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 platforms. 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, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
The Films of Apichatpong Weerasethakul
If you’re looking for a dreamy weekend, a quartet of the finest films by Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul are now available on FilmStruck: Tropical Malady, Syndromes and a Century, Cemetery of Splendor, and his Palme d’Or winner Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.
Where to Stream: FilmStruck
The Florida Project (Sean Baker)
How, exactly, did Sean Baker do it? How did the director of Tangerine make this story of a mother and daughter living at a rundown motel outside of Disney World in Orlando so joyous, sad, and utterly insightful? Young star Brooklynn Prince, giving one of the most natural performances I’ve seen from a child, is essential to its success. And the great Willem Dafoe, of course, has never been better — or sweeter. But Baker deserves the highest praise. He has constructed a film about children and parents that is truly insightful. Does Moonee deserve better? Without question. But Baker shows that even in situations as messy as those depicted in The Florida Project, there can be deep love. And that counts for something. – Chris S.
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
God’s Own Country (Francis Lee)
British filmmakers have a recent habit of bringing about canonical additions to UK queer cinema in their debuts. Andrew Haigh’s heartbreaking romance Weekend and Hong Khaou’s moving Lilting are now joined by Francis Lee’s God’s Own Country, a bold and brilliant drama rightfully garnering Brokeback Mountain comparisons out of its Sundance debut. Anchored by a quartet of heartfelt performances and tapping into zeitgeisty conflicts between working-class England and growing EU immigration, it’s hard to imagine a more bracingly open-hearted film coming out of Brexit Britain today. – Ed F.
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
On Body and Soul (Ildikó Enyedi)
Winner of the Golden Bear at last year’s Berlinale, On Body and Soul will sadly be heading straight to Netflix, but at least that means a wider audience will be able to see it initially. Zhuo-Ning Su said in our review from the festival, “It’s one thing to give your movie a title as sweepingly ambitious as On Body and Soul, but quite another to deliver something equally transcendent.”
Where to Stream: Netflix
Professor Marston & the Wonder Women (Angela Robinson)
While Robinson’s film does fall into the usual trappings of biopic beats, its subject can’t help but transcend them. She shines a light onto the identity struggles so many face today and presents an unconventional life as healthy and, dare I say, normal. Her script allows profanity to fly free not as a means of provocation, but of uncensored intelligence. It showcases sex in a female gaze both with a man and a woman, letting the truth of who the Marstons were exist above polygamy stereotypes or assumed abuse. Very often it is Elizabeth or Olive who wields control—William beholden to their desires and allowance as far as following their hearts rather than fears. As he says early on, together they are the perfect woman. Diana is an amalgam of both. Read my full review. – Jared M.
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
The Square (Ruben Östlund)
One of the year’s funniest films, Ruben Östlund’s The Square is a rare treat: a razor-sharp satire taking direct aim at populism, globalization, the art world, masculinity, experience, inexperience, race, high society, low society, and power dynamics. The film’s most famous scene–in which an ape-like performance artist turns on the museum’s high class donors is worth the price of admission alone–but only scratches the surface of this ambitious and soon to be infamous comedy that reflects the populist outrage it cooks up amongst the elites it take dead aim at. Claes Bang stars as Christian, the lead curator of a cutting-edge modern art museum in Stockholm who’s world suddenly gets turned upside down by both a missing smartphone and wallet and the opening a new exhibit whose central thesis is built on trust and individual rights. Östlund thrusts his lead into one absurd situation after another in a desperate act of self preservation after acting out – from idol threats to one night stands and poor marketing decisions. The Square may very well be what we use to explain to our kids how our new era of drive-it-like-you-stole-it populism came about. – John F.
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Your Name. (Makoto Shinkai)
The big, sweeping, melodramatic, body-swapping epic you can only ever expect to come from anime. Makoto Shinkai’s gorgeous rendering of two souls intertwined is a warm, fuzzy affair of reversed gender roles and life expectations of a young boy and a young girl until a disaster happens that separates them from one another. Shinkai’s film is structurally similar to Kei Horie’s teen melodrama on love and memory, Forget Me Not, and bears some of the same heartbreaking effects as Johnnie To’s Romancing in Thin Air, proving once and for all that the best melodrama is coming out of Japan these days. – Willow M.
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (Jake Kasdan)
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story is one of the last of its kind. The spoof movie – that is, the vigorous feature-length ribbing at popular films and Hollywood pieties of the moment – was already in decline by the late 2000s. The comedic tastes of the American public were changing; former heavyweights of the genre, like Mel Brooks and the Zucker brothers, were no longer as active as in their heydays of the 70s and 80s. And newcomers Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer were rapidly eroding whatever credibility the spoof movie had left with their seemingly interminable succession of quick, cheap flash-in-the-pan moneymakers (Disaster Movie, Epic Movie, et al) widely despised by critics and hip audiences and yielding diminishing financial returns. – Eli F. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Wonder (Stephen Chbosky)
Based on the popular book by R. J. Palacio, Stephen Chbosky’s Wonder is a sweet, delicate, self-aware adaptation that remarkably sidesteps most of the clichés that a film such as this could have easily fallen into. It is the universality of the message that rings most true in Chbosky’s film: accepting people for who they are and, most importantly, being kind to one another. It might sound all saccharine, but it is deftly told by a filmmaker whose last film (an adaptation of his own novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower) also dealt with adolescent angst. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Also New to Streaming
Amazon
My Art (review)
Old Stone (review)
A Thousand Junkies (review)
Amazon Prime
A Fish Called Wanda
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Terms of Endearment
FilmStruck
HBO Go
Alien series
Diner
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
MUBI (free for 30 days)
Bob le flambeur
Sampha: Process
Illumination
In Bed with Victoria
Before Summer Ends
How to Survive a Plague
Room 237
Netflix
The Force (review)
Extract
GoodFellas
The Hurt Locker
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & 2
Ocean’s 11-13