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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.

Babes (Pamela Adlon)

Transitioning the naturalistic comic sensibilities that made Better Things a success, Pamela Adlon’s feature debut Babes manages to co-opt the rhythms of a romantic comedy to explore the relationship between two best friends at opposite points of their lives. – Christian G. (full review)

Where to Stream: Hulu

Dìdi (弟弟) (Sean Wang)

While trying to chat up classmate Madi (Mahaela Park) on Aim, Chris (Izaac Wang) skims her MySpace for an “in”. Then, beneath all the Paramore pictures and low-res GIFs is a list of her favorite movies. Oh, A Walk to Remember is one of them. He fakes loving it; “its helllllla good,” he says. Now he has to maintain that––at least for a few scenes. This...

“I’m back,” Hamaguchi Ryûsuke exuberantly proclaimed—in English no less—when introducing his latest film, Evil Does Not Exist, to a rapturous response from a New York Film Festival crowd in 2023. His punchy opening line was more overtly declarative than the work he was there to present. After his two-release breakout year in 2021 culminated in an Oscar victory for Drive My Car, Hamaguchi might have taken the familiar path of following up such a win with a big directorial proclamation. Instead, his latest feature belies the nature of its title and proves to be more of a question than a statement.

Some of this may be due to the genesis of Evil Does Not Exist, which doesn’t lie entirely with Hamaguchi himself. Ishibashi Eiko, his composer on Drive My Car, approached the director to create footage to accompany her live performances. Inspiration struck, and Hamaguchi’s remit expanded...

It’s been a rough few weeks for indies but May is here with a handful of hopefuls looking to rev up the market — from A24’s buzzy I Saw The TV Glow to Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Venice award-winning Evil Does Not Exist. A documentary about Anita Pallenberg featuring Scarlett Johansson hits theaters, with a French animated sci-fi set on Mars, and a Flannery O’Conner biopic by Ethan Hawke.

I Saw The TV Glow is written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (We’re All Going To The World’s Fair) and produced by Emma Stone under her Fruit Tree Banner. The horror-thriller that gripped Sundance (Deadline review called it a “trippy gut punch”) then SXSW follows a teenager named Owen trying to make it through life in the suburbs. The weirdness starts when his classmate introduces him to a mysterious late-night TV show, a vision of a supernatural world beneath their own.

The opening, multi-minute shot of “Evil Does Not Exist” stares upwards at the trees, floating backwards through the forest, while Eiko Ishibashi’s haunting score casts a spell on us. It’s contemplative but not peaceful; weirdly arresting, like a thriller with no tangible thrills. It’s almost a shock when the story kicks in, but writer/director Ryusuke Hamaguchi looks at his characters much the same way. He’s fascinated and concerned by who they are and what they might do, and he watches them float by.

Hamaguchi’s previous film, “Drive My Car,” was a nearly three-hour drama about a man directing a stage version of Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” where every character speaks a different language. Along the way, he formed a relationship with his production-mandated chauffeur who — fittingly enough — drives his car, as they listen to recordings of his recently-deceased wife reading the script. You...

Ryo Nishikawa in Evil Does Not Exist Image: Janus Films Evil Does Not Exist takes its time. At the beginning there’s foreboding music on the soundtrack as the camera moves across nature and vegetation. Then a character appears out of nowhere, startling the audience. Almost half an hour passes before a character even speaks.

Ryo Nishikawa in Evil Does Not ExistImage: Janus Films

Evil Does Not Exist takes its time. At the beginning there’s foreboding music on the soundtrack as the camera moves across nature and vegetation. Then a character appears out of nowhere, startling the audience. Almost half an hour passes before a character even speaks.

After years of making films in his native Japan, writer-director Ryusuke Hamaguchi found unexpected global success in 2021 with “Drive My Car.”

Adapted and expanded from short stories by Haruki Murakami, it’s an exquisite drama about a grieving theater director staging a multilingual “Uncle Vanya,” and his relationship with the pensive young woman employed to drive his cherry-red Saab.

Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, where Hamaguchi and co-writer Takamasa Oe won the Best Screenplay prize, “Drive My Car” went on to dominate the fall festival circuit. The film clocked up an astonishing four nominations at the 2022 Oscars, including Best Picture and a Best Director nod for Hamaguchi, and went on to win Japan’s first Oscar for Best International Film.

Hamaguchi’s latest film, “Evil Does Not Exist” is to some extent a response to that overwhelming acclaim. “I knew that I wanted my next work to be very...

Clockwise from bottom left: Good One (Metrograph Pictures), Deadpool & Wolverine (Disney/Marvel), The Watchers (Warner Bros.), Alien: Romulus (20th Century Studios)Graphic: The A.V. Club

Yesterday, we took a look at the films that really stand out to us this summer, but there are still plenty of other movies on...

Evil Does Not Exist Photo: Janus Films There are few things more bone-chilling than the real-life evils set upon our planet and its people each and every day. This is the type of horror Japanese director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi is contending with in Evil Does Not Exist, the stirring and eerie follow-up to his Oscar-winning 2021 film,...