The Upstream: February 2024

10 great movies new to streaming this month.

We did it — we survived what felt like the longest January ever. Now onward to a month that has no choice but to be shorter … and yet is still a day longer than it was last year. (Rude.)

February marks Black History Month, which I marked with a themed newsletter back in 2022. If you’re newer to the newsletter, I recommend checking out the back catalog here.

Black History Month

But if you just want the ultra topical and timely, here are ten movies new to their respective streaming services that are very much worth your attention in February.

Brooklyn, Max

This hasn’t been on streaming in a while, so jump on it, folks. Saoirse Ronan’s first “adult” Oscar nomination is an absolute stunner that has made me cry each time I’ve watched it. As an Irish immigrant to New York in the ‘50s, her character Eilis in Brooklyn feels the agonizing pain of leaving her home grafted onto two relationships that embody the home she left and the home she chose. It’s to the immense credit of director John Crowley that Eilis feels like she could plausibly choose either of the men.

The Descent, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu

Apologies to whomever I had this conversation with recently, but in a discussion of fears of closed spaces, we all identified caves as an absolute no-go for us. I don’t know if this person had seen The Descent, but they absolutely should not now. This horror film is one of the few that I would classify as genuinely terrifying, not just a collection of cheap jump scares. Director Neil Marshall knows one part chilling concept, another part creepy creature, and a whole lot of good filmmaking is enough to turn an audience away from an entire geological feature.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Criterion Channel

I spent far too long not watching this movie because my mom complained it was one of the worst movies she’d ever seen after seeing it in theaters back in 2004. When I finally caught up with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind years later, it taught me an important lesson: sometimes it’s ok to disagree with your parents. This is one of the most creative and profound love stories of the 21st century, an exploration of how love can restart at its fraying edges. Charlie Kaufman’s Oscar-winning script takes viewers on a complex journey diving through the emotional detritus of Joel and Clementine’s relationship, but there’s always a poignant pulse from a big, beating heart discernible throughout. If we get lost in the plot, we can always find ourselves in the emotion.

Fiddler on the Roof, Amazon Prime Video

RIP director Norman Jewison, who was remarkably not Jewish but still directed Fiddler on the Roof. When it comes to full-throated embraces of the grand movie musical, they don’t get much better than this. Moving, mournful, masterful filmmaking on display here.

Get Out, Amazon Prime Video

“The vision of prejudice put forward by Jordan Peele in Get Out is one of racism without racists,” I wrote upon the film’s release in 2017. “The villains are not people who say the N-word or try to keep schools segregated. They are apathetic beneficiaries of the status quo who think that racial progress reached its zenith with the passage of the Civil Rights Act, at which point America fully paid of the debt of its original sin. Any system that still produces inequities is, to them, mere coincidence rather than evidence of institutional bias against people of color.” I promise this is worth a rewatch.

Love Is Strange, Hulu

Alfred Molina and John Lithgow excel as life partners in Love Is Strange who finally get to legally tie the knot around the same time they qualify for the senior citizens’ discount at the movies. The deep mutual understanding that couples strive for years to achieve is recreated effortlessly by these two great actors, yet it’s strained by the bane of every New Yorker’s existence — real estate. As the couple takes temporary shelter with friends and family, director Ira Sachs shines a soft light that illuminates the very mechanics of love itself. It’s much less erotically charged than his recent film Passages, though the two films might share more in common than meets the eye.

MLK/FBI, MUBI

As his image recedes into the past, MLK has become less person and more myth in the American psyche. Sam Pollard’s revelatory new documentary MLK/FBI aims to reset that rosy cultural view by squaring its subject as a human, gifted and flawed. Not that either was an excuse for the surveillance and mistreatment he suffered at the hands of the FBI, much of it overseen and directed by notorious director J. Edgar Hoover. Pollard effectively democratizes the way he doles out commentary and information in the film, not identifying names or titles behind the voices speaking. We’re forced to treat everyone as a relevant authority without judging their words through the prism of their personality.

Past Lives, Paramount+

Celine Song’s command of the form is evident from the first scene of Best Picture nominee Past Lives, in which her camera observes a would-be love triangle from a removed distance. “I wanted [the audience] to both feel implicated and welcomed in, first and foremost, as outside observers before we go through the movie,” she told me last year. “Then, when we come back to that scene, the audience will also have a sense of the answer to the mystery. They will have put together kind of the solution to the mystery, and they’re also going to feel deeply implicated and deeply a part of the story of their lives.” Now, experience the journey for yourself from the comfort of your own couch.

Plus One, Netflix

When future generations of film scholars look back at works that encapsulate the millennial ethos, I think they’ll find a lot to look at in Plus One, a film that finds an entertaining premise out of generational trends. Ben (Jack Quaid) and Alice (Maya Erskine) are two longtime platonic friends in their late twenties doing what many of us do with their summer attending other people’s weddings. With both lamenting their constant relegation to the singles table, the duo comes up with the bright idea to be each other’s plus ones through an endless. Of course, in the movies, we all know that embracing your singleness is often a quick way to ensure that you shed yourself of it…

RMN, Hulu

Hey, look, one of my favorite movies of 2023 is now readily streamable! Now you have no excuse not to bask in the glory of Cristian Mungiu’s RMN.

My Top 10 Movies of 2023

If you’re already in a prestige foreign language cinema mindset, I think the film would make a great double feature with Best Picture nominee The Zone of Interest. “Before finding somebody responsible or guilty outside, make sure that the violent animal is not somebody deep down inside of you,” Mungiu told me last year. “This is why I’m always saying that you need to be prepared. You need to spend some time with yourself and to understand and forgive yourself that you’re not just human. You’re also an animal, and you need to survive.”

Tótem might have missed out on an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature, but let this be a reminder … a great movie is its own reward! Lila Avilés has made something warm, wistful, and winning here, so it was a pleasure to speak to her for Slant Magazine. The film is now out in NY, LA, and Austin — keep a look out for when it opens near you.