Between mourning Kitkat’s getting nailed by a Waymo and reveling equally over Zohran Mamdani’s electoral victory and the public meltdowns by Mamdani’s enemies, this has been a week to inspire thinking bigger and broader. In putting together this month’s set of streaming suggestions, it means not limiting choices to what’s on Netflix and Hulu. So there’s a look at a favela soccer contest whose excitement matches the World Cup, comic chaotic Shabbat dinners, and even the receipts on Gaddafi’s buying Sarkozy’s election. That said, more than a few readers will look forward to the start of the final season of Stranger Things or Guillermo del Toro’s well-received take on Frankenstein.

Bonjour Tristesse (2024) (Kanopy)--In this new adaptation of Francoise Sagan’s titular novel, 17-year-old Cecile’s languorous privileged life of summer French Riviera hedonism with her philandering father Raymond gets upended by the arrival of Anne.  A friend of Raymond’s late wife, Anne is a cultured and intelligent woman who tries to mother the resistant Cecile.  When Anne and Raymond make plans to get married, Cecile schemes to find a way to sabotage the nuptials.

Darling (Kanopy)--Julie Christie won an Academy Award for her portrayal of actress/model Diana Scott, who makes her social way upward through Swinging Sixties England.  Along the way, she winds up being involved in affairs with TV culture show host Robert Gold (Dirk Bogarde) and smoothie adman Miles Brand (Laurence Harvey).  Though some of the language and period details of 1965 London haven’t aged well, John Schlesinger’s film still is worth a look.

Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives Of Q Lazzarus (Criterion)--If you’ve ever seen “Married To The Mob” or “The Silence Of The Lambs,” you’ve heard the iconic song “Goodbye Horses.”  Yet the woman behind that song, Diane Luckey aka Q Lazzarus, disappeared from public view for more than two decades.  In 2019, director Eva Aridjis recognized her car’s driver as Luckey and struck up a friendship.  This film, which draws on Luckey’s own words and lyrics, tells how she went from singing in a NJ Baptist church to fame as Q Lazzarus to becoming homeless on the East Village’s streets.  Sadly, Luckey would never see a cent of royalties for her music.

All Her Fault (Peacock)--In this adaptation of Andrea Mara’s novel, Marissa Irvine (Sarah Snook, “Succession”) has come to pick up her son Milo from his first playdate with a boy at his new school.  However, the mother who answers the door doesn’t recognize her or even have Milo.  Now begins every parent’s worst nightmare.  The search for Milo causes the Irvine family to come apart.  Marissa has the support of new friend Jenny Kaminski (Dakota Fanning), but can they escape the deceptions that have snared both their families?

Sarkozy-Gaddafi: The Scandal Of All Scandals (Ovid)--For years, former French President Nicholas Sarkozy had claimed that questions about Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi bankrolling his 2007 presidential campaign was nothing but slander and the product of hatred.  In this film, the two investigative journalists from digital news website Mediapart lay out the information they uncovered from more than a decade’s work in chasing this story.   Gaddafi may have hoped financing Sarkozy’s presidential run would rehabilitate his reputation as an outcast.  Instead, his efforts to get Sarkozy elected has now ended with the former president and his accomplices on trial in the Libyan campaign financing affair.  

Frankenstein (Netflix)--Guillermo del Toro’s re-telling of Mary Shelley’s science fiction/horror classic stars Oscar Isaac as Baron von Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as The Creature brought to life by zapping dead flesh with electricity.  The film tells the story of how a brilliant and arrogant surgeon (Frankenstein) gets hired by a dying arms merchant to reanimate a corpse to house his brain.  But (*surprise*) things go badly wrong and will eventually lead Frankenstein to a final Arctic showdown with a Creature who can regenerate his body after suffering physical harm. 

Love + War (Hulu)--Lynsey Addario has made a name for herself in the male-dominated world of conflict photography.  Her work has taken her from the Middle East to the Ukraine, and she’s been kidnapped twice in the course of her job.  She knows her journalistic work is essential and is her calling.  But she also knows that as the mother of two sons, pursuing her work could threaten everything she loves.

Wicked: One Wonderful Night (Peacock)--This two-hour special concert at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre will feature performances by Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, and the “Wicked” film cast as they perform songs from both “Wicked” and “Wicked: For Good.”   There will also be cast interviews, behind-the-scenes sequences, and maybe a sneak peek at the “Wicked” sequel.

Safe Haven (Ovid)--Is Canada truly a safe haven for those Americans who want to opt out of taking part in war?  Lisa Molomont and Dr. Alison Mountz’ documentary comes just in time for Veteran’s Day to look at both the reality and the myth regarding Canadian hospitality for war resisters.  It presents the stories of those who decided to leave home rather than fight in the Vietnam War or Operation Iraq Freedom and those who were eventually forced back to the US. (Also available on Kanopy)

Blue Lights Season 3 (Britbox)--This acclaimed contemporary series follows a trio of probationary Police Service of Northern Ireland constables operating out of Belfast’s Blackthorn police station.  As probationary constables Grace Ellis, Annie Conlon, and Thomas Foster learn the ropes from veteran officers, they deal with such problems as paramilitary-style assaults and loyalist gangs.  In the new season, the arrest of a young drug dealer results in Grace, Annie, and Thomas encountering a criminal conspiracy reaching all strata of Belfast society.

Tiffany Haddish Goes Off (Peacock)--In this reality docuseries, the famed comedian goes on a monthlong trip to Africa accompanied by her three childhood friends.  As they travel to such locales as South Africa’s Cape Town and Zimbabwe’s Harare, they will have adventures and explore their personal connections to the African continent.

The Creep Tapes Season 2 (Shudder)--In this found footage horror series created by and starring Mark Duplass, a serial killer lures unwitting videographers into his world with the promise of a paid gig for documenting his life.  But when the killer’s questionable intentions start coming to the surface, the unfortunate videographers will discover it’s way too late to leave.

A Thousand And One (Peacock)--Teyana Taylor (“One Battle After Another”) stars in this overlooked drama as ex-convict Inez de la Paz.  Shortly after her 1994 release from Riker’s Island, Inez kidnaps her son Terry from his foster home and sets out to build a better life for him over the ensuing years.  But Inez’ and Terry’s struggles are also affected by the political changes taking place in New York City at the time (e.g. Giuliani’s “stop and frisk” policy).   

Celluloid Underground (Ovid)--Iranian film critic Ehsan Khoshbakht narrates this personal essay film about his Western cinephilia in post-Revolution Iran.  When he was a teen, Khoshbakht started up a film club showing foreign movies taped off the TV.  (Ironically, he would get into serious trouble for showing Dariush Mehrjui’s Iranian classic “The Cow.”)  His life would change after he got to know Ahmad Jorghanian, a rescuer of confiscated Western 35mm films and their posters.  But when Jorghanian dies, what will happen to his painfully accumulated Western film collection? 

Friday Night Dinner (Britbox)--Robert Popper’s classic comedy follows the chaotic Shabbat dinners befalling a middle class secular Jewish family.  In the suburban North London home of the Goodmans, mother Jackie always tries to have a normal Shabbat dinner with husband Martin, elder son Adam, and younger son Jonny.  But something always comes up to disrupt the goings on.  It could be Adam and Jonny pranking each other, or Martin doing something weird like walking around the house shirtless, or a visit from strange yet lonely neighbor Jim Bell, or even Horrible Grandma descending on the family.

Gwen And The Book Of Sand (Ovid)--It’s the 4K restoration of this post-apocalyptic adventure  which won the Grand Prix at the Annecy animated film festival.  Gwen has been adopted by a tribe of desert nomads.  In the desert, the mysterious Makou has been dropping from the sky assorted mundane objects from our world, such as telephones, clocks, and armchairs.  The entity has never taken anything, until it kidnaps Nokmoon, Gwen’s young teenage friend.  Now Gwen, accompanied by the old woman Roseline, set out to rescue the boy.  Their search will take them to an odd city whose inhabitants have “unique” ways of preserving the long-vanished modern civilization, such as a cult worshipping an old product catalog.

Train Dreams (Netflix)--This acclaimed adaptation of Denis Johnson’s novella of the same name follows the life of train laborer and logger Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton).  As Grainier goes from one logging job to the next in the Pacific Northwest of the early 1900s, he helps bring progress to the American continent (in the form of trains) but also destroys Nature in the process.  He will find happiness with Gladys (Felicity Jones), but he’ll also find himself shadowed by the sense that some sort of punishment is coming his way.

Mickey 17 (Amazon)--Bong Joon Ho’s science fiction dark comedy begins in the year 2050, when Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson) and his friend Timo (Steven Yeun) join a colonization ship to the planet Niffleheim to escape a murderous loan shark.  Timo becomes a shuttle pilot while Mickey becomes an Expendable, the guy stuck with doing all the dangerous life-threatening tasks.  If Mickey gets killed, then a clone of him is reprinted and has all his memories.  Problems begin when Mickey 17 is left to die while trying to capture a native Niffleheim life form known as a “Creeper.”  Mickey 17 survives with the help of the Creepers.  But on his return to his ship, he discovers that Mickey 18 has been printed and that expedition leader Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo) has declared that duplicate clones will be killed.

Stranger Things 5 Volume 1 (Netflix)--The final season of the Duffer brothers’ hit science fiction horror drama begins here.  It’s Fall 1987, a year after the end of the previous season.  The Rifts may have opened in Hawkins, but the group is determined to find and kill Vecna.  Complicating the mission is the arrival of the military, who are there to hunt down Eleven.  Expect director Frank Darabont (“The Walking Dead”) to direct a couple of episodes and for Linda Hamilton to appear in a so-far unspecified role.

Sunday Ball (Ovid)--Eryk Rocha’s documentary takes viewers to an ordinary football field in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro’s Sampaio neighborhood.  Here, an annual favela soccer championship takes place among 14 different teams.  The enthusiasm and skill on display rivals that of the major leagues.  Ironically, the setting happens to be close to Maracana Stadium, where the 2014 World Cup final was held.

Left-Handed Girl (Netflix)--Shih-Ching Tsou’s directorial debut was co-written with Sean Baker (“Anora”).  Left-handed 5-year-old I-Jing has moved back to Taipei along with 40-ish mother Chu-Fen and rebellious 20-ish sister I-Ann.  Chu-Fen hopes to make ends meet by running a noodle stand at the local night market, but she barely takes in enough money to keep going.  I-Ann works at a betel nut stand to help pay the rent, but she seethes at this responsibility added to her keeping an eye on her younger sister.  I-Jing takes her grandfather’s teasing seriously and believes the Devil has taken possession of her left hand, causing her to steal and do worse things.

The First Omen (Hulu)--In 1971 Rome, novice nun Margaret Daino arrives to work at the Vizzardeli Orphanage before taking the veil.  But she soon finds herself caught in the middle of a conspiracy by Catholic Church radicals to bring about the birth of the Antichrist to drive people back to the Church and away from secularism.  Key to these plans is the mistreated orphan Carlita, who’s intended to be the Antichrist’s mother.  How will Margaret’s bonding with Carlita affect the conspiracy?