Each week on Polygon, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.
This week, Flow, the Golden Globe-winning animated feature from director Gints Zilbalodis, washes ashore to purchase on VOD. There’s tons of other exciting releases on VOD this week too, like the apocalyptic musical The End starring Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon, as well as two harrowing documentaries in the form of Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat and Black Box Diaries. In terms of this week’s new streaming options, we’ve got a French action thriller on Netflix, a documentary about the supernatural on Max, and a horror comedy starring Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) on Shudder.
Here’s everything new that’s available to watch this weekend!
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Genre: Action thriller
Run time: 1h 35m
Director: Rodolphe Lauga
Cast: Guillaume Canet, Nassim Lyes, Stéphane Caillard
After surviving an attempt on his life, Franck Lazareff is hounded by mysterious men from his past to once again work on their behalf in exchange for his wife’s safe return. Caught between his criminal past and his life as a police officer, Franck must make difficult choices and overcome incredible odds to protect his loved ones.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Max
Image: A24
Genre: Documentary
Run time: 1h 45m
Director: Lana Wilson
This documentary explores the psychology of psychics, documenting a group of practitioners in New York City as they conduct intimate readings with their clients. Less a pointed examination of the veracity of their supernatural inclinations than a portrait of mourning and the myriad ways it manifests, Look Into My Eyes is an affecting and touching film that is one of the best documentaries of the year.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Paramount Plus
Image: Paramount Plus
Genre: Documentary
Run time: 1h 42m
Director: Shiori Itō
In 2017, Japanese journalist Shiori Itō accused a media executive with prominent ties to the Japanese prime minister of raping her. Black Box Diaries chronicles Itō’s real-time investigation into her own assault, the subsequent media scandal that ensued, and her struggle to navigate the country’s antiquated sex crime laws in pursuit of justice.
Where to watch: Available to stream on Shudder and AMC Plus
Genre: Horror comedy
Run time: 1h 26m
Director: Steffen Haars
Cast: Nick Frost, Aisling Bea, Sebastian Croft
A quirky family takes a well-deserved vacation to a remote island. What could go wrong? Well, as the characters in Get Away, the new horror comedy from director Steffen Haars, soon find out, there’s a serial killer loose and looking for their next victims. The film stars Nick Frost, known for his iconic turn in Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, alongside Aisling Bea (This Way Up).
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Image: Janus Films
Genre: Adventure
Run time: 1h 25m
Director: Gints Zilbalodis
Animator Gints Zilbalodis’ feature debut took home the Golden Globe award for Best Animated Motion Picture this past weekend, and it’s not hard to see why. Aside from being a visually marvelous spectacle sans any dialogue, it’s also, as my colleague Petrana Radulovic puts it, a “vivid tale of loss, survival, and renewal.” Flow centers on a black cat navigating the post-apocalyptic ruins of a world engulfed by a flood aboard a boat piloted by a capybara. If that doesn’t sound like a good time, I don’t know what does.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Genre: Apocalyptic musical
Run time: 2h 28m
Director: Joshua Oppenheimer
Cast: Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon, George MacKay
The Act of Killing director Joshua Oppenheimer movies from documentary to fiction in style. This sci-fi musical centers on an eccentric and wealthy family who, two decades following an apocalyptic event, live in a luxurious secluded home converted from a salt mine. Having never seen the outside world, the lone scion of the family’s (George MacKay) beliefs are shaken by the mysterious appearance of a woman (Moses Ingram) from the surface.
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Genre: Documentary thriller
Run time: 1h 25m
Director: Asif Kapadia
Cast: Samantha Morton, Naomi Ackie, Hector Hewer
Inspired by Chris Marker’s 1962 dystopian featurette La Jetée, Asif Kapadia’s documentary-fiction hybrid centers on a scavenger (Samantha Morton) in an apocalyptic future sifting through her memories of the past. It hasn’t exactly gotten particularly good reviews, but the premise sounds interesting enough to warrant a watch, at the very least.
Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Genre: Documentary
Run time: 2h 30m
Director: Johan Grimonprez
This documentary (also one of the best of the year) chronicles the political machinations behind the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the prime minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, whose uranium became a contested resource amid the Cold War. After learning that their diplomatic envoy to Africa served as a smokescreen for a covert post-colonial coup, jazz ambassadors including Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, John Coltrane, and Nina Simone wrestle with the contradiction of representing a country where institutional segregation reigns supreme.
