Nightwatching

Nightwatching (2007), directed by Peter Greenaway, is a historical thriller you can watch online on iFILM. Amsterdam, the 1640s: Rembrandt van Rijn is hired to paint a militia portrait. Somewhere inside that commission, he finds a murderer.

Martin Freeman plays Rembrandt as a man who decides to name the killer in the only way he can — encoded into the canvas itself, where it can't be quietly destroyed. Commissions disappear, enemies multiply. Toby Jones, Eva Birthistle and Judi May populate a city where money decides guilt and an artist's credibility is the easiest thing to dismantle. The film runs 135 minutes and takes its time building a world where the painting isn't just art — it's the only surviving evidence.

The Night Watch is a real canvas, completed in 1642 and held in the Rijksmuseum; Greenaway's theory about what it contains is deliberate provocation. Stream Nightwatching (2007) online on iFILM.