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What to stream: TCM Classic Film Festival and ‘Tenet’ on HBO Max, ‘Girls5eva’ on Peacock, ‘Jupiter’s Legacy’ on Netflix
Oscar-winning Hollywood love letter ‘The Artist’ on Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO Max
‘The Man from Nowhere’ – South Korean vengeance on Amazon Prime Video and Hulu
‘Scarface’ – Say hello to my little friend on Netflix
‘Dazed and Confused’ on Peacock

What to stream: TCM Classic Film Festival and ‘Tenet’ on HBO Max, ‘Girls5eva’ on Peacock, ‘Jupiter’s Legacy’ on Netflix

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … The TCM Classic Film Festival takes place at home this year on both TCM and streaming on HBO Max, which presents over 50 hosted features, dozens of short films, and scores of […]

What to stream: ‘The Mitchells vs. The Machines’ and ‘Things Heard’ on Netflix, ‘Without Remorse’ on Amazon, ‘Lucy’ on HBO Max

Here’s what’s new and now streaming on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … A family road trip takes an unexpected detour when they face a robot invasion from outer space in “The Mitchells vs. The Machines” (2021, PG), an animated adventure comedy featuring the voices of Danny […]

Where to stream the 2021 Oscar winners

The statuettes were handed out at the 93rd Academy Awards on Sunday, April 25, capping an unprecedented year with the most unusual ceremony in my lifetime, necessitated by the times but still awkward. The Oscars traditionally have offered a springboard for films to receive a second life in theaters and that is the case this […]

What to stream: TCM Classic Film Festival and ‘Tenet’ on HBO Max, ‘Girls5eva’ on Peacock, ‘Jupiter’s Legacy’ on Netflix

Oscar-winning Hollywood love letter ‘The Artist’ on Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO Max

The Artist (2011) is a valentine to silent movies. You’ve likely heard that before and it’s true, but it’s more than that. A modern movie in a classical mode, shot in glorious black and white without spoken dialogue (but filled with music and sound) and directed with a lively spirit of romance and adventure and […]

Al Pacino is Cuban thug turned Miami drug lord Tony Montana in Brian De Palma's 'Scarface'

‘Scarface’ – Say hello to my little friend on Netflix

Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983), ostensibly a remake of the Howard Hawks gangster classic, moves the iconic rise and fall crime opera from the tommy-gun gangster street battles of prohibition era Chicago to the cocaine wars of Florida in the eighties. In the process, De Palma, screenwriter Oliver Stone, and star Al Pacino carved out […]

‘Dazed and Confused’ on Peacock

Cinema has the unique ability to create a sensory experience vivid enough to make the past suddenly present and alive. Richard Linklater’s cinematic flashback Dazed and Confused (1993) captures a rich pageant of high-school life, circa 1976, in a mere 100 minutes, leaning on nostalgia without wallowing in it. Jason London is the center of […]

Cillian Murphy in the zombie film by Danny Boyle

’28 Days Later’ – the zombie pandemic on Hulu

28 Days Later (2003), Danny Boyle’s 21st century take on the zombie film, isn’t actually a zombie film, Boyle insists, and technically he’s correct. The springy, savage human monsters aren’t dead, merely infected with an experimental viral weapon called “rage,” which has turned them into mindless animals intent in tearing every living thing they see […]

‘The Bourne Ultimatum’ – Matt Damon’s final run on Peacock

Matt Damon returns in the “Bourne” franchise in The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), playing the great anti-Bond of Hollywood action cinema for his third and final time. Jason Bourne is a former covert assassin essentially programmed by the CIA to be an emotionless killing machine, and he’s determined to reclaim his identity and his humanity. His […]

What to stream: ‘Mare of Easttown’ on HBO Max, ‘Rutherford Falls’ on Peacock, ‘Shadow and Bone’ on Netflix

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Kate Winslet stars as a police detective in “Mare of Easttown” (TV-MA), a limited series crime drama steeped in the depressed culture of its small Pennsylvania town, where everyone knows everybody else […]

Pan Am: Complete Series on AMC+ and Sundance Now

In the wake of the creative and commercial success in period pieces kicked off by Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire, TV networks attempted to make their own retro shows steeped in period fashion and social clichés. Most of them were disappointments steeped in cliché. Pan Am: The Complete Series (2011-2012), set in the early sixties, […]

What to stream: ‘The Nevers’ on HBO Max, ‘Big Shot’ on Disney+, Jamie Foxx on Netflix

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … Superheroes meet the supernatural in “The Nevers: Season 1” (TV-14), a mix of mystery, thriller, period piece, and steampunk action set in Victorian London after a cosmic event gives hundreds of people—mostly […]

What to stream: TCM Classic Film Festival and ‘Tenet’ on HBO Max, ‘Girls5eva’ on Peacock, ‘Jupiter’s Legacy’ on Netflix

Satyajit Ray’s ‘The Apu Trilogy’ on The Criterion Channel

The Apu Trilogy: Pather Panchali / Aparajito / Apur Sansar – In 1955 Satyajit Ray, a young graphic artist in the advertising industry, released his debut feature, a labor of love made independently over the course of two and a half years. Pather Panchali (aka Song of the Little Road, 1955), a portrait of life […]

‘The Dirty Dozen’ – the original World War II caper on HBO Max

The 1960s were full of big budget wartime caper-style films—The Great Escape, Where Eagles Dare, Kelley’s Heroes, just to name a few—but none of them have the brawny machismo and wily bad boy gusto of The Dirty Dozen (1967), Robert Aldrich’s testosterone-fueled tough guy classic. Lee Marvin is the hard-as-nails Major who is “volunteered” to […]

Gene Wilder is Willy Wonka in the musical adaptation of the Roald Dahl novel

The original ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ – a world of pure imagination on HBO Max

“Come with me and you’ll be in a world of pure imagination.” Gene Wilder is the weird, wonderful, slightly sinister candy bar king who invites five children into his factory kingdom in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), a musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s fantasy. It is a rare breed: an imaginative live-action […]

What to stream: ‘The Mitchells vs. The Machines’ and ‘Things Heard’ on Netflix, ‘Without Remorse’ on Amazon, ‘Lucy’ on HBO Max

Kara Hayward and Jared Gilman in Wes Anderson's 'Moonrise Kingdom,' starring Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Edward Norton, Bruce Willis, and more

‘Moonrise Kingdom’ – Wes Anderson’s endless summer on Amazon Prime

Wes Anderson has made a career exploring the childhood neuroses that keep adult characters in an arrested state of adolescence and stasis. It’s been a lively career with creatively energetic high points like Rushmore and The Royal Tennenbaums but an approach with diminishing returns. Until Fantastic Mr. Fox, a film that refracted his portraits of dysfunctional families […]

Oscar-winning Hollywood love letter ‘The Artist’ on Netflix, Amazon Prime and HBO Max

Bong Joon-ho stars in the gangster thriller from South Korea

‘The Man from Nowhere’ – South Korean vengeance on Amazon Prime Video and Hulu

The Man from Nowhere (South Korea, 2010) – South Korea’s top box office hit of 2010 is as slick and swift an underworld thriller as you’ll find. Matinee idol Won Bin (of Bong Joon-ho’s Mother) is a shaggy pawn shop proprietor in a miserable slum hiding from his past life as a highly-trained government agent […]

Lina Leandersson and Kare Hedebrant in Tomas Alfredson’s Swedish vampire film / young love horror piece 'Let the Right One In '

‘Let the Right One In’ – A Swedish vampire tale on Amazon Prime and free on Kanopy

Tomas Alfredson’s Swedish vampire film / young love horror piece Let the Right One In (2008) is grounded in a devoted friendship that bonds two outcasts in a predatory world. Bullied schoolboy Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), a loner so blond he looks albino, meets twelve-year-old Eli (Lina Leandersson), a fellow loner hanging around the snow-covered playground of […]

‘Let the Right One In’ – A Swedish vampire tale on Amazon Prime and free on Kanopy

Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche in the romantic drama from Fred Schepisi

‘Words and Pictures’ on HBO Max and free on Kanopy

Words and Pictures (2013) is both a romantic drama, with Clive Owen as passionate but alcoholic English teacher at an expensive prep school and Juliette Binoche as the new art teacher who clashes with the brash Owen, and a pedagogical drama where a “war” between the written word and the image inspires the student body […]

Kwak Do-won stars in Na Hong-jin South Korean thriller The Wailing

‘The Wailing’ – South Korean horror on Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Shudder

The Wailing (South Korea, 2016) is a thriller that takes a dark turn into supernatural horror. Kwak Do-won is Jong-goo, a somewhat dim underachiever cop who is way over his head investigating a double homicide in his little town. Jong-goo isn’t too bright but he’s a doting father to his smart little girl and there’s […]

‘Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ – heavy metal TV action on Hulu

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: Complete Series (2008-2010), the TV spin-off of the Terminator films, turned out to be both smart science fiction and gritty, spectacular action for the small screen. That already makes it more compelling and rewarding than the last few films in the series. Set in the aftermath of Terminator 2: Judgment […]

‘Freaks and Geeks’ – complete and restored on Hulu

Somewhere between Dawson’s Creek and Booksmart is the sharp, funny, and surprisingly poignant high school dram-edy (for lack of a better word) Freaks and Geeks (1999-2000). Linda Cardellini grounds the series as Junior Lindsay, the former class brain who rejects her place in the school hierarchy and, in startling identity crisis, gravitates toward the school […]

Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle star in the 1995 mini-series

The definitive ‘Pride and Prejudice’ on HBO Max and BritBox

Pride and Prejudice (1995) – Movies are great for spectacle but the miniseries format has the luxury of time. This co-production between the BBC and the American cable channel A&E is still considered by Jane Austen fans to be the definitive adaptation of Austen’s most famous novel and her work in general. Jennifer Ehle is […]

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

Bill Murray is ‘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 home ossifies […]

Jamie Chung in 'Eden,' directed by Megan Griffiths

‘Eden’ – Surviving sexual slavery on Amazon Prime

Eden (2012) is the name given to Hyun-Jae (Jamie Chung), an 18-year-old Korean-American teenager kidnapped and imprisoned in a sex slavery ring in the American southwest, in Megan Griffiths’s dramatization of the true story of Chong Kim (who collaborated on the screen story). Hyun-Jae is held captive with dozens of other girls in what can […]

Sanaa Lathan navigates ‘Love & Basketball’

Using sports as a metaphor for life and love is nothing new but filmmaker Gina Prince-Bythewood, a former college athlete, puts her spin on it with Love & Basketball (2000). Sanaa Lathan is the fiercely driven, hot tempered tomboy Monica, who gives her all for basketball. Omar Epps is Quincy, the son of an NBA […]

‘Words and Pictures’ on HBO Max and free on Kanopy

Patrick Fugit and Kate Hudson star in Cameron Crowe's autobiographical 'Almost Famous.'

‘Almost Famous’ on Amazon Prime and Hulu

Almost Famous (2000), Cameron Crowe’s thinly fictionalized autobiography, is deftly poised between rosy affection, thoughtful remembrance, and giddy adolescent awe. As perhaps it should be. The story of 15-year-old William (Crowe’s stand-in, played by Patrick Fugit) sent by Rolling Stone magazine to tour with an up-and-coming band (Stillwater, a fictional amalgamation of real-life bands The […]

‘Araya’ – a landmark of poetic nonfiction on Criterion Channel

Araya (Venezuela, 1959), Margot Benacerraf’s 1959 documentary of the hardscrabble lives on the peninsula of Araya, is non-fiction filmmaking as poetic realist portrait. Araya is a barren desert surround by ocean and salt marshes on the northern reaches of Caribbean Venezuela and was originally settled by the Spanish in 1500. The “daily ritual of salt” […]

Damian Lewis and Mark Rylance as Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell in the BBC miniseries 'Wolf Hall'

‘Wolf Hall’ – power and privilege on Amazon Prime

The BBC historical miniseries Wolf Hall (2015) stars Mark Rylance as Thomas Cromwell (not to be confused with Oliver Cromwell), advisor and legal counsel to Cardinal Wolsey and King Henry VIII. Rylance is a theatrical legend in Britain but not so well known in the U.S., although that’s changing thanks to his sublime performance in […]

Ben Whishaw meets a ‘London Spy’

There is indeed a spy in London Spy (2015) but this BBC mini-series is not a traditional espionage drama. Danny (Ben Whishaw) is a club-culture young gay man with a dreary day job who meets the closeted, emotionally suppressed Alex (Edward Holcroft), a genius with numbers but awkward with people. He’s an investment banker who […]

Hugh Laurie and Tom Hiddleston lead the cast of the mini-series 'The Night Manager'

‘The Night Manager’ – John le Carré on Amazon Prime

The Night Manager (2016), a six-part mini-series from the BBC that played on AMC in the U.S., is a riveting adaptation of the John le Carré’s 1993 novel of illegal arms sales and government complicity and updated from the nineties drug wars on Latin America to the contemporary Middle East of the Arab Spring. Tom […]

Linda Hamilton and Ron Perlman in TV's original modern fairy tale romance 'Beauty and the Beast'

TV’s original ‘Beauty and the Beast: The Complete Series’ on Paramount+

TV crime show and romantic fantasy meet as urban mythology in the original Beauty and the Beast, which ran for three seasons, from 1987 to 1990, on CBS. This is the original modern TV fairy tale starring Linda Hamilton as Catherine, a beautiful crusading lawyer, and Ron Perlman as Vincent, the tender-hearted man-beast who watches […]

‘Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles’ – heavy metal TV action on Hulu

The original ‘The Muppet Show’ on Disney+

The Muppet Show: Complete Series (1977-1981) is the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational variety show to ever hit prime time. More than forty years later, it’s still funny, fast-paced, utterly madcap, and tremendous fun. Jim Henson was already a household name for bringing his Muppets to Sesame Street but his ambitions took him in all […]

‘Dazed and Confused’ on Peacock

’28 Days Later’ – the zombie pandemic on Hulu

The original ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ – a world of pure imagination on HBO Max

‘Scarface’ – Say hello to my little friend on Netflix

Ben Johnson, Warren Oates, William Holden, and Ernest Borgnine star in Sam Peckinpah's western masterpiece 'The Wild Bunch.'

Last chance: ‘The Wild Bunch’ – Sam Peckinpah’s frontier apocalypse on HBO Max

The film that branded Sam Peckinpah with the nickname “Bloody Sam,” The Wild Bunch (1969) blazed onto theater screens in the era of Bonnie and Clyde, when genre conventions were being blasted away and directors pushed the boundaries of what was once considered “acceptable.” Peckinpah, ever the irascible maverick, rode roughshod over every unspoken rule […]

Joan Crawford stars with Ann Blyth, Zachary Scott, and Jack Carson

Last chance: Joan Crawford is ‘Mildred Pierce’ on HBO Max

Is Mildred Pierce (1945) film noir or melodrama? I say why choose? Film noir is almost entirely associated with crime stories and life in the shadows and at night in the city and sure enough Mildred Pierce, based on the novel by James M. Cain, opens with death and darkness and the twilight of the […]

‘Araya’ – a landmark of poetic nonfiction on Criterion Channel

What to stream: ‘Them’ on Amazon Prime, ‘Exterminate All the Brutes’ on HBO Max, ‘Thunder Force’ on Netflix

Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Max, Disney+, video-on-demand, and other streaming services … A Black family is terrorized when they move into an all-white neighborhood in 1950s Los Angeles in “Them” (not rated). The first season of the anthology series plays out over ten days […]

Arnold Schwarzenegger pumps himself up for success in George Butler's documentary 'Pumping Iron.'

‘Pumping Iron’ – Arnold Schwarzenegger begins on Amazon Prime

Anyone who believes that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s rise to Hollywood superstar was a fluke needs to see Pumping Iron (1977), George Butler’s documentary on bodybuilding culture of the 1970s which did more to popularize the sport in the culture at large than anything before or since. The film follows a handful of bodybuilders preparing for the […]