The Best Movies New to Every Major Streaming Platform in July 2024

‘Chicken for Linda’ (dirs. Sébastien Laudenbach & Chiara Malta, 2023)

The Criterion Channel knows that neo-noir just hits different during the sweltering heat of summer, when murderous temptation and high-key sex jazz seem as if they’re baked into the humidity, and so the streamer has leaned all the way into the July of it all with a genre retrospective that ranges from the horny (‘Out of Sight’) to the insane (‘Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans’), and from the even hornier (‘The Last Seduction’) to, well, Ken Russell (‘Crimes of Passion’). Of course, when it comes to sun-soaked crimes of passion, it’s hard to do better than Baz Luhrmann’s ‘Romeo + Juliet,’ which is the centerpiece of a Pop Shakespeare series that spans from Derek Jarman’s 1979 ‘The Tempest’ to Michael Almereyda’s “Hamlet” and beyond (by ‘beyond,’ I mean Joss Whedon’s ‘Much Ado About Nothing’). 

Anyone looking for classic dialogue in a different meter would do well to explore the Columbia Screwball series, which boasts a breathless array of genre classics (‘His Girl Friday’) alongside less familiar offerings like Richard Boleslawski’s ‘Theodora Goes Wild,’ in which Irene Dunne plays a provocative writer whose anonymously published novel scandalizes the rest of her conservative Connecticut town. More scandalous — and considerably scuzzier — fun awaits in the Channel’s tribute to Times Square, which naturally starts with ‘Sweet Smell of Success’ before swerving even deeper into the muck with ‘Taxi Driver,’ ‘Midnight Cowboy,’ and Bette Gordon’s ‘Variety.’

The July slate also includes a mini-retro devoted to Nicolas Roeg (including his Donald Sutherland classic ‘Don’t Look Now’), a celebration of Heisei Era Godzilla, and a spotlight on the punk spirit that coursed through Mexican cinema in the late ’80s. And yet, much as I hate to pass up the rare opportunity to highlight older films in this column, my pick of the month is a brand-new animated title that’s far too special to get lost in the shadow of ‘Inside Out 2’ and ‘Gru 10’ or whatever, especially come awards season. As gorgeously realized as it is deceptively basic, Sébastien Laudenbach and Chiara Malta’s ‘Chicken for Linda’ is the story of an eight-year-old girl named Linda who… wants chicken. For dinner, specifically. But Laudenbach and Malta manage to draw an ocean of feeling from that wisp of an idea, creating a musical delight that exalts in animation’s power to make even the simplest emotions feel as infinite and expressive as our most sacred memories. Don’t miss it.

All films available to stream July 1

‘Young Woman and the Sea’ (dir. Joachim Rønning, 2024)

Disney Plus never has much in the way of exciting new movies (the Mouse House’s streaming platform is powered by the Pixar back catalog, ‘Bluey’ minisodes, and a million different franchise-diluting Marvel and ‘Star Wars’ shows), but Disney isn’t above burying its best theatrical releases in order to rebrand them as exclusive content down the line. Case in point: Joachim Rønning’s ‘Young Woman and the Sea,’ a stirring historical drama starring Daisy Ridley as Trudy Ederle, the first woman to swim across the English Drama. Cleaving a bit closer to ‘The Boys in the Boat’ (or a much nicer ‘Nyad’) than it does the more colorful live-action sports movies that Disney used to churn out on the regular, ‘Young Woman and the Sea’ is neither fish nor fowl to a company that has limited its business to little kids and mega-blockbusters, but this solidly constructed story of perseverance is handsome, eminently watchable proof that it doesn’t have to be that way.

Available to stream July 19

‘Violent Streets’ (dir. Hideo Gosha, 1974)

The brunt of Film Movement’s July slate is carried by its focus on the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, as the ever-well-curated streaming platform has cherry-picked a handful of recent breakouts from the prestigious event (this year’s edition of which just ended), including David Kapac and Andrija Mardešić’s Yugoslavia-set family thriller ‘The Uncle,’ and Adéla Komrzý and Tomáš Bojar excellent art school admissions documentary, ‘The Talent Show.’ But my heart belongs to the prolific Japanese director Hideo Gosha, whose jidaigeki have been given new life on the Criterion Channel, but whose Yakuza film still remains under-appreciated. Ranking among the greatest Japanese gangster films ever made, ‘Violent Streets’ stars Noburo Ando as a retired Tokyo crime lord who’s forced back into the fray when a syndicate makes a move on his turf. Effortlessly cool without ever sacrificing its hard-edged soul, this old-school diamond in the rough makes the case that Gosha’s work should be held in much higher esteem.

Available to stream July 19

Other highlights:

– ‘The Uncle’ (7/5)
– ‘Art Talent Show’ (7/5)
– ‘Samurai Wolf’ (7/19)

‘Femme’ (dirs. Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, 2023)

Hulu is offering an unusually wide assortment of new releases this month, as its roster of streaming premieres include one of last year’s most compelling films (‘The Monk and the Gun’), an under-seen Pierce Brosnan thriller that barely played in theaters (‘Fast Charlie’), and an unclassifiable French drama in which the people of Paris start mutating into giant birds (that would be Thomas Cailley’s ‘The Animal Kingdom’). Best among Hulu’s July exclusives might be Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s ‘Femme,’ which — in his Critic’s Pick review — IndieWire’s Ryan Lattanzio described as ‘a bruiser of a British queer revenge thriller that updates ’90s erotic suspense films with modern sensibilities, and plunges straight into the gray areas that can form between attacker (George MacKay) and victim (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett).’ And if that doesn’t do it for you, well, there’s always ‘The Cable Guy.’

Available to stream July 23

Other highlights:

– ‘The Monk and the Gun’ (7/5)
– ‘The Animal Kingdom’ (7/11)
– ‘Fast Charlie’ (7/12)

‘Port of Shadows’ (dir. Marcel Carné, 1938)

Now in its third month as a standalone streaming platform, the Kino Film Collection continues to make excellent use of Kino Lorber’s incredible library of classic and contemporary cinema (the service’s top hits at the moment include Bernardo Bertolucci’s ‘The Conformist’ and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s far more recent ‘Wife of a Spy’). Kino’s July slate has an accentuated French twist to it, as the lineup is headed by mind-bending work from the likes of Godard (‘Alphaville’), Buñuel (with his Franscope Jeanne Moreau jewel ‘Diary of a Chambermaid’), Resnais (‘Last Year in Marienbad’), and Melville (‘Bob le Flambeur’). The most straightforward and least summery of the lot would have to be Marcel Carné’s ‘Port of Shadows,’ a masterpiece of poetic realism starring Jean Gabin as an army deserter who holes up in Le Havre, only to pledge his life to the 17-year-old runaway he meets amid the mist. Romantic fatalism has never been foggier, or its power so crystal-clear.

Available to stream July 25

Other highlights:

– ‘Alphaville’ (7/11)
– ‘Diary of a Chabermaid’ (7/18)
– ‘Bob le Flambeur’ (7/25)

‘Family Portrait’ (dir. Lucy Kerr, 2023)

Still waters run deep in ‘Family Portrait,’ the debut feature from Texas-born filmmaker and installation artist Lucy Kerr (streaming on Metrograph at Home at the same time as it plays at the theater). A deceptively placid sketch of a pandemic-era family who get together on a windless summer day in the hopes of taking a group photo for their (2021?) Christmas card, ‘Family Portrait’ eschews a clear narrative in an effort to crystallize the disquiet that a more linear story might try to explain away, but no movie that opens with an Edgar Allen Poe quote and several minutes of ominous whooshing sounds is trying to be all that coy about its intentions. 

Errant chatter about the Vietnam War and a recently deceased step-cousin seep into Kerr’s deathly motionless shots until her heroine (‘Anne at 13,000 Ft.’ star Deragh Campbell) begins to fear that her mom has gone missing, a suspicion that steers this 75-minute sketch into the Bermuda Triangle somewhere between ‘Hereditary’ and ‘L’Avventura.’ The pursuit of the perfect image gradually reveals a negative image of unspoken pain, just as the images that Kerr finds along the way gradually reveal a bold new filmmaker whose vision penetrates well below the surface of American self-identity.

Available to stream July 5

Other highlights:

– ‘The Apple’ (7/1)
– ‘Stranger by the Lake’ (7/1)
– ‘The Strange Case of Angelica’ (7/1)

‘Dog Eat Dog’ (dir. Paul Schrader, 2016)

Recovering from ‘Longlegs’ and itching for another dose of Nicolas Cage at his most unhinged? Look no further than ‘Dog Eat Dog,’ the furiously batshit palette-cleanser that Paul Schrader made prior to downshifting back into ‘man in a room’ territory with ‘First Reformed’ and the films that followed. A massive ‘fuck you’ to all of the suits who ever forced Schrader to compromise on his vision, this Edward Bunker adaptation starts with Willem Dafoe slitting his girlfriend’s neck because she finds his stash of Japanese porn, and things only get crazier when Cage enters the picture as his partner-in-crime. A warts-and-all celebration of creative freedom in all its forms, ‘Dog Eat Dog’ careens headlong into every dead end it can find along the road to redemption before ending with a slow-motion montage of its stars jumping on hotel beds and spraying each other with ketchup and mustard. It’s the work of artists who absolutely refuse to keep their talent in check.

Available to stream July 1

Other highlights:

– ‘Queen of Earth’ (7/1)
– ‘This Closeness’ (7/1)
– ‘Penance’ (7/26)

‘Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning’ (dir. Christopher McQuarrie, 2023)

Ridiculous from the start but also strangely fresh for yet another 21st century tentpole about a rogue A.I., ‘Dead Reckoning Part One’ may not be the best movie in the ‘Mission: Impossible’ franchise — there’s no topping the raw adrenaline rush of ‘Fallout,’ and McQuarrie is smart enough not to try — but this extravagantly entertaining Dolby soap opera nails what the ‘Mission: Impossible’ franchise does best: Weaponizing artifice and illusion in order to fight for a world that’s still worth believing in. The seventh installment of the long-running spy saga parachutes onto Prime Video just in time to remind people what a summer blockbuster is supposed to feel like. That might sound like a knock against the latest crop of mega-budget tentpoles (‘Twisters’ is a blast!), but the fact remains that there’s only one Tom Cruise, and he’s on hiatus until Ethan Hunt finally returns for his grand finale.

Available to stream July 25

Other highlights:
– ‘The Beekeeper’ (7/2)
– ‘Evil Dead Rise’ (7/3)
– ‘Lisa Frankenstein’ (7/30)

‘The Inspection’ (dir. Elegance Bratton, 2022)

Netflix isn’t offering much in the way of original movies this month (at least not aside from its mega-budget July 4 legacy sequel, ‘Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F’), but that might help a few other recent standouts make their way into the spotlight. Chief among them: Elegance Bratton’s nakedly autobiographical ‘The Inspection,’ which deserves a second wave of attention after being somewhat lost in the shuffle during the 2022 awards season. Loosely based on Bratton’s own unexpected entry into the military during the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell era, the 2005-set drama follows young Ellis French (Jeremy Pope), a gay, unhoused Black man who fixates on a bootcamp instructor played by Raúl Castillo when he shows up for basic training. Described by IndieWire’s Kate Erbland as ‘both intensely personal and widely enjoyable,’ Bratton’s debut ‘is a messy and complex human story that engenders empathy at every turn, but never falls into cheap machinations or callow drama just for the hell of it.’

Available to stream July 18

Other highlights:

– ‘Magic Mike XXL’ (7/1)
– ‘The Peasants’ (7/11)
– ‘Skywalkers: A Love Story’ (7/19)

‘Weiner’ (dirs. Josh Kriegman & Elyse Steinberg, 2016)

A documentary about a beleaguered Democratic politician who inflicts great harm upon the people he professes to care about over the course of an ill-advised re-election campaign that’s driven by ego and mired in magical thinking, Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg’s all-too-entertaining ‘Weiner’ is somehow even more stomach-churning to watch now than it was when it first came out. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t end well for the guy who refuses to get out of the race. Or his family. Or the constituents that he probably would’ve served much better and more sincerely than the guy who won.

Available to stream July 24

Other highlights:

– ‘Die Hard with a Vengeance’ (7/1)
– ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ (7/1)
– ‘The Truman Show’ (7/1)

‘A Thousand and One’ (dir. A.V. Rockwell, 2023)

Ranking A.V. Rockwell’s unforgettable debut on IndieWire’s list of the best films of 2023, Ryan Lattanzio wrote that ‘A Thousand and One’ is ‘a searing protest against the inhumanity of gentrification in a city whose policies and policing are already so punitive towards poor Black families, as well as a sobering reminder of how fucked-up beginnings can hopefully bring about better endings.’ It starts with a woman named Inez (brilliantly played by R&B super-artist/actress Teyana Taylor), who kidnaps her young son out of foster care after she’s released from a stint in Rikers Island in the early 1990s. It ends more than a decade later, with Inez still trying to reconcile the hand she was dealt with the one she decided to play. That exercise has seldom been as raw and wrenching as it is in this extraordinary film about, in Inez’s words, the hope that ‘there’s more to life than fucked-up beginnings.’

Available to stream July 19

Other highlights:

– ‘Jaws’ (7/1)
– ‘Titanic’ (7/1)
– ‘Burning’ (7/31)

‘Arcadian’ (dir. Ben Brewer, 2024)

Nicolas Cage is everywhere this month. Here’s IndieWire’s Christian Zilko on the actor’s most subdued 2024 performance: His penchant for cinematic freak-outs is unquestioned, but Nicolas Cage is perfectly willing to lay down his metaphorical weapons and give restrained performances when a script calls for it. Ben Brewer’s ‘Arcadian’ is proof enough of that. Splitting the difference between contemporary horror movies and ’80s Spielberg blockbusters, the film stars Cage as a father struggling to protect his two sons in a world overrun by monsters. It’s an elegant little story about the things in life that are worth taking risks for, and a reminder of how much Cage has to offer us when he’s not contorting himself into something indescribable.”

Available to stream July 12

Other highlights:
– ‘She Is Conann’ (7/8)
– ‘Maniac Cop’ (7/15)
– ‘Tromeo and Juliet’ (7/22)