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.
All the Old Knives (Janus Metz Pedersen)
All the Old Knives wants you to sweat and swoon in equal measure. Playing in the same tried and true sandbox as some of the great espionage thrillers before it, director Janus Metz Pedersen’s adaptation of Olen Steinhaur’s 2015 novel traffics in all necessary trappings of its genre. Between the clandestine correspondence and popped peacoat collars against wet European streets, it’s certainly not shy about cinematic crushes. This infatuation is wholly appropriate, because––chilly demeanor notwithstanding––All the Old Knives is a burning romantic at heart. – Conor O. (full review)
Where to Stream: Amazon Prime
Bull (Paul Andrew Williams)
It’s been ten years since Bull’s (Neil Maskell) son Aiden was taken by his ex-wife (Lois Brabin-Platt’s Gemma) and father-in-law (David Hayman’s Norm). Ten years that have apparently progressed with few worries for everyone but him. Norm still runs the local crew of heavies putting the screws to businesses they need to help move their merchandise; said crew have all started families without a thought of what occurred. That Bull’s return is unexpected shouldn’t surprise, considering how long he’s been gone, but the level of terror he induces in those staring down the other end of vengeance’s knife or gun certainly is. With nothing to lose as he demands Aiden’s current whereabouts, he burns through town without remorse. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Cow (Andrea Arnold)
Andrea Arnold, director of stylized social-realist dramas like Red Road and Fish Tank, takes a drastic turn with an in-your-face documentary about a farmyard cow. Yet despite a lo-fi, handheld-camera cragginess, it still has something of the lyricism that marks so much of her work, going back to the Oscar-winning short Wasp. – Ed F. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Five Fingers for Marseilles (Michael Matthews)
Director Michael Matthews and writer Sean Drummond were drawn to the landscapes of South Africa’s Eastern Cape while traveling their homeland, especially the echoes of classic cinematic western environments. Learning about how its current towns arose — from the ashes of Apartheid-era cities mimicking European capitals by name — only cemented the comparison, each a product of the locals taking control once their oppressors left after their government changed hands and the train lines shutdown. This new frontier became the pair’s setting, their story gelling after seven years of research and development to do right by the inhabitants’ history and struggles. Sprinkle in a bit of legend and lore to create an antihero hidden beneath rage and Five Fingers for Marseilles was born. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: Underrated
Freeland (Kate McLean and Mario Furloni)
Capturing the rhythms of life on a rural Humble County, California commune in a changing cultural landscape, Kate McLean and Mario Furloni’s beautifully crafted Freeland is a restrained, nuanced drama centered around a quietly thrilling performance by Krisha Fairchild as aging hippie Devi. Devi built Freeland, a sanctuary that has survived by shipping its products throughout the North East. Life on the farm, here with young people including the enterprising de facto leader of her team Josh (Frank Mosley), is perhaps as simple as it ever was as their evenings are spent joking around a communal dinner table. The group, mostly young and likely around the same age as Devi when she arrived in Freeland, have taken time away from their lives to work the land. Devi, despite her age and experience, has simply never chosen to move on to a house in the suburbs. – John F. (full review)
Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)
The Night House (David Bruckner)
It’s about 20 minutes into The Night House that it finds its footing. The school year has just ended and Beth (Rebecca Hall), a high school English teacher, goes back to work to input a few more assignments. When a soccer mom type (Samantha Buck) comes in to contest her son’s grades, Beth isn’t having it, to say the least. She stares her down with a trace of empathy that manages to undercut her dead eyes and Hall, ever the solid actor, pinpoints and explores the sarcastic humor latent to the script. When mom continues to press her, Beth flatly explains that her husband, Owen (Evan Jonigkeit), has just shot himself. If this woman wants her son to get a B, he can get a B. It really doesn’t matter. – Matt C. (full review)
Where to Stream: HBO Max
The Outfit (Graham Moore)
The key to a good mystery isn’t tricking the audience as much as it is entertaining them. The more you watch from this genre, the less slips past your perception. The moment the filmmaker fails to maintain their “trick” is therefore the moment they lose their viewer—there’s nothing else for us to grasp onto. Director Graham Moore and co-writer Johnathan McClain understand this fact. They know they can lean into the usual double-cross tropes if they keep the pace moving and characters on their toes. The quickest way to accomplish both is by targeting those same characters with their trickery instead. There’s no better deflection. If we’re too busy smiling about what we know that the people onscreen don’t, maybe we’ll end up surprised too. – Jared M. (full review)
Where to Stream: VOD
Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off (Sam Jones)
The rare athlete that transcends the bubble of those solely interested in the sport at hand, Tony Hawk’s legendary career has now received the documentary treatment in run-of-the-mill yet still engaging fashion. Sam Jones’ Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off peels back the layers of the skateboarder’s superstar status, focusing not only on his high points––the 900, the piles of money he’s made from Activision’s videogame franchise––but also his struggles; the complicated relationship with his father, admitting “fame is the worst drug” and how it led to infidelity and a distancing from his children, as well as the incessant drive to push ahead at the detriment of his body. With the expected talking heads detailing each step of Hawk’s journey, including ample time with legend himself, one will certainly walk away with a more complete picture of the sacrifices of a lifelong dedication to one’s craft.
Where to Stream: HBO Max
Tokyo Vice Pilot (Michael Mann)
The long-awaited return of Michael Mann has finally arrived. Seven years after Blackhat, the director’s latest project is the first episode of Tokyo Vice, a crime drama series following a surprisingly sturdy Ansel Elgort as an American journalist in Tokyo who investigates the ongoings of the Japanese yakuza. Immediately immersing us into the neon-lit world, Mann’s slick style is on display from the get-go, giving a sense of nervy breathlessness in every scene. While some may be surprised by the lack of major set pieces in the pilot, Mann efficiently sets the stage for the many threads that will be untangled in the episodes to come.
Where to Stream: HBO Max
Uncle Howard (Aaron Brookner)
How many great filmmakers have been lost as a result of disease and human catastrophe? That seems to be the question on the mind of documentary filmmaker Aaron Brookner in his debut film, Uncle Howard, a deeply personal piece of work that offers both an introduction (or re-introduction?) to the director’s uncle — a once-burgeoning independent filmmaker who died of AIDS in 1989 at just 31 years of age — and a somber meditation on talent lost. – Rory O. (full review)
Where to Stream: OVID.tv
Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash (Edwin)
Back in the ‘80s, martial arts B-movies from Hong Kong made their way into Indonesian cinema. People were obsessed with them because they were fun and entertaining, and most of all reflected the hyper-machismo culture that bloomed in the country during the regime of Soeharto from the late ‘60s to the end of the ‘90s. Most Indonesian men, influenced by how the country was ruled, were all about virility. If they didn’t know how to fight, they weren’t manly enough. However, in Edwin’s brilliant and offbeat sixth feature, the Golden Leopard-winning Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, this toxic trait of the country gets knocked down in a story about erectile dysfunction. – Reyzando N. (full review)
Where to Stream: Netflix
Also New to Streaming
Amazon Prime
The Criterion Channel
Bring Down the Walls
The Chambermaid
Hulu
MUBI (free for 30 days)
Mood Indigo
Army of Shadows
Wasp
Tracks
My Fat Arse and I
Swarm Season
Netflix
VOD