Experimenter

Right now you can watch Experimenter in Australia on Amazon Prime Video, and in the US on Amazon Prime Video and fuboTV — and it holds up to as much attention as you give it. It knows exactly what kind of film it is from the opening scene, and never loses that thread. A 6/10 rating says what the writing already makes obvious: this one works. Peter Sarsgaard leads a cast that never overplays its hand. There is no real reason to keep putting it off — it is right there on Amazon Prime Video.

Experimenter arrived without much fanfare and built its audience the hard way — through word of mouth. Character-driven storytelling at its most effective — Experimenter earns every emotional beat it goes for. Yale University, 1961. Stanley Milgram designs a psychology experiment that still resonates to this day, in which people think they’re delivering painful electric shocks to an affable stranger strapped into a chair in another room. Despite his pleads for mercy, the majority of subjects don’t stop the experiment, administering what they think is a near-fatal electric shock, simply because they’ve been told to do so. Peter Sarsgaard and Winona Ryder lead a cast that treats the material with real seriousness. It was released in 2015. Experimenter resists tidy resolutions in a way that respects how messy real consequences actually are. There is real craft here, even in the moments that do not fully land.

Drama fans who appreciate slow-burn storytelling will feel right at home with Experimenter. It has built its own audience without needing a direct comparison. The complete film is available and best experienced without too much prior knowledge of where it goes. Peter Sarsgaard 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.

Experimenter was released in 2015, directed by Michael Almereyda. The full 97-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.