Newflix is our weekly look at notable new titles available on online streaming sites.

Adaptation (2002)
Directed by Spike Jonze
Free for Amazon Prime subscribers on Amazon
Though it’s ostensibly an adaptation of Susan Orleans’ The Orchid Thief, Adaptation is not about flowers. It's about screenwriter Charlie Kaufman’s deeply specific insecurities. It’s about desperate passion (and the finding and seeking thereof), and it’s also about the difficulties of being faced with total creative freedom, and it’s also about the beauty and horror of making movies. It’s a Möbius strip of a film, a snake that eats its own tail. But it’s also a hilarious and sharply observant movie, one that will break your heart and make you laugh in the same breath. Adaptation marks Kaufman and director Jonze’s second collaboration, following Being John Malkovich, and it more than matches its predecessor’s strangeness and originality. Appropriately, it also marks the only time the Academy has nominated a fictional character: Charlie’s fake twin brother, Donald, who shares a screenwriting credit here.

Approaching The Elephant (2014)
Directed by Amanda Rose Wilder
Free for Netflix subscribers on Netflix streaming
I have yet to see Approaching the Elephant, but our own Scott Tobias tagged it as Essential Viewing just last month. I’d trust Scott Tobias, guys. Amanda Rose Wilder’s documentary covers the first year at Teddy McArdle Free School in Little Falls, New Jersey, a small experimental program inside a Lutheran church where kids are free to do whatever they want—whether it be woodshop, music, art, or simply riding their bikes around the parking lot. Wilder’s camera follows head teacher Alex Khost and several students as they adjust to the new system, but as Scott explains in his review, the film transcends its writ-small subject matter. “Out of chaos comes order, both at Teddy McArdle and in the film, which brings the personalities and conflicts into sharper focus as it goes along. What follows is a psychodrama of often-startling intensity, as the bullies learn to exploit the system and needle at the vulnerabilities of their fellow students and teachers.” He adds that the movie’s message is a big and important one—it asks us to “rethink the educational standards and dictates we accept too blithely.”

Little Women (1994) 
Directed by Gillian Armstrong
Free for Amazon Prime subscribers on Amazon
As the lovely Kate Erbland shared with us last month, there have been several filmic and TV adaptations of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, with the best-known versions being George Cukor’s 1933 film (with Katharine Hepburn as Jo), Mervyn LeRoy’s in 1949 (with Elizabeth Taylor as Amy), and Gillian Armstrong’s in 1994 (the one with Winona Ryder, which I’m recommending here). She also shared that there’s yet another version coming down the pipeline, this time penned by Sarah Polley and produced by Amy Pascal. What better time than to revisit Armstrong’s moving, beautiful film about the March women? Just be sure to bring several boxes of tissues, because (er, spoiler?) no matter how many times you’ve have to come to terms with Claire Danes’ death, you will not be able to stop crying. Seriously.

Bound (1996)
Directed by the Wachowskis
Free for Netflix subscribers on Netflix streaming
I watched Bound for the first time this week, and am thrilled to report that it more than passes the Bechdel Test—it blows it out of the water. The Wachowskis’ first film follows Violet (Jennifer Tilly) and Corky (Gina Gershon), the unhappy girlfriend of a mobster and an ex-con who moves in next door, respectively. The a) two women b) have a conversation c) about something other than a man, d) sleep together, e) fall in love, and f) hatch a plot to steal $2 million from Violet’s terrible boyfriend. Bound both subverts and pays homage to the standard mob drama, placing women in positions of power and letting them hold onto the upper hand. It’s far from a perfect film—the final line, in particular, is pretty cringeworthy—but it’s taut and suspenseful and sexy, and the fact that it was made at all is pretty great.

Also new to streaming:
Return some videotapes and book a table at Dorsia before watching American Psycho (Netflix)…Revisit The Dude in The Big Lebowski (Netflix)…Shake hands with Christopher Walken in The Dead Zone (Netflix)…Are you not entertained by Gladiator? (Netflix)…Here’s to you for watching The Graduate (Netflix)…Catch up on your Noah Baumbach with Kicking And Screaming (Netflix)…Dolly Parton, enough said, in Nine To Five (Netflix)…Re-watch Braveheart, like Nathan did a few weeks ago (Netflix)…Get in with glam rockers in Sunset Strip (Netflix)…Then make fun of rockers in This Is Spinal Tap (Netflix)…Learn how to escape from Alcatraz in Escape From Alcatraz (Amazon Prime)…Remember Leonard Nimoy with Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search For Spock…Gillian Jacobs and Leighton Meester are Life Partners (Netflix)…Cry your face off with Angela’s Ashes (Netflix)…Get a closer look at Studio Ghibli in The Kingdom of Dreams And Madness (Netflix)…Catch up on another Essential Viewing with Something, Anything (Netflix)