Join us weekly as Rotten Tomatoes reports on what’s indie features are streaming. From promising releases by new voices to experimental efforts from storied filmmakers – or perhaps the next indie darling to go the distance for end-of-year accolades – we will break it all down for you here each week.
This week in our Indie Fresh List, we have a horror movie about a killer weave, a time-bending sci-fi thriller, and a piece of true-crime historical fiction. In our Spotlight Section, we have a call back to a black-and-white documentary about incarceration, and we have new trailers featuring Margot Robbie, Paul Bethany, and Sophia Lillis
Bad Hair (2020)
62%
Justin Simien tries his hand at the horror genre with this new thriller, which chronicles Black women’s constant struggle against unwanted, ill-informed opinions on our tresses. Black hair has literally become a political issue, as Black women and men have been discriminated against, suspended, or even fired for wearing their natural hair, and Bad Hair turns that tragic scenario into a terrifying horror device. Elle Lorraine plays Anna, a 1980s producer who installs a weave to conform to Caucasian beauty standards; the new ‘do comes at a great cost when she realizes it might actually be possessed. Nicholas Bell of IONCineama writes “Bad Hair is a fun homage to a time and place which still manages to say something pertinent about the Culture as it stands today while celebrating its resilience and integrity.”
Available to stream October 23 on Hulu.
Synchronic (2019)
78%
In the new sci-fi thriller Synchronic, Jamie Dornan and Anthony Mackie team up to play best friends and paramedic partners who are called out for a string of strange and gruesome incidents. When the bizarre events hit closer to home, the pair uncover a plot to produce a powerful psychedelic that could alter their reality and the time continuum. “This philosophical core, coupled with the cynical paramedic duo premise, akin to Martin Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead, makes for a unique, sci-fi-tinged drama with supernatural elements rooted in real-world stakes and emotion,” writes Katie Walsh of Tribune News Service.
Playing select theaters and on VOD October 23.
Radium Girls (2018)
78%
In 1925, a group of tenacious young women set off a pro-labor lawsuit that had national implications, and Radium Girls gives that story the big-screen treatment. The American Radium Factory employed a group of young women to paint the dials of watches with glow-in-the-dark paint that contained radium, unaware of the dangers of working so directly with the element. Before the side-effects were known to the public, the girls would dip and lick brushes containing the toxic substance, causing catastrophic physical effects and eventual death. The “Radium Girls,” as they were dubbed, did fight back, however, and sued their employer, who they suspected knew about the deadly effects long before any of them started getting sick. Joey King and Abby Quinn star as sisters in the based-on-true-events historical drama that Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter says “fulfills a vital function with its dramatization of an important chapter in America’s history of labor reform.”
Playing select theaters and on VOD October 23.
Time (2020)
98%
Fox Rich has had one goal for the past 20 years: to see the release of her husband Rob G. Rich from prison. In our spotlight selection this week we have a Sundance Film Festival award-winning documentary that chronicles the human cost of mass incarceration, highlighting the inequities of who can truly find justice in our current system. Directed by Garrett Bradley, Time follows Rich as she tirelessly works to free her husband, incorporating home videos and private moments to drive home the message. Time is “heartbreaking and passionate,” according to Alissa Wilkinson of Vox, and a “chronicle of love deferred and the life that hope can provide.”
Available on Amazon Prime.
Along with…
93%
Alone
(2020)
, a thriller about a woman on the run who is stalked by a violent predator.
100%
All In: The Fight for Democracy
(2020)
, a documentary that examines the fight against voter disenfranchisement.
97%
David Byrne's American Utopia
(2020)
, a Spike Lee-directed concert documentary of Talking Heads frontman David Byrne’s live stage show.
94%
Babyteeth
(2019)
, a dark rom-com about a sickly girl who falls for the town screw-up.
72%
Becky
(2020)
, a thriller about a girl left alone who must battle escaped convicts when they invade her vacation home.
93%
Blue Story
(2019)
, a drama about two childhood friends who are torn apart by gang violence.
72%
Black Box
(2020)
, a thriller about a widower recovering from a traumatic brain injury who undergoes experimental treatment.
80%
The Broken Hearts Gallery
(2020)
, a rom-com about an aimless twenty-something who creates an art exhibit to showcase items from past relationships as a means to find closure.
79%
Charm City Kings
(2020)
, a drama about a young man who is seduced by the Baltimore street bike community.
98%
Disclosure
(2020)
, an in-depth documentary about trans performers on screen.
88%
Get Duked!
(2019)
, a comedy about a group of teens who head to the woods for a nature hike, and hijinks ensue.
99%
The Forty-Year-Old Version
(2020)
, about a middle-aged playwright who looks to re-invent herself by returning to her hip hop roots.
99%
The Fight
(2020)
, a documentary about the lawyers who work on landmark cases at the Supreme Court for the ACLU.
86%
I Used to Go Here
(2020)
, a comedy about a failed thirtysomething writer travels back to her alma mater trying to relive former glory.
94%
John Lewis: Good Trouble
(2020)
, an intimate documentary on Civil Rights icon and politician John Lewis.
87%
Lingua Franca
(2019)
, about a trans woman who goes to extreme lengths to avoid deportation.
99%
Miss Juneteenth
(2020)
, a drama about a former beauty queen who looks to recapture her glory through her rebellious daughter’s own pageant run.
81%
The Painted Bird
(2019)
, a visceral Holocaust drama about a young orphan’s journey through the grim events of World War II.
97%
The Painter and the Thief
(2020)
, a documentary about an artist who develops an unexpected friendship with one of the men who stole some of her paintings.
63%
Radioactive
(2019)
, a biopic about famed scientist Madame Curie.
91%
Relic
(2020)
, a horror film centered on three generations of women as the elder matriarch suffers from Alzheimer’s.
94%
Residue
(2020)
, about an Ethiopian filmmaker who heads home from school to find his community is unrecognizable.
73%
The Rental
(2020)
, a thriller about a pair of couples who discover they’re under surveillance while vacationing at a seaside rental.
95%
S...house
(2020)
, a coming-of-age romantic comedy about a wild night on a college campus.
88%
The Short History of the Long Road
(2019)
, about a girl and her father who live nomadic lives out of their van.
98%
Time
(2020)
, a documentary about a woman’s fight to free her husband from prison.
92%
Unpregnant
(2020)
, a comedy about two former best friends who cross state lines to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.
92%
The Vast of Night
(2019)
, a sci-fi thriller about a young ham radio operator and a local DJ who hear a strange radio transmission.
90%
We Are Freestyle Love Supreme
(2020)
, an eye-opening doc about Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda’s improv hip-hop group.
90%
The Wolf of Snow Hollow
(2020)
, a dark comedy-thriller about a Sheriff who appears to be the only person not convinced the town is being terrorized by a werewolf.
Paul Bethany plays the enegmatic Uncle Frank to his niece, played by Sophia Lillis (It: Chapter Two), and inspires her runs away to join him in the big city.
Margot Robbie is a woman on the run in the rural south in this new western thriller.
A new documentary chronicles the eccentric “king” of a donut empire, Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy.
Thumbnail image by Everett Collection.
