James R | On 16, Jul 2016

Not getting your art-house fix from Netflix? Wish there were more indie films on Amazon Prime Video? Every week, we round up the new releases on MUBI, the subscription VOD service that hand-picks new and old classics from around the world.

Hot on the heels of its season of hand-picked Nicolas Winding Refn favourites MUBI continues a retrospective of the director’s work, with Only God Forgives joining Drive and Pusher.

Here’s what’s new and coming soon to MUBI:

This week on MUBI

Chicken – 11th July

Freshly plucked from UK cinemas, Joe Stephenson’s Chicken stars Scott Chambers as optimistic 15-year-old Richard, who is troubled with learning difficulties, and his restless and abusive older brother. When Richard falls for 17-year-old Annabel (Yasmin Paige, Submarine), the relationship between the brothers is stretched to breaking point, family secrets are revealed and life for Richard starts to finally change direction.

The Gambler – 12th July

MUBI doubles down on gambling for the first of two bet-themed features, Karel Reisz’s The Gambler, which follows literature professor Axel Freed to Las Vegas, where a $44,000-trip with his girlfriend spins wildly out of control.

Rounders – 13th July

The gambling double-bill continues with John Dahl’s Rounders, starring a young Matt Damon as a law student who returns to his life of casinos to pay back the debt of an old friend.

Sacro Gra – 14th July

With Fire at Sea out in cinemas and on VOD, MUBI brings us the previous effort from director Gianfranco Rosi, Sacro Gra, which captures life on the periphery of modern Rome, through the lives of those living on the ring-road around Italy’s contemporary capital.

Drive – 15th July

“What do you do?” asks Carey Mulligan, sitting nervously in the kitchen. Ryan Gosling stands still. He says nothing. Then, after a few seconds, he smiles slowly. “I drive,” he says. That’s pretty much all there is to Drive, which follows the transformation of his loner from car mechanic into Man with No Name. It’s a self-aware mix tape of Taxi Driver, a Western, and classic 60s European thrillers, but Drive has a pace all of its own.

Coming soon

Shane – 16th July

This seminal 1950s Western stars Alan Ladd as the eponymous former gunslinger, who becomes a farm hand for a frontier family and wants to put his violent ways behind him. Soon, though, his old skills are tragically required to help the village stop the terrorising ways of a ruthless cattle baron.

Erin Brockovich – 17th July

Julia Roberts is on Oscar-winning form in this true story about Erin Brockovich, an unemployed single mum who fought an energy company accused of polluting a city’s water supply.

Visitors – 18th July

Hong Sang-Soo is one of three directors in this triptych of East Asian films, all of which focus on the theme of outsiders coming home. He’s joined by filmmakers Naomi Kawase and Lav Diaz.

Heaven Can Wait – 20th July

If you’ve never seen any Ernst Lubitsch, there aren’t many better places to start with the director’s back catalogue of screwball comedy and urbane observation than Heaven Can Wait, which was the director’s most successful picture. It stars Don Ameche as deceased playboy Henry Van Cleve, who recounts his life of wooing women to Satan, as he asks permission to enter Hell.

Peggy Sue Got Married – 21st July

Francis Ford Coppola’s 1986 sci-fi comedy follows Peggy Sue. who faints at a high-school reunion, only to find herself waking up in the past.

Only God Forgives – 22nd July

Ryan Goslin and Nicolas Winding Refn teamed up again after Drive to make Only God Forgives. If the former lightly tip-toed around the discotheque of darkness, then this is an all-out Danse Macabre. A gnarly and lubricious film that lambadas its way through an assortment of big themes like honour, masculinity and Oedipal rage. With karaoke.

 
A monthly subscription to MUBI costs £4.99 a month, with a 30-day free trial. For more on Nicolas Winding Refn’s season – and for MUBI’s interview with the director, click here.

Last chance to stream: Titles leaving MUBI soon

Europe, She Loves
Available until end of: 16th July

There Will Be Blood
Available until end of: 17th July

Big Fish
Available until end of: 18th July

Pretty in Pink
Available until end of: 19th July

Footloose
Available until end of: 20th July

The Keep
Available until end of: 21st July

An Officer and a Gentleman
Available until end of: 22nd July

White Dog
Available until end of: 23rd July

Scanners
Available until end of: 24th July

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