Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, Showtime Anytime, FilmStruck, video-on-demand, and other streaming services …
Netflix remakes the campy 1960s space fantasy in more serious vein in Lost in Space, a science fiction adventure about a family of space colonists whose ship goes off course en route their new home. Toby Stephens and Molly Parker are the parents and Parker Posey is the untrustworthy Dr. Smith, who joins the show at the end of the first episode and adds a little chaos to already unsteady equilibrium.
The family-friendly series is “a distillation of several generations’ worth of family-adventure and science-fiction blockbusters, with Steven Spielberg as guiding spirit and “E.T.” a primary model, along with aspects of the Star Wars, Star Trek, Alien and Jurassic Park films,” according to New York Times TV critic Mike Hale. “The real pleasure of Lost in Space, beyond some competently handled action, are the appealing performances of [Taylor] Russell, [Mina] Sundvall and [Maxwell] Jenkins as the Robinson children. If you decide to take the trip, they’re excellent company.”
The 10-episode debut season now available to stream on Netflix.
Come Sunday (2018, not rated), directed by Joshua Marston (Maria Full of Grace) and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor as a charismatic Evangelical pastor ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no Hell, comes to Netflix from the Sundance Film Festival. It’s based on a true story that was explored in the radio show This American Life and the show’s creator, Ira Glass, is a producer on the film.
IndieWire film critic David Ehrlich describes it as “a big step back towards grace, and a necessary reminder that spiritual crises are always more engaging for the questions they ask of God than the answers they put in His mouth” and praises the lead performance. “Chiwetel Ejiofor, in what might be the finest performance of his extraordinary young career, articulates the full complexity of Pearson’s faith.”
Jason Segel, Lakeith Stanfield, Martin Sheen, and Danny Glover co-star. Now streaming on Netflix.
Bosch, adapted from the bestselling novels by Michael Connelly, is a smart, tough series starring Titus Welliver as the LAPD Detective Harry Bosch and one of the only original shows in Amazon Prime Video you can call an unqualified hit. The series, which is co-produced and co-written by Connelly, draws each season’s storyline from the novels and the fourth season takes its case, tangled in departmental corruption, primarily from “Angel’s Flight” and it puts the often prickly Bosch at odds with his own fellow cops. It’s a superior crime drama seeped in a culture not always shown on cop dramas. Alexis Gunderson makes the case why you should be watching the show at Paste Magazine.
The fourth season of 10-episodes is now streaming and a fifth season has already been announced.
Daniel Day-Lewis plays a perfectionist British clothing designer in Phantom Thread (2017, R) a quiet, exacting mix of “portrait of the artist” and psychological drama from Paul Thomas Anderson. Day-Lewis announced that this was his final screen performance and it earned him an Academy Award nomination, one of the film’s six nominations (it won for costume design). Now available On Demand and on VOD, also on DVD and at Redbox.
Pay-Per-View / Video-On-Demand
Christopher Plummer stepped in to play J. Paul Getty weeks before the release of All the Money in the World (2017, R), replacing all of Kevin Spacey’s scenes, and earned an Oscar nomination. Michelle Williams and Mark Wahlberg star in Ridley Scott’s drama based on the true story of the kidnapping of J. Paul Getty’s grandson. Also on DVD and at Redbox.
Also new:
- Hugh Jackman is P.T. Barnum in the hit musical The Greatest Showman (2017, PG);
- Jessica Chastain stars in the based-on-a-true-story drama Molly’s Game (2017, R);
- Taraji P. Henson is a hitwoman in the action thriller Proud Mary (2018, R);
- Hugo Weaving and Toni Collette star in the thriller Jasper Jones (2017, not rated).
Available same day as select theaters nationwide is Submergence (2017, not rated), a thriller from director Wim Wenders starring Alicia Vikander and James McAvoy, and An Ordinary Man (2017, not rated) with Ben Kingsley as a war criminal in hiding.
Netflix
The Tiger Hunter (2016, not rated) is an indie comedy with Danny Pudi that presents the Indian immigrant experience in America with moments of comic fantasy and screwball coincidence.
Ethan Hawke is a hitman on a mission of vengeance in 24 Hours to Live (2017, R).
Foreign affairs: I Am Not An Easy Man (France, 2018, not rated, with subtitles), a comedy about a chauvinist who wakes up in a world run by women, and crime drama Pickpockets (Colombia, 2018, not rated, with subtitles) from American filmmaker Peter Webber make their respective stateside debuts.
Streaming TV: The sixth season of the sitcom New Girl with Zooey Deschanel arrives on Netflix as the seventh and final season begins on Fox. Also new:
- Chef’s Table: Pastry, the new, dessert-heavy season of the Netflix foodie series;
- AMO: Season 1 (Philippines, with subtitles), a crime drama about a high school meth dealer set in the brutality of Duterte’s war on drugs and the first Netflix Original series from the Philippines. 13 half-hour episodes.
Kid stuff: kids can hit the road for education again in The Magic School Bus Rides Again: Season 2.
Stand-up: Greg Davies: You Magnificent Beast (2018, not rated).
Amazon Prime
James Franco is Allen Ginsberg in Howl (2010, R), a film that explores the landmark beat poem and the obscenity trial it sparked.
Streaming TV: Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton star in Friday Night Lights: Complete Series (2006-2011), the Emmy-winning family drama about life in a Texas town where high school football defines everything. More newly-added shows:
- House: Complete Series (2004-2012) with Hugh Laurie as TV’s most famous misanthrope medical genius;
- the hilarious Parks and Recreation: Complete Series (2009-2015) with Amy Poehler as a devoted civil servant in a dysfunctional small-town bureaucracy;
- Eureka: Complete Series (2006-2012), a lighthearted show about a practical sheriff (Colin Ferguson) in a town of scientific geniuses.
Amazon Prime / Hulu
Hours (2013, PG-13), set in the midst of Hurricane Katrina, stars Paul Walker as a father fighting to save his infant daughter (Amazon Prime and Hulu).
I Can Do Bad All by Myself (2009, PG-13) is Tyler Perry’s first film with Taraji P. Henson, currently starring in his new drama “Acrimony” (Amazon Prime and Hulu).
Hulu
The second season of Preacher, about a reformed crook turned unconventional priest (Dominic Cooper) searching for God, is a violent, often grotesque show with a streak of dark comedy and Hulu offers material censored in its original AMC run
True stories: Take My Nose…Please! (2017, not rated) looks at the culture of women and plastic surgery.
HBO Now
The HBO original drama Paterno (2018, not rated) stars Al Pacino as Penn State coach Joe Paterno facing the fallout of the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal.
The new series Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas follows the comedian across the country to confront issues facing Americans with a sense of humor. New episodes every Friday night.
True stories: Andre the Giant (2018, not rated) profiles the wrestling icon and actor.
Elvis Presley: The Searcher (2018, not rated), the two-part documentary on the musical evolution of Elvis throughout his career ,will be available on HBO Now and HBO On Demand on Sunday, after its Saturday night cable debut.
Showtime Anytime
Based on the acclaimed novel by Julian Barnes, The Sense of an Ending (2017, PG-13) stars Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling in a story of memory and denial.
Nicole Kidman and James Franco star in Queen of the Desert (2015, PG-13), an historical drama directed by Werner Herzog.
FilmStruck / Criterion Channel
The Thing (1951), one of the great monster movies and smartest science fiction thrillers of classic Hollywood, is the TCM Select pick of the week. Available through October 5, 2018.
The great Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda is FilmStruck’s Director of the Week, celebrated with seven films and a documentary, from his debut feature A Generation (Poland, 1955, with subtitles) to historical drama Danton (France, 1982, with subtitles) with Gerard Depardieu to his devastating Holocaust drama Korczak (Poland, 1990, with subtitles), and Star of the Week: Leslie Caron is featured in eight films, including the classic musical Gigi (1958, G).
There’s are also collections of movies about Cops Undercover, which includes the B-movie film noir classics T-Men (1948) and The Narrow Margin (1952) and the Hong Kong gangster hit Infernal Affairs (Hong Kong, 2002, R, with subtitles), which was remade by Martin Scorsese as “The Departed,” and movies based on memoirs, including I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955) with Susan Hayward and the Roman Polanski’s Oscar-winning The Pianist (2002, R, with subtitles) with Adrien Brody.
New to Criterion Channel is Whit Stillman’s debut feature Metropolitan (1990, PG-13), presented with commentary, outtakes, and deleted scenes featured on the Criterion special edition disc, and the seventies neo-noir detective drama Night Moves (1975, R) with Gene Hackman.
Acorn TV
New episodes of The Good Karma Hospital: Series 2” the British medical drama set in rural India, arrive each Monday.
Sam Neill plays real-life World War I British spy Sidney Reilly in the classic British mini-series Reilly, Ace of Spies (1983).
Interview with a Murderer (2016) is a real-life crime drama, a three-part non-fiction program featuring Professor David Wilson grilling convicted killer Bert Spencer over an unsolved murder.
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