If Beale Street Could Talk, 1942s Cat People, Road House, Varda by Agnes, and more are available to stream on Peacock Halloween this year.
Here are 24 of the best new streaming platforms in September 2022.
Buckaroo Banzai's 8th Dimension Adventures
W.D. Richter, an Oscar-nominated screenwriter (1978s Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Big Trouble in Little China), has only directed two feature films. The first, the eccentric sci-fi film Buckaroo Banzai, was self-produced and performed so poorly that Richter's newly formed production company folded.
Buckaroo Banzai is a delightfully odd film that only gets better with time, especially as the American film industry increasingly shifts toward franchise filmmaking. It's also the one and only entry (other than a follow-up book from writer Earl Mac Rauch, published in 2021) that propels you right into the middle of a long-running and (slightly confusing) story.
Dr. Buckaroo Banzai (Peter Weller), a world-famous rock star, physicist, neurosurgeon, and pilot, attracts a group of people who join him in his adventures (including a young Jeff Goldblum as New Jersey, a doctor who wears cowboy outfits).
Buckaroo Banzai's Adventures in the 8th Dimension is now available for streaming on Prime Video.
Army of Darkness
This is the third film in Sam Raimi's excellent Evil Dead series that leans heavily towards horror-comedy. Bruce Campbells Ash Williams has gone back in time to the Middle Ages, and must navigate back to the present day with his chainsaw arm (and his wiles).
Peacock has the option to stream Army of Darkness.
Beau Travail
Denis Lavant (Holy Motors) plays Galoup, a French Foreign Legion officer serving in Djibouti, who is disturbed by a promising young recruit named Gilles Sentain (Gregoire Colin) in a loose adaptation of Herman Melvilles' 1888 novella Billy Budd.
Beau Travail, a beautiful and moving film set in the perspective of a now-discharged and disgraced Galoup, is brimming with potent, barely repressed sensuality. The trio of compelling lead performances coupled with visually striking and serene cinematography culminates in a final scene with an unbridled display of pure emotional joy that will leave you in awe.
Beau Travail is now available for streaming on HBO Max and Criterion Channels.
Cat People
The classic 1942 horror film by Jacques Tourneurs is a dark and sexy tale about a woman (Simone Simon) who believes that if she is ever sexually stimulated, she will become a murderous monster. When she falls in love with a marine engineer (Kent Smith), she must reconcile her desires with her beliefs.
The film opens with a tense sequence in which one character stalks another. Tourneur escalates the tension to an unbelievable level before surprising the audience with the sudden appearance of a bus. The sequence led to a technique named the Lewton Bus after producer Val Lewton, and it is often considered the originator of the modern jump scare.
Cat People is now available for HBO Max users.
Chronicle
Chronicle, a 2012 found-footage sci-fi film, stars Dane DeHaan (The Amazing Spider-Man 2), Alex Russell (Unbroken), and Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther), who are three high school friends who gain superpowers after discovering an extraterrestrial object hidden underground. One of the boys falls into a vicious bipolar state, and his group must join together to stop him.
Chronicle is now available for streaming on Hulu.
The Ghost and the Darkness
Beast, a recent creature feature directed by Idris Elba, got us thinking about two things: first, how nice it is to have sharp, economical thrillers; and second, how powerful and star-studded historical adventure The Ghost and the Darkness rules.
Without the pulp-thriller intensity in the movies, everything would feel dry and literary, atop the bridge on the River Kwai-style literary ambitions. Except for a few gimmicky shots with dummies, their physical interactions with fragile human bodies are real and graphic. Even if Hopkins and Goldman do fall into the familiar man-versus-nature movie trap (also seen, frankly, in Jaws), their lions become more believable.
On Prime Video, The Ghost and the Darkness is available for viewing.
Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Season of the Witch is a disturbing and surprising meditation on the way goods are distributed to children, with a haunting score by John Carpenter.
In our Halloween movies countdown for 2021, Toussaint put it this way:
Halloween III: Season of the Witch is a haunting horror film directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, a longtime collaborator and friend of John Carpenter and the films sole screenwriter: Stonehenge, robots, masks that engulf human flesh and engulf insects, beer, and a history lesson on the origins of Halloween. It's a film that, like Knives Outs Benoit Blanc, is a filmmaker who works to test their abilities before they break.
TV It rots your brain! PV
Peacock has the ability to stream Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
I Saw the Devil
I Saw the Devil is the perfect film for a brutal serial murder revenge exercise. Lee Byung-hun (Squid Game, Joint Security Area) plays Kim Soo-hyun, an officer in the National Intelligence Service who is on a one-man mission of vengeance to torture Jang Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik) the serial killer responsible for killing his pregnant wife.
I Saw the Devil is now available for streaming on Prime Video.
If Beale Street Could Talk
If Beale Street Could Talk, by Barry Jenkins, is a hauntingly tender and beautiful story of hope and freedom deferred by institutional racism and the malicious indifference of the carceral state. KiKi Layne plays Clementine Tish Rivers, a young woman who falls in love with her childhood friend Alonzo Fonny Hunt (Stephan James) and becomes pregnant with his child.
If Beale Street Could Talk, a film about Tish's parents, ends their dreams for the future. Fonny is wrongly accused of rape and is sentenced to prison.
Netflix has a service available to stream If Beale Street Could Talk.
Land of the Dead
Land of the Dead, a standout film from George Romeros' regular Night of the Living Dead franchise, tackles class conflict head on. Set in a postapocalyptic Pittsburgh ruled with an iron fist by Dennis Hopper in a high-rise apartment, the film follows an organized zombie assault on the city and the efforts to protect it. PV
On Peacock, Land of the Dead is available for streaming.
Let the Right One In
This Swedish adaptation of a 2004 novel was later remade into a Hollywood film in 2010. The original is the one you should see.
Let the Right One In, a coming-of-age story about a 12-year-old boy who becomes best friends with a girl he discovers is a vampire, is a beautiful contemporary classic.
On Prime Video, Let the Right One In is available for streaming.
Road House
Jake Gyllenhaal and Conor McGregor are collaborating on a new UFC-focused Road House. That's what it is, but what it doesn't change is how fantastic the original is.
Patrick Swayze is a sensitive and quite zen bouncer who is a student of philosophy, but the owner of a seedy club pays Dalton a lot of money to help keep his business running. But a local businessman (Ben Gazzara) has other ideas. Road House is a quintessential late-80s action film.
Road House is now available on Netflix for streaming.
Rob Zombies Halloween II
Zombies is a stunning tale of loss and survival that is one of my favorite movies of the 21st century. If you can, check out the directors cut. This is the superior version of the film.
On Peacock, Rob Zombies Halloween II is available for download.
Rosetta
The Dardenne brothers, who won the Palme dOr prize, are among the most well-known European filmmakers of their generation, and Rosetta, their most recent film, might be their finest work.
Rosetta is a tender story about a young girl (Emilie Dequenne, who won Best Actress at Cannes for her work on the film) who is living in poverty with her mother and her attempts to get a job and some sense of personal freedom. Dequennes' moving performance will stay with you long after the credits.
Rosetta is now available for HBO Max subscribers.
Prince of Darkness
It's difficult to pick your favorite John Carpenter films. With a few exceptions, they all rule, and this is one of two of his films on the list (They Live, which also rules but is not on this list, is also on Peacock).
Prince of Darkness is the second entry in the Carpenters Apocalypse Trilogy, coming out between The Thing and In the Mouth of Madness. It is about a Catholic priest (Donald Pleasance, who is still married after Halloween) who discovers a mysterious vat of goo in a monastery. A group of quantum physics students is asked to assist him discover what it is. Nightmares are unleashed.
For the first time during the 2021 Halloween season, I saw Prince of Darkness, and there has not been a week that has gone by since that I have not thought about it. PV
On Peacock, Prince of Darkness is available for streaming.
Pulse
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a superior contemporary horror filmmaker, according to Pulse.
Pulse is a standout entry in the genre of internet horror, with a general sense of disbelief. It's one of the most terrifying films of the century, and is a must-see for any horror enthusiast.
Pulse is now available for streaming on Prime Video.
Scarface
Scarface, a 1932 gangster drama, is transported from 1920s Chicago to the sun-kissed beaches of Miami, Florida, circa 1980. Pacino plays Tony Montana, who later wife Elvira, who was later married to Michelle Pfeiffer, who gives up one of his most powerful roles in his early career as Tony Montana.
Scarface is now available for Netflix.
The Silence of the Lambs
The Silence of the Lambs, a 1991 horror film starring Jodie Foster, is a smart yet unexperienced FBI cadet who confronts Evil Incarnate in the form of Dr. Hannibal Lecter (Anthony Hopkins), a cannibalistic psychologist who is known for skinning young female victims. Clarice is drawn ever deeper into a vicious circle as a result of the film's TE.
The Silence of the Lambs is now available for streaming on Prime Video.
The Social Network
This month is just stuffed with some of the greatest films of the 21st century, right?
The Social Network, a labor of love tale about Mark Zuckerberg's rise to power and fame with the founding of Facebook, is undoubtedly a David Finchers (and Aaron Sorkins) masterpiece.
Clayton Ashley made this observation during our roundtable discussion of the best films of the 2010s:
The Social Network, by chance or by design, has become one of the most influential films of the decade. Full of snappy Sorkin conversations, gorgeous Fincher direction, and the decades first immensely catchy Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross soundtrack, its still as engaging as ever. However, after nearly a decade of watching Facebook move fast and break things, such as news websites, social video, politics, etc., the movies tangible sense of tension can easily be reinterpreted as foreboding for what follows the billion
The Thing
God, The Thing is the rulebook for character development, tension-building, and the unmatched utility of superb practical effects. It is a fantastic entry into the long-running tradition of a group of people getting stuck in a bad creature situation, which is now a popular film in the United States.
On Peacock, The Thing is available to stream.
Varda by Agnes
Agnes Vardas' last film is a reflection on the journey that brought her to this world. She leaves a heartfelt and humorous farewell message on her website and suggests you see other great films such as Faces Places (available on Tubi and Kanopy), Uncle Yanco (the Criterion Channel), and her documentary Black Panthers (HBO Max and the Criterion Channel).
On HBO Max, Varda by Agnes is available to watch.
Vertigo
Alfred Hitchcock's paranoid thriller is often compared to Citizen Kane in terms of the greatest movies ever produced, and for good reason. Vertigo was groundbreaking in its use of techniques, such as dolly zooms, and has inspired films such as Mulholland Drive.
On Peacock, Vertigo is available to stream.
Videodrome
Max Renn, a sleazy television programmer famous for broadcasting theatrically staged snuff films, gets caught up in a deadly conspiracy that threatens to blur the lines between reality and humanity's most terrifying fantasies with 1983s Videodrome. Long live the new flesh.
Peacock has a videodrome available for viewing.
Were All Going to the Worlds Fair
On HBO Max, one of the best movies from 2022 makes its long-awaited streaming debut. Jane Schoenbrun, a writer-director who is also in her feature debut, follows an internet-obsessed teenager who discovers a horrifying online challenge. (Schoenbrun collaborated with real YouTube creators), revealing themselves in unexpected places and spaces.
HBO Max is streaming Were All Going to the Worlds Fair.
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