Want to Turn Your House into the Art House? Try Metrograph at Home.

When the Metrograph theater opened on New York’s Lower East Side in spring of 2016, it wasn’t just a cinema; it was an experience, offering up two screens of new independent films, archival screenings and special events, as well as an on-site bar, restaurant and bookshop. In the years that followed, Metrograph’s reach continued to grow, as did the opportunities for film lovers to patronize the theater beyond its walls, thanks to the establishment of Metrograph Pictures (a distribution company restoring and championing archival releases) and the Metrograph Journal (featuring thoughtful film writing from a variety of contributors).

But like so many other theaters, particularly independent ones, Metrograph faced a crisis in the spring of 2020, as Covid forced the doors to close at 7 Ludlow St. But that July, the company launched what was initially known as Metrograph Digital, with an ambitious calendar of live screening events developed and curated by the theater’s programming team, featuring new releases and repertory titles supplemented by guest introductions and interviews. Those events were initially limited to Metrograph members, but that October, the program expanded to include screenings that were available to nonmembers à la carte.

In the years that followed, the service — rechristened Metrograph at Home — expanded from the theater’s website into the streaming platform space, transforming a pandemic stopgap into a specialty streamer spotlighting foreign, art house, independent, classic and documentary selections and monthly verticals. Like similar services we’ve spotlighted here, the library may not be gigantic (it currently boasts 158 feature films, 10 short films, and 55 original videos), but the curation is excellent, the interface is easy to use and the audio and video quality are top-notch. Best of all, it’s affordable; access is bundled with a Metrograph Membership, which is only $5 per month or $50 annually (and which also includes discounted tickets, special events and other perks for in-person members).

Here are a few recommendations from their current library:

‘The French’: One of Metrograph Pictures’s proudest discoveries is this 1982 documentary from the expatriate American photographer and filmmaker William Klein, who was the first director ever granted permission to shoot at the French Open. He captures the 1981 tournament, in which Bjorn Borg defeated Ivan Lendl, in cinéma vérité style; we see plenty of action on the courts, including Borg’s dramatic victory, but Klein seems less interested in the spotlight than the margins, and the most fascinating footage finds sports gods hanging out and talking shop in the locker room, or trading strategy and gossip in the stands. (There are also plenty of opportunities to observe John McEnroe being a brat.) It’s a panoramic view, keenly observed, and serves as a valuable time capsule of the sport in an earthier and less corporatized era.

‘Possession’: When Andrzej Zulawski’s psychological horror drama was first released in the United States in 1983, it was in a badly butchered cut, excising much of the film’s weightier material to appeal to a straightforward horror audience that dismissed it. It was all but impossible to see in its original form for years, but Metrograph Pictures oversaw a new 4K restoration, which was the first film screened at the theater when it reopened in the fall of 2021. It’s a deeply unsettling picture, which begins with the marriage of its focal couple (played to the hilt by Isabelle Adjani and Sam Neill) in total disrepair, and things go steeply downhill from there; suffice it to say that Adjani’s subway miscarriage is one of the most stunning pieces of acting ever committed to film, a scene that remains indescribable in spite of its notoriety and meme-ability.