New to Streaming: I’m Still Here, All We Imagine as Light, Trap, Every Little Thing & More

Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.

All We Imagine as Light (Payal Kapadia)

Following up her enigmatic, beautiful debut A Night of Knowing Nothing, Payal Kapadia shows an entirely different register with her dazzling Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize winner All We Imagine as Light. Luke Hicks said in his review, “Writer-director Payal Kapadia isn’t interested in the flashy world of Mumbai that gets so much global attention. Per its opening soundscape, All We Imagine as Light means to bask in the luminescence of life found among India’s lower classes, which means acknowledging the inequality and socio-economic injustice that defines their everyday as much as it means showcasing their intrinsic glow and dogged refusal to let the inalienable love, beauty, and camaraderie of existence be taken from them.”

Where to Stream: The Criterion Channel

Daaaaaalí! (Quentin Dupieux)

At the time of year where every other film is a biopic chasing prestige respectability, we are lucky to have Quentin Dupieux, the prolific, serious-minded, silly filmmaker perfectly positioned to take a sledgehammer to the genre. His second 2023 feature has been described as a “real fake biopic” of Salvador Dalí but is best understood as a return to the heightened analysis of cinematic storytelling à la 2010 breakthrough Rubber––a movie which increasingly looks like the rare weak spot in a filmography equal-parts playful and thoughtful. – Alistair R. (full review)

Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)

Every Little Thing (Sally Aitken)

Sometimes, you must admit you’re a bit of a softie. I came to this realization while tearing up at the end of the new documentary Every Little Thing. In form, it’s largely unremarkable. Yet something connected with me about this work––that something being a sensitivity to animals (after all both of my cats joined me for the viewing) which primed me to like the film at least a little bit. What can one do? The documentary takes on as its subject Terry Masear, the founder of Los Angeles Hummingbird Rescue, a non-profit dedicated to healing countless injured creatures. Every Little Thing is, to say the least, as modest in scope as that sounds. Functioning as a portrait of this great woman, but also a nature doc-of-sorts––with a lot of up-close, slow-motion hummingbird footage to make animal fans squee––the film is lodged somewhat awkwardly in several modes. The editing patterns––which basically come down to drone shots of Los Angeles then archival footage then stuff that looks like reality TV––makes the film feel a little shapeless, as if it’s striving to reach feature-length throughout. – Ethan V. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

I’m Still Here (Walter Salles) 

A sprawling epic set primarily in 1970s Rio de Janeiro in a period of political installability, congressman Rubens Paiva and his wife Eunice (played magnificently by Fernanda Montenegro and Fernanda Torres, respectively) are imprisoned. Eunice is eventually released after 12 days of torture and is forced to raise her children on her own. The power in Salles’ picture comes from its view of the arc of history. As the nation evolves back into a democracy and eventually acknowledges the sins of its past, the film’s duration continues, and these events continue to haunt Eunice. I’m Still Here is a bold and vital film about the power of truth and reconciliation, chronicling political violence’s impact on an innocent family. – John F.

Where to Stream: VOD

The Strangler (Paul Vecchiali)

One of the standouts in a stellar lineup of Revivals at the New York Film Festival a few years back was Paul Vecchiali’s haunting, captivating portrait of alienation The Strangler. The new 2K restoration of the 1970 French arthouse giallo got a wider release from Altered Innocence and now it’s available on Tubi.

Where to Stream: Tubi

Trap (M. Night Shyamalan)

Far be it from me to say Shyamalan needs further reclamation or defense––I might instead point you to the most deranged, overcompensating discourse ever waged on behalf of a director––except to argue Trap’s legion pleasures aren’t disconnected from the satisfaction of watching his specific talents meet a distinctly entertaining premise. And if not quite some turning point in Shyamalan’s oeuvre, watching it suggests a coinciding fulfillment of his earlier cultural dominance with the thoroughgoing security established since The Visit defibrillated his career nearly a decade ago. Even at a pace or two too long, while starting to coast on the pure rush of initial, stronger ideas, it’s perhaps his best-engineered work since The Village and arguably the purest piece of entertainment he’s ever made. – Nick N. (full review)

Where to Stream: Netflix

Also New to Streaming

Disney+

Moana 2

Hulu

Monster Hunter

Kino Film Collection

Seven Chances
Sherlock Jr
The General

MUBI (free for 30 days)

A Date for Mad Mary
Muse

Paramount+

Better Man

VOD

Customs Frontline
Parthenope
Rats!

The post New to Streaming: I’m Still Here, All We Imagine as Light, Trap, Every Little Thing & More first appeared on The Film Stage.