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.
’80s Horror
While the new release horror offerings are lacking this month, leave it to The Criterion Channel to deliver the ultimate series for the season. ’80s Horror features a great number of classics and underseen titles, including films by John Carpenter (Prince of Darkness), Tobe Hooper (The Funhouse), David Cronenberg (Scanners), Michael Mann (The Keep), and Paul Schrader (Cat People), along with Wolfen, The Slumber Party Massacre, Near Dark, Vampire’s Kiss, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and many more. Get ready for some thrills.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Atlantis (Ben Russell)
Piecing together a whirlpool of shimmering images from a trip to Malta, experimental filmmaker Ben Russell raises the fabled utopian city of Atlantis from the sea. Russell’s latest film Against Time will play at the 60th New York Film Festival on October 8 as part of the Currents program.
Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club
Blue Island (Chan Tze-woon)
Political and social progress is not isolated to single moments in a linear timeline, but rather unfolds across generations as history repeats itself. Through archival footage, re-enactments, present-day interviews, and glimpses inside recent protests, Chan Tze-woon’s ambitious hybrid documentary Blue Island opens up a dialogue between the past, present, and the future. Capturing various tumultuous points in Hong Kong’s history over the last 55 years through the perspective of those that had a hand in striving for ideals, the film becomes more personal than outright political, weighing the sacrifice and dedication necessary to enact true change. What emerges is an unwieldy yet poignant exploration of the relationship with and passion for one’s homeland and the toll it takes to preserve ideals.
Where to Stream: OVID.tv
Catherine Called Birdy (Lena Dunham)
Lena’s Dunham’s new film Catherine Called Birdy represents a difficult case for this critic. The overwhelming feeling of “it’s simply not for me” throughout the runtime makes it an instance of having to determine if what rang as false or annoying was simply a personal failing. And there’s certainly passion here: Dunham made her personal investment clear before the screening, noting how reading the young adult book by Karen Cushman as an alienated 10-year-old weirdo in 1996 was a life-transforming event. And speaking as one who was definitely a 10-year-old weirdo themselves, the passion is observed, if not totally felt. – Nick N. (full review)
Where to Stream: Prime Video
A Conversation with Mathieu Amalric (Nick Newman)
To promote his list of five movies he’d like to stream on Filmatique, Mathieu Amalric sat down with Managing Editor Nick Newman for a 45-minute discussion of a life in film: cinephilia, blindspots, and the gap (or unity) between creating and loving art.
Where to Stream: Filmatique
Free Chol Soo Lee (Julie Ha and Eugene Yi)
Shedding light on the life of the Korean-American cause cél`èbe, Julie Ha and Eugene Yi’s Free Chol Soo Lee captures a unique moment in Asian American history and ultimately the story of a young man who may have never had a chance. Arriving in Chinatown, San Francisco in the early ’70s, Chol Soo Lee worked odd jobs, among them barker for the local strip clubs. One day his manager shows him a gun that he borrows for no reason at all, leading to an accidental discharge in the bedroom of the flop house he’s occupied. Five days later he’s arrested for murder after a random killing is committed on the street, before a hundred witnesses, with the same type of gun he’d been playing with. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
God’s Country (Julian Higgins)
A few thrillers have premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival that feature vulnerable and underestimated women, but none of them carry the quiet, enigmatic power of Thandiwe Newton in God’s Country, a frigid neo-western that moves glacially but thoughtfully through topics of class, race, and gender. As Sandra, a college professor living alone with her dog in the vast Montana wilderness, Newton exudes a gravitational force, carrying a stern and inscrutable countenance that her character will eventually use to her advantage in an ongoing dispute with two white men. In a pocket of the country that feels lawless and bitterly divided, Sandra is unafraid to begin a vindictive war of escalation, even if it means stripping away everything important in her life. – Jake K. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Green Knight (David Lowery)
A knight errant (or should that be apparent) dives into a lake on an errand given by a sainted spirit; as he is consumed by the dark water, it turns from blood-red to a star-filled night sky. Later he poses for a portrait (in fact a photograph) for a Lady Temptress; as the image gradually emerges out of the inky black, he is seen surrounded by stars. This same wild-hearted wannabe knight is given two identical protective belts: green (of the earth) and flecked with gold (of the stars). Perhaps this combination of the earth and the heavens is what gives this belt its strength, its power? And his eventual crown will have the rays of the sun extending from its headband. So why is young Gawain, King Arthur’s nephew (played here by Dev Patel), who has mostly been ignored until he volunteers for a foolhardy quest, portrayed as a celestial being several times in David Lowery’s adaptation of The Green Knight? – Fiona U. (full feature)
Where to Stream: Hulu
The Jean Rollin Collection
Defined by their mixture of blood, breasts, castles, and rolling fog, six films by Jean Rollin are streaming for Filmatique’s October horror lineup. Collection includes The Shiver of the Vampires, The Iron Rose, The Demoniacs, Lips of Blood, The Grapes of Death, and The Night of the Hunted.
Where to Stream: Filmatique
Nitram (Justin Kurzel)
Whilst the Port Arthur massacre plays a particular role in the Australian psyche—a moment of national mourning that brought about an immediate reaction in comprehensive changes to its gun laws—Kurzel and his regular collaborating writer Shaun Grant (Snowtown, True History of the Kelly Gang) are glinting their eyes at more global, contemporary concerns, which they see this tragedy as reflecting. – David K. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Also New to Streaming
Apple TV+
The Thin Red Line
The Criterion Channel
Deep Cover
Forty Guns
Ishiro Honda: King of the Monsters
My Own Private Idaho
Songs for Drella
Superior
Three by Denis Villeneuve
Universal Horror Classics
Vampires
Vive l’amour
HBO Max
Barry Lydon
Miracle in Milan
La Piscine
La Ronde
To the Wonder
Hulu
The Age of Innocence
All My Puny Sorrows
MUBI (free for 30 days)
Goodnight Mommy
Van Gogh
The Great Buster: A Celebration
Invisible Demons
Pulse
Diary of the Dead
Prime Video
James Bond series
Tubi
Raging Bull
VOD
Silent Twins