Sure, we focus on streaming films and television here, but the streaming world encompasses so much more. Music is the biggest media that has embraced streaming, but there’s another interesting art form that’s exploring its possibilities. For those of you who prefer their stories told on a stage in real-time, BroadwayHD is a fantastic source that offers access to see some of the best in drama from your computer screen. It’s a little more pricey than other streaming services ($14.99/month and $169.99/year packages are available), but they also have a VOD service that allows you to see a specific performance for a short time period. The service recently added British play Gypsy, starring Harry Potter alum Imelda Staunton with music by Jule Styne and Stephen Sondheim. If the stage isn’t your thing, here are the usual film recommendations from us featuring new titles available to stream this week:

Netflix

House of Cards (Series, Season 4)

The most binge-able show on television, the fourth season of the original Netflix original, House of Cards, hits at an incredibly timely moment. As we build up to what should be a very entertaining presidential election season IRL, incumbent Frank Underwood is embroiled in what should be an equally entertaining race. With the third season ending with Claire telling her husband that she is leaving him, Frank’s personal life may be in even greater turmoil. It’s always difficult to know exactly where House of Cards will go, but it’s pretty easy to assume that Underwood will somehow, against all logic, have a successful campaign (sort of seems like a current political figure, right?). If you haven’t already, clear your weekend calendar to streamline the 13-hour political roller as it comes to Netflix this weekend. And if you are somehow lagging behind, you can stream the previous three seasons on Netflix, as well.

Other titles new to Netflix this week:
Adult Beginners (Ross Katz, 2014)
Amal (Richie Mehta, 2007)
Blade Runner: Theatrical Cut (Ridley Scott, 1982)
Corpse Bride (Tim Burton & Mike Johnson, 2005)
Exam (Stuart Hazeldine, 2009)
The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)
Heaven Knows What (Ben & Joshua Safdie, 2014)
The Panic in Needle Park (Jerry Schatzberg, 1971)
Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977)
Taxi (Jafar Panahi, 2015)

Fandor

Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967)

This week’s “Criterion Picks” focuses on films with great architecture, highlighted by French comedian Jacques Tati’s epic masterpiece. Now, while I wouldn’t recommended seeing Playtime outside of a movie theater, if you haven’t seen this wonderful film you need to seek it out on Fandor. Playtime is a delight of space and physical comedy with Tati’s signature Hulot performance. The film wonderfully fits this theme as Tati built his own huge, modernist structures for the film, which led to a huge budget that threatened production. Its architecture lead to wonderful bits of satirical comedy of bureaucratic and modernist visions. Other films in the Architecture series include Antonioni’s L’eclisse, The Naked City, Antonio Gaudí, Tati’s less ambitious but highly enjoyable Mon oncle, and more. These “Criterion Picks” are available on Fandor until March 13.

Other titles new to Fandor this week:
The Heart of the World (Guy Maddin, 2000)
Journey to Italy (Roberto Rossellini, 1954)
Old Enough (Marisa Silver, 1984)
Ruined Heart (Khavn De La Cruz, 2015)
Things to Come (William Cameron Menzies, 1936)

MUBI

Cinema Paradiso (Guiseppe Tornatore, 1988)

A winner of the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, Guiseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso is a wonderful love letter to filmmaking and film-going, alike. Set in a small Italian village, the film recounts the nostalgia of one man growing up with a fascination for a the local movie theater as he spends his days in the projectionist booth. It’s no secret that movie theaters, especially the old movie houses and independently run, have taken big hits in recent years. This will only continue as streaming films at home becomes more and more popular—so, hey, why don’t you stream Cinema Paradiso this weekend! All joking aside, the film really shines on the importance of cinema and the communal experience of going to the movies, essential things to remember in an increasingly digital age. You can watch Cinema Paradiso on MUBI until March 29.

Other titles new to MUBI this week:
Be With Me (Eric Khoo, 2005)
Dear Phone (Peter Greenaway, 1976)
Historic Centre (Pedro Costa, Manoel de Oliveira, Aki Kaurismäki & Victor Erice, 2012)
Tsotsi (Gavin Hood, 2005)
A Walk Through H (Peter Greenaway, 1978)

iTunes & Video On-Demand

Sunshine Superman (Marah Strauch, 2014)

One of the unheralded documentaries from last year, Sunshine Superman is a riveting profile of BASE jumping innovator Carl Boenish. With incredible footage of his death-defying stunts and an emotional character arc, it is one of the most complete sports documentaries ever made. Even without the archived skydiving and BASE jumping footage, the core relationship between Boenish and his wife Jean is touching and entertaining enough to sustain the film on its own. Debut filmmaker Marah Strauch brings the story together with a lot of narrative energy while patching together 16mm footage, VHS recordings and new talking head interviews. For more on Sunshine Superman check out our full review and interview with director Marah Strauch.

Other titles new to VOD this week:
Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015)
Heart of a Dog (Laurie Anderson, 2015)
Flowers (Jon Garaño & Jose Mari Goenaga, 2014)
Ratter (Branden Kramer, 2015)
Sisters (Jason Moore, 2015)

Now that the 2016 Berlin Film Festival has officially come to a close, and I’ve had a full day to get my bearings (get it?), it’s time I ran down the Top 5 films I’ve seen at the festival. Now, it would’ve been more than 5 had I not felt too disappointed (Midnight Special) or indifferent (Soy Nero) towards many of the films I saw (some of which were so horrendous and inconsequential, they didn’t even call for coverage)—but these are things you cannot predict when it comes to festivals. Especially one like the Berlinale, which has such a wide range of selections for its competition titles.

Read below for my 5 favorite films from the 66th edition of the Berlinale. They’re all quite different from each other, but every one is highly recommend for when you’re in a specific kind of mood for a specific kind of movie night. Unfortunately, many things went against me in Berlin and prevented me from watching the eventual big winners like Fire At Sea (Golden Bear), Death In Sarajevo (Jury Prize) and United States of Love (Silver Bear for Screenplay), but that doesn’t mean the films below are any less deserving of recognition and praise.

Favorite 5 Films of the 2016 Berlin Film Festival

#5. War On Everyone

Sandwiched between philosophical quips that give the film its few injections of thoughtfulness, John Michael McDonagh’s War On Everyone is mainly filtered through a scandalous, satirical and borderline psychedelic vision of American police work. Skarsgard and Pena make the unlikely central duo in this bad-cop-worse-cop buddy comedy work with such a generous dose of hilarity and raunchiness that you’ll easily forgive the film its naive moments and predictability. It’s so unabashedly anti-PC that it’s definitely not recommended for the sensitive souls out there. But that’s part of the appeal. [Review]

#4. Being 17

Andre Techine’s spirited film about two teenage boys in a French mountain countryside town is brimming with raw, untethered emotion and naturalistic performances. So much so that you’ll end up understanding Damien (Kacey Mottet Klein) and Tom (Corentin Fila) through so many scenes where a darting glance speaks the loudest. Flowing like an evergreen waterfall, Being 17 captures teenagehood on the precipice – and only falters near the end, but by then your heart won’t care that much. [Review]

#3. Zero Days

It’s a bit funny that I caught the two films above and Alex Gibney’s Zero Days on my very last day of movies in Berlin. It’s like the festival took pity on me for drudging through the pain of watching Creepy or almost being struck by angina pectoris while watching Lav Diaz’ 8-hour mega-epic (more on that at the end). In any case, Gibney’s Zero Days is a must-watch documentary by everyone interested in understanding just how far our world has advanced. Michael Mann’s Blackhat was pummeled by critics, but it’s getting a bit of a boost with a recent director’s cut – and will surely be looked at more closely once Zero Days hits public theatres. Cyber warfare is now, and countries need to start talking about it. [Review]

#2. A Quiet Passion

Terence Davies’ soft, luscious, and impossibly refined biopic of Emily Dickinson should appease lovers of exquisite shot composition and immaculate sense of character depth. Davies’ camera glides through the Dickinson household, while Cynthia Nixon, Jennifer Ehle, and the rest of the dazzling ensemble dive into Davies’ treasure chest of a screenplay in search of gold. They keep finding it in almost every scene, and thanks to Florian Hoffmeister’s blindingly beautiful cinematography, the audience feels the glow right on their skin. Aside from a couple of slips, A Quiet Passion enthralled me and I was a bit shell-shocked from how closely I felt to this woman, this American introverted poet from the 1800s felt more real to me than most of the characters I’ve seen on the screen in Berlin. [Review]

#1. Things To Come

All due respect to Davies, but nothing, and no one, felt more real than Mia Hansen-Love’s Things To Come and Isabelle Huppert’s Nathalie. It’s hard to fathom how a young director like Hansen-Love can show so much maturity, poise, control, and life experience while still in her early 30s; inspiring what will very likely be one of the most tender and memorable roles for the iconic French actress. Watching Nathalie go through the motions of losing touch with modern school system, letting go of her husband and kids who have moved on, trying to connect with today’s youth, and hopelessly falling in love with a cat ended up being the very best cinematic experience I’ve had at the festival, and indeed, the year so far. What makes it all the more special is that it was the very first film I saw at the Berlinale. [Review]

The Albert Bauer Honorable Mention

Lav Diaz’ new film goes against the conventional grain so much, you can almost feel the granulation forming on your skin as you sit there watching it. With a colossal running time of 485 minutes (nothing Lav Diaz fans will be too surprised about), A Lullaby To The Sorrowful Mystery is made of static shots of various characters lamenting, musing, longing, confessing, discussing, sharing, divulging, singing, listening, and crying over the intolerable cruelty suffered by the Filippino people under an oppressive Spanish rule. It’s absolutely stunning, with the greatest production design and cinematography (well, Crosscurrent might slightly have the edge in cinematography, but they’re milliseconds away from each other) I’ve seen at the festival, but the indulgence is, at too many moments, insufferable.

This weekend, the 2016 Berlin Film Festival came to a close with the festival’s international jury awarding eight films that played in the main competition. Berlin, which used to be looked at as a tier below Cannes and Venice, has slowly shed that perception over the years thanks to premiering titles like The Grand Budapest Hotel and 45 Years (the declining stature of Venice might also be a factor too, but that’s a story for another day). Jury president Meryl Streep announced the winners with her fellow jury members, which included Clive Owen, past Berlin winner Małgorzata Szumowska and Italian actress Alba Rohrwacher.

The winners (listed at the bottom of the page) also help tell us a few things about Berlin and the state of world cinema right now. Here are a few things we learned:

Berlin isn’t afraid to take risks

Lav Diaz has been making films for nearly two decades, but his uncompromising approach to filmmaking and duration has acted as a sort of barrier to competing at a major film festival (when he does screen, he’s usually pushed to sidebars or out of competition slots). So it came as a shock when the Berlinale announced his latest film, the 8-hour A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery, would actually premiere in the main competition. Berlin is the first of the three major festivals to give Diaz a spot on the main stage, and that alone helps establish the festival as a sort of risky alternative to Cannes (which caused a minor stir last year when it refused to consider Miguel Gomes’ epic Arabian Nights for the main competition) and Venice. Berlin still has a way to go with establishing an identity for itself—some of their competition selections still seem random—but if it continues to make moves like this one, it might start carving a place out for itself on the festival circuit where even the boldest and most unconventional works can coexist in competition with more friendly and prestigious festival fare.

The Alfred Bauer prize needs to go

First off, I want to be clear: I don’t think the Alfred Bauer prize is a bad idea. The prize, which some might consider third place, is an award “for a feature film that opens new perspectives.” It sounds like a nice way to honour a bold or daring title in competition but, in reality, it’s just a way for the jury to look like they’re not excluding “difficult” cinema. This year, the winner didn’t come as a surprise at all: Lav Diaz’s A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery pretty much had this one locked up from the start. So while having Diaz in competition is great, the presence of the Alfred Bauer prize feels like Diaz’s film never had a fair shot at the Golden Bear to begin with. Unfortunately, even if the prize went away or changed its purpose of avoiding the exclusion of certain types of films, the association will probably still be there (much like how Best Director at Cannes has turned into “let’s give it to the most stylish and/or difficult one”), and until it’s gone the prize is going to look less like an award and more like an excuse.

Are you listening, Cannes?

Cannes shouldn’t have to worry about losing its status as the most prestigious film festival in the world (even if festival head Thierry Fremaux seems hellbent on turning Cannes into a laughing stock), but with every passing year, it looks more like a festival that needs to get with the times. And for a festival that loves to make egregious decisions, perhaps its most egregious one is the continued exclusion of documentaries from its main competition. The last time a documentary competed for the Palme was in 2004 when Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 walked away with the main prize, a decision that still irks some to this day. Perhaps that’s why Cannes hasn’t put a documentary in competition since, but Berlin doesn’t seem to have any biases when it comes to format. This year had two nonfiction films in the main competition, with Gianfranco Rosi’s immigration documentary Fire at Sea taking home the Golden Bear. Berlin isn’t the only major festival to show some love for documentaries either; Rosi’s previous film Sacro GRA won the Golden Lion at Venice, yet if either of them tried to compete in Cannes they would probably get denied. Perhaps Rosi’s two wins can be a sign to Fremaux and Cannes that, as documentaries continue to expand and evolve, the borders between fiction and nonfiction will continue looking arbitrary and archaic.

The unstoppable Mia Hansen-Løve

It’s only been less than a decade, but Mia Hansen-Løve has gradually climbed her way into the top tier of European directors working today, and with Things to Come she seems to have finally cemented her place. It wasn’t until 2009, with her second feature Father of my Children, that Hansen-Løve started making a name for herself (partially helped by her film earning a prize at Cannes), and with her next feature Goodbye First Love the fan base grew even more. 2014 turned out to be her biggest year, with her EDM tale Eden earning rave reviews and distribution deals around the world. Things to Come has Hansen-Løve going in an opposite direction from Eden (or, to put it properly, she’s just continuing to go in her own direction), this time crafting a story around a middle-aged philosophy professor (Isabelle Huppert) instead of a young DJ, and from the sounds of it the film is her strongest work to date. It received near-unanimous praise from critics (including high marks from Nik when he saw it), walked away with a Silver Bear for Best Director, and (perhaps most surprising) scored a slew of distribution deals, including a US deal with IFC Films. Not bad for a film with no major appeal beyond the presence of Huppert.

2016 Berlin Film Festival Winners

Golden Bear for Best Film – Fire at Sea, directed by Gianfranco Rosi

Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize – Death in Sarajevo, directed by Danis Tanović

Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize (for a feature film that opens new perspectives) – A Lullaby to the Sorrowful Mystery, directed by Lav Diaz

Silver Bear for Best Director – Mia Hansen-Løve for Things to Come

Silver Bear for Best Actress – Trine Dyrholm for The Commune, directed by Thomas Vinterberg

Silver Bear for Best Actor – Majd Mastoura for Hedi, directed by Mohamed Ben Attia

Silver Bear for Best Script – Tomasz Wasilewski for United States of Love, directed by Tomasz Wasilewski

Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution (in the categories camera, editing, music score, costume or set design – Mark Lee Ping-Bing for the camera in Crosscurrent, directed by Yang Chao

Pensive and intellectual to the core, Mia Hansen-Løve’s Things to Come is a remarkably intriguing follow-up to her previous film Eden, mostly in how natural it feels even with subjects that seem (on the surface, at least) like they couldn’t be farther apart. For those who’ve never seen the director’s 2014 EDM tale, it follows a young man (a semi-biographical extension of her real-life brother) as he grows up in the early ’90s Parisian dance music scene. Things to Come centers on a woman, decades older than Eden’s protagonist, who teaches high-school philosophy in Paris and lives with her two children and husband of 25 years. At a certain point, it becomes clear that the City of Love isn’t the only thing binding the director’s latest films. Hansen-Løve is fascinated by the idea of human growth, and her creative way of expressing is growing itself.

Things to Come is a gentle wind; it flows so effortlessly, you can almost feel the warmth of its silky texture on your skin. This is generated by the way Hansen-Løve and her DP Denis Lenoir wield the camera around with a spontaneous, fluid spirit, but much of it is also attributable to a marvelous doyenne of the acting world, who carries the entire weight of the film on her shoulders as effortlessly as ever. Isabelle Huppert has an uncanny knack of conveying a remarkably large range of emotions: turning down-to-earth into larger-than-life with one pout, one sideway glance, or an ever-so-slight intonation in a spoken word. She embodies Nathalie, the philosophy professor who is suddenly faced with a concept she’d long forgotten about. In her own words: “total freedom.” Her husband, Heinz (Andre Marcon), has left her for another woman, and she has retouched base with former student Fabien (Roman Kolinka), whose combination of youth and intellect make him especially interesting for Nathalie. In some other film, perhaps, their relationship would be replete with perverse suggestions; under Hansen-Løve’s wing, their bond is strictly platonic and cerebral.

As the film follows Nathalie and her various evolutions—adapting to a new school regime that takes a modern marketing ax to her dear philosophy, dealing with a demented mother (Edith Scob), etc.—questions are mulled over in the refined, graceful way one images an oenophile tasting vintage wine. Is there a practical place for philosophy in today’s world? What does a woman over 40, whose kids are all grown up and whose memories are now tainted by her husband’s decision, have to hold on to? Is burying yourself in intellectual thoughts and readings enough to be happy? Hansen-Løve bears her old soul through the way she deals with these questions, with just the right balance of humor and melancholy. There’s just enough style to keep it at an arms-length from being a slice-of-life picture in the cinema verité sense, but the story, the characters, and the ideas on display keep the film firmly rooted to the ground and in reality.

Women’s stories, female directors, roles for women over 45—these debates are very much at the forefront of today’s film conversations. Things to Come is a serendipitous celebration of all three. Mia Hansen-Løve, still in her 30s, shows immense sensibility and maturity in tackling insular subject matter that would have most studio heads bolting for the door. In Isabelle Huppert, she has found the perfect collaborator—an actress of incredible depth and range, who makes every frame that much more fascinating to behold. Now, when I think about Eden and Things to Come as companion pieces, it’s hard to imagine another director who handles the subject of “moving on” with the kind of delicate deftness and assuredness that Mia Hansen-Løve demonstrates.