Stream On Demand - The best home viewing on streaming, VOD, DVD, and Blu-ray

What to stream: ‘In the Heights’ on HBO Max, ‘Infinite’ on Paramount+, ‘Loki’ on Disney+
‘Greenland’ – Surviving the end of the world on HBO Max
Viggo Mortensen makes ‘Eastern Promises’ on Peacock
‘Dirty Pretty Things’ – Life in the social margins of London in HBO Max
‘Tears of the Black Tiger’ – Wild Thailand western on Amazon Prime

What to stream: ‘In the Heights’ on HBO Max, ‘Infinite’ on Paramount+, ‘Loki’ on Disney+

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 … Before “Hamilton,” Lin-Manuel Miranda created a contemporary musical set in the predominantly Latino Manhattan neighborhood of the Washington Heights. “Crazy Rich Asians” director Jon M. Chu takes the Tony-winning stage musical “In […]

What to stream: ‘Oslo’ on HBO Max, ‘Raya’ on Disney+, ‘Sweet Tooth’ on Netflix, Stephen King on Apple TV+

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 … “Oslo” (2021, TV-MA) dramatizes the true story of the Norwegian couple (played by Ruth Wilson and Andrew Scott) who secretly and without government approval conducted peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestine […]

What to stream: ‘Panic’ on Amazon Prime, ‘Friends: The Reunion’ on HBO Max, ‘Plan B’ on Hulu

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 … In the young adult thriller “Panic: Season 1” (2021, not rated), graduating high school seniors play a dangerous game that forces them to face their deepest fears in a series of challenges […]

What to stream: ‘In the Heights’ on HBO Max, ‘Infinite’ on Paramount+, ‘Loki’ on Disney+

‘Greenland’ – Surviving the end of the world on HBO Max

As Greenland (2020) opens, families around the world gather in front to their TVs to see the spectacle of pieces from a comet entering the Earth’s atmosphere and landing harmlessly in the ocean. Then structural engineer John Garrity (Gerard Butler) receives a startling government alert telling him to report to a nearby Air Force Base […]

Viggo Mortensen makes ‘Eastern Promises’ on Peacock

Eastern Promises (2007) reunites A History of Violence director David Cronenberg and star Viggo Mortensen for another dive into the shadowy, dangerous world of organized crime and hidden identities. As Nikolai, a chauffeur and foot soldier in a Russian crime family in London, Mortensen wears his shadow of a smile like an impenetrable mask. One […]

‘Dirty Pretty Things’ – Life in the social margins of London in HBO Max

In Dirty Pretty Things (2003), Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Okwe, a once respected Nigerian doctor just trying to preserve his dignity and integrity under the radar of London society. As an immigrant awaiting resident status, he spends his days hustling as a cabbie with a counterfeit license and his nights working the front desk of a […]

Walter Hill’s ‘Streets of Fire’ on Netflix

A self-described “A Rock and Roll Fable” from “another time, another place,” I think of Walter Hill’s Streets of Fire (1984) as a rock and roll western dropped into the urban badlands of a brick and neon noir. It opens on what appears to be the 1950s frozen in time, a working class neighborhood forgotten […]

Sean Penn is Harvey Milk in the Oscar-winning film directed by Gus Van Sant

Sean Penn is Harvey ‘Milk’ on Peacock

Milk (2008) – The story of San Francisco activist and politician Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in the U.S., was first brought to the screen in the Oscar-winning 1985 documentary The Times of Harvey Milk. It took more than twenty years for Hollywood to finally tackle the story, with […]

What to stream: ‘Panic’ on Amazon Prime, ‘Friends: The Reunion’ on HBO Max, ‘Plan B’ on Hulu

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

‘Hannibal: Complete Series’ on Hulu

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 […]

What to stream: ‘The Underground Railroad’ on Amazon, ‘Those Who Wish Me Dead’ on HBO Max, ‘The Woman’ 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 Underground Railroad” (2021, TV-14), based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, follows the odyssey of Cora (Thuso Mbedu), an enslaved woman on a Georgia plantation in the early 1800s […]

John Wayne storms the ‘Sands of Iwo Jima’ on Amazon Prime

Sands of Iwo Jima (1950) is the best war film that John Wayne made outside of John Ford’s masterpiece They Were Expendable. Made four years after the end of the war in 1949, it was the biggest picture that Allan Dwan, once a major director of big silent movie spectacles and handsome star vehicles, had […]

Robert Ryan and Ida Lupino star in the film noir by Nicholas Ray

Robert Ryan is ‘On Dangerous Ground’ on Criterion Channel

On Dangerous Ground (1952), directed by Nicholas Ray from a script he developed with A.I. Bezzerides and producer John Houseman, opens on the urgent yet fractured dramatic score by Bernard Herrmann, a theme that rushes forward anxiously, pauses with quieter instruments, then jumps again as we watch the nocturnal city streets in the rain through […]

Paul Newman, Piper Laurie, George C. Scott, and Jackie Gleason, directed by Robert Rossen

Paul Newman is ‘The Hustler’ on Hulu

The Hustler (1961) – Paul Newman is cocky poolroom hustler “Fast” Eddie Felson, a swaggering pool shark punk who works his trade in dingy bars and seedy poolrooms, in Robert Rossen’s atmospheric adaptation of the Walter Tevis novel. Crashing into a pit of self-pity after losing big to king of the poolroom Minnesota Fats (a […]

Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson in the third "Harry Potter" feature

‘Harry Potter’ – the complete saga on Peacock

Looking back on the original Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001), directed by Chris Columbus, we see a painstakingly literal translations of J.K Rowling’s first novel, a near-perfect replica created with a kind of funhouse spectacle of the wonders of the magical world come to life. Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) is a lush, lavishly produced […]

Brad Bird directs the animated feature based on the Ted Hughes book

‘The Iron Giant’ – A boy and his robot buddy on Hulu

“I’m the luckiest kid in the world,” cheers adolescent Hogarth, halfway to sci-fi heaven in the hand of a friendly ten story robot— a clanking metal man who acts like a combination little brother, big brother, and playful puppy dog all rolled into one magnificent structure who looks like he stepped off a vintage cover […]

Jackie Chan in 'The Forbidden Kingdom,' which co-stars Jet Li.

‘The Forbidden Kingdom’ – Family-friendly martial arts fantasy on Amazon Prime

Jackie Chan and Jet Li team up for the first and only time in a feature film in The Forbidden Kingdom (2008), an American take on the classic Chinese folktale “The Monkey King.” Yes, Jackie Chan (who was 53 at the time) was no longer the youthful stunt daredevil and acrobatic dynamo and the 45-year-old […]

‘Tears of the Black Tiger’ – Wild Thailand western on Amazon Prime

Tears of the Black Tiger (Thailand, 2000), Wisit Sasanatieng’s madcap new wave western, both a spoof and a celebration of the crazy conventions of movie melodramas and genre cinema from decades back. Imagine the Cisco Kid dropped into a Bollywood version of a Sergio Leone western, as re-imagined by Douglas Sirk with costumes out of […]

LOVERS ON THE BRIDGE, (aka LES AMANTS DU PONT-NEUF), Juliette Binoche, Denis Lavant, 1991

‘The Lovers on the Bridge’ – L’amour fou on Paramount+

The Lovers on the Bridge (France, 1991), Leos Carax’s tale of l’amour fou, was the most expensive film ever made in France at the time and remains one of the most ravishing made anywhere ever. It was also a commercial disaster, alternately celebrated as a triumph of personal expression and vilified as the French equivalent […]

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

‘Train to Busan’ – Korean zombie classic on Hulu 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 […]

‘Train to Busan’ – Korean zombie classic on Hulu and more

Cyril Raffaelli and Dany Verissimo in 'District B13,' aka 'Banlieue 13'

‘District B13’ – Stunning stunt action free on Kanopy

District B13 (France, 2004), Pierre Morel’s twist on Escape From New York set in a near-future Paris, is a lean, clean, adrenaline and indignation-fueled B-movie action machine. Urban athlete David Belle, one of the creators of the extreme sport known as Parkour, stars as ghetto hero Leito and he set the tone, the pace, and […]

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 […]

‘Hannibal: Complete Series’ on Hulu

‘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 […]

Susanne Wuest in the German horror drama 'Goodnight Mommy,' directed by Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz

‘Goodnight Mommy’ on Hulu

Goodnight Mommy (Germany, 2015) is an unsettling horror film built on scars (physical and psychological) that upset the connection between a mother (Susanne Wuest) and her sons, adolescent twins named Lukas and Elias played by real-life twin brothers Lukas Schwarz and Elias Schwarz. That fraternal connection is apparent in every scene, not just affection but […]

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 […]

‘Dirty Pretty Things’ – Life in the social margins of London in HBO Max

‘Tears of the Black Tiger’ – Wild Thailand western on Amazon Prime

‘Topsy-Turvy’ – Gilbert and Sullivan reborn on Criterion Channel

Set in the world of London theater in the mid-1880s, Topsy-Turvy (1999) tackles the creative partnership between W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan, the reigning kings of light operetta, at a turning in their career. Their work has become repetitive, their latest show a disappointment, and the partnership is under strain as composer Sullivan (Allan […]

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 […]

‘Hannibal: Complete Series’ on Hulu

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

‘Tears of the Black Tiger’ – Wild Thailand western on Amazon Prime

Walter Hill’s ‘Streets of Fire’ on Netflix

David Naughton stars in John Landis's 'An American Werewolf in London'

‘An American Werewolf in London’ on Amazon Prime and Shudder

John Landis teaches us two things in An American Werewolf in London (1981): turning into a werewolf is a very painful process, and the dead are boring! American tourist David Naughton survives a moonlight animal attack in Northern England only to turn into a hairy, bloodthirsty beast back in London when the moon is full. […]

Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Larry Fishburne in 'The Matrix'

‘The Matrix’ trilogy on Peacock

The Matrix (1999) has become such a touchstone of American pop culture—referenced, copied, parodied, and parroted—that it’s hard to remember just how new and different and distinctive it was when it debuted in 1999. Which is not to say that it is completely original. Image Tron as a Greek Myth, or Sim City as an […]

Paul Newman is ‘The Hustler’ on Hulu

Charles Bronson in Sergio Leone's 'Once Upon a Time in the West'

‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ on Hulu

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) puts the opera into “horse opera.” Leave it to the Italians to put genuine operatic dimension into the great American saga of western expansion. Sergio Leone’s loving tribute to the myth of the American West leaves the cool, cruel mercenary world of the Clint Eastwood Dollar films […]

‘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” […]

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 […]