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.
AGGRO DR1FT (Harmony Korine)
Is it possible to leave your enfance without losing your terrible? The one-and-only Harmony Korine, now 50 years young, returns with Aggro Dr1ft, a premiere out-of-competition at the Venice Film Festival this week and, by my count, the only so far to have triggered mass walkouts and a ten-minute standing ovation. Shot entirely in infrared and using augmented reality effects and AI imaging tools, Aggro Dr1ft appears like the fever dream of a day spent drinking lean, watching music videos, and playing God of War and Grand Theft Auto. At times it’s funny, dazzling, almost beautiful; at others ugly, misogynistic, numbingly dull. Only he could have made it. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: EDGLRD.com
The Boy and the Heron (Hayao Miyazaki)
Cinema at its most boundlessly imaginative, The Boy and the Heron is a journey of thrilling, pure dream logic chock full of images that feel conjured from the deepest corners of Miyazaki’s mind. Considering the painstaking, hand-drawn labor it takes to pull off an animation this encumbered by standard narrative conventions, the feat of Miyazaki being able to corral such a vision feels miraculous. For the sake of the medium, here’s hoping the 82-year-old legend has one more in him.
Where to Stream: VOD
The Devil’s Bath (Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala)
Goodnight Mommy directors Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala are back with another harrowing tale, but this time hewing closer to real life than providing a genre twist. Savina Petkova said in her review, “Early Modern times were messy: Europe was finding its footing in rationalism, seeking independence from the centuries-long spiritual yoke of Catholicism and Protestantism. Shedding the skin of the past seems, at least from our standpoint today, the best thing that could have happened to modern man. Preempting industrialization and a desire-fulfilling capitalist society, the journey towards Enlightenment positioned its preceding times as ‘The Dark Ages.’ But the freedom to live or die was certainly a luxury for many––especially women caught in the patriarchal webs of rural life. Ewa Lizlfellner was one such woman who didn’t want to live, but to die.”
Where to Stream: Shudder
Ezra (Tony Goldwyn)
Let’s start here: watching Bobby Cannavale and Robert De Niro argue on a New York City street while cars angrily beep their horns is electric. Truly exhilarating to watch. Likewise, watching the great Rose Byrne manage multiple emotions on her face is tantamount to listening to Yo-Yo Ma play cello. Ezra, written by Tony Spiridakis and directed by Tony Goldwyn, tells the story of a separated couple’s attempt to raise their autistic son. Max (Cannavale) is a struggling stand-up comedian; his ex, Jenna (Rose Byrne), is trying to keep it all together and not doing well. Their son, Ezra (William A. Fitzgerald), is causing disturbances at his school. Soon he’s forced to go to a specialized school with other “special” kids. Max cannot allow this; neither can his temper. It’s all for Jenna and her lawyer boyfriend (Goldwyn) to do to keep Max from beating up the whole world. Max’s father (De Niro) is no help at all. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Fancy Dance (Erica Tremblay)
While Lily Gladstone made many headlines last year with her turn in Killers of the Flower Moon, another of her performances stayed under the radar. Now, Erica Tremblay’s 2023 Sundance premiere Fancy Dance arrives some 18 months later via Apple. As John Fink said in his review, “Fancy Dance is a rich character study that explores the contemporary impact of permanently marginalizing a community with limited options. Other communities and economies emerge and potentially entrap someone like Roki who, as a teen, tries reconciling a sense of foundation while having little to grab onto. Above all, this is a well-written drama that feels like an authentic, at times painful exploration of a community from a filmmaker that knows this place all too well.”
Where to Stream: Apple TV+
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (George Miller)
Almost nine years to the day since Mad Max: Fury Road premiered in Cannes, George Miller returns to the Croisette with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. It’s a deafening roar of a film, full of the same improbable vehicles and breathless pursuits through the director’s signature dystopian outback, though now told through a lens that can feel a bit slick at times. It tells the story of how Imperator Furiosa (immortalized by Charlize Theron in 2015 and gamely reinterpreted here by Alyla Browne and Anya Taylor-Joy) came to be, tracking her journey from childhood and the Place of Abundance––an Edenic oasis of renewable energy and worrying red apples––to hardened warrior in the wastelands of Bullet Farm, Gastown, and The Citadel of Immortan Joe. The concerns that met the trailer––suggesting Miller had traded in his predecessor’s practical effects for CGI––are, I’m sorry to say, not entirely unfounded. But Furiosa can still boast moments to take the breath away. Did we need it? Probably not. Are the chase scenes still phenomenal? Absolutely. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Household Saints (Nancy Savoca)
One of the great restorations of the last year––in the sense that not only is it of pristine quality, but that it invites an underseen gem back into the conversation––is that of Nancy Savoca’s 1993 drama Household Saints, which was executive-produced by Jonathan Demme. Led by Tracey Ullman, Vincent D’Onofrio, Lili Taylor, Judith Malina, Illeana Douglas, and Michael Imperioli, the ambitious, carefully observed drama follows the courtship of an Italian-American family before expanding into a tale of religious conviction. Scripted by Savoca and Richard Guay based on Francine Prose’s novel, the new 4K restoration premiered at New York Film Festival, received a theatrical run earlier this year, and is now available digitally.
Where to Stream: Kino Film Collection
If Revolution is a Sickness (Diane Severin Nguyen)
In the rising contemporary artist Diane Severin Nguyen’s If Revolution is a Sickness, a Vietnamese orphan washes up on the shores of Poland and joins a K-Pop dance group invested in radical politics. Nguyen — a multi-talented artist whose most recent film In Her Time is currently on view at the Whitney Biennial until August 11 — locates transnational pockets of solidarity between Vietnam and Poland in her gleefully irreverent and smart radical musical.
Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club
In a Violent Nature (Chris Nash)
What new perspective can one bring to the horror genre? With his directorial debut, Chris Nash gives this question its resoundingly brutal, formally fascinating answer. Primarily following a murderer’s steps and slashes through his travels terrorizing those near a remote cabin, the wonderfully Béla Tarr-esque In a Violent Nature sticks to its meticulous conceit and delivers one of the most chilling horror movies I’ve seen in years. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: VOD
A Love Song (Max Walker-Silverman)
Max Walker-Silverman’s A Love Song utilizes the immense talent of Dale Dickey and the richly simple Colorado landscape to tell a small, affecting story. Dickey, along with co-star Wes Studi, carries an isolated narrative of a widowed woman living an uncomplicated life. The first-time writer-director shows necessary patience in telling this story: he uses silence to his advantage, resting on Dickey’s lived-in face as she sorts through her feelings of grief, nostalgia, and loneliness. – Michael F.
Where to Stream: Hulu
Passion (Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)
Friends meet at a restaurant for a birthday dinner in the opening scenes of Ryûsuke Hamaguchi’s Passion. Everyone loves the wrong person. Tomoya (Ryuta Okamoto) is engaged to math teacher Kaho (Aoba Kawai), but like the married Takeshi (Kiyohiko Shibukawa), is drawn to post-grad Takako (Fusako Urabe). Their stories unfold in a world of diners, small apartments, and taxis familiar to fans of Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy and the Oscar-winning Drive My Car. Shot as his thesis film at the Tokyo University of the Arts, Passion is Hamaguchi’s second feature. Read Daniel Eagan’s interview with Hamaguchi.
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Problemista (Julio Torres)
The term “unique voice” gets thrown around a lot. But how else do you describe Julio Torres? Over several years as a writer for Saturday Night Live and actor on HBO’s Los Espookys he’s quietly cultivated his own fresh, distinguished comedic sensibility, highlighting the surreality and humanity in the perfunctory. That’s most evident in the variety of digital shorts written during his time at 30 Rock, where he captured, for example, the nightmares and paranoia of a graphic designer tortured by Avatar’s papyrus font, or the inner life of an oddly shaped glass sink in an otherwise bland linoleum bathroom. You picture him looking at the world with his head slightly bent. – Jake K-S. (full review)
Where to Stream: Max
The Watchers (Inasha Night Shyamalan)
The Watchers follows Mina (Dakota Fanning), an antisocial pet-store clerk tasked with delivering a rare yellow parrot to a client in another town. Her trip brings her to a mysterious forest that has a tendency for swallowing up anyone who enters. With the sun setting and her car nowhere to be found, Mina takes shelter in a strange one-room building (called the Coop) with three others, who are, we learn, fellow captives. Every night, vicious creatures come to watch them through the two-way mirror, studying their appearance and mannerisms. – Gabrielle M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
Netflix
A Family Affair
Lovesong
Paramount+ with Showtime
Out of Darkness
Prime Video
I Am: Celine Dion
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
VOD
Chestnut
The First Slam Dunk
Solo