Oscar season may be over, but movie season never ends.
This week is relatively light on new releases available to watch at home, but there are still plenty of options to check out across the various streaming services. There are three new Netflix releases — a documentary about Pornhub, a French revenge thriller, and an animated adventure — an Oscar-nominated movie making its way to Prime Video, an Oscar-winning movie at a discounted rental price, and plenty more.
The big highlight is likely Cocaine Bear, the meme movie that could, which makes its VOD debut this week toward the tail end of its theatrical run.
Let’s get into the options.
New to Netflix
In His Shadow
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Netflix
Genre: Crime drama
Run time: 1h 29m
Director: Marc Fouchard
Cast: Kaaris, Alassane Diong, Carl Malapa
This French drama bears some resemblance to Athena, one of the best movies of 2022 and Netflix’s best original release of the year. In His Shadow, like Athena, sees brothers clash on opposite sides of a violent conflict. This time, it occurs after the death of their father. Will it be able to match Athena’s kinetic pacing and explosive tension? You’ll have to check it out yourself to find out (but please, watch Athena)!
The Magician’s Elephant
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Netflix
Genre: Fantasy adventure
Run time: 1h 39m
Director: Wendy Rogers
Cast: Miranda Richardson, Brian Tyree Henry, Natasia Demetriou
Based on Kate DiCamillo’s 2009 novel, this animated adventure follows a young boy searching for his missing sister, and the tasks he must complete (and the elephant he must follow) to find her.
Money Shot: The Pornhub Story
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Netflix
Genre: Documentary
Run time: 1h 34m
Director: Suzanne Hillinger
Cast: Asa Akira, Siri Dahl, Cherie DeVille
Pornhub: You know what it is; I know what it is. Let’s not pretend that we don’t — it’s right there in the name — and choose to be adults about it instead of a gaggle of reptilian-brained adolescent shitposters who can’t so much as catch sight of someone they find attractive without devolving into the catcalling cartoon wolf from Red Hot Riding Hood, shall we?
This documentary from filmmaker Suzanne Hillinger (Totally Under Control) charts the rise of the eponymous adult entertainment platform and the recent controversy and abuse allegations that have dogged the website and its community.
From our review:
It’s essentially a get-out-the-horny-vote exercise, trying to persuade the people who enjoy porn to throw their political support behind the people who make it. It’s titillation with a side of radicalization. And if any teenagers whose folks have installed parental controls on their computers do watch this documentary late at night with the volume turned down, they’ll learn more about workers seizing the means of production than they learn about sex — which is far more dangerous to the powers that be than any bare breasts or asses.
New to Prime
Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
Where to watch: Available to watch on Prime
Photo: Liam Daniel/Ada Films
Genre: Comedy
Run time: 1h 55m
Director: Anthony Fabian
Cast: Lesley Manville, Isabelle Huppert, Lambert Wilson
The Oscar-nominated (for Best Costume Design) third adaptation of the 1958 novel stars Lesley Manville, Isabelle Huppert, and Lambert Wilson. Manville is Mrs. Harris, a cleaning lady and a widow who receives a long-delayed sum of money from her husband’s death in World War II. She decides to use it to go on an adventure to Paris, with a particular focus on Dior dresses, a fascination of hers. After a few months on Peacock, the movie has now moved to Prime Video.
New to Hulu
Boston Strangler
Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu
Image: Hulu
Genre: Historical crime drama
Run time: 1h 52m
Director: Matt Ruskin
Cast: Keira Knightley, Carrie Coon, Chris Cooper
Based on a true story, Boston Strangler follows two female reporters who connect dots others can’t about an ongoing serial killer case, all while fighting against misogyny both in American culture and in their workplace.
New to HBO Max
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed
Where to watch: Available to stream on HBO Max
Image: Nan Goldin
Genre: Documentary
Run time: 2h 2m
Director: Laura Poitras
Cast: Nan Goldin, Patrick Radden Keefe, Megan Kapler
Laura Poitras’ Oscar-nominated documentary explores the life of Nan Goldin, an American photographer and activist who led a campaign against the Sackler family, a pharmaceutical dynasty that is widely cited as one of the main architects behind the opioid crisis.
New to Shudder
Leave
Where to watch: Available to stream on Shudder
Image: AMC
Genre: Horror
Run time: 1h 46m
Director: Alex Herron
Cast: Alicia von Rittberg, Herman Tømmeraas, Stig R. Amdam
This horror movie from Norwegian music video director Alex Herron opens with a police officer discovering an infant child abandoned in a cemetery, draped in a shawl decorated with pentagrams and with an upside-down cross hanging around its neck. Twenty years later, the child — a young woman named Hunter (Alicia von Rittberg) follows a lead to Norway in search of her birth parents. What she finds instead is a terror beyond anything she has ever imagined.
New to VOD
Cocaine Bear
Where to watch: Available to rent for $19.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Universal Pictures
Genre: Comedy horror
Run time: 1h 35m
Director: Elizabeth Banks
Cast: Keri Russell, Alden Ehrenreich, O’Shea Jackson Jr.
The whole internet loves Cocaine Bear, or “Cokey,” the lovely bear who ate 70 pounds of cocaine that fell out of a plane into the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest. …We regret to inform you that the bear has started killing and eating people.
The Whale
Where to watch: Available to rent for $5.99 on Amazon, Apple; $4.99 on Vudu
Photo: Niko Tavernise/A24
Genre: Drama
Run time: 1h 57m
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Cast: Brendan Fraser, Sadie Sink, Ty Simpkins
Newly minted as an Oscar winner (Brendan Fraser for Best Actor; Best Makeup and Hairstyling), The Whale is now available for a reduced rental price.
From our review:
In The Whale, Aronofsky posits his sadism as an intellectual experiment, challenging viewers to find the humanity buried under Charlie’s thick layers of fat. That’s not as benevolent of a premise as he seems to think it is. It proceeds from the assumption that a 600-pound man is inherently unlovable. It’s like walking up to a stranger on the street and saying, “You’re an abomination, but I love you anyway,” in keeping with the strong strain of self-satisfied Christianity that the film purports to critique. Audience members get to walk away proud of themselves that they shed a few tears for this disgusting whale, while gaining no new insight into what it’s actually like to be that whale. That’s not empathy. That’s pity, buried under a thick, smothering layer of contempt.
A Man Called Otto
Where to watch: Available to rent for $5.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Niko Tavernise/Columbia Pictures
Genre: Dramedy
Run time: 2h 6m
Director: Marc Forster
Cast: Tom Hanks, Mariana Treviño, Rachel Keller
Tom Hanks plays against type in this comedy-drama adaptation of Fredrik Backman’s 2012 Swedish novel A Man Called Ove as a grumpy, lonely widower who — against his own antisocial nature — inadvertently sparks a friendship with his new next-door neighbor and their child. Fair warning: This comedy features plenty of gags about suicide attempts.
Unwelcome
Where to watch: Available to rent for $6.99 on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Well Go USA Entertainment
Genre: Folk horror
Run time: 1h 44m
Director: Jon Wright
Cast: Hannah John-Kamen, Douglas Booth, Colm Meaney
A home invasion movie inspired by Grimm fairy tales, Unwelcome follows a married couple that moves from London to rural Ireland, only to be terrorized by murderous redcaps — goblins of British folklore.