The expanding network of online streaming services means there are more ways than ever before for busy/idle/agoraphobic film lovers to see recent releases, but fans of vintage cinema are still rather poorly served. Most outlets offer a small, often arbitrary selection of older standards that are useful for beginners; those in search of more niche classics, however, are still reliant on DVD. Here's where the warren-like world of online archiving comes into play. You'd be amazed how many gems are lurking, albeit in grainy and segmented form, on YouTube, but if that seems too great an affront to cinema, the long-serving, simply named Internet Archive (archive.org/movies) is a better bet.
A non-profit-making US site run much like an online library, the IA's remit extends far beyond film, but with thousands of public-domain titles available to download or stream, cinephiles seem to guard it rather protectively. Various levels of geekery are accommodated: sub-collections range from film noir to the cinema of German experimentalist Lutz Mommartz. Howard Hawks's still-dizzying screwball comedy His Girl Friday is there for discovery and rediscovery alike, but if that's too over-exposed for your taste, Gregory La Cava's similarly delightful (but far less readily available) bauble My Man Godfrey is also on the menu. And these I just plucked from the welcome page. IA isn't the most user-friendly resource: visually it's unsexy and initially daunting to navigate, and downloading novices may take a while to get the knack. But hours of pleasure lie behind the academic exterior; there's a warming comfort to this buried treasure, and Christmas seems a good time to start digging.
If the opposite of comfort is what you're after, however, the week's best new release is The Conjuring (Warner, 15), a terrific, bluntly terrifying old-school chiller in which Malaysian-born genre specialist James Wan (creator of the Saw franchise) completes a 180-degree turn from the oppressively grisly exploitation horror with which he made his name. This playful fun ride is about as honourable as any story of demonic possession can be: cinematic tradition and spiritual belief alike are respected in a 1970s-set take on the haunted-house formula. Nice family moves into rickety American gothic fixer-upper, things go bump (and worse) in the night, Catholic paranormal investigators are called in – you know more or less where it's going even as you jump out of your skin. But the devil, much present here, is also in the details: the authentic family bond at its core, the nervy performance of Lili Taylor as a mother possessed, and the brittle timber textures of the production design.
Somewhat more child-friendly is The Croods (Fox, U), a cheerful, chunkily animated prehistoric romp that has unassumingly grossed more than any other non-sequel, non-franchise title in UK cinemas this year. Following the exploits of the last surviving caveman clan – think The Flintstones with more hugging and learning – the film is as artless as its title suggests, but has broad, pleasingly snark-free family appeal. Also of simple, if less wholesome, pleasures is 2 Guns (Entertainment One, 15), a heist thriller with the salty swing of an Elmore Leonard beach read. Quite a niftily plotted one too, though it hardly needs to be: the unexpectedly zappy chemistry of Mark Wahlberg and Denzel Washington as undercover bank robbers is the chief takeaway here.
The week's best arthouse option is a tardy treat: A Separation director Asghar Farhadi's Fireworks Wednesday (Axiom, 12). Made in 2006 but never released in the UK, this typically assiduous cross-section of three marriages in urban Iranian society is further proof of Farhadi's generous skills as a dramatist and a welcome appetiser for his forthcoming The Past.
