What to stream: ‘A Star is Born’ and more Oscar nominees, ‘Paddleton’ on Netflix, ‘This Giant Beast’ on Amazon

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 …

A Star Is Born (2018, R), Bradley Cooper’s latest remake of the Hollywood classic with Lady Gaga in the starring role, earned eight Academy Award nominations. You can catch up with the film before the Oscars are handed out on Sunday, along with Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2018, R) featuring Oscar nominees Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant, on Cable On Demand and VOD. Also on DVD and at Redbox.

Foreign language film nominee Shoplifters (2018, Japan, R, with subtitles), which took home the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival last year, is on Cable On Demand, VOD, and DVD.

You can find out how to stream more Oscar nominees here.

Ray Romano and Mark Duplass play neighbors and best friends in Paddleton (2019, not rated), a low-key comedy with a dramatic gut-punch: one of them is dying of cancer and the two reminisce and argue on a road trip to pick up end-of-life drugs. The film “builds to a duet as harrowing and tender and moving as anyone could desire, or fear, or both,” writes Mike D’Angelo for AV Club.

The film, co-written and produced by Mark and Jay Duplass, comes to Netflix direct from its premiere at Sundance.

Actor and former member of President Obama’s White House team Kal Penn hosts This Giant Beast That is the Global Economy, an eight-part documentary series from producers Adam McKay and Will Ferrell that uses humor to explore the complexities of the world economy. “Its attempts to clarify certain undeniably important aspects of life under the present economic system are well-meant, worthy in theory, and likely to appeal to that sizable portion of the audience that’s grown accustomed to the lecturing streak that’s eaten up topical comedy on TV,” observes Daniel D’Addario for Variety. “But for all its flair, the series, like its giant, beastly, title, expends more energy speaking than it does finding something to say.”

Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.

Pay-Per-View / Video-On-Demand

World War II action meets monster movie in Overlord (2018, R), a thriller with Nazi super-soldier zombies. Also new:

  • the latest revival of Robin Hood (2018, PG-13), this one with Taron Egerton and Jamie Foxx;
  • drama The Maestro (2018, not rated) with Xander Berkeley as real-life composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco;
  • Lords of Chaos (2018, R), a based-on-a-true-story drama that arrives two weeks after its theatrical debut.

Available same day as select theaters nationwide is thriller The Changeover (2019, not rated), based on the award-winning children’s novel by Margaret Mahy and starring Timothy Spall, Melanie Lynksey, and Lucy Lawless, and racing drama Trading Paint (2019, R) with John Travolta.

Netflix

The Photographer of Mauthausen (2018, Spain, not rated, with subtitles) dramatizes the true story of Catalan photographer Francesc Boix, who documented and smuggled evidence of atrocities out of a Nazi concentration camp in World War II.

Also new: Jude Law leads a shady submarine crew into the Black Sea (2015, R) to find a fortune in sunken gold;

  • Foreign affairs: Korean superstar Song Kang-ho is The Drug King (South Korea, 2018, not rated, with subtitles) in this crime thriller starring Doona Bae. Also new:
  • Paris Is Us (France, 2019, not rated, with subtitles), starring Noémie Schmidt as a young woman who starts to lose her grip on reality after missing an airline flight that kills everyone on board in a crash;
  • Firebrand (India, 2019, not rated, with subtitles), a Marathi-language drama about sexism and trauma produced by Priyank Chopra.

True stories: Studio 54 (2018, not rated) looks back on the iconic club that epitomized the glamor and excess of the disco era and Period. End of Sentence. (not rated, with subtitles) is nominated in the documentary short subjects category at this year’s Oscars.

Streaming TV: the Canadian comedy Workin’ Moms: Season 1 follows four thirtysomething friends trying to balance jobs, family, and love lives in Toronto. Also new:

Amazon Prime Video

Hilary Swank and Michael Shannon star in the drama What They Had (2018, R), playing siblings with an ailing mother (Blythe Danner) and a father (Robert Forster) resistant to letting her go to a care facility.

Two of the best crime dramas of the 1980s are now streaming in their entirety. Wiseguy: Complete Series (1987-1990), starring Ken Wahl as a deep-cover cop, pioneered the long-form storytelling now familiar on cable TV with multi-episode stories featuring such actors as Stanley Tucci, Kevin Spacey, Maximilian Schell, and (in a rare dramatic role) Jerry Lewis. Crime Story: Complete Series (1986-1988), produced by Michael Mann, is a stylish series starring Denis Farina as the head of a squad taking on organized crime in Chicago and Las Vegas.

Also newly arrived is Naked City: Season 1 (1958-1959), one of the first great TV crime dramas, and from Canada comes the smart and nuanced Intelligence: Complete Series (2006-2007).

More streaming TV: Louis C.K. writes, directs, and stars in Horace & Pete: Complete Series (2016) with Steve Buscemi and Edie Falco and Brian Cox stars in the Australian crime drama The Straits: Complete Series (2012). Both ran a single season.

Foreign affairs: Jiri Menzel’s Oscar-nominated comedy My Sweet Little Village (Czechoslovakia, 1985, not rated, with subtitles) is still considered the most popular film of all time in the former Czechoslovakia.

Kid stuff: Odd Squad: Odds and Ends (2018) is a special double-length episode of the PBS kids series.

Also newly arrived: John Travolta and Gene Hackman in Get Shorty (1995, R), based on the Elmore Leonard novel;

  • comedy The Birdcage (1996, R) with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane;
  • the original The Terminator (1984, R) with Arnold Schwarzenegger;
  • Glastonbury Fayre (1972), a documentary about the seventies music festival featuring Fairport Convention, Linda Lewis, Arthur Brown, and Traffic. Nicolas Roeg is an uncredited co-director.

Cult movies: Uwe Boll, who made a reputation as one of the worst directors busy making movies today for his cheap videogame adaptations, pushed to the limits of bad taste with Postal (2007, R), a truly offensive take on the first person shooter bloodfest. Also newly arrived:

Prime Video / Hulu

Sally Potter’s The Party (2017, R) is a satirical look at politics and personal relations starring Patricia Clarkson, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Cillian Murphy (Prime Video and Hulu).

Hulu

Benicio Del Toro and Tim Robbins play aid workers in a war zone in the political satire A Perfect Day (2016, R).

Streaming TV: Jennifer Lopez, Ed Sheeran, Josh Groban, John Legend, and Carrie Underwood are among the stars of the Elvis All-Star Tribute (2019, TV-PG). Also new: Stan Against Evil: Season 3 with John C. McGinley.

HBO Now

Deadpool 2 (Super Duper Cut) (2018, not rated) is a longer cut of the cheeky, super-violent Ryan Reynolds superhero hit that includes footage unseen in theaters.

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver is back with new episodes on HBO Sunday nights and streaming the next day.

True stories: United Skates (2018, TVG-14) looks as the roller skating culture in African-American communities.

Available Saturday night is the HBO original movie O.G. (2019, not rated) starring Jeffrey Wright and the companion documentary It’s a Hard Truth Ain’t It (2019, not rated).

Showtime Anytime

The new Desus & Mero features TV and podcast personalities hosting a weekly talk show. New episodes Thursday nights.

Acorn TV

The 12-part Dutch crime thriller The Oldenheim Twelve (Netherlands, with subtitles) debuts in the U.S. on Acorn TV. Also new is the TV movie Marvellous (2014, not rated), a heart-warming, based-on-a-true-story drama starring Toby Jones.

BritBox

Jo Joyner and Mark Benton are Shakespeare and Hathaway: Private Investigators in the first season of the comic mystery series set in modern Stratford-Upon-Avon.

Don’t miss a single recommendation. Subscribe to Stream On Demand to receive notifications of new posts (your E-mail address will not be shared) and follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

https://streamondemandathome.com

Sean Axmaker is a Seattle film critic and writer. He writes the weekly newspaper column Stream On Demand and the companion website, and his work appears at RogerEbert.com, Turner Classic Movies online, The Film Noir Foundation, and Parallax View.

Related posts