Best Films to Stream This Week in the UK

With the UK in another state of 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 great documentaries to moving dramas, WeLoveCinema has you well and truly covered…

[New Releases]

One Night in Miami

Where to watch it: Prime Video

Regina King’s directorial debut centres around the fictional meeting of four Black American icons: Sam Cooke (Leslie Odom Jr.), Malcolm X (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Jim Brown (Aldis Hodge) and Cassius Clay (Eli Goree). As these esteemed figures converge in a hotel room in February 1964 – on the night the 22-year-old Clay became World Heavyweight Champion – screenwriter Kemp Powers recontextualizes our understanding of all four men and in the process creates something genuinely profound (read our full review).

Dear Comrades!

Where to watch it: Curzon Home Cinema

Russian filmmaker Andrey Konchalovsky continues his run of pictures about Russia’s past and present ills with Dear Comrades!, this time focusing on one of the most heinous – and lesser-known – crimes to have taken place in the post-Stalin Soviet state: the Novocherkassk massacre. The result is a bleak and historically weighty but undoubtably powerful chronicle of authoritarianism, the horror of which is juxtaposed with gorgeous monochrome cinematography (read our full review).

Ham on Rye

Where to watch it: MUBI

The pastel-coloured debut from writer-director Tyler Taormina is a surreal little oddity about the death of one's childhood, with shades of The Virgin Suicides and Dazed and Confused. Set in small town America, it proposes a world where the lives of teenagers are decided by way of a strange ritual. Equally a satire, a comedy and a meditation on growing up, Ham on Rye is as curious as its offbeat title suggests (read our full review).

MLK/FBI

Where to watch it: Curzon Home Cinema

This informative and arguably essential documentary aims to set the record straight on the instances of defamation faced by Martin Luther King Jr. at the hands of the FBI. Secretly made a target surveillance by the agency during his most prominent years – and up until his death – Sam Pollard's insightful film uses previously classified government documents in order to grapple with the FBI's history of harassment against Black activists (read our full review).

This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection

Where to watch it: MUBI

This mythical and enigmatic drama from filmmaker Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese is a work of stunning, kaleidoscopic originality – as vividly poetic as it is astutely level-headed in its approach to complex themes. It tells the story of an 80-year-old woman – a remarkable lead performance from Mary Twala, who sadly passed away last year – who finds her Lesotho village under threat by the construction of a reservoir, prompting her to take action.

[Still Streaming…]

Pieces of a Woman

Where to watch it: Netflix

Vanessa Kirby gives a remarkable performance in this devastating melodrama about a woman in the throes of loss, exemplified by an extraordinary 23-minute extended opening shot. As directed by the acclaimed filmmaker Kornél Mundruczó, Pieces of a Woman is a profound and dizzying study of trauma, affirming Kirby as an actor of phenomenal talent (read our full review).

Robin's Wish

Where to watch it: Various streaming services

This considered and compassionate documentary is a successful attempt to reclaim Robin Williams’ death from the tabloid rumours concerning his death. Featuring interviews with those who knew him, Robin's Wish – made in collaboration by his widow – rebukes his status as a “sad clown” and sheds light on his then undiagnosed battle with Lewy Body Dementia (read our full review).

Yellow Rose

Where to watch it: Prime Video

West End breakout Eva Noblezada makes her film debut in a stirring musical drama about a young Fillipina woman trying to make it as a country star in Texas, co-starring her fellow Miss Saigon alumni Lea Salonga, who plays her mother. Packed with music, heart, and touching on themes of immigration and citizenship, it's a small film that packs a real punch (read our full review).

The Last Blockbuster

Where to watch it: Prime Video

This affable and nostalgic documentary finds its subject in the last ever Blockbuster video store, located in Bend, Oregon, and offers a much-needed look at a far simpler time. For those too young to remember… well, The Last Blockbuster grants an equally fascinating window into a world before instant streaming. Can you imagine? (read our full review).