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.
Belle (Mamoru Hosoda)
If a name can trigger nostalgia, don’t be surprised when the occasional sense of deja vu sets in while watching Belle, a dazzling near-future tech fantasia wrapped around a tale, yes, as old as time. Directed by Mamoru Hosoda and mostly set in a vast online world of sweeping musical numbers and weightless action sequences, it tells of Suzu, an awkward teenager (as if there were any other kind) who finds quick fame performing as the pop-singer Belle: her avatar on a hugely popular social media platform called U that looks like a sugary cocktail of Tik Tok and “The Oasis” from Spielberg’s Ready Player One. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: HBO Max
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: Metrograph at Home
Born to Film (Danny Lyon)
Uniting bygone films left behind by Lyon’s father with footage of his own son, Born to Film zigzags through time as it reveals a shared family fascination with filmmaking. Relaying between Lyons, the film unspools the histories of three generations fueled by the same wonder and desire to capture the world before their eyes. Streaming for free over the next two weeks.
Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club
Exclusive to Filmatique
Advancing their agenda of “curation over content, quality over quantity,” the newly relaunched Filmatique is highlighting films only streaming on their service—work by Miklós Jancsó, Lars von Trier, Hong Sangsoo, Miguel Gomes, Carlos Reygadas, Roy Andersson, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and Bruno Dumont.
Where to Stream: Filmatique
Hatching (Hanna Bergholm)
Mother (Sophia Heikkilä) has the perfect family. The kind of family who would no doubt have made Adolf Hitler shed a single, wistful tear. It’s because of this that Mother makes a living placing her family’s unblemished, Aryan faces in front of a selfie camera and documenting their lives for all the world to see. In their crisp, pastel pink-and-white garments that they flounce around within the walls of their toy dollhouse home—the latter of which the camera establishes by floating around the exterior to mimic drone shots Mother uses in her family vlogs—the nuclear family at the center of Finnish director Hanna Bergholm’s rattling feature debut Hatching projects an image of unattainable attainability. It’s the same sort that modern-day vloggers and influencers profit from in real life. Smiling faces, tousled hair, audience-acceptable kisses and hugs, restrained displays of affection. The kind of family that is everyone and no one at all, meticulously crafted for an era in which aspirational voyeurism has become a principal pastime for millions. – Brianna Z. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Late August, Early September (Olivier Assayas)
The greatest film of Olivier Assayas’ storied career? For all its formal confidence, aesthetic comfort, Mathieu Amalric’s turn, and humane wisdom—here’s an exchange that’s done me more good and clarification than almost any therapist—the argument could be made. In its emphasis on a frustrated creative life, Paris locations, and (frankly) adult character dating a 16-year-old (who would become one of the finest filmmakers in our lifetime and, well, mother to Assayas’ child) most likely the Frenchest. For having been hard to find as long as I can remember, Late August, Early September appearing on HBO Max is a minor miracle, with the added blessing that its fantastic restoration has a Janus Films logo portending future Criterion treatment. But don’t wait—certainly not on a brilliant statement about living for your present moment. – Nick N.
Where to Stream: HBO Max
Licorice Pizza (Paul Thomas Anderson)
Paul Thomas Anderson’s disheveled period story of the quasi-romantic friendship between precocious 15-year-old Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) and immature, floundering 25-year-old Alana Kane (Alana Haim) brings the LA native back to his sun-kissed San Fernando roots. Hoffman and Haim, in their feature debuts, not only lead this film untethered to a big-name actor, but carry it with the ease of seasoned performers. Licorice Pizza is less a standard love story than a lyrical portrait of the thin, fragile line between adolescence and adulthood; of two people with one foot in one world and one foot in the other, intertwining somewhere in the middle at the most imperfect time. – Brianna Z.
Where to Stream: Prime Video
Prey (Dan Trachtenberg)
The Predator franchise has been a remarkable exercise in longevity despite diminishing returns for 35 years. As such, a scaled-down and retitled prequel reduced to streaming fodder seems an unsurprising move at this point––or at least the only feasible one. The tragic irony is that Prey, a Dan Trachtenberg-directed addition set 300 years ago, is the first franchise entry that is as good (and at times a mite better) than the original. – Conor O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
Resurrection (Andrew Semans)
Not all is well from the opening scenes of Andrew Semans’ Resurrection, based on his own Black List-charting script, which begins as a chilly, slick workplace and mother-daughter drama before exploding into a stomach-churning psychological thriller. Though its preposterous narrative ends up getting into rather silly territory that obfuscates its initial, more pertinent thematic ideas, the film is another stellar showcase for the immense talent of Rebecca Hall. One also can’t entirely fault the director for following through and taking his rather illogically extreme set-up to its most logically absurd conclusion. – Jordan R. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Rouge (Stanley Kwan)
A beguiling, breathtaking ghost story, Stanley Kwan’s Rouge is one of the major restorations of the year. Recently arriving on a gorgeous Criterion disc and now available on their streaming channel, the late, iconic Anita Mui and Leslie Cheung star in this tale split between the past of the 1930s and the then-present of the 1980s. Following a ghost searching for the embers of a long-faded romance, Kwan’s melodrama is shrouded in mystery yet still retains a burning passion in exploring the endurance of love.
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
What Josiah Saw (Vincent Grashaw)
Josiah Graham (Robert Patrick) doesn’t believe in God. To look at him and witness his actions is enough to know this truth, but his words have never been afraid to ensure those sentiments prove undeniable anyway. So he smirks when his youngest son dares to say grace before their latest meal. He starts telling a fantastical story about a dancing leprechaun that he saw outside his window that morning. Tommy (Scott Haze) laughs—both because it’s a humorous anecdote told in humorous fashion and because he’s a bit simple insofar as judging when someone is pulling his leg as a means to cut deeply with malice. His smile fades upon telling his father leprechauns aren’t real because Josiah’s face has turned to a scowl. “Neither is God,” he says. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Shudder
Wild Men (Thomas Daneskov)
Joining the pantheon of cinema’s exploration of manhood, Wild Men isn’t necessarily covering original ground in exploring these basic concepts. Incorporating a hybrid of ideas that cover aspects of masculine identity and its relationship to the modern world, Thomas Daneskov’s film also employs a distinctly Scandinavian brand of dark humor, involving absurdist vignettes and abrasively violent narrative developments, creating a work that occasionally reaches greater heights but often feels constricted by derivative writing and an ultimately confused thesis. – Logan K. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Wood and Water (Jonas Bak)
Germany’s mountainous Black Forest region and Hong Kong Island couldn’t be more dissimilar in terms of terrain. Yet, Jonas Bak’s debut film Wood and Water spiritually connects these two epic spaces for a retired church administrator named Anke (played by the filmmaker’s own mother) entering a time of great transition. Not surprisingly, one of the film’s most important dialogue sequences ends with someone noting, “It’s funny how things coincide.” – Glenn H. (full review)
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Also New to Streaming
The Criterion Channel
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Hollywood Chinese
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Husbands
Sweet Smell of Success
Donbass
The Earth Is Blue as an Orange
Damnation
HBO Max
Blue Velvet
Blow Out
Days of Being Wild
Enemy
Out of the Past
Pulp Fiction
Under the Skin
Whiplash
MUBI (free for 30 days)
Black Coal, Thin Ice
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands
Ichi the Killer
Nest
Our Eternal Summer
Holy Emy
Entertainment
Netflix
The 15:17 to Paris
Eyes Wide Shut
Prime Video
Thirteen Lives