What's New To Streaming In September 2022
We recommend two very different and very good 90s movies
We’re kicking off September by recommending two of the best movies of the 90s, both new to streaming this month. In fact, you can find these in the top 20 of IndieWire’s recent list of the best movies of the 1990s. Scroll on for more notable new to streaming picks and don’t forget to read our guide of the new releases coming out this month to theaters and streaming!
Drew recommends…
Clueless
When Clueless opened in the summer of 1995, I doubt very few would have foreseen the cultural impact and cult following in its future. Here’s a coming-of-age high school comedy with a mostly unknown group of lead actors. Director Amy Heckerling’s first movie was Fast Times at Ridgemont High, so she knew how to make a high school hit, but there was no guarantee she could do it again. The film’s pure charm and unforgettable characters was undeniable, as Clueless became a sleeper box office success and eventually a classic of the genre.
Like its main character, Clueless is much smarter than it gets credit for. Based on Jane Austen’s Emma, the movie inspired similar modern adaptations of classic literature over the next decade-plus – 10 Things I Hate About You, She’s All That, She’s the Man, and Easy A all come from books you pretended to read in high school. Clueless moves the action from 19th century England to 1990s Beverly Hills. Cher Horowitz, played by Alicia Silverstone, is the rich and outwardly stereotypical Valley Girl that we love anyway. Although she’s obsessed with the material things, Cher values her friendships and tries to help out a new student named Tai (Brittany Murphy) in her own misguided way.
In addition to influencing a generation of high school movies with its style and language, Clueless was a launchpad for young stars like Silverstone, Murphy, and Paul Rudd, who made his film debut as Josh, Cher’s college-age ex-stepbrother. These are all confident and lived-in performances from inexperienced fresh faces. Combine that with a sharp-witted script and some wonderfully dated 90s fashion, and you’ve got a beloved modern classic.
Streaming on Netflix
Billy recommends…
Beau Travail
Beau Travail is a Claire Denis masterpiece that has one of the coolest posters out there. For the longest time that is all I knew about this film. The blue background with a slightly silhouetted man has always been such a striking figure for me. I had no clue of the premise and not much of a framework for what Denis' films are typically like. About a month ago I had the pleasure of finishing a “New Queer Cinema” series with Beau Travail, an era of film coined by R. Ruby Rich and series curated for me by my friend Ryan Jenkins.
This story follows a French Foreign Legion and the contrast between a hardened troop named Galoup (Denis Lavant) and a plucky, naive recruit named Gilles (Gregoire Colin) and how our naive recruit becomes the favorite of the commanding officer Bruno (Michel Subor). With sequences akin to Kubrick’s military masterpiece Full Metal Jacket, the perspectives are different while being in a similar setting. Kubrick is clearly critiquing the institution as a whole, shocking us with the creation of the ideal product before “our boys” get off to war. A beat-down of mind and will while creating a warped camaraderie in the process. Denis has interest in how this similar routine affects the body, the movements involved, and how the obsession to perfect can dilute the immediate reality. To start, Denis hardly ever strays away from the aforementioned hardened troop, Galoup, as he is the perfect specimen for body and judgment.
As Galoup’s status as favorite is threatened, he is losing the ability to control his inhibition and begins to mistreat the threat. Our camera changes perspective as the commanding officer changes his focus. Long sequences of the Legion training ensue and the poster I had been drawn to all these years is being played out on screen. Their movements are impressive and the success of their rigidity is on full display.
The body decays and the loss of attraction sends some into a spiral of violence to try to recapture the once certain status. Beau Travail ends with an absolutely fabulous sequence of Galoup thrashing while on the dance floor. For the first time in his seemingly dull life he is not rigid and calculated, but the body is still working wonders as he moves insanely across every inch of the space. Not sure if this is to portray hope that he is finally accepting that loss of a once great form or confirmation of a completely lost person. No matter the reading of the ending, Denis has a beautiful handle on what she wants to do with this film. All the way from the poster to the ending.
Streaming on HBO Max and Criterion Channel
New To Streaming In September 2022
Netflix
A Clockwork Orange
A Knight’s Tale
Despicable Me
If Beale Street Could Talk
The Italian Job
The Notebook
Resident Evil
Scarface
This Is 40
This Is the End (September 16)
Amazon Prime Video
The Adjustment Bureau
American Beauty
The Blair Witch Project
The Expendables
Legally Blonde
Let the Right One In
Mother!
Rookie of the Year
The Silence of the Lambs
Skyfall
The Usual Suspects
Weekend at Bernie’s
Ambulance (September 30)
Hulu
10 Things I Hate About You
American Pie
Batman Begins
Big
The Darjeeling Limited
The Dark Knight
The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Fight Club
He Got Game
Hook
Meet the Parents
Philadelphia
The Social Network
True Lies
The Last Duel (September 14)
HBO and HBO Max
Airplane!
Divergent
Glory
Melancholia
My Week with Marilyn
Varda by Agnès
Wild Hogs
Elvis