What are the best films available to watch online this week? Check out our recommendations:
My Summer of Love
Watch My Summer of Love for free on Hulu
If the world hadn't heard of Emily Blunt prior to 2004's My Summer of Love, it certainly knew her after. Blunt's Tamsin is a latchkey English teenager who becomes romantically involved with Natalie Press's Mona in this understaed psychological drama that debuted to acclaim at the Edignburgh Film Festival. With nowhere to hide in the sundrenched countryside, Tamsin and Mona have to work against class differences, emotional baggage, and religious fanaticism.
12 Years a Slave
Watch 12 Years a Slave on Amazon Instant Video
The newly-minted Academy Award Best Picture winner should probably be required viewing in history classrooms the country over—but just because it's educational doesn't mean it's not also brilliant filmmaking. Director Steve McQueen brings an artistic sensibility to all of his work (see Hunger for the most obvious example), and 12 Years a Slave is no exception. With visuals that could have been pulled from especially horrifying pastoral paintings, and astonishing performances from Oscar winner Lupita Nyong'o, nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor, and nominee/McQueen muse Michael Fassbender, it's not a pleasant experience, but it's a necessary—and enlightening—one.
Leah E. Friedman is the managing editor of AllMovie. She grew up in the same central New Jersey town as director Bryan Singer, but she is not now, nor has she ever been Keyser Soze.