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 the interwebs. 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 Instant Video, and more (note: U.S. only). Check out our rundown for this week’s selections below.
10,000 KM (Carlos Marques-Marcet)
“All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl,” Jean-Luc Godard once said during the French New Wave. It’s safe to say that 10,000 KM director Carlos Marques-Marcet understands that sentiment — only in this case he needed a laptop and a girl. (That girl’s ridiculously charming partner doesn’t hurt the equation either). 10,000 KM doesn’t waste any time cutting to the chase, opening up with a lengthy and provocative sex scene that is as intimate as the day is long. – Chelsey G. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes
Faults (Riley Stearns)
With Sound of My Voice, Martha Marcy May Marlene, The Master, and more, filmmakers’ fascination with cults seems to have hit a surge as of late, particularly exploring what it does to people’s psyche and the way that it, in turn, affects the people around them. Not everyone who joins a cult is without family or friends, so what happens when the family you willingly left behind drags you back into their lives? Written and directed by Riley Stearns (who is making his feature film debut at SXSW), Faults follows Ansel (Leland Orser), a cult deprogrammer who is down on his luck. – Bill G. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Merchants of Doubt (Robert Kenner)
Climate change deniers say a lot of ridiculous things, but there’s one specific straw man argument they frequently fall back on that is so insulting in its ridiculousness, it’s unfathomable that anyone could buy into it. Even more upsetting than the crowds of people who burst into applause at the utterance of such statements is the confidence with which politicians and pundits relay such nonsense. The argument goes something like this: “It’s cold where I am, at this moment, so how can the temperature be rising?” Averages, apparently, are a mathematical fabrication. – Brian P. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Serena (Susanne Bier)
Academy Award-winning director Susanne Bier isn’t without her misfires, especially when it comes to her American films. The Things We Lost in the Fire is a dry drama saved by Benicio del Toro’s performance, but when it comes to her latest American picture, Serena, it’s an impossible mission for her two stars to make this long-in-development adaptation anything more than a stiff, awkward, and one-note period piece. – Jack G. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Strangerland (Kim Farrant)
It’s not easy to watch a family disintegrate before your eyes. Kim Farrant’s directorial debut, the Aussie drama Strangerland, follows Catherine Parker (Nicole Kidman) and her husband Matthew (Joseph Fiennes) as they fight together to hold on to their family and their sanity the wake of their children’s disappearance on the eve of a devastating dust storm. – Heath J. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
True Story (Rupert Goold)
Each building up their dramatic profiles as of late, Jonah Hill and James Franco take the next obvious step: teaming up for about as dark a story as Hollywood could make — at least on the outset. True Story follows Michael Finkel (Hill), a New York Times author with ten cover stories to his name, only to get fired after falsifying one of his articles. With his name tarnished, he moves out of the city to live off of his wife’s (Felicity Jones) income at her university job in a cold, desolate Montana. After a string of failed attempts to pitch articles to various publications, one day he receives a strange phone call alerting him that his identity was stolen by a murderer on the run. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, Google
The Water Diviner (Russell Crowe)
With his directorial debut The Water Diviner, Russell Crowe already aligns himself with the Ben Affleck ideology of acting-directing. The ideas are the same here as with Affleck’s The Town, or parts of his preceding, Academy-dazzling Argo: when directing, shuffle around between a moral dilemma, comic relief, precise historical context, and broad melodrama. When acting, embrace the roots of your on-screen machismo, while even redeeming the accent you’ve left behind for numerous Hollywood productions. – Nick A. full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
The Wolfpack (Crystal Moselle)
Growing up one can often feel sheltered from the outside world, whether its through parental restrictions, lack of a social life, or the location of one’s upbringing. The Wolfpack, a captivating new documentary from director Crystal Moselle shot over five years, captures an environment in which that idea is taken to the outright extreme. Raised in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, or rather a single apartment in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, the six Angulo brothers (and one sister) live an exceedingly sheltered life. Since they were born, they’ve only left their home for at most nine times a year, and in some years, never. To keep busy, they have a collection of thousands of films in which they repeatedly watch TV, transcribing them frame by frame and creating lavish scripts that they will then extravagantly (and frugally) bring to life in their own creative way. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Woman in Gold (Simon Curtis)
With all the markings (and trappings) of his usual tastes, Woman in Gold is a minor entry into the canon of Harvey Weinstein auteur theory, a film that has particularly strong moments undercut by uneven character development as the story loses focus. Telling a very personal (and true) story of Maria Altmann (played in her senior years by Helen Mirren), she seeks the return of five paintings by Austrian master Gustav Klimt from their current home, the Austrian-controlled Belvedere Gallery. Taken by the Nazis during the invasion of Vienna, Klimt’s opulent The Woman in Gold is a portrait of Altmann’s aunt, Adele Blosh-Bauer. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon, iTunes, Google
Wild Canaries (Lawrence Michael Levine)
A touch of Vertigo, but with a comedic twist, Wild Canaries follows amateur sleuths that have too much time on their hands and end up in over their heads. Written, directed, and starring Lawrence Michael Levine, Canaries is a screwball comedy with a murder mystery at its core. While the central mystery isn’t airtight, it manages to intrigue one along the way. There are only a core group of players involved, which limits the possibilities less they pull a Scooby Doo and reveal the murderer to be the guy we saw for just a brief moment — instead we get multiple suspects and much hilarity in the process. – Bill G. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Also New to Streaming
Netflix
Monsters: Dark Continent (review)
HBO Go
Hulu
The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists
The Times of Harvey Milk
Fandor
Under the Roofs of Paris
La Vie de Boheme
Paris Nous Appartient
Last Metro
Vivre Sa Vie
Cleo From 5 to 7
Children of Paradise
The Red Balloon
Chronicle of Summer
Place de la Republique
Faces
Shadows
The Killing of a Chinese Bookie
What are you streaming this weekend?