New to Streaming: Jia Zhangke, Nickel Boys, Sacramento, The Friend & More

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

Being Maria (Jessica Palud)

Last Tango in Paris was both a breakout role and turning point in the life and career of Maria Schneider––a traumatic filming experience that inspired her to become an advocate for women in the film industry, and the often redundant depictions of female characters in cinema. Her steadfastness and increasing ability to not suffer fools gladly after her experiences with Bernardo Bertolucci and Marlon Brando saw her walk out on several major directors midway through shooting, earning her a reputation for being difficult, frustrations largely ignored as this behavior coincided with her own battles with mental health and drug addiction, both of which were weaponized as reasons to not hire her. Any writing on Schneider characterizes her most famous role as an albatross around her neck, which saw her turn down any role that felt like it would similarly corner her in an unsafe working condition, which could make for an interesting retrospective look on her career if dramatized adequately. Unfortunately, director Jessica Palud’s biopic Being Maria is uninterested in Schneider’s career beyond the context of that film, of which it spends its vast majority doing extensive, beat-for-beat recreations. – Alistair R. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

La Cocina (Alonso Ruizpalacios)

Egos are charred and tempers seared in La Cocina, a kitchen nightmare set in the engine rooms of a vast Times Square eatery where the staff have more pressing things to worry about than rising temperatures. Take Pedro (Raúl Briones Carmona, in his third Alonso Ruizpalacios joint), a hardened and still-undocumented line cook whose outbursts of ideology can only mask his resentments and vulnerability for so long. Then there’s Julia (Rooney Mara), who is carrying Pedro’s unborn child, hiding her morning sickness in the staff room and planning to sneak out on break to get an abortion. And then there’s Estela (Anna Diaz), our eyes and ears: fresh off the proverbial boat, with barely a word of English, asking strangers on the subway how to get to 45th street before being unceremoniously tossed into a lunch shift that soon resembles The Raft of the Medusa, adrift on a sea of Cherry Coke. – Rory O. (full review)

Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)

Directed by Jia Zhangke

On the cusp of the U.S. release of one of his greatest achievements, Caught by the Tides, Jia Zhangke is getting a much-deserved career retrospective on the Criterion Channel. Alongside his features Xiao Wu (1997), Platform (2000), Unknown Pleasures (2002), The World (2004), Still Life (2006), 24 City (2008), A Touch of Sin (2013), Mountains May Depart (2015), Ash Is Purest White (2018), and Swimming Out Till the Sea Turns Blue (2020), the spotlight also includes his shorts Xiao Shan Going Home (1995), The Hedonists (2016), and Revive (2017).

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

The End (Joshua Oppenheimer)

In last year’s The Zone of Interest, a final-act retching recalled a key moment in Oppenheimer’s 2012 debut The Act of Killing. The Zone of Interest was frequently mislabeled as an examination of the banality of evil, and it would be incorrect to categorize The End as that too. At Telluride this past weekend, Oppenheimer discussed his fascination with the lies we tell ourselves and how dangerous that can be. Humans are uniquely equipped to compartmentalize and keep going––it is perhaps our primary survival skill. With The End, Oppenheimer pushes beyond subconscious involuntary retching, forcing his characters to more squarely come to grips with their actions and their lingering effects. It’s not subtle, but the film’s complete lack of cynicism shines brightest in these direct moments. It is undeniably provocative to present a wealthy white family directly responsible for the world’s end, whose supreme wealth has made it so that they have experienced little-to-no consequences for this destruction––then to say these people deserve love, the chance to reconcile their past and move forward with renewed hope. – Caleb H. (full review)

Where to Stream: Hulu

The Friend (Scott McGehee and David Siegel)

Independent filmmaking duo Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s The Friend, their newest in a 30-year collaboration, is a dog movie. Or, more aptly, it’s a film about a dog and Iris (Naomi Watts), a woman who hates dogs. Iris inherits a Great Dane, Apollo, from her late friend, mentor, and lover Walter (Bill Murray). The movie, adapted from Sigrid Nunez’s National Book Award-winning novel of the same name, is light to the touch, despite its themes of grief, suicide, and depression. It’s the type of film my parents would love––something shown on a cable network on a Sunday afternoon, easy to watch with just enough substance to make the audience feel something reminiscent of sadness. That’s a compliment, though: The Friend reminds us of the immeasurable role that dogs, and pets, play in our lives. – Michael F. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

Nickel Boys (RaMell Ross)

RaMell Ross––the Brown University film professor and writer-director behind 2018’s stunning impressionist portrait of rural Alabama life, Hale County This Morning, This Evening––made a splash with his second film and fiction debut Nickel Boys. This adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel is a tender, enchanting movie that quickly develops a mood-defining dread stemming from America’s ugly history with abusive juvenile centers for Black boys. Innovatively shot in first-person to gripping effect, it follows Elwood Curtis, a young man wrongly detained at the Nickel Academy, as he develops a life-changing friendship and navigates the nightmares of Nickel, where the unmarked graves of rule-breaking children haunt the kids who still have to walk its grounds. Bouncing back and forth between Elwood’s days at Nickel and his adult life researching its crimes, Ross submerges us in what feels like a lifetime of beauty and trauma. – Luke H.

Where to Stream: Prime Video

Sacramento (Michael Angarano)

With a plucky, inherent likability as a performer that extends to his leisurely directorial aesthetic, Michael Angarano’s second feature Sacramento is an amiable, freewheeling road trip dramedy that rides on its central performances, courtesy of Michael Cera and the actor-writer-director as strained best friends. In exploring fatherhood, mental health, and the lies we tell ourselves (and others) to keep trucking along, Angarano and co-writer Chris Smith haven’t uncovered a wealth of revelations on tried-and-true thematic ground, yet there’s just enough smart comedic timing and dramatic perceptiveness to make this an adventure worth taking. – Jordan R. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

Also New to Streaming

The Criterion Channel

Barbarella
The Beach
The Big Night
Blue Steel
Body Heat
The Breaking Point
Copycat
Counting
Crossfire
Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Easy Rider
The Fog
The Ghost Writer
Gun Crazy
Hangmen Also Die!
He Ran All the Way
The Hour of Liberation Has Arrived
Il grido
Insomnia
The Keep
The Lady from Shanghai
The Lawless
Leaves of Grass
Leila and the Wolves
The Long Goodbye
The Loveless
None Shall Escape
Odds Against Tomorrow
On the Waterfront
Paper Moon
The Runner
Shutter Island
Strange Days
Thieves’ Highway
Touchez pas au grisbi
Turn in the Wound
Vox Populi
Wild Things
Workingman’s Death

Hulu

Ernest Cole: Lost & Found

Kino Film Collection

A Hard Day

Metrograph at Home

Three By João Pedro Rodrigues

MUBI (free for 30 days)

XXY
The Headless Woman 
Night Across the Street
Post Tenebras Lux
Heli
Jauja
Carol
Spree
Enter The Void
Summer Hours

Prime Video

Another Simple Favor

VOD

Death of a Unicorn
Drop

The post New to Streaming: Jia Zhangke, Nickel Boys, Sacramento, The Friend & More first appeared on The Film Stage.