What to Watch
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A bunch of major titles are leaving for U.S. subscribers this month, including films by George Lucas and Ang Lee. See them while you can.
Two of the biggest movies of the 1970s and one of the biggest of the ’80s are among the movies leaving Netflix in the United States in July; other highlights include a family favorite, a comic book oddity and an unconventional biopic. (Dates indicate the final day a title is available.)
Stream it here.
This true-crime documentary became such a must-watch (and must-discuss) sensation on Netflix, it ended up spawning a limited series dramatization on Peacock. It’s not hard to see why: This is truly stranger-than-fiction stuff, detailing how the 12-year-old Jan Broberg was abducted by a neighbor and family friend, Robert Berchtold — and then, somehow, abducted again by the same man several years later. The internet outrage surrounding the film (and blaming Broberg’s parents) missed the point; the director Skye Borgman sensitively and intelligently explores how Berchtold used brainwashing and grooming to commit his shocking crimes.
Stream it here.
In an era of increasingly dreary, paint-by-numbers biopics, the works of the screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski seem like oases in the desert — witty, insightful, poignant and frequently cockeyed portraits of unconventional subjects like Larry Flynt, Andy Kaufman and Rudy Ray Moore. This 2014 effort reunited the writers with their “Ed Wood” director, Tim Burton, telling the story of the artist Margaret Keane, whose wildly popular and undeniably distinctive paintings were originally believed to be the work of her monstrous husband, Walter. Amy Adams plays Margaret with sympathy and grace, while Christoph Waltz’s turn as the egomaniacal Walter is the best work he has done outside of the Tarantino-verse.
Stream it here.
This 1973 coming-of-age comedy-drama was a mind-boggling launchpad. First and foremost, it started a movement of ’50s nostalgia (even though it is set in 1962, it still feels like the ’50s) that continued through the decade with the likes of “Grease” and the film’s unofficial TV spinoff, “Happy Days.” It was also a big break for several members of its then-unknown cast, including Candy Clark, Richard Dreyfuss, Harrison Ford, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Mackenzie Phillips, Charles Martin Smith and Cindy Williams. And perhaps most important, it was the first big hit for its co-writer and director, a quiet young California filmmaker named George Lucas, who based the picture on his own youth as a Modesto hot-rodder. Its critical and commercial success allowed him to take on his dream project, a sci-fi epic called “Star Wars,” and well, you know the rest.
Stream it here.
This erotic thriller from Adrian Lyne was one of the most successful pictures of 1987 — and one of the most controversial, prompting heating conversations about its depictions of adultery and mental illness that moved from movie listings to opinion pages and magazine covers. The story is simple: Michael Douglas stars as a family man whose seemingly offhand weekend extramarital affair with Glenn Close turns into a matter of literal life and death. It is a deeply flawed picture — Close’s nuanced characterization outclasses the paper-thin caricature she’s given, and critics of the era were right to call out the cheap-thrills ending as a cop-out — but a nevertheless fascinating snapshot of the era’s sexual mores and moral paranoia.
Stream it here.
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