New to Streaming: Hope, Buddy, Rose of Nevada, The Sun Never Sets & 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.

Buddy (Casper Kelly)

A mix of Barney and Blue’s Clues, the TV program Buddy follows a large pink unicorn who, alongside a supporting cast of anthropomorphized house objects, teaches the program’s children a new lesson each episode. All of the show’s elements—the colorful sets, the ’90s outfits the children wear, the songs they sing—point to Kelly’s deep understanding of the aesthetics and rules of the world that he subverts. – Caleb H. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

The Death of Robin Hood (Michael Sarnoski)

How many times has the story of Robin Hood been told? How many books have been written, how many movies made about the outlaw? With The Death of Robin Hood, writer-director Michael Sarnoski goes back to the source. Rather, the supposed sources. The earliest stories of Robin Hood were ballads told by commoners across England. These tales tell of an outlaw who does not give anything stolen to the poor, instead taking pleasure in killing the rich. In the medieval ballad “Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne,” Robin beheads Gisborne and sticks his head on a spike. – Dan M. (full review)

Where to Stream: HBO Max

Hanging by a Wire (Mohammed Ali Naqvi)

A brisk docu-thriller that could do more with the richness of the players it chronicles, Mohammed Ali Naqvi’s Hanging by a Wire is not without thrills and human drama. Yet it seems focused more on a death-defying rescue than on what could be done to prevent this from happening again. – John F. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

Hope (Na Hong-jin)

It’s never night in Hope Harbor. At least so long as we’re there. The eschatological events of writer-director Na Hong-Jin’s high-octane, highly anticipated Hope unfold over the course of one long, grueling, nonstop chase of a day for its rag-tag team of small-town South Korean cops, yokels, and hicks, an ensemble that ranges from heroic to hilarious in this blathering creature-feature phantasm. – Luke H. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

In the Mouth (Cory Santilli)

One of the most impressive American indies I’ve seen in the last year sets Free Time and Dad & Step-Dad star Colin Burgess in a surreal comedy. Cory Santilli’s In the Mouth premiered at the Slamdance Film Festival and has now arrived digitally.

Where to Stream: Fandor

Rose of Nevada (Mark Jenkin)

The films of Mark Jenkin ooze a hypnotic, seasick sensibility; to watch them is to be lulled by their restless jumps through time and space, their ability to convert his home turf of Cornwall into a suspended world where facts and visions collide in stupefying dioramas. The director is a spinner of wandering tales, never fueled by linear plots so much as ambient forces: a ticking clock, gusts of wind, the distant roaring of waves. His dramas tend to pull your gaze from people and toward the inanimate objects that litter their surroundings. It’s here––in the interstice between the fictional foreground and non-fictional background––that the actual story often lies. – Leonardo G. (full review)

Where to Stream: MUBI

Sacrifice (Romain Gavras)

It’s not too grand a statement to say the environment you watch a film in will heavily impact how you feel about it. This was the case with Sacrifice, a supposed satire of the uber-rich and celebrity worship that, viewed in the context of a film festival’s gala world premiere where every big name in the credits was accompanied by hooting from the audience, couldn’t help ringing a little false. – Ethan V. (full review)

Where to Stream: Netflix

The Sun Never Sets (Joe Swanberg)

It’s been nearly a decade since Joe Swanberg last sat in the director’s chair. What does the preeminent king of mumblecore have up his sleeve now? More of the same, essentially. For those familiar with work such as Drinking Buddies, Digging for Fire, and Happy Christmas, the filmmaker’s The Sun Never Sets won’t pack many surprises; his low-budget, loose rhythm in assembling a set of characters and placing them under a quasi-rom-com premise to bicker and banter remains firmly intact. – Mitchell B. (full review)

Where to Stream: VOD

Also New to Streaming

AMC+

Night Nurse

Apple TV

Tenzing

HBO Max

Free Leonard Peltier

Kino Film Collection

Dracula’s Fiancée

Prime Video

Love of Your Life