What’s Streaming On MUBI In May: Get Under The Mysterious Gaze Of The Flamingo With Sirât And Mitski: The Land!

Highlights on MUBI this May include The Mysterious Gaze Of The Flamingo, Sirât, My Father’s Shadow, and Mitski: The Land, among others!

This May, MUBI brings together an exciting mix of brand‑new releases and carefully curated collections. These films span contemporary discoveries, festival favorites, and enduring classics. In doing so, it covers many different types of films. From Cannes premieres to vivid portraits of artists and auteurs, the programme highlights films that spark curiosity. Moreover, these films challenge perspectives and invite deeper engagement with cinema from around the world.

Among the month’s highlights are powerful Cannes standouts The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo and Sirât, alongside the immersive concert film Mitski: The Land. Elsewhere, curated seasons celebrate African cinema’s history at Cannes, Spike Lee’s fearless early works, and literary adaptations in partnership with the Hay Festival. Additionally, iconic performances from Cher are included. Moreover, with timeless titles like Paris, Texas, and Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon also streaming, May offers plenty to explore. You can revisit and discover more this month.

LATEST & GREATEST: THE MYSTERIOUS GAZE OF THE FLAMINGO

Diego Céspedes’ illuminating Cannes-winning debut, The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo (2025), marks the arrival of a striking new voice in Chilean cinema. Set in a remote Chilean desert mining town in 1982, twelve-year-old Lidia has been raised by a chosen family of queer performers in a cantina. As an unknown disease begins to spread, suspicion turns toward the community’s gay men. As a result, she is prompted to search for the truth behind the fear taking hold.

Blending coming-of-age storytelling with touches of magical realism and Western melodrama, the film offers a quietly radical portrait of queer resistance shaped by an AIDS-era allegory, and premiered in Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the top prize.

The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo (Céspedes 2025) – May 22

LATEST & GREATEST: SIRÂT

Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, Oliver Laxe’s Sirât (2025) is a desert odyssey that begins at a remote Moroccan rave. There, Luis (Sergi López) searches for his missing daughter while accompanied by his young son. Next, joining a group of ravers, they journey deeper into an uncertain landscape that blurs the line between revelation and danger. The film unfolds as a hypnotic road movie shaped by rhythm and disorientation.

Sirât (Laxe, 2025) – May 15

LATEST & GREATEST: MITSKI: THE LAND

Filmed over three nights at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, Mitski: The Land (2025) captures the artist at a transformative moment in her career. While performing songs from across her entire catalog, Mitski commands the stage with her singular theatrical presence. She moves between intimacy and spectacle with striking confidence. The film offers a compelling portrait of an artist who resists convention and invites audiences into a carefully curated world. This world is both mesmerizing and unmistakably her own.

Alongside the release, our Hand-Picked by Mitski collection sees her select five personal favorites – My First Film, Revenge, Rewind & Play, It Follows, and Midnight Cowboy.

Mitski: The Land (James, 2025) – May 1

AFRICAN CINEMA AT CANNES: A PANORAMA

Our new collection, African Cinema at Cannes: A Panorama, traces the presence of African filmmaking at the Croisette across decades, bringing together landmark works from North and Sub-Saharan Africa that premiered at the festival. Spanning the 1950s to the present, the collection highlights a rich and varied cinematic history — from early international breakthroughs to contemporary voices — and charts a lineage of political urgency, formal innovation, and enduring cultural impact.

Touki Bouki (Mambéty, 1973) – Now Streaming

My Father’s Shadow (Davies Jr. 2025) – Now Streaming

The Blazing Sun (Chahine, 1954) – May 8

Monangambeee (Maldoror, 1968) – May 8

Abouna (Haroun, 2002) – May 8

Bamako (Sissako, 2006) – May 8

DOUBLE TRUTH: TWO BY SPIKE LEE

DOUBLE TRUTH: TWO BY SPIKE LEE brings together two of Spike Lee’s most powerful and widely celebrated films. Both blend heart and righteous fury in the face of systemic racism. Across these defining early works, Lee establishes himself as one of contemporary cinema’s boldest auteurs. Unflinching in his fierce commitment to exploring Black identity, history, and resistance. In Do the Right Thing (1989), tensions simmer on a Brooklyn block in a blistering study of race and community. While Malcolm X (1992) offers an epic portrait of the life and legacy of the iconic civil rights leader.

Malcolm X (Lee, 1992) – Now Streaming

Do the Right Thing (Lee, 1989) – May 1

THE CHER EFFECT: A DOUBLE BILL

The Cher Effect: A Double Bill celebrates Cher’s 80th birthday with two iconic screen performances from the pop legend turned actor. One of the first music stars to successfully forge a second career in film, Cher brings her singular presence and charm to two stories of love, family, and self-discovery. Playing a free-spirited mother navigating life on her own terms in Mermaids (1990) and delivering an Oscar-winning turn as a woman swept up in an unexpected, all-consuming romance in Moonstruck (1987).

Moonstruck (Jewison, 1987) – Now Streaming

Mermaids (Benjamin, 1990) – May 15

BY THE BOOK: AUTEUR ADAPTATIONS

By the Book: Auteur Adaptations celebrates our partnership with the Hay Festival by bringing together films that reimagine literature through a distinctly cinematic lens. From faithful renderings to bold, transformative interpretations. These works highlight how great filmmakers reshape the written word in their own image by opening up new ways of seeing, feeling, and experiencing familiar stories.

The Silence of the Lambs (Demme, 1991) – Now Streaming

Mysterious Skin (Araki, 2004) – Now Streaming

Wuthering Heights (Arnold, 2011) – Now Streaming

45 Years (Haigh, 2015) – Now Streaming

Women Talking (Polley, 2022) – Now Streaming

American Fiction (Jefferson, 2023) – Now Streaming

Nickel Boys (Ross, 2024) – Now Streaming

Die My Love (Ramsay, 2025) – Now Streaming

Bones and All (Guadagnino, 2022) – May 1

THE NEON DEMON

In anticipation of Nicolas Winding Refn’s latest film Her Private Hell (2026), which was recently acquired by MUBI and is set to premiere out of Competition at Cannes this year. The Neon Demon (2016) stands as a striking vision of beauty and ambition in the cutthroat world of fashion. Elle Fanning stars as an aspiring model whose rapid rise unsettles those around her. Where envy and desire become dangerously entangled. Bathed in his signature neon lights and pulsing sounds, Refn crafts a visually intoxicating tale of obsession and the dangerous allure of perfection.

The Neon Demon (Refn, 2016) – May 1

PARIS, TEXAS

Wim Wenders’s quiet but profound Paris, Texas (1984) is an evocative journey through the American landscape. Where vast deserts and neon-lit cities mirror the inner lives of its lonely characters. A drifter’s search for connection unfolds with aching tenderness. Tracing the fragile distance between who we are and who we once were.

Paris, Texas (Wenders, 1984) – May 8

MUBI UK & IRELAND MAY 2026

01/05/2026 | Do the Right Thing | Spike Lee | Double Truth: Two by Spike Lee

01/05/2026 | The Neon Demon | Nicolas Winding Refn

01/05/2026 | Bones and All | Luca Guadagnino | By the Book: Auteur Adaptations

01/05/2026 | Mitski: The Land | Grant James | Latest & Greatest

08/05/2026 | Paris, Texas | Wim Wenders

08/05/2026 | Bamako | Abderrahmane Sissako | African Cinema at Cannes: A Panorama

08/05/2026 | Abouna | Mahamat-Saleh Haroun | African Cinema at Cannes: A Panorama

08/05/2026 | The Blazing Sun | Youssef Chahine | African Cinema at Cannes: A Panorama

08/05/2026 | Monangambeee | Sarah Maldoror | African Cinema at Cannes: A Panorama

15/05/2026 | Mermaids | Richard Benjamin | The Cher Effect: A Double Bill

15/05/2026 | Sirât | Oliver Laxe | Latest & Greatest

15/05/2026 | The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo | Diego Céspedes | Latest & Greatest

21/05/2026 | Adaptation | Spike Jonze | By the Book: Auteur Adaptations

22/05/2026 | Elevator to the Gallows | Louis Malle

Plan your monthly viewing on MUBI.

 

 

 

 

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