New to Streaming: A Magnificent Life, Wuthering Heights, Stranger Eyes, An Unfinished Film & 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.

_Bugonia _(Yorgos Lanthimos)

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After dabbling in dystopian fantasy (The Lobster_) and period comedy (The Favourite), shocking us along the way with original creations (Dogtooth) and fanciful adaptations (Poor Things) alike, Yorgos Lanthimos has proven time and again that there’s not a single uncreative bone in his body. Remaking the criminally underseen Korean sci-fi comedic thriller Save the Green Planet!, he succeeds in honoring the original while putting his unique stamp on it. The result is a sleeker (if slightly paler) version of a truly bonkers film. –Zhuo-Ning Su (full review)

Where to Stream: Netflix

Can She Bake a Cherry Pie? (Henry Jaglom)

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Certainly the only movie in existence to star Larry David and Orson Welles, Henry Jaglom’s Can She Bake a Cherry Pie_? was a wonderful discovery at the 63rd New York Film Festival last fall, where a new 4K restoration premiered as part of the Revivals lineup just days after Jaglom passed away. The Upper West Side-set feature stars Karen Black, who embarks on a new romance after getting divorced. Following a theatrical release, the new restoration is now streaming. – Jordan R.

Where to Stream: Metrograph at Home.

Family Portrait (Lucy Kerr)

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Katy (a magnetic Deragh Campbell) attempts to wrangle her relatives together for a family portrait in this enigmatic feature debut from Texan-born filmmaker and choreographer Lucy Kerr. Winner of the Best Director Award at Locarno 2023, Kerr’s film showcases an effective control of pace and mood. Shot on the Guadalupe River, the film has gathered a new uncanny dimension in the aftermath of the floods that devastated the region last year.

Where to Stream: Le Cinéma Club

A Magnificent Life _(Sylvain Chomet)

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It’s common for a successful artist to be asked about advice they’d give their younger self; one film from this year’s Cannes Specials selection does the opposite. In Sylvain Chomet’s animation A Magnificent Life, French playwright, filmmaker, and inventor Marcel Pagnol is 61 years old and very close to giving up on his career, so a younger Marcel comes to the rescue. When asked to write a memoir column for Elle_ magazine, Pagnol simply can’t do it––not without the help of hope and optimism personified in the figure of young Marcel. – Savina P. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

Maya, Give Me a Title (Michel Gondry)

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Running at a whisker over an hour, Maya, Give Me a Title_ is the most a Gondry film has lived up to the promise of his breakthrough short-form work in decades, rejuvenating his creative spirit while a minor work in intention. A selection of animated shorts made to entertain his young daughter while they lived on separate continents, all inspired by one-sentence prompts she wanted to hear stories about, the very broad boundaries set for him––both in the vagueness of each narrative concept and infinite possibilities for animation, even on this handmade scale––offer a reminder of why his breakneck imagination felt so revelatory a few decades earlier. – _Alistair R. _(full review)

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

_Stranger Eyes _(Yeo Siew Hua)

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In a film so concerned with our current media regime––the way we produce and consume images of each other––Lee saunters into Stranger Eyes_ as a kind of anomaly. There is a stark contrast between the surgical eyes of CCTV cameras and the actor’s own, the way surveillance devices capture reality and how Lee’s Wu processes it. I do not mean to downplay Wu and Panna’s turns. The former in particular channels a feverish angst, and his transformation from object of Wu’s obsession into voyeur himself largely works. But _Stranger Eyes _belongs to Lee. Whether or not Yeo wrote it with him in mind, I can’t think of a better performer to flesh out the chasm that powers the film: between different ways of looking, between fears as old as time itself and the state-of-the-art technology used to bring them to light. – Leonardo G. (full review)

Where to Stream: Film Movement+

This Is Not a Drill (Oren Jacoby)

Watch an exclusive clip above.

About an hour into This is Not a Drill, the new documentary from director Oren Jacoby, comes a moment that is stark and unsettling. Sitting next to her daughter, Louisiana climate activist Roishetta Ozane asks what she thinks of the LNG (Liquefied natural gas) factories near their house. Her daughter responds: “If you don’t get the industry to stop, that will be the reason the world ends.” For as scary as the answer is, it’s also a hopeful one. Ozane acknowledges as much in her reaction. On one hand, there is the apocalyptic responsibility; on the other, there is the optimism that somebody like Roishetta Ozane _can _stop an oil company from ending the world as we know it. – Dan M. (full review)

Where to Stream: YouTube

_The True Beauty of Being Bitten By A Tick _(Pete Ohs)

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Falling somewhere between a horror film and dark comedy about wellness crazes, The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick_ is, like director Pete Ohs’ previous Jethica, a film that suggests watching a play within a movie. Both features are difficult to discuss without spoilers––they seem to operate on a wavelength beyond genre boxes. – John F. (full review)

Where to Stream: Letterboxd Video Store

**An Unfinished Film (Lou Ye) **

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It’s perhaps fitting that Lou’s purportedly unfinished film didn’t find the best ending, but what a premise, what a build-up, what gloriously meta storytelling. This pandemic-era mocumentary is an act of defiance against the Chinese state censorship and among the most creatively inspired works of the year. Set around a film crew trying to complete an abandoned project when lockdown hit, the harrowing drama ponders the essence of cinema via performances within performances, by reconstructing memories and through the very passage of time. It’s invigorating on an intellectual level and deeply affecting for what it says about human resilience and an artist’s duty to remember. – Zhuo-Ning Su_

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

Wuthering Heights (Emerald Fennell)

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Is the sight of the human tongue really so shocking? Were 1996 audiences ducking in their seats à la L’Arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat_ when Matthew Lillard kept jutting his out like a jackass in Scream? Judging from Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, we’re meant to react like so to the sight of Jacob Elordi’s tongue in many of the film’s erotically charged scenes. That is perhaps a microcosm of this new adaptation’s failed transgression. – Ethan V. (full review)

Where to Stream: HBO Max

Also New to Streaming

The Criterion Channel

95 and 6 to Go Against All Odds The Apartment The Big Clock Bitter Cane Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets Bound Breathless Cat People A Chinese Ghost Story A Chinese Ghost Story II A Chinese Ghost Story III Clockwatchers Conbody vs Everybody D.O.A. Daughter’s Daughter Desk Set E=NYC2 Él Four Letter Words Grenada: The Future Coming Towards Us Haiti: The Way to Freedom Heaven’s Crossroad His Girl Friday House of Cardin K-On! The Movie Looking for Adventure Lumière, le cinéma! Man Wanted The Man Who Loved Women More Than a Secretary My Ain Folk My Childhood My Way Home No Way Out The Office Wife Onlookers Point Break The Postman Always Rings Twice Queen Bee Riotsville, U.S.A. Rosewater The Shepherd and the Bear The Spirit of ’45 Summer of the Serpent Suspended Sweet Sugar Rage The Terror and the Time That Which Once Was The Thing The Thing from Another World Tokyo Trial We’re No Angels Western Where Are You Taking Me? The Whole Town’s Talking Woman of the Year Women of Suriname Working Girls

Film Movement+

Forest for the Trees

Hulu

Good Boy

Kino Film Collection

Vision: From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen

Metrograph at Home

The Circle Closed Curtain Come Here Crimson Gold Hope Krabi, 2562 Only the River Flows The Passengers of the Night The PianoTuner of EarthQuakes Pushing Hands

MUBI

Farewell My Concubine A Quiet Passion Mother Couch Boxcar Bertha The Last Waltz Antonio Lopez 1970: Sex, Fashion & Disco Dior and I Westwood: Punk, Icon Activist Mitski: The Land Edge of Night

VOD

Didn’t Die Forbidden Fruits Hoppers Life After They Will Kill You