Every week at Polygon, we round up the most notable new releases for streaming and VOD, and highlight the biggest and best new movies to watch at home.
This week, The Bikeridersthe new crime drama starring Jodie Comer (The last duel) and Austin Butler (Dune: Part Two), coming to VOD alongside The kingdom of the planet of the apes and several other exciting new releases. That’s not all — there are plenty more movies new to stream this weekend, like the hybrid animated period drama The farmers on Netflix, the sci-fi drama The animal kingdom on Hulu, a documentary about the life and career of actress Faye Dunaway on Max, and much more.
Here’s everything new to check out this weekend!
New on Netflix
The farmers
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Image: Breakthru Films/Sony Pictures Classics
Genre: Animated historical drama
Playing time: 1h 54m
Directors: DK Welchman, Hugh Welchman
Form: Kamila Urzedowska, Robert Gulaczyk, Miroslaw Baka
Loving Vincent Directing duo DK Welchman and Hugh Welchman return with another period drama made up of thousands of hand-painted images. Set in a 19th-century Polish village filled with strife and gossip, a young woman named Jagna desperately strives to create a life for herself that will exceed the expectations of those around her.
New on Hulu
The animal kingdom
Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu
Image: Release magnet
Genre: Science fiction
Playing time: 2h 10m
Director: Thomas Cailley
Form: Romain Duris, Paul Kircher, Adèle Exarchopoulos
In a world where humans have been struck by a genetic mutation that transforms them into animal hybrids, a desperate father (Romain Duris) takes his son (Paul Kircher) to search for his wife, who has disappeared into a nearby forest along with other similarly affected hybrids. Think Sweet tooth meets The lobsterPolygon had the chance to speak with Cailey about the film’s origins and creature design.
New on Max
Faye
Where to watch: Available to stream on Maximum
Genre: Documentary
Playing time: 1h 31m
Director: Laurent Bouzereau
This documentary looks back at the life and career of Faye Dunaway, the Academy Award-winning actress known for her iconic performances in films such as Bonnie and Clyde, NetworkAnd ChinatownBouzereau’s film features testimony from Dunaway’s colleagues and admirers, as well as extensive interviews with Dunaway himself.
New on Prime Video
Divorce in black
Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime video
Image: Prime Video
Genre: Drama
Playing time: 2h 23m
Director: Tyler Perry
Form: Meagan Good, Cory Hardrict, Joseph Lee Anderson
Tyler Perry’s latest film follows a young banking professional whose husband leaves her. Initially determined to fight for their marriage, she soon realizes that her husband once sabotaged her chance at true love.
New on Shudder
Arcadian
Where to watch: Available to stream on Shudder
Photo: Patrick Redmond/RLJE Films
Genre: Action horror
Playing time: 1h 31m
Director: Benjamin Brouwer
Form: Nicolas Cage, Jaeden Martell, Maxwell Jenkins
If you’ve already seen Nicolas Cage in Long legsHere’s another Cageian drama for you. The actor plays a father of two sons desperate to protect and raise his family in a near-future Earth decimated by the arrival of a ferocious nocturnal creature. When their father is injured by one of these creatures, his sons must band together and draw on every lesson of their training to survive.
From our review:
But once the action really gets going, Cage is largely absent, and muddy spatial relationships and confusing, hard-to-watch action sap a significant percentage of the power from what should be an explosive final act. And once the film settles into a fairly standard chase-and-fight movie, the lack of any more character depth or nuance, or more compelling relationships between the protagonists, limits what the filmmakers can do to make this story stand out among all the previous works it references. Arcadian does a few things remarkably well for a sci-fi/horror film, but it needed a lot more to really shine: more dedication to its vaguely developed setting, more energy between its two very different brothers at the center, and, above all, more Nicolas Cage — any version of him.
New for rent
Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
Where to watch: Available to rent at Amazon, Appleand Vudu
Image: 20th Century Studios
Genre: Post-apocalyptic science fiction
Playing time: 2h 25m
Director: Wes Bal
Form: Owen Teague, Freya Allan, Kevin Durand
The story takes place 300 years after the events of Matt Reeves War of the Planet of the ApesThis new installment in the franchise follows Noa (Owen Teague), a young ape who journeys to save his tribe from Proximus Caesar (Kevin Durand), a maniacal ape who has twisted Caesar’s legacy to create an empire built on conquest and slavery.
From our review:
Like a story, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes rarely achieves more than its narrative competence. But because of the almost singular focus on the apes, the technical prowess in their rendering always takes center stage. It’s nothing short of incredible what the team at Wētā FX have done in collaboration with all of the film’s other effects artists to bring the apes to life, giving them each their own distinctive body language and faithfully translating every twitch and subtle expression of the actors onto their faces. These are some of the most soulful digital creations ever seen in a blockbuster action film, and it’s incredible to see them in a film so mundane.
The Bikeriders
Where to watch: Available to rent at Amazon, Appleand Vudu
Image: 20th Century Studios
Genre: Crime drama
Playing time: 1h 56m
Director: Jeff Nichols
Form: Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Tom Hardy
The Bikeriders follows a motorcycle club over the course of a decade as they evolve from a casual gathering of enthusiasts into a hardened gang. Jodie Comer plays Kathy, a young woman who finds herself caught up in the world of biker gangs after meeting the hotheaded Benny (Austin Butler).
From our review:
The Bikeriders is a film full of old-fashioned, simple pleasures: great music, perfect costumes, myth-making shots, and a cast of great character actors who really go for it. (Including, but not limited to, Michael Shannon, West Side Story‘s Mike Faist, Justified(‘s Damon Herriman, and a completely unrecognizable Norman Reedus as a rugged California wild-man biker.) It’s a film about looking at the beautiful, unknowable people on screen — and that one beautiful, unknowable person in particular — just as Hardy’s character does at one point with Marlon Brando in The wildand think: What would it be like to are them?
The Exorcism
Where to watch: Available to rent at Amazon, Appleand Vudu
Image: Vertical Entertainment
Genre: Horror thriller
Playing time: 1h 35m
Director: Joshua John Miller
Form: Russell Crowe, Ryan Simpkins, Sam Worthington
Russell Crowe plays an actor on the set of a supernatural horror film that resembles the original expulsion film. His mental state slowly deteriorates and as his behavior becomes more erratic, his daughter begins to suspect a more sinister cause than his previous drug addictions.
The Garfield Movie
Where to watch: Available to rent at Amazon, Appleand Vudu
Image: Sony Pictures
Genre: Adventure comedy
Playing time: 1h 41m
Director: Mark Dindal
Form: Chris Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson, Hannah Waddingham
It’s Chris Pratt! As Garfield! The lazy orange cat reunites with his long-lost father Vic (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson, of all people). Together with Odie, Vic and Garfield plan a farm robbery so they can steal lots of milk to appease the Persian cat crime boss Vic works for. The film is directed by Mark Dindal, best known for the emperor’s new groove.
The Convert
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Appleand Vudu
Image: MBK Productions/Magnolia Pictures
Genre: Historical drama
Playing time: 1h 59m
Director: Lee Tamahori
Form: Guy Pearce, Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne, Antonio Te Maioha
In this historical drama, a preacher comes to a remote New Zealand outpost — only to find himself in the middle of a war between Māori tribes. It is based on the 2011 novel Wolves by New Zealand author Hamish Clayton.
Wild cat
Image: Renovo Media Group/Oscilloscope Laboratories
Genre: Biographical drama
Playing time: 1h 43m
Director: Ethan Hawke
Form: Maya Hawke, Rafael Casal, Philip Ettinger
Maya Hawke (Strange things) stars in her father Ethan Hawke’s latest film: a biographical drama focusing on the life and struggles of the inimitable Southern Gothic author Flannery O’Connor. Wild cat follows O’Connor’s efforts to publish her first novel, interspersed with episodes reenacting characters and scenes inspired by the author’s own short stories.