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Happy Friday, Polygon readers!
Each week, we round up the most notable releases new to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One, the long-awaited seventh installment in the explosive spy action series starring Tom Cruise, is finally available to digitally purchase following its theatrical premiere earlier this year. Expend4bles, the aptly titled fourth entry in the Expendables action franchise, is also available to purchase this week. There’s plenty more new releases to check out this week on streaming, including a new German horror film on Netflix as well as the streaming premiere of Slotherhouse on Hulu.
Here’s everything new to watch this weekend!
New on Netflix
The Conference
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Genre: Horror comedy
Run time: 1h 40m
Director: Patrik Eklund
Cast: Katia Winter, Eva Melander, Adam Lundgren
What’s worse than a team-building conference where everyone is getting on everyone else’s nerves? How about a conference set on a secluded farm where, amid accusations of corruption, a masked murderer walks among them searching for his next kill?
Once Upon a Star
Where to watch: Available to stream on Netflix
Genre: Drama
Run time: 2h 17m
Director: Nonzee Nimibutr
Cast: Darina Boonchu, Sukollawat Kanarot, Nuengthida Sophon
New on Hulu
Slotherhouse
Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu
Genre: Slasher comedy
Run time: 1h 33m
Director: Matthew Goodhue
Cast: Stefan Kapicic, Lisa Ambalavanar, Olivia Rouyre
When a sorority girl adopts a sloth, a bunch of people start dying, posing the question: What if a slasher movie, but a sloth maybe did it?
Daliland
Where to watch: Available to stream on Hulu
Genre: Drama
Run time: 1h 37m
Director: Mary Harron
Cast: Ben Kingsley, Barbara Sukowa, Christopher Briney
This biographical drama stars Ben Kingsley as Salvador Dali, the eccentric and prolific surrealist painter whose work captivated the world. The story is seen through the perspective of James (Christopher Briney), a young art assistant working in a New York gallery in the ’70s, who meets and befriends Dali amid his tempestuous split from his wife Gala (Barbara Sukowa).
New on Prime Video
The Burial
Where to watch: Available to stream on Prime Video
Genre: Legal drama
Run time: 2h 6m
Director: Maggie Betts
Cast: Jamie Foxx, Tommy Lee Jones, Jurnee Smollett
Inspired by true events, this legal drama stars Jamie Foxx as Willie E. Gary, a personal injury lawyer who agrees to help the owner of a troubled funeral business (Tommy Lee Jones) who is being preyed upon by a corporate conglomerate over a contractual dispute.
New on Paramount Plus
The Starling Girl
Where to watch: Available to stream on Paramount Plus
Genre: Drama
Run time: 1h 57m
Director: Laurel Parmet
Cast: Eliza Scanlen, Lewis Pullman, Wrenn Schmidt
A 17-year-old girl (Eliza Scanlen) struggles with the strict upbringing of living in a fundamentalist Christian community in Kentucky and her burgeoning desire to pursue dance and live a life unrestrained by religious expectations. Amid these changes, the girl grows closer to her youth minister, Owen (Lewis Pullman), who has just returned from working as a missionary abroad.
New on AMC Plus
Lakota Nation vs. United States
Where to watch: Available to stream on AMC Plus
Genre: Documentary
Run time: 2h
Directors: Jesse Short Bull, Laura Tomaselli
Cast: Candi Brings Plenty, Krystal Two Bulls, Nick Estes
This documentary follows the struggle of the Lakota Indians who, for over a century, have fought to reclaim their sacred land that was stolen from them in violation of treaty agreements.
New on Starz
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Where to watch: Available to stream on Starz
Genre: Coming-of-age dramedy
Run time: 1h 46m
Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
Cast: Abby Ryder Fortson, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates
Judy Blume’s iconic coming-of-age story gets this adaptation from Kelly Fremon Craig (The Edge of Seventeen), starring Abby Ryder Fortson (the original Cassie from the Ant-Man movies) as Margaret and Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, and Benny Safdie as her family.
New to rent
Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One
Where to watch: Available to purchase on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Genre: Spy action thriller
Run time: 2h 43m
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Cast: Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames
Ethan Hunt is back in the first of a two-parter in the franchise (the second is slated for a 2024 release). This time, Hunt and the IMF square off against a rogue AI.
From our review,
Like its predecessors — particularly Christopher McQuarrie’s two previous entries in the series — the film has married its prospects to Tom Cruise, and to his famous commitment to actually doing his own stunts. Ethan Hunt’s incredible feats often look real because they essentially are real. Everything else in these movies is in furtherance of that commitment. The supporting characters are there to make Hunt feel sufficiently human; the villain is there to make Hunt feel sufficiently tested; the plot is meant to shuttle Ethan from one explosion to the next.
Expend4bles
Where to watch: Available to purchase on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Genre: Action
Run time: 1h 43m
Director: Scott Waugh
Cast: Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson
The fourth entry in the brash franchise has the best action scenes yet, hands the reigns over to Jason Statham, and brings in Tony Jaa and Iko Uwais for some extra martial arts bona fides.
From our review,
Expend4bles stretches the franchise to its limits, and those limits frankly don’t reach very far. There’s a level of self-awareness to Expendables films that can make their paper-thin plotting and characterization excusable — in the end, they’re just a reason to see certain action legends interact with each other. But in a decade-plus of homage, the series hasn’t developed any stylistic flourishes of its own. Mission: Impossible movies have their signature stunts, Fast and Furious movies have their improbable applications of cars, but the Expendables lacks a comparable calling card. There’s nothing for fans to look forward to beyond Jason Statham’s resilient charm and Sylvester Stallone’s braggadocio. And frankly, there are plenty of other places for people who want those things to get them.
It Lives Inside
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Genre: Supernatural horror
Run time: 1h 39m
Director: Bishal Dutta
Cast: Megan Suri, Neeru Bajwa, Mohana Krishnan
This horror movie follows two young girls at an American high school who each relate to their Indian heritage in a different way: One embraces it, one rejects it. When a spirit latches onto one of them, the other hopes to stop it.
Dark Harvest
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Genre: Fantasy horror
Run time: 1h 33m
Director: David Slade
Cast: Casey Likes, E’myri Crutchfield, Dustin Ceithamer
Director David Slade (30 Days of Night) returns with an all new fantasy horror movie based on Norman Partridge’s 2006 novel. In a sleepy unnamed Midwestern hamlet, the teenage boys gather for a yearly ritual every October: To hunt down “Sawtooth Jack,” a vicious creature with a pumpkin for a head, and kill him before midnight to ensure that the town will be free from misfortune. Will they be able to succeed this year, and what other dark secrets lurk behind this bizarre tradition?
Dear David
Where to watch: Available to rent on Amazon, Apple, and Vudu
Genre: Supernatural horror
Run time: 1h 34m
Director: John McPhail
Cast: Augustus Prew, Andrea Bang, René Escobar Jr.
This is one of those “viral Twitter threads got turned into a movie” situations. This time, there’s a ghost haunting, and Justin Long as the … head of BuzzFeed?
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