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.
The Animal Kingdom (Thomas Cailley)
In The Animal Kingdom, an Un Certain Regard-selected science-fiction romp from France, human-animal mutations are the new norm. Director Thomas Cailley begins things in media res with a familiar disaster-movie scene: François (Romain Duris) and Émile (Paul Kircher)––father and son, respectively––are stuck in traffic, making chit-chat, when something slowly begins capturing the attention of other drivers. An ambulance across the way begins to rumble. Then a man with a large winged arm bursts out, causing some damage before scurrying down a tunnel. Only mildly ruffled, François exchanges a jaded aphorism with another driver over: “Strange times.” – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Dream Scenario (Kristoffer Borgli)
The ever-evolving nature of fame and infamy gets examined in Dream Scenario, Kristoffer Borgli’s follow-up to his dark comedy Sick of Myself. It’s the Norwegian director’s first feature in America, and with it comes the confident backing of A24, producer Ari Aster, and a starry cast led by Nicolas Cage. It all sounds promising, and for a time Borgli rises to the occasion with a compelling, satirical high concept. But most of the goodwill Dream Scenario builds in its first half goes away once Borgli degrades the story into a facile, reactionary attack against cancel culture. – C.J. P. (full review)
Where to Stream: Max
Drive-Away Dolls (Ethan Coen)
The kind of movie made to stumble upon surfing cable at 2 am in a half-awake, half-intoxicated stupor, Ethan Coen’s Drive-Away Dolls aims for a lower artistic bar than anything the director (and certainly his brother) has previously approached, which accounts for much of its charm. Ethan Coen and Tricia Cooke first completed the script some two decades ago––titled Drive-Away Dykes both then and now, if one goes by the end credits––and the film’s B-movie, pleasure-first appeal lies in the feeling that they simply dusted off a copy and immediately embarked on production. A slapdash narrative populated with eminently likable characters best described as joke-delivering caricatures, this marvelously queer road-trip comedy caper is a fleet-footed ride designed to pack in as much sex, violence, and psychedelic mind trips as an 84-minute runtime will allow. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Frida (Carla Gutiérrez)
as a Kahlo-head (I don’t think there’s a name for us; I’d go with Friduchos) watching Frida gave me nothing new. I was too overprepared a student for this test. I found Gutiérrez’s intention of preserving her voice honorable and necessary; I agree that women and people who have been historically marginalized should be allowed and encouraged to tell their own stories. But this noble intention seems misguided when talking about the work of a visual artist, someone whose stories weren’t told in the literary form, but rather through symbols. Frida suggesting listening to an audiobook while watching a very good accompanying presentation. – Jose S. (full review)
Where to Stream: Prime Video
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: VOD
House of Trés (Jeff Preiss and Diane Martel)
A rarely-screened film about voguing from New York filmmakers Jeff Preiss and Diane Martel, House of Trés brings together footage from 1980s dance clubs and impromptu lessons alongside interviews with voguers and DJs. A rapidfire view of the New York City ballroom scene as it faced a major turning point.
Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club
Nam June Paik: Moon is the Oldest TV (Amanda Kim)
“I use technology in order to hate it properly,” pioneering video artist and self-identified cultural terrorist Nam June Paik says while explaining his playful, boundary-breaking work. A Ph.D. holder who speaks 20 languages––almost all quite badly––Paik is known as the father of video art, fantasizing early on about converting the medium of television into something other than passive work. It often broke the rules, incorporating onstage nudity, politics (including the satirization of John F. Kennedy shortly after his assassination), and the embrace of the future. For Paik, a student who lived history––he escaped Seoul at the beginning of the Korean War to study music in West Germany in the late 1950s––it’s the artist’s role to think about the future. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Origin (Ava DuVernay)
The second part of this year’s Venice Film Festival shines with at least two firsts: Ava DuVernay is the first African-American female director competing for the Golden Lion, here with a film about Isabel Wilkerson, the first woman of African-American heritage to win the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism. Origin is inspired by Wilkerson’s seminal 2020 book Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents, but is a stand-alone cinematic retelling of a life, work, and the process of uncovering, from within, the perilous paradigms that shape our social structures. Even if such a premise reads a bit dry, DuVernay’s dedication to rawness and realism puts literary and conceptual devices to good use to make an affecting, vital film for our times. – Savina P. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Royal Hotel (Kitty Green)
Kitty Green saw Hotel Coolgardie while on a festival jury, and the film impacted her so much she’s now adapted it into The Royal Hotel, a tense yet uneven thriller that sensationalizes its source material in almost all of the right places. In Green’s take, American tourists Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) travel to Australia to escape their lives back home, and we first see them partying it up on a boat in Sydney. Their partying days get cut short when they run out of money, which prompts Liv to find a temporary job for both of them at a bar hundreds of miles away in a barren mining town. Hanna dreads the idea of it; Liv goes with the flow. (Liv’s only question about the job: “Will there be kangaroos?”). – C.J. P. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
The Stones and Brian Jones (Nick Broomfield)
Watch an exclusive clip above.
Much of what people do remember about Jones in 2023 has to do with the mysterious circumstances of his passing. Come upon an article with a title like “the 10 strangest unsolved mysteries in music history” and there is a good chance one of the entries will be devoted to Jones’ drowning in 1969. To his credit––and unlike 1998’s Kurt & Courtney––Broomfield is uninterested in conspiracy theories. Rather, The Stones and Brian Jones is focused on what made Jones a complex, troubled genius, and how he was destined to be excised from history in order for the Rolling Stones to become The World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band™. “If anyone was gonna die, Brian was gonna die,” states Jagger in a clip near the film’s end. “He just lived his life very fast. He was kind of like a butterfly.” – Chris S. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour (Taylor’s Version) (Sam Wrench)
There was one other occasion in 2023 when I lost myself in a world that felt perfect for a while and it was on October 13th at the first screening of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (lucky Friday, too!). Everyone knows I’m a Swiftie: I constantly talk/post about her, I have four Tay tattoos all over my body, and I even use her to teach my students, but not even I was expecting what this movie was like. For three hours, 300 strangers, mostly young women and girls, all decked in Tay merchandise, sang along and danced in the dark as Swift took us onto that stage with her. I smiled wishing a little girl who cried to “All Too Well” never endures the kind of heartbreak in the song, shimmied like there was no tomorrow to “Shake It Off,” and asked my friend to slow dance to “Lover” with me on the cinema aisle. Right there and then nothing could hurt me. To say this was the greatest movie theater experience I’ve ever had might sound a bit much, but the more I think about it, the truer it feels. I never felt so much love from so many people I’ll never see again all at once. The movie theater was our place, we made the rules. – Jose S. (full feature)
Where to Stream: Disney+
T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets (Sophie Fiennes)
Art made during COVID––more specifically during quarantine and before / at the very beginning of the vaccine rollout––will surely hold an added weight as history is written. In those very hard (and very recent, and in some respects, very current) times, what did we write? What did we read? What did we watch? T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, directed by Sophie Fiennes and performed by her brother Ralph, is a decidedly worthwhile artifact of this precarious time. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Kino Film Collection
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