At this point we’ll just assume that you’ve seen all of this year’s Oscar nominated films, even The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (which can be streamed on Amazon Prime), so we can focus on past Best Picture winners available for streaming. While you can rent most of these films on Amazon and other VOD platforms, these are the winners you can check out on Netflix:

Best Picture Winners Streaming on Netflix

Wings (1929)
The Greatest Show on Earth (1953)
Around the World in 80 Days (1957)
Amadeus (1985)
Forrest Gump (1995)
The English Patient (1997)
Shakespeare in Love (1999)
American Beauty (2000)

After bingeing on Oscar history, you should check out these films and television shows new to streaming this week on all the various platforms:

Netflix

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny (Yuen Woo-ping, 2016)

The next big venture in Netflix’s goal of movie domination, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny receives its streaming release at the same time of its theatrical and IMAX release. Unlike Beasts of No Nation, however, this sequel doesn’t have quite the same lofty awards hope—that’s not a big deal as long as Crouching Tiger delivers on the martial arts action we’re expecting. Artful martial arts films have been receiving more and more critical and cult success, starting with the insane popularity of Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon through the Raid and Ip Man series and last year’s The Assassin. In the film, Michelle Yeoh returns as the badass Yu Shu Lien, joined by newcomers Donnie Yen and longtime director and fight choreographer Yuen Woo-ping. We shall see if Sword of Destiny can re-capture of the magic that came before it and continue the martial arts critical momentum, but its release on Netflix is noteworthy regardless.

Other titles new to Netflix this week:
Bare (Natalia Leite, 2015)
Fuller House (Series, Season 1)
The Summer of Sangaile (Alante Kavaite, 2015)

Fandor

Tricked (Paul Verhoeven, 2012)

Through the 80s and 90s, Paul Verhoeven was one of the most audacious and wonderful filmmakers working—unfortunately, after a few notable flops, he largely disappeared from the cinema, only making two films in his native Netherlands after 2000. His newest film, Tricked, is finally coming to the U.S. with a limited theatrical run with a simultaneous release on streaming service Fandor. The film’s major hook is its unique production, which employed an open source strategy to write its script. Credited screenwriter Kim van Kooten wrote the first few pages, just enough to set the basic premise and introduce a few characters, before turning it over to the public to submit their ideas, plot, and dialogue. From there, Verhoeven and his production team took the best aspects of the submissions to fill out the rest of the film. Tricked takes place at the 50th birthday party of a wealthy businessman as his various affairs begin to come together. Overall, it’s a very funny, bawdy sex comedy that feels more complete than you’d think with its production story. And even though there are dozens of uncredited screenwriters on the film, it keeps its auteur’s provocative voice.

Other titles new to Fandor this week:
Babette’s Feast (Gabriel Axel, 1987)
Closely Watched Trains (Jirí Menzel, 1966)
Fanny and Alexander (Ingmar Bergman, 1982)
The Great Beauty (Paolo Sorrentino, 2013)
Z (Costa-Gavras, 1969)

MUBI

The Barbarian Invasions (Denys Arcand, 2003)

MUBI kicks off a run of Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winners with Canadian comedy The Barbarian Invasions. Sequel to Arcand’s The Decline of the American Empire, the film takes place seventeen years later while its characters have grown older, had children, and seen their lifestyles and political leanings change. The film’s lead character, Rémy (Rémy Girard), has been diagnosed with cancer, which leads him to reunite with his estranged son (Stéphane Rousseau). With the backdrop of a struggling economic situation and political strife in Quebec, the characters banter about their philosophies on life and politics, often very humorously. Full of fantastic characters, The Barbarian Invasions is a sharp and funny film that explores life and love. Along with its Oscar win, it was also nominated for its screenplay, which is rare for a foreign language film and highlights how smartly it tackles its topics through its characters. You can stream The Barbarian Invasions on MUBI until March 25.

Other titles new to MUBI this week:
Fidelity (Andrzej Zulawski, 2000)
Fort Buchanan (Benjamin Crotty, 2014)
Friends for Eternity (Gabriel Abrantes & Daniel Schmidt, 2011)
The Official Story (Luis Puenzo, 1985)
Sidewalk Stories (Charles Lane, 1989)

iTunes & Video On-Demand

The Nightingale (Philippe Muyl, 2013)

China’s Academy Award submission in 2014, The Nightingale finally comes to the U.S. on iTunes and VOD this week. It is a simple and beautiful story of an elderly man who goes on a journey to a countryside village with his city-ized granddaughter. The film makes takes a sharp look at the differences between the growing urbanization in China and the stunning landscapes outside of its mega-cities. Directed by an outsider, Muyl’s camera absorbs the environments with incredible appreciation, making for a visual feast. Thematically, it explores the disconnect we have with our environment as that becomes less valued—it’s not exactly new thematic ground, but the film’s visual sense and understated narrative work through the themes wonderfully.

Other titles new to VOD this week:
The Affair (Series, Season 2)
The Big Short (Adam McKay, 2015)
Brooklyn (John Crowley, 2015)
Entertainment (Rick Alverson, 2015)
Yosemite (Gabrielle Demeestere, 2015)

There’s a difference between “simple” and “simplistic” storytelling, and The Nightingale is a film that walks a fine line between the two terms. Director Philippe Muyl relies on an unfussy narrative, familiar character dynamics and placid visuals to make the sentiment of his tale resonate. The film is old-fashioned and contains a fair amount of charm, but it takes no risks (neither in the film’s aesthetic or its plot complications). Themes of reconciliation, youthful optimism and multigenerational bridge-building mosey on through, their potency limited by a lack of conflict and a penchant for easy answers.

Set in modern day China, The Nightingale finds a family suffering from disconnection. A married couple (portrayed by Xiaoran Li and Hao Qin) and their young daughter, Ren Xing (Xin Yi Yang), are living in a cold, sterile apartment in the city. The parents are preoccupied with their busy professions and the girl seems to be more endeared to the bright screen of her iPad than anything else. When a pair of important business trips send each of the parents away, the mother has no choice but to leave her daughter with her grandfather (Baotian Li). He lives a quiet life on the other side of town and has his own voyage in the works. The destination is his childhood village—a place nestled far away, deep in the Chinese countryside. A wealth of memories, both joyous and sad, await him there and whether the temperamental Ren Xing likes it or not (spoiler alert: she doesn’t), she’s coming along for the ride.

The bulk of the film follows the travels and interactions of this girl and her doting grandfather. Right away, it’s shown that he won’t get through to her easily. Ren Xing huffs about, making up complaints, willfully disobeying her grandfather and spurning any of his attempts to pick her brain. She’s clearly very independent, but her antics are unreasonable at times. Of course, the early friction transparently sets the relationship up for a tender reversal, as the more time the two spend in the countryside and amongst the smiling villagers, the more they bond and the better they understand each other. At the center of this is the titular nightingale that the grandfather carries around in a cage. Its meaning is gradually revealed and the bird eventually comes to be the film’s unifying emotional symbol.

From these descriptions, one might envision a gently affecting tale with low stakes and the potential for a hugely poignant takeaway. It is indeed gentle and the stakes are definitely low, but the execution is bland and conventional. The look of The Nightingale isn’t quite televisual, but the lighting and camerawork are so disappointingly unexpressive and flat. Even the sections in the countryside are—with all the gorgeous landscapes that are at the director’s disposal—generically “pretty” in the way the spaces are captured. Muyl is after a relaxed pace and ponderous tone here, but the imagery fails to provoke any thought.

As far as subtext goes, there’s plenty, but the motifs and messages are obvious. All throughout The Nightingale, there’s a running theme of dichotomies, the most prominent one being the unceasing movement and chaos of the city and the serene wisdom of the country. There’s something to be said about the divide between these two realms, but the film doesn’t do the topic justice, approaching it with a lack of nuance. The sprawling metropolis is repeatedly established with what appears to be slight variations of the same shot of sped-up traffic. By the third or fourth instance of this, we get idea. Meanwhile, the countryside is presented as a picture of paradise—accented by the perpetual laugh of children and shimmering, imperfect vistas.

This is where that “simplistic” sensibility comes in. The story is very straightforward and for a while, the absence of big, game-changing events is kind of nice. Baotian Li contributes a lot with his sweetly sympathetic performance and the sauntering nature of the tale is pleasant enough. But at some point, I began to hunger for something a little more substantial. Every little obstacle that comes up for the characters is very quickly dismissed or assuaged, and each beat of the characters’ individual developments falls into place, unearned. The countryside works like a magical sedative on Ren Xing’s sour mood and technological enslavement, and a previously strained relationship between the grandfather and the girl’s dad is quickly mended.

I’m assuming that The Nightingale’s target audience is children and easy-to-please families, as more cynical or discerning viewers may feel patronized by the easy sentiment and cookie-cutter storytelling. At the same time, there’s an oddly undercooked divorce subplot in the film that doesn’t fit the otherwise buoyant tone and feels out-of-place each time it’s brought up. Maybe this part is meant for adults seeking greater dramatic weight, but it isn’t thought out well enough to properly satisfy those needs, so I’m not sure what to make of it.

With all this negativity, it needs to be reinforced that The Nightingale is entirely harmless entertainment with, at the very least, a good heart and a nice message. It may be a fine choice for a casual afternoon viewing, but you probably won’t remember it the next day.