We've got good news for fans of premium dramas as two prestigious movies make their streaming debuts. First up is Priscilla, the award-winning biopic of Priscilla Presley, which is coming to Max on February 23 after a successful run in theaters. The second is Oscar nominated Past Lives. It's now available on Paramount Plus in the US and will be coming to Netflix in the UK and Ireland on February 15.
Both movies come from A24, but future releases from the indie studio will arrive differently. The studio has signed a deal with Max that means all future A24 releases will stream there first after their theatrical runs in what's known as a Pay 1 Output deal. A24 had a similar deal with Showtime but that's now ended, which means Past Lives is the final film to be released there. So our guide to the best Max movies is about to get a whole lot longer.
Priscilla and Past Lives bring prestige drama to your favorite streamers
Priscilla comes with superb word of mouth. It also has both a Coppa Volpi award and a Golden Globe nomination for Caliee Speany, who plays Priscilla. The film is based on the memoir Elvis and Me and traces their marriage from their very first meeting to their Graceland days, telling a very different story than your average rock and roll biopic. It's directed by Sophia Coppola in what many critics say is her best movie since the superb Lost in Translation, which recently turned 20. Critic Mark Kermode describes it as a "twisted fairy tale" that's neither sensationalist nor judgemental.
Past Lives, also from A24, was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay at this year's Academy Awards. It follows former childhood sweethearts Nora and Hae Sung as they're reunited in New York for one fateful week, and it's had the critics sniffling into their handkerchiefs. It's a film about longing and regret and that whole being human thing, and it's also very beautiful. The London Review of Books says it's mysterious: "It is also lucid and precise, intimately devoted to its strange lyrical sorrow. It’s as if we are watching feelings in slow motion." And The Guardian says it's a must-see. "Past Lives is a glorious date movie, and a movie for every occasion, too."
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