What to Watch on TV and at the Movies This Week

Your Netflix Watch of the Week is here!

MLB at Field of Dreams — Live

A month after live streaming Major League Baseball’s annual Home Run Derby (in our opinion, one of the best editions in years), Netflix will be airing another, newer MLB tradition: the Field of Dreams game. Played in Dyersville, Iowa, the site of Kevin Costner’s 1989 baseball weepie, Field of Dreams (which, by the way, is also now available on the service), this year’s matchup pits the Minnesota Twins against the Philadelphia Phillies. Will Costner, 71, be in attendance? No word yet. But as the movie promises, “If you build it, he will come.”

Watch it: MLB at Field of Dreams — Live, Aug 13 on Netflix

Don't miss this: The Best Things Coming to Netflix This Month

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Your Prime Video Watch of the Week is here!

Is God Is (2026, R)

There’s nothing remotely stagy about writer-director Aleshea Harris’ debut film, which is based on her award-winning off-Broadway play. Kara Young and Mallori Johnson pulsate with Black female rage as twin sisters who are commissioned by their long-presumed-dead mother (Vivica A. Fox, 62) to seek vengeance on their monster of a father (Sterling K. Brown, 50) for deliberately setting a fire that badly scarred all three women. The sisters hit the road like latter-day Hamlets turned avenging angels, pausing only to occasionally ponder the ethics of their pursuit and the possibility of forgiveness. Harris creates a kinetic, well-crafted mix of Quentin Tarantino, the Old Testament and Clint Eastwood Westerns. It’s a bloody good time with a humanist heart beating just beneath the wounded skin.

Watch it: Is God Is, Aug. 19 on Prime Video

Don’t miss this: The Best Things Coming to Prime Video this Month

New at the movies this week

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ The Brink of War, PG

Despite winning awards for his roles in Mad Men and Chernobyl, Jared Harris, 64, may be the most underrated leading man in Hollywood. In this historical recreation of the Reykjavik Summit of 1986, Harris brings Soviet General Secretary Michail Gorbachev to life in a layered, warm performance. Jeff Daniels, 71, is doughier and less convincing as President Ronald Reagan, alas, although J.K. Simmons, 71, creates a very believable Secretary of State George Schultz. The then-secret tête-à-tête between the two leaders — which, despite being combustible and tense, nearly achieved an agreement to eliminate all nuclear weapons — should yield talky, high drama à la Frost/Nixon. But a static script, awkward blocking and disconnected performances turn down the heat. Still, revisiting world leaders trading opinions 40 years ago on nuclear war feels relevant in the Trump-Putin era and worth a watch. History buffs, this one’s for you. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: The Brink of War, Aug. 14 in theaters

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ The End of Oak Street, PG-13

Late-era Jurassic World meets a splintered 1980s suburban family in this silly but suspenseful creature feature made for the drive-in. Matriarch Denise Platt (Anne Hathaway, fresh off playing Penelope in The Odyssey) takes an unscheduled trip with her husband, Greg (Ewan McGregor, 55), their two kids (Maisy Stella and Chris Convery) and mutt Starbuck. There’s already enough marital tension straining this family when, one night after an intense light flash, dinosaurs of nearly every variety, from herbivore to carnivore, overrun their tidy neighborhood. It’s enough to make a father drink — oops, underemployed Greg’s already been tippling. The Platts spend the remainder fleeing toothy, scaly beasts big and small, in heat or in herds, as the humans try to escape and regroup as a family. The jump scares are plentiful, Hathaway is angsty but capable and McGregor runs around in short shorts, bat in hand. It’s a gory goof — and that’s all it aspires, or needs, to be. — Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: The End of Oak Street, Aug. 14 in theaters

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Late Fame, NR

The prolific Willem Dafoe, 71, has been famous forever, able to play vampires or their hunters and star in blockbusters or micro-dramas like this one. Whatever size the part, he of the sharp cheekbones and curvy mouth is always a big presence — and he’s the reason to see Late Fame. It’s a character study of a once-published poet named Ed Saxberger (Dafoe), who has faded into the Greenwich Village haze and toiled for decades at the post office. One day, Ed encounters a young, local poet/entrepreneur (Edmund Donovan) who, with his circle of callow scribes, embraces the long-forgotten and lonely Saxberger. They make his “rediscovery” the centerpiece of an upcoming group reading. As Gloria, an actor and member of the group, the great Greta Lee has a bravura scene belting Bertolt Brecht, but her character seems a forced addition, a tactic perhaps to include at least one woman/love interest. Will Saxberger embrace late, if small-scale, fame? Will he return to pounding out poetry or to pounding the pavement? In answer, Late Fame’s noble pursuit of artistic authenticity is ultimately hobbled by how pretentious and two-dimensional this coven of poets and their milieu is. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: Late Fame, Aug. 14 in theaters

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⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ One Night Only, R

The key to romantic comedy is the chemistry between the lovers. Allie (Monica Barbaro, who rocked the role of Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown) and Owen (elephant-eared hunk Callum Turner) score with sizzle and spark. The plot, a cross between After Hours and An Affair to Remember, has a wacky premise. In a not-so-distant future, the government bans premarital sex — except for one day a year. It’s a permission slip for unmarried citizens to scramble for sexual healing in a frenzy of awkward encounters. This includes Owen’s wise mother, Linda (brat packer Molly Ringwald, 58), and her boyfriend (LeVar Burton, 69), who get kinky with bubble wrap. Who knew? Of course, Allie and Owen careen around New York, experiencing a barrage of complications that keep bringing them together and splitting them apart. Smart and silly, with yummy stars, One Night Only is this summer’s most charming rom-com. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: One Night Only, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, R

This knowing tribute to 1980s slasher franchises like Friday the 13th stars Hacks’ Hannah Einbinder as Kris, a neurotic, gay indie filmmaker who seizes the opportunity to go Hollywood by reviving a cult horror franchise. She embarks on a winter pilgrimage to remote Camp Tivoli, where the “original” Camp Miasma film was shot, to find and possibly cast its reclusive star, Billy (Gillian Anderson, 57). What follows is sexy, subversive, hilarious and horrifying. This Camp Miasma clocks the slasher movie conventions: the jump scares, the adolescent desire rewarded with violence, the creepy stories told around the campfire that later materialize in “flesh and fluid.” But as the laughs and violence pile up, the film pivots to gutting the genre: exposing the transphobic, misogynist and traumatic aspects that touched and triggered a generation of millennials. What results is a daring new film that’s wildly original. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Tony, R

The world knew him as Anthony Bourdain, the globe-trotting chef with the voracious appetite and endless curiosity. This slim but juicy biopic turns back the pages to the mid-1970s, when a 19-year-old Vassar student with aspirations to be a writer was just a kid named Tony (Dominic Sessa). Turned down for a prestigious fellowship, the fast-talking, sticky-fingered young man finds his groove instead at the bottom in the kitchen of a seafood joint in Provincetown, Massachusetts, with a gruffly endearing Antonio Banderas, 65, as his mentor and a scene-stealing Leo Woodall as his wild wingman. Based on early chapters of Bourdain’s 2000 memoir, Kitchen Confidential, the film (in which marvelous Provincetown is a character of its own) celebrates the warmth, companionship and chaos of kitchen labor. I’m unsure if Sessa, best known from The Holdovers, captures Bourdain’s abundant sex appeal, but he does drive this late-summer movie, which brims with heart and slows down to illuminate — and allow us to enjoy — the moment a singular star was born. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: Tony, in theaters