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.
Bergman Island (Mia Hansen-Løve)
Parenthood, relationships, and the creative process: three key elements of the cinema of Mia Hansen-Løve casually combine in Bergman Island, a playfully self-aware meta-portrait of the filmmaker and, indeed, of filmmaking itself. Introspective, inventive, and effortlessly calm; it follows a couple, both screenwriters, on an idyllic work retreat to Fårö, an island in the Baltic Sea (population: 498) just off the South East of Sweden. It’s the place Ingmar Bergman called home for the majority of his life, where he made many films and eventually died. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Dune (Denis Villeneuve)
Denis Villeneuve has surmounted this slew of bad omens, by arguably––in filmmaking terms––making the most impersonal adaptation possible. For all his skill and talent, his deftness and subtlety, he acts as just a translator for Herbert’s largely uncompromised original vision, let alone an interpreter or proselytizer. Dune 2021, to register with necessary impact, needs a mind and careening imaginative spirit as reckless as that of its originator. – David K. (full review)
Where to Stream: HBO Max
Knocking (Frida Kempff)
Swedish director Frida Kempff’s debut feature Knocking taps into a human moment: attempting to sleep and hearing a persisting noise just outside of your grasp. Set during a summer heatwave, the film uses this simple premise to create a character study of Molly (Cecilia Milocco), a recently traumatized woman affected by her partner’s apparent ocean-related death. The film’s power rests in its uncertainty of Molly, of her neighbors, and of the noises she’s hearing. – Chris S. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Queersighted: Class Acts
Michael Koresky has returned to The Criterion Channel with a new edition of his series Queersighted, this time with special guest Caden Mark Gardner for a dissection of how queer identity intersects with social class. Their selections include Je tu il elle (1974), In a Year of 13 Moons (1978), Come Back to the 5 & Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982), Streetwise (1984), The Salt Mines (1990), The Transformation (1995), Beautiful Thing (1996), The Delta (1996), and Brother to Brother (2004).
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Titane (Julia Ducournau)
Titane begins not with a whimper but a cacophony: a deafening engine rev; the crash as car meets concrete; then the image of a girl in a horrific head-brace, like something from a Saw film, as she gets fitted with a titanium plate. Next a temporal leap to a car show, erotic dancers, pulsating synth music, chrome, and neon. The girl from the crash appears from the milieu, now a serial killer and car show dancer. After the show, a stalker follows her to her car and gets a needle the size of a chopstick lodged in his eardrum. His mouth sputters like a piece of faulty machinery. Scarcely 10 minutes have passed. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
Amazon Prime
Hulu
MUBI (free for 30 days)
Fear X
Séraphine
Cosmos
Lucky Chan-Sil
Endless Night
Panic
Potiche
Netflix
VOD