This weekend sees the premiere of Athena, the explosive French thriller epic from acclaimed music video director Romain Gavras on Netflix, as well as the highly anticipated streaming premiere of the record-breaking Jujutsu Kaisen 0 anime film on Crunchyroll. If neither of those strike your fancy, not to worry — this week is practically bursting at the seams with exciting new movies to stream and rent on VOD.
We’ve got the action thriller Lou starring Allison Janney (The West Wing) and Jurnee Smollett (Lovecraft Country) and the Tyler Perry-directed period romance drama A Jazzman’s Blues on Netflix, the time-hopping romance comedy Meet Cute on Peacock, the Oprah Winfrey-produced Sidney Poitier documentary on Apple TV Plus, and the supernatural period murder thriller Raven’s Hollow on Shudder.
Not to mention Dead for a Dollar, Walter Hill’s first Western in over 27 years, starring Christoph Waltz and Willem Dafoe on VOD, and Don Hertzfeldt’s Academy Award-nominated sci-fi short World of Tomorrow available to stream for free(!) on YouTube! See what we meant by bursting at the seams?
To help you choose what to watch tonight, here’s the best of what’s new to stream and rent this weekend.
Table of Contents
Athena
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
A tightly wound thriller sure to blow your mind, Athena is the third movie from decorated music video director Romain Gavras. Gavras is best known for his work on M.I.A.’s “Born Free” and “Bad Girls” videos, as well as Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” and his previous movie, The World Is Yours, screened at Cannes. In this one, a French suburb erupts after the brutal killing of a young man.
From our review:
Athena is arguably a style-over-substance movie, given how little time and attention it devotes to the personal drama underlying its politics. But in Gavras’ hands, the style is also the substance, with a restrained classicism giving way to baroque staging as each long take accelerates. Scenes build in ways that feel both narratively inevitable and visually prophetic. Gavras and cinematographer Matias Boucard seem to be exploring the hidden dimensions of these police-and-protester clashes through movement — not only the movement of their subjects, but the movement of their camera, which tilts and turns as if to capture every possible vantage. Speed the film up any further, and you’re left with something approaching cubist art, with dimensions and perspectives practically overlapping amid all the pandemonium.
Jujutsu Kaisen 0
Where to watch: Available to stream on Crunchyroll
Set a year before the events of the Jujutsu Kaisen TV series, Jujutsu Kaisen 0 follows the story of Yuta Okkotsu, a unsuspecting high schooler who, much like Yuji Itadori, finds himself drawn into a world of supernatural warfare when the cursed spirit of his childhood friend Rika begins to haunt him. Electing to become a Jujutsu sorcerer rather than be executed, Yuta must learn to control and harness this deadly new power in order to save Tokyo from the threat of rogue sorcerer bent on conquering the mortal realm.
From our review:
Newcomers will get the most out of Jujutsu Kaisen 0. The prequel is basically the essence of Jujutsu Kaisen trimmed down to its most accessible elements, which isn’t surprising given that the movie is based on a manga that actually precedes the Jujutsu Kaisen comic. First published as Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical School in the 2017 issue of Jump GIGA, this standalone short series about Curses and Jujutsu Sorcerers was meant to conclude after just four chapters. But it soon gained enough popularity for Gege Akutami to expand its premise and the world he only hinted at in the original comic, ultimately culminating in the creation of Yuji Itadori and the story that took the world by storm.
Lou
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
There are few things better in life than a decorated veteran actor making a late-career swing at action movies. Lou is Allison Janney’s foray into this particular genre, where she plays an older woman with a mysterious past who helps a neighbor in a tight jam. The trailer got us positively jazzed for the movie — especially the appearance of action legend Daniel Bernhardt. He’s one of the best in the business at getting believably beat up by movie stars.
World of Tomorrow
Where to watch: Available to stream on YouTube
Don Hertzfeldt’s avant-garde sci-fi short is now available to watch on YouTube for free, over seven years since it first premiered online. The Academy Award-nominated short follows the story of Emily, a precocious 4-year-old girl who is taken on a tour of the far distant future by a clone of herself. Hertzfeldt manages to accomplish in 16 minutes what so many other directors strain to do with million-dollar feature budgets. At turns whimsical, melancholic, and awe-inspiring, World of Tomorrow is one of the best sci-fi movies of the past decade.
The Perfumier
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Inspired by Patrick Süskind’s 1985 novel Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, The Perfumier follows Sunny Valentin (Sólveig Arnarsdóttir), a police detective who has lost her sense of smell and who crosses paths with a serial killer with a peculiar modus operandi: using the bodies of his victims to create the “perfect” perfume.
The Dreamlife of Georgie Stone
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Maya Newell’s documentary follows the life of Georgie Stone, an Australian transgender teen and transgender rights activist, as she fights transphobic Australian laws to affirm her gender, grow into adulthood, and advocate for transgender youth.
A Jazzman’s Blues
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Tyler Perry’s 2022 romance drama follows Bayou (Joshua Boone) and Leanne (Solea Pfeiffer), two ill-fated lovers a who over the course of 40 years navigate the hurdles and challenges of living in racially stratified rural Georgia.
Minions: The Rise of Gru
Where to watch: Available to stream on Peacock
Minions: The Rise of Gru, the fifth installment in the Despicable Me movie franchise and the harbinger of many, many memes, follows the story of a young Gru (Steve Carell) and his rise to supervillainy with the help of a colorful army of mischief-making minions.
From our review:
Minions: The Rise of Gru benefits from low expectations. Arriving in movie theaters just two weeks after Pixar’s high-profile, frustrating new science fiction epic Lightyear, the latest extension of Illumination Entertainment’s most popular franchise doesn’t have to be groundbreaking, memorable, or even particularly hilarious to make a splash. In a dry summer that’s light on big blockbusters, The Rise of Gru — the fifth feature highlighting gibberish-spouting, indestructible, blobby henchmen the color of bananas (which happen to be their favorite fruit) just has to do its business, get out, and not dawdle in the mind for very long. In that respect, The Rise of Gru does the job. This is neither a uniquely marvelous film nor a teeth-gnashing pain. It’s OK in the moment, and it evaporates as soon as the end credits roll.
Meet Cute
Where to watch: Available to stream on Peacock
Pete Davidson (Bodies Bodies Bodies) and Kaley Cuoco (The Flight Attendant) star in the romantic comedy Meet Cute as Gary and Sheila, two New Yorkers who meet and instantly fall in love on their first date. The catch: This isn’t the first time they’ve met, nor is it the first time they’ve gone on a date.
Memory
Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime Video
Liam Neeson stars in the 2022 action thriller Memory as Alex Lewis, an expert assassin with a reputation for surgical precision. When Alex refuses to complete an assignment that goes against his moral code, he’ll have to embark on a mission to kill the people who hired him before they kill him, all while eluding the pursuit of the FBI.
From our review:
Memory is not Liam Neeson’s final action film, and it won’t be the one that defines him. But it’s worth considering as his tenure of mannered cinematic vengeance slowly comes to a close. In this case, it’s with a character suddenly attempting to atone for the man he’s been, right before his own history evaporates from his mind. It isn’t terribly convincing — even though Alex Lewis confesses that he’s been a bad guy, Memory is still built around the thrill of seeing that bad guy unleashed. There is little that suggests Alex Lewis is all that different from Bryan in the Taken movies, or any of Neeson’s other violent avatars. It’s worth remembering this era of cinema, and everything it says about specifically male fantasies and male rage. But it isn’t necessarily worth remembering Memory itself.
Sidney
Where to watch: Available to stream on Apple TV Plus
Reginald Hudlin’s 2022 documentary honors the life and legacy of Sidney Poitier, the legendary actor, filmmaker, and activist who brought the Civil Rights Movement to the forefront of Hollywood. The film features interviews with Poitier’s friends, colleagues, and admirers like Denzel Washington, Halle Berry, Robert Redford, Spike Lee, and more.
Raven’s Hollow
Where to watch: Available to stream on Shudder
You like historical horror fiction? How about a period-piece horror thriller that recast Edgar Allan Poe as a West Point cadet who stumbles across a grisly series of murders in an isolated community in upstate New York?
Yeah, I thought that would get your attention!
Gatlopp
Where to watch: Available to stream on Tubi
The 2022 horror comedy Gatlopp stars Jim Mahoney (The Orville), Emmy Raver-Lampman (The Umbrella Academy), Jon Bass (Molly’s Game), and Sarunas J. Jackson (Insecure) as a group of old friends who reunite for a night of fun, drinking, and board games after nearly a decade apart. It’s not long, however, before the friends realize that the game they’re playing comes with some serious, terrifying consequences.
From our review:
Running at an efficient, high-energy 80 minutes, Gatlopp doesn’t have a lot of time to waste on the characters’ disbelief when their drinking game starts demanding personal information from them, moving pieces around on the board by itself, and imposing supernatural penalties when they dodge questions. By the time they find out that if they don’t complete the game, they’ll have to play it for eternity in hell, they’ve already been given plenty of other reasons to play fair and follow through, even if it means revealing the secrets they’ve been withholding from themselves and each other.
Dead for a Dollar
Where to watch: Available to rent $9.99 on Apple and Vudu
Acclaimed director Walter Hill returns to the genre he helped revive and define with Dead for a Dollar, the new Western starring Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe, and Rachel Brosnahan. The film follows Max Borlund (Waltz), a legendary bounty hunter who reunites with his sworn nemesis Joe Cribbens (Dafoe), a notorious outlaw and gambler, while searching for a young woman (Brosnahan) who runs off to marry an army deserter.
Section 8
Where to watch: Available to stream on AMC Plus or to rent for $5.99 on Amazon and Apple; $6.99 on Vudu
True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten leads this action movie featuring an ensemble cast that includes the likes of Dolph Lundgren, Dermot Mulroney, Mickey Rourke, and Scott Adkins. Kwanten is Jake, a struggling former special forces soldier who is recruited by a secret organization after the tragic murders of his wife and son. As he gets entrenched in this secret organization, a deep conspiracy starts to unravel. The movie comes from prolific action director Christian Sesma.