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Ryan Reynolds stars in 6 Underground, now streaming on Netflix.Christian Black/Netflix

Before you turn on your television, iPad or laptop this weekend and drown in options, The Globe and Mail presents three best cinematic bets that are worth your coveted downtime – no commute to the movie theatre required.

6 Underground, Netflix: You know that the film industry is undergoing seismic change when Martin Scorsese decides to work with Netflix. But the real sign that Hollywood is in full-scale disruption mode? That’s when the streaming giant also persuades Michael Bay, a director whose thirst for destructive spectacle is explicitly designed to be enjoyed/tolerated/survived on the largest screen possible, to make a movie that will largely be consumed at home. Not that Netflix’s limited theatrical reach has diminished Bay’s explosive ambitions: 6 Underground, the director’s first film away from the traditional studio system – and his best action movie in more than a decade, is a riotous and gleefully delirious assault on the senses. It is vulgar. It is absurd. And it is completely enthralling. It might melt your TV screen, though.

The Mustang, Crave: There are films with obvious metaphors and then there is The Mustang, which lassos its central analogy (just like horses, some men need to be tamed) and rides it, bucking-bronco-style, into the sunset. But while almost everything about this drama is obvious, director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre captures it with a swirling and dusty sort of beauty. The French filmmaker’s talent behind the camera is so remarkable in its patience and curiosity that I spent long stretches of The Mustang hoping that the central story might drop out altogether, the better to appreciate de Clermont-Tonnerre’s cynicism-free appreciation of the American West landscape. The strong cast keep their heads down and offer all the obligatory rhythms – if you hire Bruce Dern as a crabby horse trainer, you are going to get exactly what you paid for – and the film eagerly embraces the purely filthy dullness of prison life. The ride felt a bit bumpy on the big screen when the film was released this past March, but it should be an ideal at-home exercise in giddy-upping for the tail end of the year.

Midsommar, Amazon Prime Video: What does a young filmmaker such as Ari Aster do after making one of the “most traumatically terrifying horror movies in ages”? Well, if you’re the mind behind 2018′s Hereditary, you immediately leave the country, hunker down in Hungary and get to work on a freak-out folk-horror follow-up that is guaranteed to leave audiences scratching their heads when they aren’t busy choking back laughs – or vomit. If that description makes Midsommar sound, well, not unappealing, but certainly a unique proposition, then congratulations: You are ready to experience the best black comedy of 2019. Strap on your big, fluffy bear suit (trust me, the joke works after you’ve seen the film) and prepare to be set on fire.

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