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.
Arrebato (Iván Zulueta)
That Arrebato has waited more than 40 years to receive a bona fide U.S. theatrical run is wild; it lives up to the cult-classic status it’s held since 1979. (The marketing push highlights it being Pedro Almodóvar’s favorite horror film.) Its parts recall many later works as diverse as Trainspotting and The Ring, its depiction of addiction and stasis leading us towards a legitimately brilliant ending that brings the whole thing into meta territory with its film-within-a-film coaxing us to enter the fray ourselves. Our need for answers ratchets up to a potent boiling point, as is surely Zulueta’s intent. He’s not interested in the release, just the rapture. He wants us to chase the high and live in its glorious potential. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel
Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn (Radu Jude)
After a sex tape is released online, a schoolteacher (Katia Pascariu) goes on an odyssey through sunny Bucharest. She later faces a kangaroo court made up of her colleagues and peers. In the middle many other things happen. Combining narrative and archival filmmaking with elements of theatre, political allegory, memes, and satire, Radu Jude—perhaps the most idiosyncratic filmmaker to emerge from the Romanian New Wave—created one of the strangest, most singular films of the year in Bad Luck Banging or Looney Porn. It also won the director a Golden Bear, an acknowledgement as overdue as it was richly deserved. – Rory O.
Where to Stream: Hulu (censored version)
Crimson Gold (Jafar Panahi)
Following his early days of being an assistant for Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi’s career soon blossomed, leading to a few collaborations between the two monumental figures of Iranian cinemas––one of which, Crimson Gold, is now available digitally. The masterful 2003 character study, scripted by Kiarostami after he told the tenets of the story to Panahi while sitting in traffic, stars unprofessional actor Hossain Emadeddin in his sole performance. Following a pizza delivery driver who witnesses the sharp class divide and political terror playing out in his society, Kiarostami and Panahi brilliantly preview the brutal ending from the start as the pieces then cogently and subtly fall into place as to why a man would be pushed to such utter desperation. – Jordan R.
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
The Cursed (Sean Ellis)
It’s not the movie you expect to see based on its prologue. Beginning in the trenches of World War I during the Battle of Somme, the camera glides over army ranks preparing to charge from their bunkers while battling explosions of mustard gas burning holes through their uniforms. When Edward, one of the unfortunate soldiers battling the Germans, is wounded and rushed to the field hospital, Ellis isn’t shy about showing the bloody shrapnel removal process. But when doctors extract an obscure silver bullet from Edward’s body, the story takes a mythic turn. – Jake K. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Deep Water (Adrian Lyne)
The tale of Deep Water’s production and release could have easily overshadowed the film itself. Marking the return of Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction, 9 ½ Weeks) to the director’s chair after a 20-year absence since 2002’s Unfaithful, the erotic thriller was the catalyst for offscreen romance between stars Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas. The tabloid fodder of their relationship exploded to the next level in their well-documented break-up, and the film’s constant delays from COVID and Disney’s treatment of its 20th Century Studios titles ultimately led to the film being awkwardly released now, about a year since the duo broke up. While surrounding factors behind Deep Water have long been meme material ready for the piranhas to pounce on once it hit release, the reality is that Lyne—a defining filmmaker in halcyon days of the erotic thriller in the ‘80s and early ‘90s—has crafted a welcome return to a genre long needing resurgence. – Mitchell B. (full review)
Where to Stream: Hulu
The Power of Kangwon Province (Hong Sangsoo)
“I always make mistakes,” says the emotionally vulnerable Jinsook (Oh Yun-hong) toward the end of Hong Sangsoo’s The Power of Kangwon Province. While her confession relates to a series of messy indiscretions with dead-end men, it also sums up the cyclical calamity that has befallen most of Hong’s protagonists over the last two decades. And we can’t just blame it on the Soju. After premiering in Un Certain Regard at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, The Power of Kangwon Province never received a release in the United States until now, courtesy a 2K restoration presented by Grasshopper Film. Since Hong has been so prolific over the years, shifting and transforming a certain narrative construct with the ease of a master, it’s fascinating to see an early portrait of his base interests. – Glenn H. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
Suburban Birds (Qiu Sheng)
Something is causing the ground to shift underneath a new Chinese suburb in writer-director Qiu Sheng’s intriguing, adept debut feature. High-rise towers are listing to the side, and residents are being evacuated. As Suburban Birds begins, a team of engineers is on-site to investigate the cause—ideally quickly, without disrupting the planned subway tunneling, so that this little part of China’s development boom can proceed. Make way for tomorrow! It’s left to Qiu to survey the restless earth around the foundations of the future, via a subtle structural gambit that marks his voice as one worth listening to. – Mark A. (full review)
Where to Stream: OVID.tv
The Wandering Soap Opera (Raúl Ruiz)
Tackling this posthumous release from renowned experimental filmmaker Raúl Ruiz with limited knowledge of telenovelas and the subtleties of early ‘90s Chilean politics is like trying to eat a rough cut of meat with a butter knife: there’s every chance it’s delicious — it might even be good for you — but it remains difficult to pin down. Indeed, there is a lot going on in The Wandering Soap Opera (La telenovela errante), a previously unfinished project that has been completed for release by Ruiz’s widow and long time editor Valeria Sarmiento. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: OVID.tv
Windfall (Charlie McDowell)
From the old school ‘50s-era opening titles, you can feel what tone Charlie McDowell’s Windfall is going for. The director’s third feature plays up the Hitchcock aesthetic big time in its marketing, but tonally it feels even more adjacent to Rian Johnson’s bouncy recent works of mystery thrills, The Brothers Bloom and, especially, Knives Out. A three-hander confined to a single location, the film stars Jesse Plemons and Lily Collins as a tech CEO and his wife heading to their vacation home in Ojai, only to find Jason Segel’s character in the middle of robbing it. Knowing that his identity is blown thanks to a hidden camera he spots, Segel demands enough cash to be able to start a new life, and the unnamed trio enter into a tense period of waiting for the money delivery to be arranged. – Mitchell B. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
The Worst Person in the World (Joachim Trier)
Opening on a golden shot of Oslo, with Cannes Best Actress winner Renate Reinsve filling the center of the screen as late-20s Julie, Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World thrives on the messiness of young adulthood. Trier finds understanding within moments of overwhelming feeling, impulsion brought on by the idea of stasis—a criminal idea to those, like Julie, who don’t have it all figured out. The Norwegian director celebrates that chaos. Her love burns bright and burns out, sequences of time stopping and hallucinogenic trips—along with naturalistic chapters watching the passing moments within someone’s life, like a weekend getaway, work party, or parent’s inaction. A world-class Reinsve holds it all together with some help from an outstanding Anders Danielsen Lie, bringing lightness and solemnity to every breath, balancing this romantic comedy with a genuine, reflective performance amidst Trier’s most accessible work. – Michael F.
Where to Stream: VOD
Also New to Streaming
Amazon Prime
The Criterion Channel
Metrograph at Home
The Hole
The Wayward Cloud
I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone
MUBI (free for 30 days)
Crimes of the Heart
A Screaming Man
What Sex Am I?
Drinking Buddies
Love After Love