Streaming guide: What to watch this week

FROM one of the greatest war epics ever made to a clown of nightmares, Leigh Paatsch reveals his top picks for the best things to stream on your winter weekend in.

MAKE the most of the freezing weather with some quality couch time.

Leigh Paatsch runs the rule over the latest movies and shows on your streaming services.

PAATSCH REVIEW: INCREDIBLES 2 WORTH THE WAIT

JUNE 15 RECAP: WHAT TO STREAM

THE ONE THAT WAS THE BEST MOVIE OF LAST YEAR

DUNKIRK (M) *****

FOXTEL NOW, NETFLIX

The best cinema release of 2017 is finally beginning its march on to the home-streaming battlegrounds of 2018.

It only takes minutes for Dunkirk to convey the unmistakeable notion you are in the presence of true cinematic greatness.

This is what a masterpiece looks like. Sounds like. Feels like.

It is late May 1940 in the small French coastal town of Dunkirk.

A scene from Dunkirk.

An estimated 400,000 Allied troops, most of them British, have been penned in by the Germans on a swatch of beach marked only by a solitary pier.

All who stand shivering on those windswept sands are sitting ducks for sustained bombing attacks from overhead by Nazi fighter planes.

If this unprecedented mass evacuation is to be successful to any worthwhile degree, it will take a miracle.

This film is the gripping, transfixing chronicle of that miracle.

Acclaimed director Christopher Nolan (Inception, the Dark Knight trilogy) has crafted a complete vision here.

A vision that not only captures the sweeping historical significance of the subject at hand, but also its intimate human essence.

Stars Fionn Whitehead, Mark Rylance, Tom Hardy.

THE ONE THAT WAS THE BEST SOCCER DOCO OF TWO YEARS AGO

LES BLEUS ... (M) ****

NETFLIX

With the World Cup on in earnest, an intrepid documentary hunter’s mind will inevitably turn to “the beautiful game.”

Buried away deep inside the Netflix vaults is this round-ball stunner : a comprehensive history of French football since the nation’s fabled World Cup triumph on home soil in 1998.

Sacre bleu! The Zidane headbutt.

That victory marked both the end of an era and the start of a tumultuous period which has never really ceased.

This beautifully produced doco doesn’t sugarcoat the harsh truths, covering such flashpoints as the Zinedine Zidane headbutt, Thierry Henry’s infamous handball against Ireland, and sundry highs and lows involving stars such as Karim Benzema, Laurent Blanc, Nicolas Anelka and Olivier Giroud.

THE ONE THAT JUST GOES ABOUT ITS BUSINESS QUIETLY ... AND STRONGLY

OUTSIDE IN (M) ****

NETFLIX

Lovers of all things modestly, yet powerfully written - then enhanced by performances aptly exhibiting the same traits - should make a beeline for this lovely American indie drama.

This is the kind of mature, confident and gimmick-free material that rarely makes into cinemas much these days.

A simple, no-frills story centres on Chris (Jay Duplass), a 38-year-old man who has spent his entire adult life behind bars for a crime he did not commit.

Now he is out and struggling to re-integrate with the real world. Upon returning to the small town where he both grew up and was arrested, Chris reconnects with Carol (a superb Edie Falco of The Sopranos), his former school high-school teacher and the one staunch ally who kept pressing the case for release.

Without giving too much away, Chris becomes fixated on Carol in ways that have nothing to do with just simple gratitude.

As the pair become closer, Carol has a decision to make that could have dire implications for Chris’ tenuous hold on freedom as a new parolee.

THE ONE THAT JUST GOES ABOUT ITS BUSINESS STONED ... AND STRANGELY

INHERENT VICE (MA15+) ***1/2

FOXTEL NOW

In the wake of maverick American writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson’s recently acclaimed return to form with Phantom Thread, his unfairly maligned (in some quarters at least) previous work is well worth a revisit.

Benicio del Toro and Joaquin Phoenix in Inherent Vice.

Adapted from the writings of the legendarily enigmatic author Thomas Pynchon, this trippy tale of a drugged-up, bugged-out private eye (Joaquin Phoenix) investigating a case in a sun-dappled 1970 southern California is a truly escapist experience.

It doesn’t make much sense, but as an exercise in mind-altering time travel, it’s as immersive and involving as such fare can get.

Don’t go looking for any explanations. Just look, man. Co-stars Josh Brolin, Reese Witherspoon, Benicio del Toro.

THE ONE WITH ACTING, ART AND ATTITUDE

FINAL PORTRAIT (M) ***1/2

FOXTEL NOW

This engrossing biopic marks an overlooked high point in the career of one of this country’s most gifted performers, Geoffrey Rush.

The year is 1964, and the legendary painter Alberto Giacometti (played with a rumpled, weather-beaten resignation by Rush) is agonising over his latest work.

A portrait of American art critic James Lord (Armie Hammer of Call Me By Your Name) was supposed to be dashed off in a single afternoon.

However, the project soon triggers both a deeper fascination and frustration with the project for Giacometti.

A quality drama boosted immeasurably by Rush’s intuitive understanding of the imperfections that make up a perfectionist.

THE ONE WITH CHILLS, CHURNS AND CLOWNS

IT (MA15+)****

FOXTEL NOW

In the nine months since release, this ultra-spooky new adaptation of the old Stephen King book has forced a global spike in outbreaks of coulrophobia.

That’s the fear of clowns, in case you didn’t know.

Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise.

Once you get to know It’s big-shoed, red-nosed protagonist, Pennywise (played by Bill Skarsgard), there’s every chance you’ll be a coulrophobic for life.

Pennywise is a Freddy Krueger of the fairgrounds who spends the summer in the same small town every 27 years.

Any child crossing paths with this creepy freak scores a one-way ticket to the missing persons list.

While scary enough to have you avoiding circuses, street parades and birthday parties forevermore, It is also a very well-made, well-acted movie that can easily claim a place as one of the best thrillers of the past few years.

Not just for its unsettling collection of eerie, vanished-kid shocks to the system.

But also for some accessibly illuminating and involving storytelling, which often recalls an entire season of the Netflix classic Stranger Things administered in one powerful two-hour dose.

THE ONE THAT DOESN’T GO OFF WITH A BANG

WINCHESTER (M) **

GOOGLE, ITUNES

Famed for lifting up sub-par productions simply by showing up, Helen Mirren should have been able to get a little something good going with Winchester. Instead, Mirren’s grim, disinterested performance - particularly when fused with a story that never quite grabs as it should - slams the creaking door shut on this ho-hum haunted-house yarn.

A tale very loosely inspired by a few flimsy urban myths is set in 1906, where eccentric rifle manufacturing heiress Sarah Winchester (Mirren) has embarked on a rampant renovation spree.

Sarah is convinced that the guns churned out by her late husband’s company have spawned a generation of nomadic ghosts in need of somewhere to live.

Therefore the wacky widow keeps adding rooms to her sprawling mansion, in the hope that a little rest and recreation for these blasted souls might persuade them to stop with the spooking already.

Co-stars Jason Clarke, Sarah Snook.

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