Na Hong-jin's 'Hope' Leads This Week's Streaming Slate

Na Hong-jin's long-awaited creature feature Hope tops this week's wave of new U.S. streaming releases, arriving on VOD alongside seven other titles that span Cannes, Venice, Sundance and Slamdance premieres.

The Film Stage's weekly roundup lists eight headline titles: Hope (Na Hong-jin), Buddy (Casper Kelly), The Death of Robin Hood (Michael Sarnoski), Hanging by a Wire (Mohammed Ali Naqvi), In the Mouth (Cory Santilli), Rose of Nevada (Mark Jenkin), Sacrifice (Romain Gavras) and The Sun Never Sets (Joe Swanberg).

Here is what each offers — and where the critics found the cracks.

What is worth watching first?

Hope (Na Hong-jin, VOD). The Korean director's first film since The Wailing era anticipation unfolds over a single unbroken day in Hope Harbor. The Film Stage's Luke H. called it a "high-octane, highly anticipated" work that follows "a rag-tag team of small-town South Korean cops, yokels, and hicks" through what he described as a "blathering creature-feature phantasm." His verdict at Cannes was blunt: the film "ultimately falls flat." High energy, then, but the review's closing judgment tempers expectations.

Buddy (Casper Kelly, VOD). The creator of Too Many Cooks builds a children's show pastiche mixing Barney and Blue's Clues, centered on a large pink unicorn and anthropomorphized house objects. Caleb H. praised Kelly's "deep understanding of the aesthetics and rules of the world that he subverts" — the colorful sets, the '90s outfits, the songs. The subversion is the point; the review flagged its irreverence as the draw.

The Death of Robin Hood (Michael Sarnoski, HBO Max). Sarnoski returns to the medieval ballads, which, as Dan M. noted, tell of an outlaw who does not give to the poor but takes "pleasure in killing the rich." In "Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne," Robin beheads Gisborne and mounts the head on a spike. The review's title — "a portrait of the outlaw as a bald-faced lie" — signals a film interrogating the myth rather than retelling it.

What about the documentaries and the comeback?

Hanging by a Wire (Mohammed Ali Naqvi, VOD). A docu-thriller John F. found brisk but limited: it "could do more with the richness of the players it chronicles" and focuses "more on a death-defying rescue than on what could be done to prevent this from happening again." Thrills are present; structural questions go unanswered.

Rose of Nevada (Mark Jenkin, MUBI). Leonardo G. located Jenkin's appeal in his Cornwall-set, time-slipping texture: films "never fueled by linear plots so much as ambient forces: a ticking clock, gusts of wind, the distant roaring of waves," where the story often lies "in the interstice between the fictional foreground and non-fictional background." A Venice title for viewers patient with wandering forms.

The Sun Never Sets (Joe Swanberg, VOD). Swanberg's first directing work in nearly a decade. Mitchell B.'s answer to the obvious question — what does the mumblecore mainstay deliver after the hiatus? — was "more of the same, essentially." Fans of Drinking Buddies and Happy Christmas get the familiar "low-budget, loose rhythm"; the review found the return "stuck in a rut."

Which titles arrive with caveats?

Sacrifice (Romain Gavras, Netflix). A satire of the uber-rich and celebrity worship that Ethan V. found context-dependent: viewed at a gala premiere where "every big name in the credits was accompanied by hooting," it "couldn't help ringing a little false." Whether the satire lands at home, stripped of that audience, is the open question the review raises but cannot answer.

In the Mouth (Cory Santilli, Fandor). The least-quantified entry: a surreal comedy starring Colin Burgess (Free Time, Dad & Step-Dad), premiered at Slamdance and now digital. The Film Stage's unnamed writer called it "one of the most impressive American indies" of the past year. No named critic, no caveats — the strongest praise in the roundup and the thinnest sourcing.

What else is new?

• AMC+: Night Nurse
• Apple TV: Tenzing
• HBO Max: Free Leonard Peltier
• Kino Film Collection: Dracula's Fiancée
• Prime Video: Love of Your Life

The pattern across the week: festival premieres arriving fast, but several with mixed reviews attached. With Hope and The Death of Robin Hood both carrying split verdicts, the safest bets this week are the smaller items — Jenkin on MUBI, Santilli on Fandor — where the criticism is more curious than deflating.