MidWk Updates: IndieWire’s Best Movies to Stream…

“Time” (Garrett Bradley, 2020)

Swirled together from decades’ worth of MiniDV tapes that a Black Lousiana woman named Sibil Fox Richardson recorded for her husband as she waited for him to be released from prison, Garrett Bradley’s monumental and enormously moving “Time” only needs 81 minutes to convey 21 years of loss and longing. And while the documentary never reduces its subjects to mere symbols of the oppression they represent — the film couldn’t be more personal, and it builds to a moment of such unvarnished intimacy that you can hardly believe what you’re watching — Bradley’s Tralfamadorian editing flattens time in a way that contextualizes mass incarceration on the largest of continuums.

“Time” in name and timeless in style, this liquid history streams centuries of subjugation into a single confluence of dehumanization until Black slavery and the prison-industrial complex become two separate brooks that feed into the same river. This film is one of the few great treasures of 2020. 

Available to stream October 16.

“On the Rocks” (Sofia Coppola, 2020)

As smooth as a block of ice melting into a martini at the 21 Club, Sofia Coppola’s fizzy cocktail of a father-daughter stars Rashida Jones as a Manhattan author who fears that her husband (Marlon Wayans) is cheating, and Bill Murray as her perma-bachelor dad who drops in and offers to help her stalk her spouse. From that screwball premise, “On the Rocks” melts into a furtive sip of a story about an iconoclast taking stock of her artistic currency at a time when most of her life is spent packing lunches and arranging playdates (thanks for the help, Dean).

It’s the first Sofia Coppola movie that occasionally feels as if it could have been made by somebody else, and yet at the same time, it also plays like the loose and tipsy self-portrait of a maturing filmmaker being visited by the ghost of her greatest success (in this case “Lost in Translation,” which echoes through this film beyond the casting of Bill Murray). Best of all, it’s an accidental time capsule of a New York gone by — a city that so many of us miss living in, and not just looking at from our windows. 

Available to stream October 23.

“Vitalina Varela” (Pedro Costa, 2019)

As with every month on the Criterion Channel, October brings a true embarrassment of riches. First — if not necessarily foremost — the service isn’t slacking when it comes to seasonal fare, as its ’70s horror collection is absolutely stacked with masterpieces (“Don’t Look Now” and “Ganja & Hess” come to mind), grimy classics (David Cronenberg’s “The Brood”), and merciless cult favorites that still sting some 50 years after they first debuted (“Black Christmas,” “The Wicker Man”). The “Women of New World Pictures” series offers some additional Halloween treats, including “Slumber Party Massacre” and Stephanie Rothman’s “The Velvet Vampire.” 

For the three people out there who haven’t completely succumbed to the existential dread that has eaten the rest of us alive from the inside out, go ahead and take a gander at the “Watching the Polls” series, which consists of “Primary,” “Shampoo,” and “The War Room” (all excellent if you’ve got the stomach for it). For the less masochistic types, you could lose yourself until Election Day in the “Starring Joan Crawford” series, which runs the gamut from “The Unknown” in 1927 to “Trog” in 1970 or dive into guest programmer Ashley Clark’s essential series “Race, Sex and Cinema: The World of Marlon Riggs,” which highlights the vital and long-overlooked film work of the Black gay-rights activist, poet, and professor. Start with 1986’s “Ethnic Notions” and push forward through the AIDS crisis from there. 

It’s hard to highlight a single movie from a slate-like this (I haven’t even mentioned the tight New Korean Cinema package, which groups together familiar but unmissable modern classics like “Mother” and “Lady Vengeance”), but with the new release tap basically dry for the rest of the year, it’s worth highlighting a 2020 title that may have slipped under the radar. In addition to four other films by the great Portuguese auteur Pedro Costa, the Criterion Channel is providing the exclusive streaming home of his latest (and possibly greatest) chiaroscuro still life: “Vitalina Varela.”

Winner of the Golden Leopard at Locarno last year and a critical sensation when it opened here a little while before the world stopped, Costa’s film follows its namesake as she arrives in Lisbon three days after her husband’s death, and tries to piece together what happened in her absence. 

Available to stream October 1.

“Mr. Holland’s Opus” (Stephen Herek, 1995)

They really don’t make ’em like they used to. Stephen Harek’s would-be symphony of Oscar bait earned Richard Dreyfuss an Academy Award nomination for his tense, determined performance as a public high school music teacher — a $31 million dollar movie about a public high school music teacher! — but “Mr. Holland’s Opus” was always meant to play the long game.

Like its namesake, this sweet and sweeping old-fashioned American melodrama left an impression on the generation of kids who saw it back in the day, and now some of those kids have kids of their own and might find themselves singing a version of “beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful… Cooooooleee” late some nights. Hypothetically. Even if you don’t have a taste for the saccharine stuff, this movie is worth it for the late Glenne Headly (and the early William H. Macy) alone. 

Available to stream October 2. 

“The Wild Goose Lake” (Diao Yinan, 2019)

An invigorating, poetic, and sometimes brilliant Chinese noir that adds up to slightly less than the sum of its parts, Diao Yinan’s “The Wild Goose Lake” can’t help but feel like a mild comedown from the director’s “Black Coal, Thin Ice” (a Berlinale-winning 2014 neo-noir that has since thawed into one of the best films of its decade). But if Diao’s follow-up doesn’t have quite the same power, it’s still an arresting piece of work that finds the director once again steering his bleak genius towards the bitter indignities of China’s “second-tier” cities and weaving a sibylline crime story of life and death through a world that’s moving too fast to keep tabs on such things. 

The premise is enough to get you started: A handsome mob boss with a bloody cut on his face meets a beautiful woman with a pixie haircut outside a dilapidated train station — neon-soaked violence ensues. Some may struggle to stay with the story as it fans out from there, but even those who get lost along the way will leave with a new appreciation for one of the most visually arresting filmmakers in the world today. 

Available to stream October 23.

“John Lewis: Good Trouble” (Dawn Porter, 2020)

This is an article about the “best” new films coming to streaming platforms this month, but we’d be remiss in our duties as a reputable source of entertainment news and analysis if we didn’t inform you that “Cats” — sure to be the year’s scariest movie for the second consecutive year — is pouncing onto HBO Max on October 10.

On a more productive and aspiration note, don’t miss the chance to watch Dawn Porter’s essential documentary tribute to one of the most indomitable American heroes we lost this year: “John Lewis: Good Trouble.” “If America had its own path to sainthood,” IndieWire’s Eric Kohn wrote in his review (which was published just a few weeks before Lewis’ death), “John Lewis would have made it there long ago. The 80-year-old Civil Rights icon and congressman has navigated decisive American moments with superhuman finesse, making him a natural cinematic character. Dawn Porter’s absorbing film doesn’t try any fancy trickery to energize that saga, instead deriving its appeal from the sheer resilience of the change agent at its center. At a more stable moment for American society, ‘Good Trouble’ might not register as much more than a hagiographic celebration. Yet context is everything. The movie acknowledges the Trump administration, but never wastes a frame on the reality star cartoon who occupies the Oval Office or bothers with the inane epithets he’s hurled at Lewis in recent years. Instead, it emphasizes the consistency with which Lewis has fought the establishment and combated racism through some of the tumultuous moments in American history.”

Available to stream October 27.

“Bad Hair” (Justin Simien, 2020)

After parlaying his film “Dear White People” into one of the most essential shows on Netflix, Justin Simien is spreading his wings and pivoting towards horror with the same wit and social commentary that he’s brought to everything else he’s made so far. Here’swhat IndieWire’s Eric Kohn had to say about “Bad Hair” after its Sundance debut this January, 10,000 years ago:  

“Equal parts vintage Brian De Palma thriller and race-centric corporate fashion satire in the spirit of ‘Putney Swope,’ Simien’s ludicrous ’80s-spiced supernatural B-movie doesn’t know when to quit, much like the demonic weave at its center. At least it’s a substantial mess: ‘Bad Hair’ opens with a James Baldwin quote, digs into the contradictions of the nascent music video industry, and bemoans the sexism of late-’80s workplace — all before tackling the specter of slavery that frames the entire premise. At the same time, it’s a riotous genre pastiche filled with shrieking music cues, canted angles, and shadowy encounters galore. Simien crams the wild psychological thrills of “Body Double” into the framework for wry anti-capitalist humor, and that’s appealing enough in fits at starts.”  

Available to stream October 23.

“The Babadook” (Jennifer Kent, 2014)

IFC Films Unlimited is a bottomless well of scary movies all year long (the IFC Midnight library alone puts the platform severed neck and severed neck with Shudder), but the streamer isn’t resting on its laurels this Halloween. In addition to a deep bench of gory classics, IFC Unlimited has asked legendary genre actress Barbara Crampton (“Re-Animator”) to program a handful of personal favorites. Her picks range from under-appreciated gems like “A Dark Song” to Fantastic Fest breakouts like “The Autopsy of Jane Doe,” but at the end of the day there’s just no beating “The Babadook.”  

One of the most harrowingly accurate movies ever made about living with grief and the guilt that comes with it, Jennifer Kent’s “The Babadook” leverages dozens of traditional horror tropes into a wrenching portrait of the human pain to which no other genre has such immediate access. Anchored by Essie Davis’ unforgettable turn as a single mother who’s still living in the shadow of her husband’s death, Kent’s brilliant debut feature uses terror as a way to plunge deeper into its heroine’s heartache. The Babadook itself is a marvel (and a burgeoning gay icon?), the amorphous creature popping out from the pages of a mysterious children’s book to wreak all sorts of Rorschach-like havoc on the poor Australian woman who brought it into her home. Yes, the monster is a clear metaphor for depression, but few films have so viscerally realized the residual agony of loss, and how it can never be fully extinguished. 

Available to stream October 1.

“RBG” (Julie Cohen & Betsy West, 2018)

A nice way to remember what justice looked like. 

Available to stream October 1.

“Monsters” (Gareth Edwards, 2010)

Low-budget horror movies don’t have to feel small. Case in point: Gareth Edwards’ “Monsters,” which earned him the chance to go on and make the best “Godzilla” since the original. Here’s what IndieWire’s Kate Erbland had to say about the film when it placed on our list of the Best Monster Movies of the 21st Century.

“But what does the world look like after the alien invasion? After the fire in the sky, the interlopers arriving, the attack, the war, the fall? After, well, the monsters arrive and make something even more terrifying than the seeming worst — global war — their raison d’être: They ain’t leaving. In Gareth Edwards’ feature debut, we open on a world forever changed by the previous arrival of those titular monsters, long after the battles have been fought and lost, but not nearly long enough for anyone to forget what the world was like before.

Stuck between the U.S. and Mexico — talk about a border control issue — the quarantined zone is a fearful reminder of everything people still don’t know, and everything that could be threatened. As seemingly cliched characters like The Cynical Reporter (Scoot McNairy) and The Silly Rich Girl (Whitney Able) are tossed together, the full scope of the terror and fear blossoms, made all the more jarring by what we already know, that the monsters are real. Part adventure story, part nightmare, ‘Monsters’ eventually flips back on itself, allowing humanity and its own flaws to be laid bare, just as our human characters are revealing themselves to be perhaps the last generation worth saving. The monsters light up the night, but the fear can’t ever abate.”

Available to stream October 20.

“Creepy” (Kurosawa Kiyoshi, 2016)

Every streamer is representing Halloween season in its own way, and the ever-eclectic and high-minded MUBI is keeping things on-brand with a series dedicated to some of the recent works of J-horror godhead Kurosawa Kiyoshi (“Cure,” “Pulse”). Kurosawa has ventured far afield from straightforward horror in recent years — the new “Wife of a Spy” is proof of that — but virtually all of his work has touched on the disquiet of modernity in one form or another. From the made-for-TV epic “Penance” to the slow-burn nightmare of “Creepy” (our appropriately titled pick of the month) and even the wacky short “Beautiful New Bay Area Project” (why not?), the better of the films that Kurosawa has made over the last 10 years touch on a kind of dread that gets under your skin before you can even feel it working on you. 

Available to stream October 12.

“Dick Johnson Is Dead” (Kirsten Johnson, 2020)

It’s hard to fathom how non-fiction stalwart Kirsten Johnson found a way to make a film that feels even more personal than her ultra-absorbing “Cameraperson” (which she stitched together from the leftover footage she had from decades of film shoots), but “Dick Johnson Is Dead” would be hard to fathom under any circumstances. A playful, bittersweet elegy for a man who’s still with us, Johnson’s poignant and mordantly hilarious new documentary finds her trying to make peace with her father’s imminent death… by staging elaborate visions of how the frail old man could die.

“That concept could easily devolve into a navel-gazing exercise,” IndieWire’s Eric Kohn wrote in his rave review from Sundance, “but Johnson enacts a touching and funny meditation on embracing life and fearing death at the same time.” It’s one of the best movies of the year — don’t miss it.

Available to stream October 2.

“Scare Me” (Josh Ruben, 2020)

For any horror fans who aren’t already subscribing to Shudder, it goes without saying that October is the best time to sign up; for one thing, no other streaming platform will give you as much Vincent Price for your buck (this month’s offerings include “The Masque of the Red Death,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and Douglas Hickox’s “Theatre of Blood”). For those looking for something a bit more recent, Shudder is adding the likes of Ted Geoghegan’s smart and gnarly “Mohawk,” Timo Tjahjanto’s hot-off-the-presses sequel “May the Devil Take You Too,” and the exclusive premiere of Josh Ruben’s micro-budget Sundance breakout “Scare Me,” in which the filmmaker co-stars with Aya Cash as two frustrated writers who find themselves trapped in a remote cabin and start trading horror stories to see who can freak the other out; the result is a lo-fi celebration of the dark corridors of our own imaginations. 

Available to stream October 2.