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 …
Willem Dafoe earned an Oscar nomination for his performance as the manager of a low-rent hotel in The Florida Project (2017, R), a powerful and moving look at the life of an unemployed (and perhaps unemployable) single mother and her precocious daughter (the amazing Brooklynn Kimberly Prince), who mimics her mother’s aggression. Director Sean Baker is compassionate without pulling his punches on the self-destructive actions of his characters, and he presents it in vivid Day-Glo squalor. Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Troy: Fall of a City – Season 1, a coproduction of Netflix and BBC, brings lavish production values, casual dialogue, and cable-level sex and violence to the classic tale of love in the time of the Trojan War. Euan Ferguson, writing for The Observer for its British debut, offers “older viewers can marvel at the silked lushness of the sea scenes while revelling in an old tale well told, younger ones can learn a little, about the names of the gods, and the fire-haunted dreams of Cassandra, and about mankind’s ancient rush towards betrayal (and ancient rush to blame it all on their being mere playthings of the gods); and both can hopefully expunge any residual memories of the 2004 Brad Pitt epic.”
It’s written by David Farr, who developed The Night Manager for TV two years ago and debuted on British TV in February. All 8 episodes are now streaming on Netflix.
More family oriented are the animated films Despicable Me 3 (2017, PG), with reformed supervillain and adoptive dad Gru lured back into crime for one last heist by his brother, and The Iron Giant (1999, PG), a magnificent and sweet sci-fi fairy tale of a boy and his giant robot buddy in comic book color (reviewed on Stream On Demand here). Both now on Netflix.
Pay-Per-View / Video-On-Demand
No blockbusters or award winners this week, which features the comedy Father Figures (2017, R) with Ed Helms and Owen Wilson as brothers in search of their birth father and Insidious: The Last Key (2017, PG-13), the fourth installment of the horror franchise.
Also new: dramas All at Once (2016, not rated) with Jon Abrahams and Erika Christensen and Axis (2017, not rated), the directorial debut of Aisha Tyler, and documentary Hondros (2017, not rated) on battlefield photojournalist Chris Hondros.
Available same day as select theaters nationwide is mystery thriller Spinning Man (2018, R) with Pierce Brosnan and science fiction thriller The Humanity Bureau (2017, R) with Nicolas Cage.
Netflix
6 Balloons (2018, not rated), starring Abbi Jacobson as the sister of relapsed heroin addict (Dave Franco) trying to get him help over one long night, comes direct to Netflix from the SXSW Film Festival. Also debuting is Amateur (2018, not rated), a drama with Sharon Leal and Josh Charles about the pressures on high school athletes.
Let Me In (2010, R), the haunting American remake of the icy Swedish film about an adolescent vampire (Chloe Grace Moritx) who befriends a bullied boy, is even more devastating than the original.
Foreign affairs: the heady science fiction drama Orbiter 9 (Spain, 2017, not rated, with subtitles), about a deep space voyage that isn’t what it appears, and award winning prison thriller The 4th Company (Mexico, 2016, not rated, with subtitles), inspired by the true story of juvenile inmates who are drafted into a death squad, both make respective stateside debuts on Netflix.
Also new:
- Johnny Depp is Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006, PG-13), the second film in the comic adventure franchise;
- the original Friday Night Lights (2004, PG-13) with Billy Bob Thornton;
- Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003, R) with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Claire Danes;
- Oscar-winner L.A. Confidential (1997, R), based on the James Ellroy novel and starring Russell Crowe and Kevin Spacey;
- Michael Mann’s Heat (1995, R) with Robert DeNiro versus Al Pacino;
- David Fincher’s dark serial killer thriller Seven (1995, R) with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman;
- Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983, R) with Al Pacino;
- Oscar-winning foreign language film Life Is Beautiful (Italy, 1997, PG-13, with subtitles) with Roberto Benigni.
Kid stuff: The Boss Baby: Back in Business: Season 1 brings the characters of the animated comedy to the small screen for more adventures.
Streaming TV: Netflix hopes Fastest Car: Season 1 will attract fans of The Grand Tour and the new edition of My Next Guest Needs No Introduction With David Letterman features Jay-Z.
There’s also plenty of international TV now available, from popular British murder mysteries Death in Paradise: Season 6 and Father Brown: Season 6 and medical drama Doctor Foster: Season 2 to a pair of Spanish crime dramas: La Piloto: Season 1 (Spain, with subtitles), about an air hostess caught up in drug smuggling, and the caper thriller Money Heist: Part 2 (Spain, with subtitles). And there are more foreign shows to peruse:
- Chosen (China, with subtitles), a three-part thriller miniseries;
- Dandy: Season 1 (Mexico, with subtitles), about an undercover agent in a drug cartel;
- fashion industry melodrama Velvet Colección: Season 1 (Spain, with subtitles);
- medical drama Wake Up: Complete Series (Taiwan, with subtitles);
- and offbeat Scandinavian mystery series Fallet: Season 1 (Sweden, with subtitles).
True stories: Ram Dass, Going Home (2018, not rated) catches up with the spiritual guru 20 years after suffering a life-altering stroke. Also new: Oscar-nominated Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2016, not rated) looks at the only financial institution to be prosecuted after the 2008 financial crisis.
Stand-up: Seth Rogen’s Hilarity for Charity is a 2014 variety show featuring sets by (among others) Hannibal Buress, Jerrod Carmichael, Jim Norton, and Michelle Wolf. Also new are international stand-up specials Fary Is the New Black (France, with subtitles) and Todo lo que sería de Lucas Lauriente (Argentina, with subtitles).
Amazon Prime
Daniel Radcliffe plays an FBI agent who goes undercover in the American white supremacist culture in Imperium (2016, R), a thriller inspired by a true story. Reviewed on Stream On Demand here.
Colin Farrell is a surgeon confronted with an impossible choice in The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017, R) from Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos.
Also new:
- Hustle & Flow (2005, R) with Terrence Howard as a pimp who wants to be a rapper;
- Gus Van Sant’s Drugstore Cowboy (1989, R) with Matt Dillon;
- Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy (1983, PG) with Robert De Niro;
- John Carpenter’s Escape from New York (1981, R) with Kurt Russell;
- cult horror film Circus of Horrors (1960) from England.
- True stories: Chavela (2017) looks over the life and career of androgynous Mexican singer Chavela Vargas. Also new:
- The Departure (2017, not rated) profiles a Buddhist priest whose devotion to suicide prevention takes a personal toll;
- A Suitable Girl (2017, not rated) follows three young women in India struggling against pressures to marry;
- By Sidney Lumet (2015, not rated) surveys the career of the acclaimed American filmmaker.
Streaming TV: the second and final season of the British crime drama The Missing takes on a new case of a missing girl.
Foreign affairs: Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (Brazil, 2010, with subtitles), once the highest-grossing film in Brazil, is a cop thriller about police corruption in Rio de Janeiro.
Amazon Prime / Hulu
The Conspirator (2011, PG-13), directed by Robert Redford, takes on the story of the sole woman (Robin Wright) charged with helping John Wilkes Booth assassinate Abraham Lincoln (Amazon Prime and Hulu).
Before Community and Atlanta, Donald Glover co-wrote and starred in the crime comedy Mystery Team (2009, R) (Amazon Prime and Hulu).
Also new:
- comedy The Big Wedding (2012, R) with Robert De Niro and Diane Keaton as the long-divorced parents of the groom (Amazon Prime and Hulu);
- eerie zero-budget Paranormal Activity (2009, R), which helped revive the “found footage” horror genre (Amazon Prime and Hulu);
- Sam Raimi’s snowblind crime drama A Simple Plan (1998, R) with Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton (Amazon Prime and Hulu);
- Man in the Moon (1991), the coming-of-age drama that introduced Reese Witherspoon (Amazon Prime and Hulu);
- offbeat crime thriller Miami Blues (1990, R) with Alec Baldwin (Amazon Prime and Hulu);
- Jonathan Demme’s gangster comedy Married to the Mob (1988, R) with Michelle Pfeiffer (Amazon Prime and Hulu);
- New York bohemian indie Desperately Seeking Susan (1985, PG-13) with Madonna (Amazon Prime and Hulu);
- conspiracy thriller Marathon Man (1976, R) with Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier (Amazon Prime and Hulu).
True stories: Project Nim (2012, PG-13), about a seventies experiment in raising a chimp like a human child, is more revealing of human rather than simian behavior (Amazon Prime and Hulu), and the music documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown (2002, PG) (Amazon Prime and Hulu) looks at the studio musicians behind the Motown stars.
Hulu
The four-part National Treasure: Kiri, produced by Hulu in partnership with BBC, is a crime drama about the disappearance of a young black girl who is about to be adopted by a middle-class white family and the media frenzy surrounding the case.
Three movie essentials are new to Hulu:
- Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976, R), a landmark of seventies cinema with Robert De Niro as an alienated cabbie in the cesspool of seventies New York City (reviewed on Stream On Demand here);
- Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964, PG), Stanley Kubrick’s cold war satire of mutually assured destruction;
- David Lean’s epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962, PG) with Peter O’Toole, which won seven Academy Awards including best picture.
Foreign affairs: Grave of the Fireflies (Japan, 1998), a devastating animated drama of two orphans in the final days of World War II in Japan, is presented in both Japanese language (with subtitles) and English dubbed versions.
True stories: Dina (2017) profiles the romance between two challenged adults (one is developmentally disabled, the other suffers from Asperger’s) with compassion and a sense of humor. Actress turned filmmaker Sarah Polley turns the camera on herself and her family in Stories We Tell (2012, PG-13).
HBO Now
The original documentary King in the Wilderness (2018, not rated) looks at the final 18 months in the life of Civil Rights activist Martin Luther King.
Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, and Jada Pinkett Smith star in the female buddy comedy Girls Trip (2017, R).
The sixth season of the investigative documentary series Vice is now underway with new episodes every Friday night.
Arriving Saturday night is the HBO original drama Paterno (2018, not rated) starring Al Pacino as Penn State coach Joe Paterno.
Showtime Anytime
The family-friendly A Dog’s Purpose (2017, PG) imagines the many lives of a canine as it is reborn until it is reunited with its master. Dennis Quaid and Peggy Lipton star.
True stories: Operation Odessa (2018, not rated) documents the stranger-than-fiction attempt by a Russian mobster, a Miami playboy, and a Cuban spy to sell a Russian nuclear submarine to the Colombian drug cartel.
FilmStruck / Criterion Channel
TCM Select pick for the week is the biblical epic Ben-Hur (1959, G) with Charlton Heston. It’s available through September 28, 2018.
Star of the Week: Gary Cooper is celebrated with eleven films, including the comedy Ball of Fire (1941) with Barbara Stanwyck, Oscar-winner war drama Sergeant York (1941), and The Fountainhead (1949), adapted by author Ayn Rand herself, and Director of the Week: Pier Paolo Pasolini is feted with seven features including The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Italy, 1964, with subtitles).
In a lighter vein is a collection of fish out of water comedies including the nostalgic My Favorite Year (1982, PG) with Peter O’Toole, the charmingly eccentric Local Hero (1983, PG) with Burt Lancaster, and Jim Jarmusch’s delightfully deadpan indie classic Stranger Than Paradise (1984).
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