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.
China Lost and Found: Eight Films by Jia Zhangke
One of the greatest directors to emerge in this young century, Jia Zhangke has captured his native country like few others. The Criterion Channel is now spotlighting his stellar body of work, including the new restoration of his debut Xiao Wu (1997), along with Platform (2000), Unknown Pleasures (2002), The World (2004), Still Life (2006), 24 City (2008), A Touch of Sin (2013), and Mountains May Depart (2015). Also playing is the documentary Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang from 2014.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Irma Vep (Olivier Assayas)
In the quarter-century since its debut, Olivier Assayas’ hilarious, mischievous, altogether unclassifiable Irma Vep stands merrily uninterested in many things contemporary movies are meant to be interested in—not ultra-sophisticated narrative gimmickry nor obsequious adherence to genre constraints nor even universality, the ability to speak at once to the interests and experiences of all audience members. Cinephiles, a group left ravenous this past year for very obvious reasons, remains the ideal and intended viewers for Irma Vep. – Matthew E. (full feature)
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Mayor (David Osit)
The reign of bigotry and terror from Donald Trump and his administration can often take the form of a myopic view for those in the United States, witnessing on a daily basis how the soon-to-be-ousted leader is further corroding the sharp political divide in his own country. However, the reverberations of his decisions, of course, have a global impact, and David Osit’s riveting new documentary Mayor shows how the President’s heedless actions have exacerbated long-held strife in Ramallah, the Palestinian city in the central West Bank located mere miles from Jerusalem. The ”city in transition” is led by Musa Hadid, a humble Christian mayor who deeply empathizes with his community as they are controlled by the Israelis and surrounded by their encroaching settlements. The threat against their livelihood reaches more peril when Trump officially declares Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in 2017, leaving Palestinians attempting to survive without a place to truly call home. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: Film Movement Plus
Moments Like This Never Last (Cheryl Dunn)
When it comes to a good deal of documentaries about art, a director’s perspective can feel detached as if commenting on a consensus solidified decades prior. This is not the case when it comes to Cheryl Dunn’s immersive portrait of the late Dash Snow, a figure in the NYC art world of the 2000s who died from a heroin overdose at the age of 27. Through archival footage and present-day interviews with those in his circle, Moments Like This Never Last captures the anti-authoritarian spirit of Snow and this subset of boldly imaginative artists––whose work paved the way for the confrontational and confessional anything-goes digital world we now find ourselves in.
Where to Stream: VOD
New York Stories
One of the most expansive series on The Criterion Channel to date, New York Stories charts the history of the Big Apple from a variety of voices. Selections include The Immigrant (1917), The Crowd (1928), The Clock (1945), The Naked City (1948), An Affair to Remember (1957), The Apartment (1960), West Side Story (1961), Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One (1968), Putney Swope (1969), Sisters (1972), Super Fly (1972), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), News from Home (1977), Escape from New York (1981), My Dinner with Andre (1981), Smithereens (1982), After Hours (1985), Moonstruck (1987), Do the Right Thing (1989), Sidewalk Stories (1989), The King of New York (1990), Metropolitan (1990), Paris Is Burning (1990), In the Cut (2003), Margaret (2011), Frances Ha (2012), and much, much more.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Slow Machine (Paul Felten and Joe DeNardo)
It’s rare that a new American film feels genuinely alive with possibility from beginning to end. So many of the logistical, economic, and technological decisions that go into making a movie in the United States are designed to suffocate artistic vision in favor of audience accessibility. Which means something infinitely strange and fractured like Slow Machine feels all the more essential, an eccentric celluloid shape-shifter shot on 16mm that playfully upends the tropes of narrative storytelling. – Glenn H. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
The Truffle Hunters (Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw)
“If you’re not picky, you can eat them on anything.” So says one of the elite group of experienced, elder Italian truffle hunters portrayed in Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s stately, charming new documentary, regarding their prized possessions. The only issue is these delicacies from the ground are impossible to find without knowledge, skill, and a trusted dog. And when they are miraculously discovered, they go for an incredible amount of money. The Truffle Hunters explores this age-old tradition of culinary treasure-hunting and the clash of passion and commerce around such a specific way of life. Executive produced by Luca Guadagnino, it’s also far from your standard documentary in terms of the picturesque approach in which we meticulously enter this Northern Italy milieu. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Wild Indian (Lyle Mitchell Corbine, Jr.)
Wild Indian is a bold, anger-wreaked character study, creating a deeply unsympathetic antihero who nevertheless inspires some pity and understanding. Although representation for indigenous American people in the arts is increasing, it’s still hard to recall a film quite like Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr.’s debut, which moves its Native American characters from a cinematic periphery they’re most often found towards the center. Its story of an upwardly mobile Ojibwe man (Michael Greyeyes), haunted by a past crime, surprises us, its progression almost like an old-fashioned morality tale, and Corbine feels no pressure to skew to politically correct positive representations. – David K. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Worth (Sara Colangelo)
In the wake of a tragedy, who decides who gets compensated? And how much? These are the opening queries in Worth, written by Max Borenstein and directed by Sara Colangelo. Following the terror attacks of September 11th, 2001, Congress appointed attorney Kenneth Feinberg (Michael Keaton, impressive as ever) to run the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. Along with his firm partner Camille Biros (Amy Ryan, understated), Feinberg quickly produces a formula by which to calculate what each victim’s loved ones are owed. It’s an unfair system, paying out larger sums to those who made more money when they were alive. With a deadline and a requirement to get at least eighty percent of the victims to sign (thereby agreeing not to sue the airlines), there is a ticking clock. Of sorts. – Dan M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Yakuza Princess (Vicente Amorim)
We enter 20 years into the past at a birthday party in Japan. This wealthy family spared no expense for the celebration but no amount of money can stop what’s coming. Swords are drawn, guns are fired, and soon enough everyone is dead—save a little girl taken from her mother’s lifeless arms. The assumption is that the victors have stolen her to nurture as their own before the inevitable discovery of her real heritage and subsequent desire for revenge. Learning the opposite to be true is thus a confusing hiccup once we fast-forward to present-day Brazil and find Akemi (Japanese singer-songwriter MASUMI) mourning the death of the man who raised her: a man she calls Grandfather. How did she get there? We’ll find out soon enough. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
Amazon Prime
The Criterion Channel
Starring Deborah Kerr
The Lubitsch Touch
Five by Billy Wilder
Flowers of Shanghai
HBO Max
MUBI (free for 30 days)
Netflix