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What to stream: documentaries ‘All In’ on Amazon, ‘The Fight’ on Hulu, ‘Challenger’ on Netflix, plus ‘We Are’ on HBO

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Election season brings out the political documentaries. “All In: The Fight for Democracy” (2020, PG-13) takes on the rights of American citizens to vote and the issue of voter suppression, guided by the […]

What to stream: ‘Woke’ on Hulu, ‘The Duchess’ and ‘Social Dilemma’ on Netflix, ‘Noughts + Crosses’ on Peacock

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Inspired by the work of artist Keith Knight, “Woke: Season 1” (not rated) stars Lamorne Morris as a cartoonist on the verge of mainstream success, in part for steering clear of politics and […]

What to stream: ‘Raised by Wolves’ on HBO Max, ‘Away’ and ‘Borgen’ on Netflix, ‘The Boys’ return to Amazon

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Two androids are tasked with raising human children on a barren, far off planet after a devastating religious war on Earth in “Raised by Wolves: Season 1” (2020, TV-MA), an ambitious, high-concept science […]

‘The City of Lost Children’ – a fairy tale for adults on Amazon Prime

The fantastic visions of Belgian filmmakers Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet culminated in The City of Lost Children (France, 1995), fairy tale for adults. Evoking utopias and dystopias from Brazil to Peter Pan, Caro and Jeunet create a vivid but menacing fantasy city in a perpetually twilight world. In this rough port town lives circus […]

‘Midnight Run’ with Robert De Niro on HBO Max and HBO Now

The midnight run of Martin Brest’s action comedy Midnight Run (1988) refers to what is supposed to be an easy job for skip tracer and bounty hunter Jack Walsh (Robert De Niro). He’s hired to capture Jack “Duke” Mardukas (Charles Grodin), a mild-mannered accountant who stole $15 million from the mob and then skipped out […]

Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans picks sides in "Captain America: Civil War."

‘Captain America: Civil War’ on Disney+

Captain America: Civil War (2016) is an Avengers movie in everything but name. It’s got Captain America (Chris Evans) and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) as team captains picking sides in the hero-vs.-hero fight over government oversight of the self-appointed world policemen. Thor and Hulk are MIA but everyone else, from Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) […]

Brie Larson stars in the award-winning 'Short Term 12,' inspired by the personal experience of filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton

‘Short Term 12’ on Peacock

Brie Larson earned an Oscar for her performance in Room (2015) but her breakout role was in Short Term 12 (2013), a tender and touching drama set in a facility for at risk, abandoned, or otherwise homeless kids that can’t get placement with foster families. What could be a portrait of instability and institutional failings, however, […]

‘The Muppets’ return on Netflix

The Muppets (2011) brings the felt comedy stars back to the big screen for a new comedy that asks the eternal questions: What becomes a Muppet in the days of CGI and motion capture animation? Can their brand of innocent whimsy and madcap nonsense hold the attentions of a new generation of fans? And does […]

‘Red’ – Bruce Willis is deadly funny on Amazon Prime Video

Red (2010) isn’t a name (or a color) in this comic-book movie about retired covert agents who are roused back to action to teach the new breed a thing or two about the spy game. It’s a designation that stands for “Retired, Extremely Dangerous.” Bruce Willis headlines an ensemble that includes John Malkovich, Morgan Freeman […]

What to stream: ‘Woke’ on Hulu, ‘The Duchess’ and ‘Social Dilemma’ on Netflix, ‘Noughts + Crosses’ on Peacock

What to stream: ‘Raised by Wolves’ on HBO Max, ‘Away’ and ‘Borgen’ on Netflix, ‘The Boys’ return to Amazon

What to stream: ‘Lovecraft Country’ on HBO, ‘High Score’ on Netflix, ‘Chemical Hearts’ on Amazon Prime

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … “Lovecraft Country” (TV-MA) takes on both the cosmic horror and the blatant racism of H.P Lovecraft’s stories with the odyssey of an African-American man (Jonathan Majors) searching for his missing father (Michael Kenneth […]

Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame star, Nicholas Ray directs from the Dorothy B. Hughes novel

Humphrey Bogart ‘In a Lonely Place’ on Amazon Prime

In a Lonely Place (1950) hasn’t much to do with the Dorothy B. Hughes novel on which it was ostensibly based, beyond the title (one of the most evocative in noir history), the Los Angeles setting, and the murder of a young woman that puts our ostensible hero, volatile, hard-drinking Hollywood screenwriter Dixon Steele (Humphrey […]

The original ‘The Killers’ on Criterion Channel

The first 15 minutes of Robert Siodmak’s The Killers (1946) remains the most the most faithful adaptation of Ernest Hemingway ever put on screen. Two gunmen from the city (Charles McGraw and William Conrad) take over a small town diner to wait for their target. When he doesn’t show, they take the hit to him, […]

The glory of Astaire and Rogers in ‘Swing Time’ on HBO Max

Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were the most elegant of Hollywood’s dance teams in the golden age of American musicals and Swing Time (1936) is the peak of their ten-film output. The plot is as absurd as anything from the era: Astaire is a dancer and gambler who is set to marry his hometown sweetheart […]

‘The Muppets’ return on Netflix

Henry Thomas and friend in Steven Spielberg's beloved science fiction fantasy

‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ on Peacock

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Steven Spielberg’s suburban fairy tale for kids who think they are too hip to believe in fairies, is as glorious as ever decades after its debut. Henry Thomas is Elliot, an emotionally bruised kid suffering under his parents’ separation who finds another lonely, lost soul, a benevolent alien left behind when […]

Gary Cooper is ‘Beau Geste’ on Peacock

Golden-age Hollywood adventures don’t come more rousing than Beau Geste (1939). Gary Cooper, Ray Milland and Robert Preston are the boisterous Geste brothers, orphans raised by a society lady as gentlemen with a sense of playful camaraderie and undaunted chivalry. Their sense of honor and sacrifice inspires all three of them take the blame for […]

‘The City of Lost Children’ – a fairy tale for adults on Amazon Prime

‘Shoplifters’ – a family business on Hulu

“What defines a family?” is a question that runs through many of the films of Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda, from the heartbreaking abandoned children of Nobody Knows to the strained relations and recriminations of Still Walking to the loving embrace of Our Little Sister. Shoplifters (Japan, 2018) presents a family on the margins brought together by […]

‘Any Number Can Win’ on Criterion Channel

The classic meets the cool when dapper Jean Gabin teams up with smoldering matinee idol Alain Delon in Henri Verneuil’s caper film Any Number Can Win (France, 1963). White-haired Gabin is a little thick and doughy by this time in his career but he carries decades of French crime films and superstar gravitas with him […]

Alan Tudyk and Tyler Labine in the horror comedy 'Tucker & Dale vs. Evil '

Last chance: ‘Tucker & Dale vs. Evil’ – Gory horror comedy on Netflix

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil (2010) turns a classic horror movie trope– the good looking group of city kids tormented by grimy rednecks and hermits in the backwoods – and turns it inside out, creating not so much a horror comedy as a comedy where the clueless characters think they’re in a horror film and […]

Gong Yoo stars in the South Korean zombie film directed by Yeon Sang-ho

‘Train to Busan’ – Korean zombie classic on Amazon Prime Video and more

You could call Train to Busan (South Korea, 2016) “Zombies on a Train”—it certainly makes a catchy logline and it frames the premise accurately and succinctly—but it reduces this fleet, fierce, unexpectedly human thriller to a mere gimmick. Apart from the slyly eerie prologue, the film opens without any hint of the viral rampage to […]

Anya Taylor-Joy in Robert Eggers' 'The Witch.'

‘The Witch’ – Puritan horrors free on Kanopy

The Witch (2015) is a primal horror film rooted in fear and superstition, and there is no shortage of either in early 17th century New England, where a devout Puritan father has taken his family to start a new life. Adding to the general hardship of British village folk carving a new colony out of […]

‘Escape at Dannemora’ on Amazon Prime and Showtime Anytime

In 2015 Richard Matt and David Sweat, two inmates at Clinton Correctional Facility in upstate New York, escaped with the help of Joyce “Tilly” Mitchell, who ran the sewing shop and engaged in sexual affairs with both men. The eight-hour limited series Escape at Dannemora (2018), originally produced for Showtime, dramatizes the true story. Benicio […]

Elisabeth Moss, John Slattery, Jon Hamm, Christina Hendricks, and the cast of 'Mad Men'

The complete ‘Mad Men’ – free on IMDbTV

Mad Men: Seasons 1-7 (2007-2015) – “Who could not be happy with all this?” That’s the question at the heart of Mad Men, the series that transformed former movie network American Movie Classics into cable channel AMC, home to smart, daring, addictive original TV shows. Set the way-back machine to 1960, a world of cigarettes […]

‘The Wire: Complete Series’ on HBO Max and HBO Now

“Follow the drugs, and you’ll find dealers and users. Follow the money, and you have no idea where the case will take you.” So began the first season of HBO’s compelling tale of cops, crooks, and the social and bureaucratic forces that both divide and bind them, and the begining of an epic series that […]

What to stream: ‘Little Women’ on VOD, ‘Parasite’ on Hulu, ‘Quibi’ launches short form streaming programs

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Greta Gerwig directs and adapts “Little Women” (2019, PG) and her take on Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel brings a modern perspective to the lives of women in Civil War-era America. Saoirse Ronan […]

What to stream: ‘The Rise of Skywalker’ on VOD, ‘Tales from the Loop’ on Amazon, ‘Onward’ on Disney+

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” (2019, PG-13) brings the final trilogy in the odyssey begun by George Lucas in the original 1977 “Star Wars” to its conclusion with a rollercoaster ride of […]

What to stream: ‘Birds of Prey’ and ‘The Way Back’ early on VOD, ‘Portrait’ and ‘Baghdad Central’ on Hulu, free kids shows on Amazon

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … The rush of theatrical movies to early streaming continues with a sizable slate of features now on video-on-demand at a premium price. A couple of new arrivals stand out: the purely escapist “Birds […]

Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray in Sofia Coppola's 'Lost in Translation'

‘Lost in Translation’ on Peacock

Lost in Translation (2003) – Bill Murray is Bob Harris, a former movie star and minor film icon in Japan to shoot a whisky campaign (for which he’ll earn more than he’s seen in many a movie). Set up in a modern hotel the size of a small city while his marriage back ossifies in […]

Ben Mendelsohn and Ryan Reynolds in 'Mississippi Grind,' directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck

Ryan Reynolds works the ‘Mississippi Grind’ on Showtime and free on Kanopy and Hoopla

Mississippi Grind (2015) plays like a seventies character drama, a meandering road movie through the byways of American characters who populate the card rooms and dice tables and racetracks, and an oddball buddy movie built on a chance encounter and an instant kinship between two losers gambling their lives away. Ryan Reynolds is Curtis, a […]

Elle Fanning and Alice Englert star in 'Ginger and Rosa,' a touching coming of age drama set in the turbulent early 1960s and directed by Sally Potter

‘Ginger & Rosa’ on Showtime and free on Kanopy and Hoopla

Ginger & Rosa (2012) offers something we don’t usually see in the movies: a sensitive and nuanced portrait of two teenage girls, best friends since childhood, growing up and growing apart as they forge separate identities and diverging personalities and interests. It’s set in the volatile era of early 1960s London, before the Beatles but […]

‘The City of Lost Children’ – a fairy tale for adults on Amazon Prime

‘Shoplifters’ – a family business on Hulu

‘Short Term 12’ on Peacock

Ricky Gervais stars on the BBC comedy 'The Office'

The original British ‘The Office’ on HBO Max

“You can’t put a price on comedy.” In the original The Office (2001-2003), creator/co-writer/co-director Ricky Gervais stars as David Brent, the insufferably self-satisfied office manager of a paper company branch who fancies himself a born comedian and a natural leader. He’s wrong about both, naturally, but his yes-man team-leader Gareth (Mackenzie Crook), a brown-noser with […]

David Tennant stars in the British mini-series based on the Alan Furst novel.

‘Spies of Warsaw’ – WWII espionage on Amazon Prime Video

Spies of Warsaw (2013), adapted by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais from the novel by Alan Furst, has an almost old-fashioned clarity to it. It’s set in 1937 Poland, and Germany is quietly amassing troops outside the border. David Tennant continued his post-Doctor Who career redefinition playing French military attaché Colonel Jean-Francois Mercier, an […]

Bertie Carvel and Eddie Marsan are 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell' in the BBC adaptation of Susanna Clarke's novel.

‘Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell’ on VOD and Blu-ray/DVD

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (2015), adapted from the dense, richly-woven debut novel by Susanna Clarke, brings a different of approach to fantasy fiction and the idea of magic in the real world. Set in 19th century England, at the start of the Napoleonic Wars, it weaves the tale of two magicians—Mr. Norrell (Eddie Marsan), […]

‘The Wire: Complete Series’ on HBO Max and HBO Now

The original British ‘The Office’ on HBO Max

The cast of NBC's 'Hannibal,' starring Hugh Dancy, Caroline Dhavernas, Laurence Fishburne, and Mads Mikkelsen

‘Hannibal: Complete Series’ on Netflix

Hannibal (2013-2015) reimagines the universe created by author Thomas Harris in the cycle of novels that began with Red Dragon and introduced Dr. Hannibal Lecter to the world. Freely drawing inspiration for the novels and characters, creator and showrunner Bryan Fuller images the relationship between Dr. Hannibal Lecter (played with enigmatic intensity and cool charm by Mads […]

‘The City of Lost Children’ – a fairy tale for adults on Amazon Prime

Paul Reubens is Pee-wee Herman in 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure.'

‘Pee-wee’s Big Adventure’ on Hulu

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985) is the big screen debut for both the Paul Reubens alter ego Pee-wee Herman, the children’s TV show character he originally created in a live comedy revue, and director Tim Burton, and it was a perfect melding of sensibilities. Pee-wee, the spastic child with a neat, out-of-date preppie suit and a […]

‘Train to Busan’ – Korean zombie classic on Amazon Prime Video and more

Albert Brooks is ‘Lost in America’ on Criterion Channel

Albert Brooks has been making his offbeat brand of satirical comedies about the neuroses and anxieties of affluent Americans, lost in the bubble of their own insular cultures, for more than 40 years. His third feature Lost in America (1985) remains his most incisive satire and most popular film. Brooks is David, a successful Los […]

The original ‘The Killers’ on Criterion Channel

‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ on Peacock

What to stream: documentaries ‘All In’ on Amazon, ‘The Fight’ on Hulu, ‘Challenger’ on Netflix, plus ‘We Are’ on HBO

Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala, and Jayson Lamb in the documentary 'Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made'

‘Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made’ on VOD and Blu-ray/DVD

Raiders! The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made (2016) – The legend is true. In 1982, 12-year-old friends Chris Strompolos, Eric Zala, and Jayson Lamb started shooting a shot-for-shot remake of Raiders of the Lost Ark on a borrowed VHS camcorder in their small Mississippi town. Chris played Indiana Jones, Eric directed and […]

What to stream: ‘Class Action Park’ on HBO Max, ‘Get Duked!’ on Amazon, ‘Night Comes On’ Netflix

What to stream: ‘Class Action Park’ on HBO Max, ‘Get Duked!’ on Amazon, ‘Night Comes On’ Netflix Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … The documentary “Class Action Park” (2020, TV-MA) looks back at New Jersey’s Action Park, which earned […]