Black Bear

Between everything competing for your attention, Black Bear in Australia on Amazon Prime Video and MUBI, and in the US on Philo and Kanopy is worth clearing space for. A tight runtime that never overstays its welcome. A 6/10 rating says what the writing already makes obvious: this one works. Aubrey Plaza's performance alone is worth the time investment. Available now on Amazon Prime Video — press play and find out why people keep recommending it.

Black Bear arrived without much fanfare and built its audience the hard way — through word of mouth. The writing in Black Bear treats its characters as people first, plot devices second. At a remote lake house in the Adirondack Mountains, a couple entertains an out-of-town guest looking for inspiration in her filmmaking. The group quickly falls into a calculated game of desire, manipulation, and jealousy, unaware of how dangerously intertwined their lives will soon become. Aubrey Plaza and Christopher Abbott lead a cast doing genuinely serious work here. It hit screens in 2020. Black Bear resists tidy resolutions in a way that respects how messy real consequences actually are. It delivers reliably on what it promises, which is more than most of its competition manages.

For anyone looking for storytelling that takes its characters seriously, Black Bear delivers. It does not lean on comparisons to make its case. The complete film is available and best experienced without too much prior knowledge of where it goes. Aubrey Plaza is the centre of it, and it is one of their strongest performances on record. The patience it asks of you early on is paid back with interest.

Black Bear was released in 2020, directed by Lawrence Michael Levine. The full 106-minute film is available to watch now. Find exactly where it's streaming below, and TV Butler Pro makes it effortless to track your progress as you go. Just search the name, and Butler finds it instantly, tells you which service has it, and remembers exactly where you left off.