Genre: Crime, Documentary
Actor: Adam, Oliver O'Grady, Pope Benedict XVI, Thomas Doyle
Director: Amy J. Berg
English is the language of Hollywood, and ocassionally even Nollywood and Bollywood. As far as the streaming landscape goes, English-language movies certainly outnumber the rest. To get started, here are the best English-language films to stream now.
Genre: Crime, Documentary
Actor: Adam, Oliver O'Grady, Pope Benedict XVI, Thomas Doyle
Director: Amy J. Berg
Welcome to the Dollhouse tells the story of Dawn, an unpopular seventh-grader mercilessly bullied at school and ignored at home. Her day-to-day is painful to watch; her classmates make fun of her, her teachers never believe her, and her parents punish her, blatantly favoring her other siblings over her. But all this she puts up with, as if going through the murky in-between stage that is adolescence isn't confusing enough. Dawn finds no respite elsewhere, except perhaps in her friend Ralphy (another target of bullying) and her crush, the high schooler Steve.
A Sundance jury winner back in '96, Welcome to the Dollhouse is as darkly funny as it is grim. It takes on a deadpan approach in handling its more serious topics; it doesn't make fun of them so much as it shines them in a new and blinding light. It's difficult to look away from this frank and well-balanced film; a sure good watch for anyone curious to know what it's really like to be a teenage loner.
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Angela Pietropinto, Bill Buell, Brendan Sexton III, Christina Brucato, Christina Vidal, Daria Kalinina, Elizabeth Martin, Eric Mabius, Heather Matarazzo, Ken Leung, Matthew Faber, Molly Howe, Rica Martens, Richard Gould, Siri Howard, Stacey Moseley, Teddy Coluca, Telly Pontidis, Victoria Davis, Will Lyman
Director: Todd Solondz
Genre: Drama, Romance
Actor: Archie Lal, Eddie Marsan, Julia Mallam, Lee Rufford, Ned Dennehy, Olivia Colman, Paul Popplewell, Peter Mullan, Sally Carman, Samuel Bottomley, Sian Breckin
Director: Paddy Considine
Genre: Documentary
Actor: Angela Davis, Barack Obama, Bill Moyers, Dick Cavett, Fran Lebowitz, Hilton Als, Muhammad Ali, Oprah Winfrey, Peter Sellars, Robert Gottlieb, Russell Banks, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Toni Morrison, Walter Mosley
Director: Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
Genre: Drama, Music, Mystery, Romance, Thriller
Actor: Anita Laurenzi, Arthur Denberg, Carlo Cecchi, Clotilde Mollet, Colm Feore, Dany Laferrière, David Gant, David La Haye, Dimitri Andreas, Don McKellar, Dorothée Berryman, Eva Marie Bryer, Florentín Groll, Gregory Hlady, Greta Scacchi, Herman Meckler, Hong Tao, Irene Grazioli, James Bradford, Jason Flemyng, Jean-Luc Bideau, Jody Shapiro, Johannes Silberschneider, Joshua Bell, Julian Richings, Monique Mercure, Rainer Egger, Rémy Girard, Russell Yuen, Samuel L. Jackson, Samuele Amighetti, Sandra Oh, Stuart Yung Sai-Kit, Sylvia Chang, Sylvia Stewart, Tan Zeng-Wei, Tommaso Puntelli, Wang Xiaoshuai, Wolfgang Böck, Zhi Qiao, Zifeng Liu
Director: François Girard
Genre: Action, Adventure, Crime, Drama, Thriller, Western
Actor: Bogdan Koca, Boris Brkic, Bryan Probets, Danny Huston, David Gulpilil, David Vallon, David Wenham, Emily Watson, Gary Waddell, Guy Pearce, Iain Gardiner, Jeremy Madrona, John Hurt, Leah Purcell, Mick Roughan, Noah Taylor, Oliver Ackland, Ralph Cotterill, Ray Winstone, Richard Wilson, Robert Morgan, Tom Budge, Tom E. Lewis
Director: John Hillcoat
Genre: Comedy, Drama, History
Actor: Adrian Scarborough, Alan Bennett, Amanda Donohoe, Anthony Calf, Barry Stanton, Caroline Harker, Charlotte Curley, Clive Brunt, Colin McPhillamy, Cyril Shaps, David Leon, Dermot Keaney, Geoffrey Palmer, Helen Mirren, Iain Mitchell, Ian Holm, Janine Duvitski, Jeremy Child, Jim Carter, Joanna Hall, John Wood, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Julian Wadham, Michael Grandage, Nicholas Irons, Nicholas Selby, Nick Sampson, Nigel Hawthorne, Paul Corrigan, Peter Woodthorpe, Robert Swann, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Roger Hammond, Rupert Everett, Rupert Graves, Selina Cadell, Struan Rodger
Director: Nicholas Hytner
Classroom chatter and inside jokes; the rhythmic routine of class, band practice, and communal mealtime; colorful paints and a keen Shakespeare play; paperback books, pages bookmarked with dogears. These are the precious, ordinary wonders of Headfort, a preparatory boarding school in Ireland.
School Life observes Amanda and John Leyden, who have each taught at Headfort for over four decades. As they both near retirement, so too looms the promise of a tranquil retreat into the countryside—and questions of what they leave behind in their school, their classrooms, and their students. Idyllic and gentle, this documentary offers a brief but meaningful look into the school lives of bright children indelibly influenced by their earliest mentors.
Genre: Documentary
Director: David Rane, Neasa Ní Chianáin
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Actor: Adam Nathan, Bob Koherr, Cam Brainard, John Bolger, Kathy Kinney, Michael Medeiros, Nicholas Hill, Patrick Tull, Richard Ganoung, Steve Buscemi, Victor Rivers, Yolande Bavan
Director: Bill Sherwood
Kilo Two Bravo (Originally named Kajaki) is a must-watch for anyone who likes war dramas. It tells the true story of British soldiers in the Afghanistan war who find themselves trapped in a minefield during a mission, with their rescue team coming in a helicopter that might set off mines if it lands. It's a slow, dialogue driven film that is interested in taking you to the war zone more than it cares about entertaining you. Ultimately, it becomes an essay on the horrors of war, and an anti-war war film. Because of this and given the blood and gore, this movie is definitely not for those who would feel nauseated at sight of blood. Great setting, good cinematography, realistic acting and script all do justice to the true story. It's a film that will grip your senses and keep you at the edge of the seat throughout.
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Thriller, War
Actor: Ali Cook, Andy Gibbins, Benjamin O'Mahony, Bryan Parry, David Elliot, Grant Kilburn, Joe Corrigall, John Doughty, Jon-Paul Bell, Liam Ainsworth, Malachi Kirby, Mark Stanley, Paul Katis, Paul Luebke, Robert Mitchell, Scott Kyle, Thomas Davison
Director: Paul Katis
Genre: Action, Comedy, Crime, Thriller
Actor: Anders Baasmo Christiansen, Arben Bala, Arthur Berning, Atle Antonsen, Birgitte Hjort Sørensen, Birgitte Hjort Sorensen, Bjørn Moan, Bruno Ganz, David Sakurai, Espen Reboli Bjerke, Gard B. Eidsvold, Goran Navojec, Hildegun Riise, Jack Moland, Jakob Oftebro, Jan Gunnar Røise, Jon Øigarden, Jon Øigarden, Julia Bache-Wiig, Kåre Conradi, Kristofer Hivju, Leo Ajkic, Martin Furulund, Miodrag 'Miki' Krstović, Miodrag Krstović, Ola G. Furuseth, Pål Sverre Hagen, Peter Andersson, Sergej Trifunović, Stellan Skarsgård, Stig Henrik Hoff, Thomas Hildebrand, Tobias Santelmann
Director: Hans Petter Moland
Tied together by a song that seems to drive people to end their own lives, Gloomy Sunday's tale of polyamorous love torn apart by the advent of the Second World War is one that doesn't operate according to your usual narrative structure. Its stranger elements might not always work with the very real horrors of the Nazis' invasion of Hungary, but the film still expresses this horror in a unique way. Even long before the war begins, this song that joins our three lovers together seems to touch on a sense of doom everybody is feeling—warning signs of Hitler's rise to power that ordinary people seem to have been powerless to stop in time. It's certainly unique for a non-action-driven war film, bathed in tragedy and bitter irony.
Genre: Drama, History, Romance, War
Actor: András Bálint, Anna Ráckevei, Áron Sipos, Ben Becker, Denis Moschitto, Dorka Gryllus, Erika Marozsán, Ernst Kahl, Ferenc Bács, Ferenc Némethy, Ilse Zielstorff, István Kanizsay, István Mikó, Joachim Krol, Jörg Gillner, Karl Fischer, László I. Kish, Markus Hering, Márta Bakó, Michael Gampe, Rolf Becker, Sebastian Koch, Stefan Weinert, Stefano Dionisi, Tibor Kenderesi, Ulrike Grote, Veit Stübner, Wanja Mues, Zsuzsa Mányai
Director: Rolf Schübel
Though it's still very much a product of a time of certain jokes that haven't aged well, it's still remarkable how the humor and the satirical edge of this mockumentary has remained so current. As a very-low budget mockumentary of a still-young American hip hop scene, there's so much more effort that goes into these fake songs and music videos than you'd expect. But the film doesn't stop at simply poking fun at the rappers and hip hop artists of the era; the jokes always circle back around to the racism of the time and the self-seriousness of the culture in the music industry. It's a hilarious time capsule with some brutally incisive lines in practically every scene.
Genre: Comedy, Mockumentary, Music
Actor: Barry Shabaka Henley, Deezer D, Devin Kamin, Don Reed, Faizon Love, G. Smokey Campbell, Homeselle Joy, Kasi Lemmons, Larry B. Scott, LaVerne Anderson, Mark Christopher Lawrence, Monique Gabrielle, Penny Johnson Jerald, Rose Jackson, Rusty Cundieff
Director: Rusty Cundieff
Genre: Drama, Romance
Actor: Alexandra Maria Lara, Benjamin Trinks, Bruno Ganz, Burghart Klaussner, Carmen-Maja Antoni, David Kross, Fabian Busch, Florian Bartholomäi, Hannah Herzsprung, Heike Hanold-Lynch, Jeanette Hain, Jürgen Tarrach, Karoline Herfurth, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Block, Lena Olin, Linda Bassett, Ludwig Blochberger, Margarita Broich, Marie Gruber, Martin Brambach, Matthias Habich, Moritz Grove, Ralph Fiennes, Susanne Lothar, Sylvester Groth, Vijessna Ferkic, Volker Bruch
Director: Stephen Daldry
Lauren Greenfield’s film follows the Siegel family’s decline from opulent abundance to gaudy ruin. Mega wealth, delusions of grandeur, and grotesquely opulent taste—the Siegel family were the perfect subjects for the film, which sets out to document their most lavish expense: their Versailles home, a mansion sprawling more than 85,000 square feet and modeled after the Palace of Versailles.
The Siegels, no doubt, are entirely out of touch with reality. David Siegel, the owner of one of the world’s largest timeshare developers, married Jackie, a former Mrs. Florida who is 30 years younger. The Versailles home is to be Jackie’s castle, an enormous home for her eight kids and numerous pets.
But the 2008 recession does not spare the Siegels, and their company is devastated. After layoffs and desperate attempts to recover financially, the family struggles to pay back the banks. Construction halts. The Versailles home remains vacant and unfinished.
While the film does not sympathize with the Siegels, Greenfield creates a space where pity is possible as well as criticism. And from there comes the universal: desperation, longing, hope for better, if not also more, more, more.
Genre: Documentary, Drama
Actor: David Siegel, Jacqueline Siegel, Virginia Nebab
Director: Lauren Greenfield