With the country still in lockdown, we highlight the best new streaming releases, from digital festivals to insightful 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
Glasgow Film Festival 2021
Where to watch: Visit our dedicated page for more info
The Glasgow Film Festival 2021 runs from 24 February to 7 March – this year in its first completely online edition. Standout films include the beautiful coming-of-age drama Minari, Kelly Reichardt's bovine western First Cow, the weird Greek pandemic drama Apples, and documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman's four and a half hour tribute to the inner workings of the Boston government, City Hall (way more gripping than it sounds, we promise).
Ayouni
Where to watch: True Story
This documentary from Palestinian-Syrian filmmaker Yasmin Fedda is a powerful and perhaps even essential testament to those who have gone missing under the Assad regime. More than 150,000 people have vanished in the last 10 years alone; Fedda's film is a grappling with such insanities through the stories of two missing individuals and the toll it's taken on their families and friends.
Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry
Where to watch it: AppleTV+
Pop phenomenon Billie Eilish is the latest musical superstar to get her own “all access” documentary – this time on AppleTV+. Doubling as a deep dive into the making of her hugely successful 2019 album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and a meditation on modern fame and all its trappings, it's an essential work for Eilish fans, but enlightening enough to make converts, too.
Pelé
Where to watch: Netflix
As arguably the world's best footballer, Pelé has left behind a towering legacy. In this accessible, authorised documentary, now streaming on Netflix, the great man looks back at his career and wonders what it all meant… and means now. Featuring insightful, intimate interviews with Pelé himself, it's a loving portrait made for both newcomers and fans alike.
Still Streaming…
I Care a Lot
Where to watch it: Prime Video
Rosamund Pike gives a career-best performance as a heartless scam artist in this wildly entertaining thriller from filmmaker J Blakeson – one that brings new meaning to the term “American psychos.” As a timely satire on the growing industry of “elder abuse,” I Care a Lot manages to be massively gripping and hugely enlightening in equal measure, a socially-minded yarn that shines a light on America's inept approach to care work (read our full review).
The Twentieth Century
Where to watch it: MUBI
The strange life of Canada’s tenth Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, is given an even stranger biopic in this surreal and playful film from Matthew Rankin. Filmed on 16mm and Super 8, it's a singularly absurd rewriting of history that's as much about the act of experimental filmmaking as it is its subject (read our full review).
Bad Tales
Where to watch it: MUBI
The lives of several families are drawn together through their children’s tragic experiences in this grim and disturbing satire of Italian blue collar life. Directed by the D'Innocenzo brothers, Bad Tales is a beautifully shot but bleak look at modern moral decay, not to mention a powerful study of the internet's effect on young people (read our full review).
The Kiosk
Where to watch it: True Story
The last days of a Parisian newsstand are captured in this charming documentary, shot with a headcam by the artist and filmmaker Alexandra Pianelli, whose mother owns the titular kiosk. As both a joyful look into the day to day business behind a newsstand, it also doubles as a fondly melancholic portrait of the last days of print media.
News of the World
Where to watch it: Netflix
Bourne director Paul Greengrass changes lanes for this more traditionally-minded western starring Tom Hanks, who channels his everyman charm into a story of a Confederate soldier-turned-newspaper reader who must escort a young girl – played by the phenomenal Helena Zengel – home after her family are brutally murdered. Blending sweeping set-pieces, beautiful production design, and exceptional performances, it's as thrilling as it is heartwarming (read our full review).
Slalom
Where to watch it: Curzon Home Cinema
The murky world of sports abuse is sharply deconstructed in Charlène Favier’s unflinching portrait of a talented young skier and her relationship with a toxic coach. Featuring a brilliant central performance from Noée Abita, Slalom probes the dangerous “win at all costs” mentality though the lens of a female coming-of-ager (read our full review).
