This Week in Streaming (May 20th)

The Brutalist (HBO Max) Brady Corbet’s 3.5-hour epic about Hungarian architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody) undertaking the Sisyphean task of building a rural Pennsylvania community center was hands down the best film of 2024. As we said upon its release, its go-to reading as a meditation on the immigrant experience at the dawn of late capitalism says more about critical laziness than the movie itself. At its core, it’s a film about the all-consuming pursuit of turning tragedy into beauty and the toll life takes on those not up to that task.

Lost In Space (Hulu) Forget Netflix’s 2018 ultra-glossy reboot of the classic 60s sci-fi series and go back to the original. The Atomic Age tale of a nuclear family stranded in the cosmos is an enduring testament to family values and a window into the clear joy Hollywood techs used to have with practical effects world building.

Blind Fury (Tubi) Rutger Hauer plays a westernized blind samurai coming to terms with the physical and mental scars of Vietnam when he’s tasked with protecting the preteen son of his libertine war buddy after Vegas gangsters stage a kidnapping. It’s a hokey, hilarious, and totally badass late-80s American debut from Phillip Noyce, who’d put his stamp on the Tom Clancy universe with Harrison Ford in Patriot Games a few years later.