Best Films to Stream This Week in the UK
With the country still in lockdown, we highlight the best new streaming releases, from period romances to dog-based docs
With the UK still in lockdown, we’ll have to wait a while longer for the proper big screen experience. Fear not: we’ve rounded up the best of the latest streaming releases to keep you entertained until the capital’s dream palaces return. Whatever you’re in the mood for, from bold dramas to enlightening documentaries, WeLoveCinema has you well and truly covered…
[New Releases]
Ammonite
Where to watch it: Various streaming services
Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan are on typically fine form in a chilly, wind-swept romantic period drama about two women who find love and solace in Lyme Regis. Loosely based on the life of British palaeontologist Mary Anning and directed by Francis Lee (God’s Own Country), it’s a deeply felt study of emotional labour that refuses to give easy answers, set against a blustery seaside backdrop (read our full review).
Stray
Where to watch it: Curzon Home Cinema
What happens when you embed yourself with a group of stray dogs in Istanbul? Elizabeth Lo’s unconventional “dogumentary” sets out to answer that question in this brilliantly liberating and life-affirming portrait of a city, told through the footsteps of the canines who inhabit it. Unpredictable and resonant, it’s a film as revealing of the humans who encounter the dogs as the mutts themselves (read our full review).
Violation
Where to watch it: Shudder
Madeleine Sims-Fewer both stars and co-directs this bold and disturbing reinvention of the rape-revenge film, set around a woman’s quest for revenge after she’s unexpectedly betrayed during a trip to visit her sister. Flipping familiar conventions of this well-worn genre on their head, Violation is both disturbing and emotionally shattering, not to mention a brilliantly subversive calling card for its lead actress and director (read our full review).
Malmkrog
Where to watch it: Various streaming services
A group of aristocrats gather in a Transylvanian manor house at the end of the 19th century and find themselves talking through every subject under the sun, from faith to theology, philosophy to religion. As helmed by Romanian New Wave director Cristi Puiu, Malmkorg is deliberately uncompromising at three hours and twenty minutes, but will reward those viewers who are patient enough to sit with it (read our full review).
Memories of My Father
Where to watch it: Curzon Home Cinema
Based on the life of Colombian literature legend and political activist Héctor Abad Gómez, this filmed memoir – written by his son – is a deeply moving account of the the years leading up to his murder. Directed with heaps of warmth and humanity by Fernando Trueba, and featuring a standout lead performance from Javier Camara, this is a powerful ode to both family and standing up for what’s right (read our full review).
Tina
Where to watch it: Now (from 28 March)
The inimitable pop sensation Tina Turner finally gets the chance to tell her own story in this vibrant account of a most extraordinary life and career, a lively blend of archive footage and candid interviews. Now in retirement and – in her own words – officially “done,” Tina works as both an essential introduction for the unfamiliar, and as a fond farewell for her legions of adoring fans (read our full review).
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[Still Streaming…]
A Colony
Where to watch it: MUBI
A teenage girl from Quebec grapples with the anxieties of adolescence in this gently blazing drama from filmmaker Geneviève Dulude-De Celles, perhaps best described as Canada’s answer to Bo Burnham’s Eighth Grade. Featuring an inspired lead performance from young actor Émilie Bierre, A Colony is as tender as it is truthful, a heartfelt ode to growing up that also happens to be one of the best coming-of-agers in years (read our full review).
Zack Snyder’s Justice League
Where to watch it: Now TV
The much-maligned 2017 blockbuster, recut and reshot by Joss Whedon after Zack Snyder left the project for personal releases, returns in what its original director now claims as his definitive vision: a four-hour-long (!) superhero redux that’s as inspired as it is insane. Adding a whopping two hours to the runtime, this is essentially a brand new film – and one that’s destined to divide opinion. What can we say for sure? It’s miles better than the 2017 version (read our full review).
An Impossible Project
Where to watch: Various streaming services
Austria’s answer to Steve Jobs, Dr. Florian Kaps, ponders our relationship with everything analog in this quirky and thought-provoking documentary. Kaps, a keen enthusiast of retro technology, sets out to explore the future of physical media in an increasingly digital world. Whether his exploits add up to much will depend on the viewer, but – at the very least – he makes for mighty fine company (read our full review).
Judas and the Black Messiah
Where to watch it: Various streaming services
Daniel Kaluuya gives an electrifying central performance in this subversive, unpredictable biopic about the life and times of American activist Fred Hampton, a film juggling multiple tones and genres to extraordinary effect. Refusing to play by the usual conventions, it’s part crime-thriller, part sincere portrait, and part action movie, co-starring a dazzling cast of actors at the top of their game, including LaKeith Stanfield, Jesse Plemons, and Martin Sheen (read our full review).
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