Clip” Payne, a sometimes singer and pianist for Funkadelic), a 50-something year old who turns out to have a closet full of old video equipment in his home and–inexplicably–a young boy in a dark upstairs room who is glued to an iPad. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Metrograph at Home
A Quiet Place: Day One (Michael Sarnoski)
For a movie so deeply focused on sound, there’s a bit of an arrhythmia to A Quiet Place: Day One. Michael Sarnoski directs his own screenplay, dabbling within this improbable sci-fi franchise to suit his interests. Despite the Pig director’s best efforts, he feels hindered by a studio assignment at the expense of aspirations for something a bit heftier. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is common ground here with Sarnoski’s much-loved porcine revenge drama: a looming, existential despair is at the heart of both films, buoyed by a genuine and thoughtfully observed sweetness. He escapes the confines of being just a hired gun, but in A Quiet Place: Day One, Sarnoski’s tender, apocalyptic character drama keeps getting interrupted by a bunch of pesky aliens. – Conor O. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Touch (Baltasar Kormákur)
Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur is a rare sort these days. Here is a director who has built a successful, decades-long career making solid, genre-heavy programmers (see Contraband, 2 Guns, Adrift, Beast) while often returning to Iceland to put in solid work (see The Sea, The Deep). There was a time that this kind of output was the lifeblood of the industry. His type nearly extinct now, Kormákur beats on, telling stories for adults. His new film, Touch, fits right into the mold. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Treasure (Julia von Heinz)
An ambling father-daughter road trip through ‘90s Poland, Julia von Heinz’s Treasure is an odd hybrid. On one side it’s a meandering portrait of a father (Stephen Fry’s Edek) and daughter (Lena Dunham’s Ruth) reconnecting after the death of her mother. To which end it’s the type of tragicomedy Sundance used to pump out at a relatively fast pace: both inoffensive and more than a little bland. On the other side Treasure is, somewhat explicitly, a portrait of the collective trauma of the Holocaust. – Christian G. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Who Is Sonny Rollins? (Dick Fontaine)
A rare look at one of the most influential jazz musicians in American history. Trailblazing British documentarian Dick Fontaine captures legendary saxophonist Sonny Rollins performing alone across New York’s bridges and parks during a time when he had disappeared from society, despite his wide acclaim.
Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club
Also New to Streaming
The Criterion Channel
Directed by Preston Sturges
Lumumba: Death of a Prophet
My Heart Is That Eternal Rose
Photographer’s Gaze
Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman
Vacation Noir
Victims of Sin
Youssef Chahine: Titan of Egyptian Cinema
Hulu
Kingdom of Heaven
Metrograph at Home
New Strains
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
Three Monkeys
The Wild Pear Tree
MUBI (free 30-day trial)
Wendy & Lucy
Meek’s Cutoff
Room in Rome
City of Gold
Tahara
Yves Saint Laurent: The Last Collection
Netflix
Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color
Mountain Queen
Prime Video
The Assassin
Mikey and Nicky
VOD
The Vourdalak