What’s new on Netflix, DisneyPlus, Crave, Prime & Criterion this week

A weekly round-up of the new movies and TV series on Netflix, DisneyPlus, Crave, Amazon Prime Video and Criterion Channel

New on Netflix

It’s been five years since Charlie Kaufman’s Anomalisa — not exactly an eternity considering his usual rate of output, but I’m Thinking of Ending Things is nevertheless a welcome arrival in a summer of middling Netflix output. The psychological horror film stars Jessie Buckley as a young woman who takes her new boyfriend (Jesse Plemons) to meet her parents (David Thewlis and Toni Collette) only to find herself questioning everything she knows or thinks she knows. It hits the service on Sept. 4 alongside season 7 of The Blacklist and Away, a new original series starring Hilary Swank as an astronaut who must leave her family behind to go on a three-year mission. 

Sept. 9 sees the release of the controversial Cuties, a French film that took the Internet by storm when some criticized Netflix’s marketing as inappropriate. The film, directed by Maimouna Doucouré, focuses on a young Senegalese immigrant who becomes fascinated by her neighbour’s “twerking clique.” The marketing in question focused almost entirely on the notion of the twerking clique, and many saw it as promoting the sexualization of young girls. Early reviews out of Sundance suggest that the film is actually condemning that very same thing.

 The Social Dilemma is a docu-drama (in the most traditional sense: fusing documentary footage with re-enactments using actors such as Skyler Gisondo and Vincent Kartheiser) about the perils of Silicon Valley developers using technology to influence and manipulate us. (It is, admittedly, a little weird and dystopic that this wound up on Netflix.) Finally, on Sept. 10, you can catch McG rounding the bases one more time with The Babysitter: Killer Queen, a sequel to the 2017 Netflix film that was seemingly a hit mainly because this was early on in the Netflix originals game.

New on DisneyPlus

In a rather bold move that is being met with mixed reactions, Disney has decided to forgo the theatrical release of Mulan and release it directly to their DisneyPlus streaming service — at a cost. It’s $34.99 on top of your regular subscription fees to watch the House of Mouse’s latest lavish remake of an animated property, which isn’t necessarily to everyone’s liking. (Disney has since announced that it will be available for every subscriber starting on Dec. 4.) It’s certainly not ideal to witness the epic scope of the film outside of a theatre, but the fact remains that families are still going to save by renting it on-demand. Early reviews are mixed (I was rather unenthused by it).

New on Crave

This week on Crave, you can stream the Ben Affleck sobriety drama The Way Back as well as the comedy Standing Up, Falling Down, which stars Ben Schwartz as a troubled stand-up comedian who befriends an ailing dermatologist played by Billy Crystal. Season 4 of the hit sci-fi Western Wynonna Earp also hits the service as of today. A little later this week, the comedy-drama Unpregnant (an HBO Max original available through Crave) streams; Haley Lu Richardson (Split, Support the Girls) stars as a pregnant teenager who drives across state lines with a friend (Barbi Ferreira from Euphoria) to get an abortion. That same day, you can also stream the Canadian films Tammy’s Always Dying, starring Felicity Huffman and White Lie. 

New on Amazon Prime Video

Season 2 of The Boys is the big draw this week. Based on a comic book by Garth Ennis and starring Karl Urban, Jack Quaid and Erin Moriarty, it’s one of the most popular shows on Crave — although, truth be told, it does not seem to have attained a water-cooler level of pop consciousness. Movie-wise, it’s a little sparse this week, with Bloodshot (the last film I saw in theatres before the pandemic, incidentally) and Midway coming to the service on Sept. 4 and Sept. 10, respectively. 

New on the Criterion Channel

Criterion’s retrospective this week is a rather specific one: it chronicles the pre-Hays Code films of 1930s actress Joan Blondell, known mostly for her roles as the plucky sidekick. Some of these are rather hard to come by otherwise! Three films by Robert Greene are also offered for streaming, including his 2016 standout Kate Plays Christine. Four shorts by Janicza Bravo are also offered by the service; her Sundance hit Zola (based on a series of tweets that have since passed into legend) has presumably been delayed by COVID-19. ■

See what’s new on Netflix Canada here.

For what’s new on Crave, click here.

Find out what’s new on Amazon Prime Video here.

See what’s new on Criterion Channel here.

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For more coverage of new movies and TV series, visit the Film & TV section.

A weekly round-up of the new movies and TV series on Netflix, DisneyPlus, Crave, Amazon Prime Video and Criterion Channel