Here’s what’s new and ready to stream now on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, HBO Now, Showtime Anytime, FilmStruck, video-on-demand, and otherstreaming services …
Alfonso Cuarón’s semi-autobiographical Roma (Mexico, 2018, not rated, with subtitles), about growing up in Mexico City in the early 1970s, has won awards from film festivals and critics groups and is an early Oscar favorite. It arrives on Netflix while playing in select theaters around the country.
Keira Knightley is Colette (2018, R) in the biographical drama about the early years of the great French author from award-winning director Wash Westmoreland. On Cable On Demand and VOD, also on DVD and at Redbox.
Classic pick: The Great Escape(1963) is the exemplar of the World War II adventure, with Steve McQueen leading a massive cast of individualists working on the ultimate heist: escaping an inescapable German POW camp. It’s a lot of fun but still grounded in a serious reality, and director John Sturges reminds us that there are consequences to these actions. Streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Free streams: HBO is streaming Icebox (2018, TV-14) for free for nonsubscribers through January 10, 2019.
Pay-Per-View / Video-On-Demand
The animated comedy Smallfoot (2018, PG) follows the adventure of a Yeti in aremote Himalayan mountain discovering that the legend is true: humans do exist! Also new:
- action drama The Equalizer 2 (2018, R) with Denzel Washington back to get justicefor the oppressed;
- revenge thriller Peppermint (2018, R) with Jennifer Garner;
- Lizzie (2018, R) starring Chloë Sevigny as Lizzie Borden and Kristen Stewart as Bridget Sullivan;
- Galveston (2018, not rated) with Ben Foster and Elle Fanning, based on the novel by True Detective” creator Nic Pizzolatto.
Available same day as select theaters nationwide is Lars von Trier’s contentious serial killer thriller The House That Jack Built (2018, R) with Matt Damon and Maine (2018, R) starring Laia Costas a Spanish woman hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Netflix
Tidelands is a supernatural crime drama miniseries set in an Australian fishing village that is home to a race of half human/half-Sirens.
Also from Australia is the gritty murder mystery Goldstone (2016, R) with Aaron Pedersen in his second appearance as Detective Jay Swan.
Kurt Russell leads a crew for one last heist in the comic caper The Art of the Steal (2013, R), co-starring Matt Dillon and Jay Baruchel.
Two Netflix series returnwith special holiday episodes: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: A Midwinter’s Tale set on the Winter Solstice and the family sitcom Princeof Peoria: A Christmas Moose Miracle.
True stories: the six-part documentary series The Innocent Man, based on the true crime best-seller by John Grisham, looks at the case of Ron Williamson, who was sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit. Also new:
- Out of Many, One” a short documentary featuring the stories of immigrants preparing for American citizenship;
- Michael Jackson’s This Is It (2009, PG), a behind-the-scenes portrait of the concert that Jackson was rehearsing before his death;
- Susanne Bartsch: On Top (2017, not rated), a portrait of the famous event planner and activist.
Streaming TV: Comedians Jimmy Carr, D.L. Hughley and Katherine Ryan join a panel of experts in The Fix: Season 1 to help solve major crises and minor problems. Also new:
family sitcom Fuller House: Season 4;
- Australia crime drama Wanted:Season 3;
- British comedy Cuckoo: Season 4;
- time travel adventure Travelers: Season 3;
- reality shows Inside the Real Narcos: Season 1 and Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons: Season 3;
- sport documentary series Sunderland Til I Die: Season 1 about an English football club.
Foreign language TV: The Protector: Season 1 (Turkey, with subtitles), a fantasy about a young shopkeeper in modern Istanbul who discovers he is part of an ancient order of mystical protectors, is the first Netflix Original series from Turkey. Also new:
BackStreet Girls – Gokudols: Season 1 (Japan), an animated farce about three Yakuza hoods transformed into young girl pop stars.
Kid stuff: more short episodes of the animated music series Dance & Sing with True: Songs for young children.
Stand-up: Vir Das: Losing It.
Amazon Prime Video
A teenage girl (Zoey Deutch) relives the same day over and over again in Before I Fall (2017, PG-13), a young adult drama twist on Groundhog Day” and Nicholas Hoult and Felicity Jones are Americans on the run from German criminals in the action thriller Collide (2017, PG-13).
Streaming TV: the complete run of mall town sitcom Corner Gas, the most popular Canadian comedy of all time, is now available, along with the reunion feature Corner Gas: The Movie (2014,PG)
Foreign affairs: Paris, je t’aime (2007, R, with subtitles) celebrates the City of Lights in eighteen short vignettes set in different districts of Paris and three filmmakers set more substantial short films in Tokyo! (2008, not rated, with subtitles). Also new:
- Gabbeh(Iran,1996, not rated, with subtitles) from Mohsen Makhmalbaf;
- two non-narrative films from Jean-Luc Godard and his radicalDziga Vertov Group: British Sounds (aka See You at Mao) and Le Vent D’Est (Wind from the East) (both France, 1970, not rated, with subtitles).
Classics: Faye Dunaway and Max von Sydow headline the all-star cast of Voyage of the Damned (1976, PG), based on the true story of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany that no nation would take in. Also new:
- romantic spy drama The Tamarind Seed (1974, PG) with Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif;
- Oscar winning musical Fiddler on the Roof (1971, G);
- Oscar winning crime drama In the Heat of the Night (1967) with Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger;
- The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965, G) with Max Von Sydow as Jesus Christ;
- musical drama Pal Joey (1957) with Frank Sinatra and Rita Hayworth;
- romantic comedy The Young in Heart (1938) about a family of con artists.
- True stories: Oscar-nominated documentary Spellbound (2002, G) follows eight teenagers competing in the 1999 National Spelling Bee.
Cult: Teruo Ishii’s Horrors of Malformed Men (Japan, 1969, with subtitles), based on stories by Edogawa Rampo, is one of the weirdest films to come out of the Japanese horror genre. And that’s saying something.
Fans of Japanese maverick director Seijun Suzuki can now enjoy some of his rare early genre pictures. New this week are juvenile crime dramas TheBoy Who Came Back (Japan, 1958, with subtitles) and Teenage Yakuza(Japan, 1962, with subtitles) and underworld thrillers Smashing the 0-line(Japan, 1960, with subtitles), Tokyo Knights (Japan,1961, with subtitles), and The Man with a Shotgun (Japan, 1961, with subtitles)
Amazon Prime / Hulu
Indie drama Say You Will (2017, TV-14) follows a recent high school grad (Travis Hope) as he cares for his mother and navigates his first relationship in the wake of his father’s suicide (Prime Video and Hulu).
Hulu
Taraji P. Henson stars in Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself (2009, G-13) as a reckless nightclub singer suddenly responsible for three troubled teenage kids.
A teenager (Max Record) fights his own homicidal impulses while investigating a string of murders in I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016, not rated).
Deutschland 86 (Germany, with subtitles), the second season of the series begun as Deutschland 83, jumps ahead three years in the drama set in East Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
More streaming TV: Zac & Mia: Season 1 stars Kian Lawley and Anne Winters as the only teenagers in the cancer ward of a hospital. Also new:
- high school social media dramas T@gged: Seasons 1-3 and Guidance: Season 1;
- satirical comedy Graves: Season 2 starring NickNolte as a former American President.
True stories: Above and Beyond: NASA’s Journey to Tomorrow (2018) looks at the future of the American space program.
HBO Now
Steven Spielberg directs the dazzling virtual reality adventure Ready Player One (2018, PG-13),based on the young adult sci-fi novel by Ernest Cline and starring Tye Sheridan and Olivia Cooke as teens battling a ruthless corporate power to save their virtual oasis. Spielberg stuffs the colorful (if thin) underdog thriller full of pop-culture references.
Momentum Generation (2018, TV-14) looks at the young surfers who transformed the sport in the 1990s.
Available Saturday night is Blockers (2018, R), a prom night comedy starring Leslie Mann, Ike Barinholtz, and John Cena as the parents of three teenage girls.
Showtime Anytime
Three music documentaries debut this week: Jeff Beck: Still on the Run (2018, not rated), on the life and career of the legendary rock guitarist, plus Agnostic Front: The Godfathers of Hardcore(2017, not rated) and GG Allin: All in the Family(2017, not rated).
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.
