New to Streaming: Queer, Tendaberry, Bring Them Down, A Complete Unknown & 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. Bring Them Down (Christopher Andrews) Christopher Andrews’ Bring Them Down is an endurance test with no payoff. Opening with a jarring car crash on a windy road in rural Ireland, the […] The post New to Streaming: Queer, Tendaberry, Bring Them Down, A Complete Unknown & More first appeared on The Film Stage.

Mar 28, 2025 - 13:17

New to Streaming: Queer, Tendaberry, Bring Them Down, A Complete Unknown & 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.

Bring Them Down (Christopher Andrews)

Christopher Andrews’ Bring Them Down is an endurance test with no payoff. Opening with a jarring car crash on a windy road in rural Ireland, the film soon adds scenes of gruesome animal cruelty, an ear literally being blown off someone’s head, and then further sequences of gruesome animal cruelty. Such onscreen acts can be tremendously moving, of course, when presented in great films––Andrea Arnold’s 2021 documentary Cow a recent example. – Christopher S. (full review)

Where to Stream: MUBI (free for 30 days)

A Complete Unknown (James Mangold)

A Complete Unknown often seems lost in its efforts to live up to this motley pedigree. It follows Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) from the moment he hitchhiked into New York City in early 1961 to his landmark, legendarily divisive performance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival, where his decision to bring electric rock music to the institution that had deified him was seen as a betrayal of his solo acoustic roots. This stretch of time, which ends before the now-83-year-old had even turned 25, is not coincidentally the extent of the vast majority of the popular consciousness’ knowledge of Dylan. There are later highlights that many can readily point to: the twin successes of Blood on the Tracks and Desire in the mid-70s, his long-awaited Grammy win for Time Out of Mind; the only one of these specifically mentioned in the requisite final title cards is his shocking win of the Nobel Prize for Literature, which is almost laughed-off in text form. – Ryan S. (full review)

Where to Stream: Hulu

The Line (Ethan Berger)

The Line is unpleasant. But then it should be, shouldn’t it? Written by Ethan Berger and Alex Russek and directed by Berger in his feature debut, this is a film about a college fraternity and all of the horrible sins committed in the name of tradition and brotherhood. Alex Wolff stars as Tom, a sophomore with bad grades but a good reputation among his fraternity, KNA. Their president, Todd (Lewis Pullman, great here), has Tom pegged as his replacement. The film takes place during the pledge period in which a new batch of freshmen are tortured and tested so that they might earn the privilege of joining KNA. – Dan M. (full review)

Where to Stream: Hulu

Nocturnes (Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan)

I was fortunate enough to have had the chance to watch this exquisite documentary in a movie theater, which gave me eighty-two minutes of pure pleasure. Co-directors Anirban Dutta and Anupama Srinivasan crafted a heavenly film with a truly emotional cinematography (by Satya Rai Nagpaul), and a uniquely evocative sound design (by Tom Paul and Shreyank Nanjappa). There’s something mysterious and magical about this story, perhaps even divine. Ecologist and postdoctoral researcher Mansi Mungee, and her assistant, Bicki, seem to have found the secret to happiness, which consists in living in the Eastern Himalayan forest, studying the behavior of the moths. Moths are important, we learn; they contribute to the equilibrium of the forest. Though some of them live no more than two or three days, they’ve been on Earth for almost 300 million years! That’s before dinosaurs, and even flowering plants. Moths have survived five mass extinctions, mastering and shaping the notion of Time. Who are we in comparison to the moths? How dare we breathe their same air? – Lucia S.

Where to Stream: VOD

Queer (Luca Guadagnino)

Building on the strength of Justin Kuritzkes’ script, which takes bold creative leaps to map what’s left unsaid in William S. Burroughs’ feverishly enigmatic novella, Guadagnino crafted a film adaptation that not just does justice to but unlocks and expands an iconic text. By turns goofy, erotic, and transcendently sad, it’s a tonal and emotional shapeshifter that taps into the bottomless solitude of queer love. Drew Starkey gave a star-making performance while Daniel Craig disappeared into the role of a tragic everyman, cursed with an unquenchable need to connect. A hallucinatory, revelatory piece of cinema that touches on something real. – Zhuo-Ning Su

Where to Stream: Max

The Rule of Jenny Pen (James Ashcroft)

Three decades on from Brian De Palma’s gleefully unhinged psychological thriller Raising Cain, John Lithgow has once again found a cinematic role to showcase his panache for exuding deranged evil. New Zealand director James Ashcroft’s The Rule of Jenny Pen, following up his Sundance-selected Coming Home in the Dark, finds Lithgow as Dave Crealy, a nursing-home resident who delights in unleashing a torrent of psychological and physical torment against cohabitants of the facility, most notably newly arrived Stefan Mortensen (Geoffrey Rush). While loogies are hawked and bags of piss thrown about in the film’s more absurdly mounted sequences, Ashcroft is digging into the underbelly of such facilities as caretakers ignore genuine feelings for the geriatric in order to maintain the status quo of keeping people temporarily happy and sedated. While the result is a half-entertaining showcase for Lithgow, a satisfying point to this interminable deprivation never manages to emerge. – Jordan R. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

Thank You Very Much (Alex Braverman)

Four decades since his passing and the influence of Andy Kaufman is still felt through the most daring comedic voices of the day, be it Tim Heidecker, Conner O’Malley, or Nathan Fielder. If Kaufman’s portrayal in last year’s Saturday Night left much to be desired, consider Alex Braverman’s Thank You Very Much to be a welcome course-corrective. Through plenty of archival treasures and new interviews with collaborators and lovers alike, Kaufman’s unclassifiable brilliance shines through. Most impressive of all is that Braverman doesn’t seem to be too interested in trying to theorize or explain the comedian’s motives or personal history, rather focusing on the pure thrill (or vitriol, depending on the audience member) of seeing his singular, confrontational genius play out. – Jordan R.

Where to Stream: VOD

Tendaberry (Haley Elizabeth Anderson)

A soulful coming-of-age story with far more on its mind than the here and now, Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s Tendaberry is an ambitious directorial debut mixing various storytelling forms to achieve its poetic patchwork of ideas. Combining recollections of the past, a present way of life, and hopes for the future through the eyes of 23-year-old Dakota (Kota Johan), it follows her journey juggling romance, work, friendship, and family. The nature of its scattershot hybrid approach––incorporating narrative, documentary, and archival materials––results in certain passages feeling a bit stretched, but the cumulative effect is one of an impressive new voice. – Jordan R. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

Also New to Streaming

Kino Film Collection

Babylon
The Rocket

Prime Video

Holland

VOD

AUM: The Cult at the End of the World
Ex-Husbands

The post New to Streaming: Queer, Tendaberry, Bring Them Down, A Complete Unknown & More first appeared on The Film Stage.