Each month, loads of new films and TV shows are added to Netflix UK’s library. Critic Craig Mathieson presents his picks for titles worth watching. For the full list of everything arriving on the platform, scroll down.
Top Picks: TV
Devil in Ohio: Season 1
With echoes of Orphan (be careful who you welcome into your home) and Yellowjackets (cults have a deadly gravity), this suspense thriller stars Emily Deschanel (Bones) as a hospital psychiatrist who brings home Madeleine Arthur’s traumatised teenager, who has no past but appears to have escaped from an unknown group that wants her back.
The limited series is an adaptation of Daria Polatin’s best-seller, building tension as the family unit is subverted and scared by the increasingly obsessed newcomer. Jump scares in the bathroom mirror? Absolutely.
Untold: The Race of the Century
Australia winning the America’s Cup yacht race in 1983—ending a 132-year American winning streak—is a celebrated moment whose backstory is little known. This documentary series aims to fill in the numerous gaps about how a boat with a radical design and boxing kangaroo sail came to deliver an iconic sporting moment.
Interviews include many of those involved, including Australia II’s captain John Bertrand and numerous collaborators, as well as featuring the last interview with the late Bob Hawke, who was Australia’s Prime Minister at the time and delivered a legendary congratulatory speech.
Heartbreak High: Season 1
For Australian audiences coming of age between 1994 and 1999, there was no escaping the original Heartbreak High, a hectic high school drama that had a frank outlook and a feel for juicy adolescent melodrama. Over seven seasons the show had multiple eras and their stars—whether it was Alex Dimitriades’ Nick or Callan Mulvey’s Drazic—and Netflix will be hoping this update can capture the classroom chaos that flowed through all of them, even going international via streaming magic.
Creator Hannah Carroll Chapman (The Heights) delivers a diverse contemporary cast and a striking instigating idea: the painting of a mural that reveals every sexual relationship amongst the student body at Hartley High.
Thai Cave Rescue
Amazon won the race to get their scripted drama about the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue—Ron Howard’s recent film Thirteen Lives—out first, but the events in Northern Thailand created so many headlines worldwide and generated so many different stories that there is likely room for multiple iterations.
Netflix’s limited series has the rights to the story of the 12 boys from the Wild Boars soccer team who were trapped in the limestone caves with their coach, and while there are familiar Australian names in the cast—including Damon Herriman (Justified, The Tourist) and Rodger Corser (Doctor Doctor)—it appears to pay greater attention to the Thai side of events. What should be unchanged? The extreme tension of the underwater rescue.
Top Picks: Movies + Specials
Dune
Arrival director Denis Villeneuve spoke about Frank Herbert’s touchstone 1965 science-fiction novel with spiritual awe: turning the story of a futuristic battle between warring factions on the most valuable but unforgiving planet in the galaxy into a cohesive film was an act of devotion.
With Timothee Chalamet as his fated hero, surrounded by a stacked supporting cast that included Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Jason Momoa, and—briefly—Zendaya, the Canadian filmmaker created an epic defined by vast physicality, otherworldly wonder, and bloody conflict. It was a solemn, immersive blockbuster, worth watching again as Villeneuve and company shoot the second instalment.
Do Revenge
Netflix is getting into the Maya Hawke business. The second-generation star (her parents are Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke) has been a welcome addition to the recent seasons of the streaming service’s signature hit, Stranger Things, embodying the gangly, garrulous Robin Buckley. In this black comedy she plays an outsider new to a high school who forges a bond with a popular girl played by Camila Mendes (Riverdale), who has been betrayed and fallen from grace. Their scheme? Take down each other’s adversaries. It sounds like Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train crossed with Cruel Intentions.
Blonde
Arriving with an R-rating in America due to the sex scenes and a declaration by Australian writer/director Andrew Dominik (Chopper, Killing Them Softly) that it will be “one of the 10 best movies ever made”, this anti-biopic is one of the most anticipated movies of the year. Ana de Armas, who’s impressed via supporting roles in the likes of Blade Runner 2049 and No Time to Die, gets a defining role as a fictionalised version of Marilyn Monroe, the most famous of Hollywood stars. Historic misogyny and the misdeeds of famous men help define this psychological drama, shot in black and white, with Dominik already getting the full-throated blessing of author Joyce Carol Oates, whose acclaimed 2000 novel he adapts.
All titles arriving on Netflix UK in September
September 1
Æon Flux
Barbie in Rock ‘N Royals
Barbie & Her Sisters in A Pony Tale
Cop Car
Disconnect
Gecko’s Garage: Season 1
Joe Kidd
Laurence of Arabia
Off the Hook: Season 1
Love in the Villa
Michael Jackson’s This Is It
Midway
Morphle: My Magic Pet: The Halloween Candy Magic Pet
Napoleon Dynamite
S.W.A.T.: Season 4
Sam Morril: Same Time Tomorrow
Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles: Season 2
Shameless: Season 11
Son of Rambow
The Associate
The Sting
Under Her Control
September 2
Devil in Ohio: Season 1
You’re Nothing Special: Season 1
Fakes: Season 1
Little Women: Season 1
Buy My House: Season 1
Ivy + Bean: The Ghost That Had To Go
Ivy + Bean
Ivy + Bean: Doomed to Dance
September 3
Amsterdam Vice
Le Ballon Rouge
Little Matters: Insects
Operation Ragnarok
Pearl Islands
Portugal’s Mountains of Wonder
September 5
Once Upon A Small Town: Season 1
September 6
Bee and Puppycat: Season 1
Sheng Wang: Sweet and Juicy
Rodrigo Marques: King of Uncouth
Untold: The Race of the Century
Get Smart With Money
September 7
Chef’s Table: Pizza
Indian Predator: The Diary of a Serial Killer
September 8
Entrapped: Season 1
The Anthrax Attacks
The Big Ugly
The Imperfects: Season 1
September 9
Cobra Kai: Season 5
End of the Road
Kajillionaire
No Limit
Narco-Saints: Season 1
September 10
Killer Elite
Uncharted Amazon
Vampyres
September 11
All My Life
September 13
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners: Season 1
Jo Koy: Live from the Los Angeles Forum
September 14
The Lørenskog Disappearance: Season 1
Heartbreak High: Season 1
El Rey, Vicente Fernández: Season 1
The Catholic School
Sins of Our Mother
The Next Karate Kid
September 15
Bastard!! Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy: Part 2
Liss Pereira: Adulting
Terim
September 16
Santo: Season 1
Fate: The Winx Saga: Season 2
The Brave Ones: Season 1
Love Is Blind: After the Altar: Season 2
Do Revenge
I Used to Be Famous
Jogi
Skandal! Bringing Down Wirecard
Gymnastics Academy: A Second Chance
Drifting Home: Season 1
September 17
Bloomfield
Glastonbury Fayre
The Courier
September 20
Patton Oswalt: We All Scream
September 21
Iron Chef Mexico: Season 1
Designing Miami: Season 1
Only For Love: Season 1
Fortune Seller: A TV Scam
September 22
Thai Cave Rescue: Season 1
September 23
ATHENA
A Jazzman’s Blues
Lou
September 24
Fullmetal Alchemist: The Final Alchemy
September 26
My Little Pony: Make Your Mark: Chapter 2
September 27
Nick Kroll: Little Big Boy
September 28
Blonde
September 29
The Empress: Season 1
September 30
Entergalatic
Rainbow
Anikulapo
Date to be announced
Broad Peak
See also
* All new streaming movies & series
