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 Kingdom I (Lars von Trier)
Before his latest opus, The Kingdom Exodus, arrives on MUBI, Lars von Trier has restored never-before-seen director’s cuts of the first two parts of his 1990s series The Kingdom. Set in the neurosurgical ward of the Danish hospital of Rigshospitalet, we’ve been itching to catch up on the series and now thankfully MUBI has afforded the opportunity with the first part, comprised of four episodes, now available the rest coming soon.
Where to Stream: MUBI (free 30 days)
Moonage Daydream (Brett Morgen)
Brett Morgen—venerated documentarian behind Cobain: Montage of Heck and Jane—is the first filmmaker to land a project sanctioned by the Bowie estate. He did not take this for granted. Moonage Daydream is a radiant, psychedelic voyage through the artist’s life, soul, and work that offers a novel approach, gobs of unseen footage, and cosmic insight into Bowie’s ontologies from the demigod himself. – Luke H. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
A Night of Knowing Nothing (Payal Kapadia)
A Night of Knowing Nothing, the debut of Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia and winner of the Oeil d’or for Best Documentary at last year’s Cannes, cannily fuses two forms of knowing, or two ways of absorbing an important moment in one’s life: experiencing and its near-opposite, remembering. Through its slippery cinematic language and elusive point-of-view, Kapadia depicts a moment happening urgently in the film’s present-day strand––a wave of anti-government student protests and their resulting crackdown––and treats it like memory, which we know operates as anything but a direct mental recording device. Jonathan Rosenbaum convincingly argues that a film can’t be both incoherent and political––at its best, A Night of Knowing Nothing offers a challenge to this idea. – David K. (full review)
Where to Watch: The Criterion Channel
Nope (Jordan Peele)
Only two films have cemented Jordan Peele as a formative voice in contemporary horror, Oscar winner, and rein-puller for one of the biggest properties in science fiction, The Twilight Zone. Although Nope likely aims for the heights of his first two horror ventures, its blend of Buffalo Bill and Buck Rogers aligns more with his Rod Serling proclivities. This is grand sci-fi showmanship with a social conscience, but its biggest shock is that Peele may be more invested in the former than the latter. In a refusal to rest on laurels he takes a big swing on a larger canvas. – Conor O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Peacock
Riotsville, USA (Sierra Pettengill)
Riotsville isn’t just a place. It’s an idea; a fiction written by the enforcers of order to “demonstrate the presence of a superior force.” Riotsville is portable and meant to be transplanted no matter the material conditions of what it may disturb. Riotsville is violence done to civilians in the name of maintaining their own civilized society. To put it bluntly: Riotsville is federally funded fascism, and as director Sierra Pettengill’s urgent, meticulously collaged documentary outlines, it laid the foundation for the tactics and overwhelming funding of police brutality we see today. – Shayna W. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Stutz (Jonah Hill)
Following up a prolific first decade of his acting career, culminating in his 2018 directorial debut mid90s, Jonah Hill has stepped back a bit from filmmaking in recent years following the death of his brother. He’s now returned with his latest film, the documentary Stutz, capturing his friend and therapist, Phil Stutz. What begins as an exploration of Stutz’s own life, including the death of his brother at a young age and his ongoing fight with Parkinson’s, evolves into a reflexive experiment for Hill questioning both the reasons to make this film and his own mental health journey. Rather than any sort of indulgent, navel-gazing project, it’s a rather self-effacing, gracious act of providing specific tools for any viewer to reflect on ways to find personal happiness. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: Netflix
TÁR (Todd Field)
At the end of the 1970s, while working as a bat boy for the Portland Mavericks, Todd Field had a bright idea: why not make a stringy-shaped gum (call it Big League Chew) so that kids could mimic the tobacco-chewing players on the plate? In 1980 he and his partner sold it to Wrigley’s. He was 16 years old. Field knows a lot about ideas. He probably knows a phrase like “inside baseball,” too. You’ll find evidence of both in TÁR, his first film in 16 years. For much of its first hour Cate Blanchett (eating up scenery as the eponymous conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic) is made to deliver slightly unconvincing takes on the world of classical music. For the next two she is totally remarkable, stretching out those talents in a work that responds in turn. TÁR is an effort of tremendous skill and restraint, beginning with a confidence bordering on arrogance and building to a brilliant crescendo—only after that first act do the best things begin to surface, the compelling energy of ruthless ambition and the unmistakable, delicious hum of dread. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
There There (Andrew Bujalski)
Watch an exclusive clip above.
With There There, Andrew Bujalski finds new freedom under the constraints of working during the peak of the COVID pandemic. Shot on phones, it consists of a series of dialogues between characters. It begins with a post-coital scene between a man (Lennie James) and a woman (Lili Taylor) following a one-night stand. All characters are unnamed. In most scenes, one character moves on to an interaction with another person. After a short interlude with musician Jon Natchez drumming on two electric guitars with mallets, Taylor’s character meets with her AA sponsor. Bujalski’s approach to framing and editing is rougher than even his early mumblecore films. In fact, it suggests the artificiality of continuity by stitching together scenes whose actors never appeared on the same set. Due to safety precautions, each character was shot individually, then the film was edited to create the illusion of them talking to each other. – Steve E. (read full interview)
Where to Stream: VOD
The Wonder (Sebastián Lelio)
On paper, Sebastián Lelio’s The Wonder sounds like a prime contender for awards season. It’s a period piece set in 19th-century Ireland, adapted from a book by Emma Donoghue (whose 2015 adaptation of her book Room nabbed her an Oscar nomination), directed by an Oscar winner, shot by The Power of the Dog DP Ari Wegner, and led by the massively talented Florence Pugh. It only takes one minute before the film breaks the fourth wall and any preconceived notions as to what it might be, with Pugh introducing herself over footage of a movie set. She explains we’re about to watch a story with characters who have strong beliefs, and asks a favor of the viewer: “We are nothing without stories, so we invite you to believe in this one.” It’s definitely a choice by Lelio—sadly the only interesting one in his film. – C.J. P. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Also New to Streaming
Hulu
Alita: Battle Angel
Ford v. Ferrari
MUBI (free for 30 days)
Rodin
Manon
High-Rise
For Ever Mozart
Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
Lost Illusions
Netflix
Bantú Mama
OVID.tv
The Booksellers
VOD
Bad Axe
Smile
Taurus