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Maggie Gyllenhaal makes 'The Bride!' star of the Frankenstein story on HBO Max

Wildly ambitious, explosively energetic, and exuberantly feminist, Maggie Gyllenhaal‘s The Bride! (2026) reinvents and reinvigorates the story of the bride of Frankenstein, barely a footnote in Mary Shelley‘s novel and a mere supporting character in the 1933 film that immortalized the character. Paying tribute to the original The Bride of Frankenstein, it opens with Mary Shelley, driven by the…

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'Dragon Inn' – deceit, double-crosses, and martial art magic on Criterion Channel

King Hu‘s Dragon Inn (Taiwan, 1967), also known as Dragon Gate Inn, pits a group of enigmatic strangers against soldiers sent by a power-hungry Eunuch in the court of the Chinese Emperor to murder the children of a popular government official. They all converge on a the lonely inn of the title, an isolated, wind-scoured building in the middle of the desert near the Dragon Gate military outpost,…

'Dragon Inn' – deceit, double-crosses, and martial art magic on Criterion Channel

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'The Only Son' – A mother and son reunion in 1936 Japan on HBO Max and Criterion Channel

The Only Son (Japan, 1936) is on the tragic end of the spectrum of Yasujiro Ozu‘s cinema, a drama of disappointment in an era of economic hard times, where the only thing worse that professional failure is failing to live up to parental expectations. Disappointment seems inevitable from the quote that opens the film: “Life’s tragedy begins with the bonding of child and parent. Widowed mother…

'The Only Son' – A mother and son reunion in 1936 Japan on HBO Max and Criterion Channel

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'There Was a Father' – the cost of duty on HBO Max and Criterion Channel

Yasujiro Ozu‘s There Was a Father (Japan, 1942) is an indisputable masterpiece. Though made while Japan was gripped in the nationalist fervor of World War II and the government demanded messages of national duty in every film, the result is a work of grace and simplicity that feels as timeless now as it was timely then. Chishu Ryu (Ozu’s longtime leading man and cinematic alter-ego) is Shuhei,…

'There Was a Father' – the cost of duty on HBO Max and Criterion Channel

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'Lancelot du lac' – Robert Bresson takes on King Arthur on Criterion Channel

Lancelot du lac (France,1974), Robert Bresson’s Arthurian drama, is anything but romantic. It opens in the midst of battle, presented in a straightforward, matter-of-fact manner that is nonetheless moody and startlingly graphic: limbs are hacked off and blood spurts freely (the Black Knight scene in Monty Python and The Holy Grail is surely a direct parody). Bresson continues his unemotional…

'Lancelot du lac' – Robert Bresson takes on King Arthur on Criterion Channel

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'Battlestar Galactica' 2.0 – SyFy's modern science fiction classic on Paramount+

Forget the original clunky, kitschy 1980s sci-fi series. The 21st century Battlestar Galactica (2003-2009), developed for the SyFy cable channel by Ronald D. Moore, is more than a revival. It’s a creative, clever, and compelling rethinking of the show. The drama about the human survivors of an intergalactic massacre on a deep space wagon train search for the mythical plant Earth is reborn with a…

'Battlestar Galactica' 2.0 – SyFy's modern science fiction classic on Paramount+

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Watch This! 'Star Wars' - The Musical with Donny and Marie!

Most Stars Wars fans know about the infamous 1978 TV Christmas special that George Lucas has kept under lock and key since its debut. But do you know about this musical tribute to the original Star Wars from Donny and Marie, the seventies variety show starring Donny and Marie Osmond and produced by Sid and Marty Krofft? It’s the big finale from the third season premiere and it stars Kris…

Watch This! 'Star Wars' - The Musical with Donny and Marie!

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Coming Attractions: Streaming in May 2026

Notable shows “Lord of the Flies” (Netflix, 5/4), William Golding’s classic dystopian novel of schoolboys gone savage on deserted island, is adapted into a limited series by “His Dark Materials” showrunner Jack Thorne with a cast of newcomers. The limited series “The Other Bennet Sister” (BritBox, 5/6), based on the novel by Janice Hadlow, tells the story of Mary Bennet (Ella Bruccoleri), the…

Coming Attractions: Streaming in May 2026

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'Body Double' – Brian De Palma's surreal erotic thriller on Criterion Channel

Brian De Palma borrows liberally from Alfred Hitchcock‘s Rear Window and Vertigo for Body Double (1984), but to dismiss this polarizing film as a Hitchcock pastiche is to miss the point—and the sheer, thrilling cinematic gusto—of his operatic thriller. Fittingly opening on a film within a film, it stars Craig Wasson as struggling young actor Jake Scully. Suffering from crippling claustrophobia…

'Body Double' – Brian De Palma's surreal erotic thriller on Criterion Channel

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'The Shield' – the best and the worst of cops on the L.A. streets on Hulu

The Shield (2002-2008) debuted on the FX cable channel early in 2002. Creator Shawn Ryan based the show on the real-life Rampart scandal, a notorious case of a small group of Los Angeles cops who took out drug dealers and took over their business for their own enrichment. Almost immediately it shook up television by pushing the boundaries of violence and sexual content on commercial cable and…

'The Shield' – the best and the worst of cops on the L.A. streets on Hulu

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'Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa' – the New York Zoo buddies find a new home on Netflix

The urban animals that washed ashore the island of Madagascar make their big break to return to the Big Apple. As the title Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008) suggests, they don’t quite make it. Show-biz lion Alex (Ben Stiller), the King of the New York Zoo, lands in a game preserve in Africa, where the reunion with his parents turns into a generational culture clash in the midst of a comic Lion…

'Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa' – the New York Zoo buddies find a new home on Netflix

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'Nightfall' – Aldo Ray on the run on Criterion Channel

James Vanning (Aldo Ray) is an innocent man on the run in Jacques Tourneur‘s classic film noir nightmare Nightfall (1956). An artist by trade, this gentle soul is pursued not just by the police, who think he’s guilty of robbery and murder, but also the brutal bank robbers who framed him. Only one person believes him: Marie Gardner (Anne Bancroft), an emotionally bruised model with whom he shares…

'Nightfall' – Aldo Ray on the run on Criterion Channel

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'Mouchette' – life is cruel for an adolescent schoolgirl on Criterion Channel

A fourteen-year-old schoolgirl endures a cruel world in Robert Bresson‘s Mouchette (France, 1967). Mouchette (Nadine Nortier) is an angry adolescent in the French provinces, the daughter of a drunkard bootlegger (Paul Hébert) and a dying, bedridden mother (Marie Cardinal). She’s a pariah in school and a figure of village gossip and she rebels in typically adolescent ways, lobbing mud at teasing…

'Mouchette' – life is cruel for an adolescent schoolgirl on Criterion Channel

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'Prison Break' – five seasons of breaking out of lockup on Hulu

Prison Break (2005-2017), the break-out hit (so to speak) of the 2005 TV season, charts the planning and execution of a daring jail break from a maximum-security prison over an entire season. Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) is an intense young structural engineer who gets himself incarcerated to save his brother Lincoln (Dominic Purcell), who has been sentenced for execution for a crime he…

'Prison Break' – five seasons of breaking out of lockup on Hulu

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Sidney Poitier finds his 'Pressure Point' on Prime Video

Pressure Point (1962) stars Sidney Poitier is a veteran psychiatrist who talks a frustrated younger colleague (played with animated gusto by Peter Falk) through a difficult patient by sharing a story from his past. As a young psychiatrist working in a federal penitentiary in 1942, he’s assigned the case of an angry young white supremacist (played by Bobby Darin) convicted of sedition for his…

Sidney Poitier finds his 'Pressure Point' on Prime Video

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'Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne' – Revenge in Paris high society on Criterion Channel

Robert Bresson spent his career stripping away the affectations and method from his actors in his search for “pure cinema.” If he had not quite mastered his approach in his second film, Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne (France, 1945), you can see it brewing in this melodrama of love, jealousy, revenge and redemption among the spoiled dilettantes of Parisian high society. Hélène (Maria Casares), a…

'Les Dames du Bois de Boulogne' – Revenge in Paris high society on Criterion Channel

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'Crime 101' – L.A. Noir with Chris Hemsworth on Prime Video

Crime 101 (2026) is a refreshing return to the kind of crisp, smart crime thrillers that Michael Mann made to perfection. If Bart Layton isn’t quite in the same league as Mann, he knows his terrain and navigates the streets of Los Angeles with confidence, precision, and an eye for defining detail. Chris Hemsworth runs with the best role he’s had since becoming Thor for the Marvel Comic movies.…

'Crime 101' – L.A. Noir with Chris Hemsworth on Prime Video