There's no point pretending that Netflix is some smalltime player in the media world now – it's the biggest streaming service on the planet, and it's built that base by releasing a series of hugely popular shows over the years. In the last half decade, few of its new arrivals have been quite so well-received as Emily in Paris, though.

This show, starring Lily Collins as the eponymous Emily, fuses the world of fashion with a good old-fashioned rom-com style drama, keeping things really light-hearted as it does so. That equation has seen it become a massive success for Netflix, but all good things must come to and end, and it's getting its final season before the year is out. Now we have a full trailer to digest.

The trailer opens with some heart-warming flashbacks to the younger Emily who first arrived in Paris, and some of the romantic entanglements she's gotten into along the way. It ends, though, by signalling what new romantic European destination she'll be jetting off to this time – Greece.

After all, in recent seasons the show has been less rooted in Paris, with Emily cavorting around Europe at fashion weeks and on assignments. This time, it looks like she'll get her Mamma Mia! moment, enjoying the Aegean sunshine and perhaps reconnecting with one or two of those old flames unexpectedly.

The question of who she ends up with in the long run is what we'd expect to see definitively answered when the season ends, but the fun is moreso in the getting there than in the slightly obvious answer for those who love the show. It's unashamedly cheesy and silly, after all, which means you do slightly have to be in the mood for some lightweight fun.

If that's your bag, though, you probably already had the premiere date marked in your calendar – and it's a big one. 24 December, otherwise known as Christmas eve, is quite a punchy choice from Netflix, but since this is basically its biggest finale this year (Stranger Things having technically ended in the final hours of 2025), why not shoot for those holiday eyeballs?

Netflix has form when it comes to excellent military and spy thrillers – it's been making them for practically as long as it's been pumping out original content, and some of them have been seriously brilliant. Now, though, it's reuniting with much of the creative talent from one of its best ever efforts, Bodyguard, which it distributed worldwide after the BBC made it.

The creator of that series, Jed Mercurio, has now written another for Netflix: Trinity. Not only that, but the main star of Bodyguard, the excellent Richard Madden, is back to star in this one, although his role looks like it's very different, playing someone who might well end up being the antagonist of the series, rather than its hero.

In fact, while he has a starring role, the lead in the show is really Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Commander Katherine Decker, the dutiful leader of a nuclear submarine's crew. She's given a proper scare when only happenstance stops her crew from launching a nuclear missile at a target that doesn't actually exist.

Chasing the hints she's been given, she seems to encounter Madden as the US Secretary of Defence, Webb Preston. Preston seems to be operating in a way that some of his subordinates don't agree with, and from what we can tell in the trailer it seems like he might be operating a secret organisation, possibly called Trinity – but it's a little hard to tell.

These two characters will clearly become involved in a proper old-school conspiracy, and there's no telling where that might take them. That said, the trailer drops plenty of hints that Madden's character might not be quite what he seems. That would be relatively typical, to be fair. He's made a career out of playing men who have layers you don't initially perceive, even doing so in his biggest-budget outing, in Marvel's Eternals.

That film might have flopped, but I think Madden was one of its best components, so here's hoping that Trinity can be another fun part of his career as it continues. We'll all get to judge that question when the series drops on Netflix on 1 December.

To say it politely, the story of the UK's tabloid press in the 20th century is one that's absolutely full of intrigue, pretty much no matter which paper you might choose to zoom in on. Still, few titles loom larger than The Sun, which has spent decades shouting about issues now, and at its peak boasted a gargantuan readership. Now it's the centre of a glossy Netflix movie that looks absolutely fantastic.

Ink is the latest from Danny Boyle, who's incredibly prolific right now, and it tells the story of Rupert Murdoch's takeover of the once smalltime paper. Charting its growth into the agenda-setting behemoth that it became, the story looks to show just how grotty some its tactics were, but also how it undeniably took the temperature of its time.

The biggest characters in this story are media mogul Rupert Murdoch (played here by the always excellent Guy Pearce), who bought The Sun in 1969; Larry Lamb (Jack O'Connell), who was installed as its editor and completely turned around its tone and focus; and Claire Foy as Jules Davies, the only major fictional character.

She's apparently something of a blend of various women reporters from the era, giving a voice to a sometimes underreported part of the British press in those days. Between them, they'll reshape what was a slowly failing left-wing paper into the populist tabloid it's now known as. How they do that will, of course, be all part of the fun.

Interestingly, having been unveiled earlier this year without a clear plan on this front, Netflix has now added Ink to its slate of films coming to cinemas (demonstrating that it thinks it could have a shot at some awards season nominations). It'll be in cinemas from 11 December, although based on previous Netflix approaches I'd assume it won't stay there for very long.

This trailer doesn't itself tell us the actual streaming release date of the movie, but it's thankfully been confirmed elsewhere – 8 January 2027, so right at the start of next year. That's a little bit of a shame, in my view, since it means you won't be able to watch this at Christmas, but what do I know?

Sometimes you watch a trailer and almost get a sense of unreality from the fact that a movie or show you've spent so long reading about is actually coming out. That's how I'd describe the trailer that Netflix dropped at the end of last week for The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth, with Brad Pitt front and centre as the leading man.

This is the long-gestating semi-sequel to Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino's most recent film, and it's been in the works for years. Tarantino wrote the script, and the estimable David Fincher has stepped into the directing chair to actually make the thing, and now it's on the cusp of release – hitting cinemas on 25 November in a way that's totally unique for Netflix so far.

That unique factor is that this is the first time Netflix has ever released a film exclusively in IMAX, sticking with the biggest cinema format you can find as the default way to watch the movie. It isn't shouting about whether the film was actually made on IMAX film stock, though, so you can safely assume it wasn't.

That IMAX run will apparently last for a couple of weeks, into mid-December, before the film goes the traditional route and becomes available for subscribers on 23 December. That means it's a cinch for Christmas viewing if your family is so inclined, although it's probably not going to be the most family-friendly fare in all.

We know that Pitt reprises his role as stuntman Cliff Booth, although it seems like he's now distinctly washed up and taking basically whatever work he can get to keep paying the bills. He'll get pulled into a wacky series of events, though, when he signs up to help another famous actor with some shady people.

There are glimpses of a whole lot of different sequences in this trailer, too, from dirt racing to mud wrestling, and it's great that you can watch it and still not have that much of a sense of where the film will go. As someone who's already gone to the cinema to watch Netflix movies on a couple of occasions, I might just have to add this one to that list.

Netflix has managed to drop a couple of really quite superb spy-ish thrillers in the last few years, and both have garnered welcome praise and a raising of the profile of their already-famous female stars.

Black Doves, with Keira Knightley in the lead, has shown that an actor who you wouldn't really have thought was a banker for this sort of role can nonetheless surprise you when given the right material. It's also got a brilliant supporting cast and an enjoyably dark tone.

Then there's The Diplomat – a series that isn't quite as explicitly about spies, but nonetheless involves plenty of subterfuge, politics and outright lies. It's a more political engine, of course, but the similarities between the two are pretty clear (although this time it's Keri Russell in the lead).

So, if you're wondering which of these two series you should pick first, I'm here to give you a little guidance, and to introduce you to each of them in some more detail.

Black Doves

• Seasons: 2
• First streamed: December 2024

If you want a lean and taut spy thriller that puts the emphasis right on spies, rather than on the structures that support them, this is a great place to start. Black Doves stars Keira Knightley as Helen Webb, the wife of the UK's Secretary of State for Defence and also very much a spy.

Her professional life becomes drastically more complicated, though, when the man she's been having an affair with is murdered. She realises that this might hint at her double life being exposed, and has to swing into action to stop that from happening.

Except, the crucial variable here is that she's not an official spy, but instead works for a private organisation as effectively a spy-for-hire. That means her ethics are a little more dubious, and her colleagues a little more liable to be unhinged. In particular, Ben Whishaw as hired gun Sam Young is a real treat, as is Sarah Lancashire as the experienced handler Elizabeth Reed.

Black Doves succeeds because it's profane and fun, and actually feels more than a little like a response to Slow Horses, Apple TV's runaway hit. It has the same sense of a grungy reality to it, and it's no wonder it was swiftly renewed for a second season, which is streaming now.

The Diplomat

• Seasons: 4
• First streamed: April 2023

If you prefer your thrillers to be a little more political, then this is the way to go – or, really, a lot more political. I mean, The Diplomat doesn't exactly hide its light under a bushel; instead, it puts its themes right there in the title of the show.

Keri Russell is that diplomat from the title, Kate Wyler, who starts the series off having just been named the new US ambassador to the UK. She's also married to a career diplomat – Rufus Sewell as Hal Wyler, himself the former US Ambassador to Lebanon and Iraq.

Their marriage is on the rocks in a major way, for a whole heap of reasons, but the political turmoil that greets Kate in the UK is hard to predict. Over the course of a few seasons, we've seen regime change and total scandal break out, and in particular the arrival of Allison Janney as a frosty and at-times terrifying President.

This is a show that keeps itself zipping along really nicely, and the sense of momentum that it sustains is really impressive. It's a little more dialogue-heavy than Black Doves, and would be a great pick if you like political thrillers that have a little more actual edge and threat than something historic like The West Wing, for instance.

So, which should you watch?

So, both of these thrillers have a huge amount going for them, so how do you pick between them?

Well, firstly, let's talk appetite. If you're in the mood for a quick sprint through a good chunk of TV, then you're probably going to want to opt for The Diplomat first. It has twice the number of seasons as Black Doves, and seems to come out on an annual basis.

That's a rarity for Netflix, but it means that the show is just more frequent than some of its rivals, which counts for plenty. By contrast, Black Doves is a little slower, but it's still doing pretty well given it's on two seasons in three years. These are numbers that Stranger Things trailed far behind by its end.

Both shows are nice and mature in their tone, so I wouldn't say there's a huge amount to pick between there, but it's also worth saying that Black Doves is quite a lot more violent. It's right there in the gutter while wetwork happens, whereas the explosions of physical threat in The Diplomat are far more muted in on-screen terms.

That said, both series also have a nice and detailed approach to their main characters' perspectives and interior lives – so either choice gets you a fascinating portrait of a woman under intense pressure.

Here's the best part, and the woolliest: there's no wrong answer. These are both excellent shows that have become minor critical darlings already, so the best choice is probably to watch them both. In terms of what order? I'd probably start with Black Doves' first season, then dip into The Diplomat for a couple, back to Black Doves' second season, and then finish with two more from The Diplomat to bring me right up to the present.

The biggest streaming platforms in the world all know the same thing – they can't sit still. Give people a few weeks without adding much of note to your library, and you're just asking for people to unsubscribe and take their money elsewhere. So, there's always something new coming to the likes of Netflix and Prime Video, each and every week.

This time around things are looking pretty juicy, too. Prime Video's welcoming back its most expensive and opulent series ever, while Netflix adds some new originals that look like they tell inventive and surprising stories. Here are the three additions you need to know about this week, with release dates and trailers, so that you can plan your weeknight viewing from here.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Season 3)

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from 11 November

Amazon has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into The Rings of Power already, but some would say it should have more to show for it. This season looks like it might set that record straight by refocusing the show onto a more epic scale, complete with apparently huge battles and a faster pace.

It's not quite being branded as a soft reboot, but the language used by some of its creators almost suggests you could jump into the show here without having seen the first two seasons, remarkably. We don't know if that's true, but either way this season seems like it'll bring us the actual forging of the One Ring, something we've been waiting for this whole time.

Heartland

• Streaming on: Netflix from 13 November

Jessica Chastain is a brilliant performer when the material's right, and she seems like a perfect fit for this intriguing story set in the musical world of Nashville. Chastain plays Misty Jones, a reclusive country star who's forced to step back into the limelight when her niece goes missing while making a career of her own in music.

Jones is certain that something bad has happened, while being patronised about those suspicions from all corners. The trailer makes it clear that she's got a good nose for this stuff, though, and you can expect her to start picking away at what might be quite the conspiracy. Expect tension and thrills in abundance, but also a brilliant soundtrack.

The Body

• Streaming on: Netflix from 11 November

This thriller series looks like it could be a huge bite of fun – set around a We'd imagCatholic girls' school cheerleading squad, its trailer is pretty enticing. It seems like we'll get a somewhat traditional story of the outsider being bullied for her differences (Carrie style), but then it might take things in a very new direction.

Rather than being ostracised, it seems like that outsider might ingrain herself impressively in the squad, all while potentially being possessed by the actual devil. We don't know just how supernatural the show will truly be, but its promotional material makes it fairly clear that this isn't all just superstition. We'd very much imagine things will come to a bloody end, though, one way or another.

Having both entered the movie scene with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Guy Ritchie and former market trader Jason Statham have since made another four films together, with a fifth in post-production. Now they're about to make yet another one, with Netflix reuniting the pair for a new gangland thriller to hit the streaming platform.

Ritchie first cast Statham as Bacon in Lock, Stock and then as Turkish in Snatch. The partnership continued in their third gangland crime drama, Revolver, and six years later, Wrath of Man. They switched to spy shenanigans for Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre a few years ago, but have returned to their roots for Viva La Madness – based on the book sequel to Daniel Craig's Layer Cake.

The filming of that movie wrapped earlier this year, so now it's onto the next project – Dogfight, which Netflix revealed will start production in 2027.

Little is known about the plot so far – and Statham's role – but according to Variety it's described by Netflix as a "stylish revenge actioner" set in the London criminal underworld. So no change of pace there.

To be fair, Ritchie is riding high at the minute after the enormous successes of The Gentlemen – the series based on his 2019 film – and Mobland, starring Tom Hardy. They have proved highly popular for Netflix and Paramount+ respectively.

Mobland was originally planned as a spinoff of The Gentlemen, but it was decided to keep them separate in the end. It begs the question though of whether Dogfight will tie into either of them. If so, it'd most likely be The Gentlemen as it's a Netflix project.

It could well be completely separate though, as "revenge actioner" suggests a darker tone to the Netflix TV series.

Either way, we'll be right there watching as it seems the British director and his acting best mate seem to be both hitting their stride right now.

November's here, and Halloween is a thing of the past once more – we're in true winter now, but there's a silver lining to the ever more common clouds plaguing us: content. Netflix and Prime Video both have teams of executives who know they can't take a month off, and with the holiday season incoming, this is the time to convince people that they still need their streaming subscriptions.

So, if you're looking at this coming week and wondering what new stuff you might be able to spend your evenings watching, you've come to the right place. Like every week, I've taken a detailed look at everything being added by both Netflix and Prime Video, and have whittled it down to three highlights. These are the new arrivals to be on the lookout for – they could change your week for the better!

Black Doves (Season 2)

• Streaming on: Netflix from 5 November

Keira Knightley's spy show from around this time last year was a massive surprise hit for Netflix (or that's how it looked from the outside), and while I was worried it might be a one-and-done limited series, we're now getting a second season midweek to prove that fear wrong.

Knightley's back and this time her character is even more exposed than before, since her husband has been promoted to the premiership of the United Kingdom. That makes it harder than ever for her to continue her espionage work, but this season will take that dilemma out of her hands in explosive ways, from the looks of things. It should be brilliant, stressful fun.

Possible Love

• Streaming on: Netflix from 6 November

This might be the most acclaimed film that Netflix adds to its repertoire this year, from the fantastic South Korean director Lee Chang-dong. I loved his movie Burning a good few years ago, and it's taken him a long while to cook up his next feature. It looks like a fascinating family drama that watches the lives of two couples as they become more and more intertwined.

The subject matter should be relatively gentle, but you can expect psychological complexity and a deft touch, so this will be one for those who like an arthouse movie. At two hours and 44 minutes, it's also a pretty chunky watch, so the fact that it comes out on a Friday might make it ideal for a proper movie session.

The Assassin (Season 2)

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from 6 November

In an amusing twist of fate (or as a deliberate act of competition, more likely), Prime Video has its own show starring a queen of the British screen as an assassin juggling familial responsibilities – The Assassin stars Keeley Hawes, though. She's also back for another round of fun, although this show is miles more light-hearted than Black Doves, as its trailer underlines.

This time she'll be in the Mediterranean sun as she tries to track down whoever has kidnapped her son's new wife. Their relationship might be more than a little strained, but her skills make her perfect for this job, although she might also have her work cut out to keep him alive as well.

No month goes by now in a way that you could honestly call "quiet", for either Netflix or its biggest rival, Amazon Prime Video. When you want to be the apex predator in the world of streaming, you have to keep a steady stream of new shows and movies coming to keep people feeling like their subscription is worthwhile.

Some people might find that deluge of stuff to watch a little overwhelming, which is where I come in. If you're eyeing up the next month of your life, with a Netflix subscription in hand, and wondering what new shows or movies might be arriving, I've narrowed things down. Below, you'll find the five highlights that I think will be worth watching during November on Netflix, all of them being added during the month.

Black Doves (Season 2)

• Streaming from: 5 November

I don't think anyone really saw Black Doves coming last year. Keira Knightley stepping into the frame as a leading woman in a mature spy drama? Sign us up – and millions of people agreed, with the British series doing huge numbers for Netflix and promptly getting renewed. Like The Diplomat, this one seems to be set up for annual seasons, which is refreshing.

This time around, Knightley's character is even more exposed than before. She's gone from being a politician's wife to that of the actual Prime Minister, which comes with a huge amount more scrutiny. When her actual spywork starts to spill out into the public, her cover story will be stretched to the limits, and we'll clearly get to see some brilliant action once again.

The Altruists

• Streaming from: 19 November

Hollywood and the streaming platforms are fairly obsessed with the stories of the various giants of Big Tech that seem to decide all of our fates at the moment, and that includes those of them who've been proven as charlatans. They don't come much bigger than Sam Bankman-Fried, whose platform, FTX, exploded so publicly some years ago.

This limited series explores the story of how Bankman-Fried and his business partner Caroline Ellison got started, and tries to delve into the motivations that led them to some disastrous and criminal decisions. Starring Julia Garner and Anthony Boyle, it looks like a pretty well-timed show about the perils of trusting snake oil salesmen.

Heartland

• Streaming from: 13 November

If you're in the mood for a gritty thriller with a twist, then I suspect Heartland could be a real hit when it arrives early in the month. Starring the excellent Jessica Chastain as a country megastar who comes back home to Nashville to find her missing niece, it promises an amazing soundtrack despite what is actually quite a serious and depressing tone.

Chastain will encounter an underbelly in this Mecca for music, and discover that people she thought she could trust might not be so reliable. In fact, the trailer makes it look like she'll basically become a vigilante at a certain point, and I expect the movie to have a super stressful denouement.

Gentle Monster

• Streaming from: 18 November

If you're on the lookout for a drama that takes itself significantly more seriously, then you should keep an eye on Gentle Monster, which will hit Netflix midway through the month after some time in cinemas. It looks absolutely devastating, taking a sophisticated look at the emotional fallout and complications that arise when someone is accused of a terrible crime.

Probably the most interesting facet of the film, not having seen it, is that it doesn't just examine the family life of the accused – it also takes a look at the struggles faced by one of those investigating him. This hints at a level of empathy and sympathy that could make for a really heart-wrenching watch.

Possible Love

• Streaming from: 6 November

I remember absolutely loving Lee Chang-dong's film Burning when I saw it in the cinema a few years ago – but I would have told you it was way more recent than 2018. That's a sign that it's long overdue for him to make another movie, and Possible Love looks like it could be another emotional epic from this brilliant Korean filmmaker.

It's a little hard to work out what its plot will be, but it seems to revolve around a couple that meets another couple, and the strange intersections of their desires and habits. As one couple begins to make a movie about the other, questions of authenticity, performance, and more, will all bubble to the fore, but it's the emotional realism that looks likely to make the most lasting impact.

Netflix sure knows how to make a great war movie – and it seems like the recipe it has bubbling away right now is actually pretty simple. It reads: give it to a proven filmmaker. That's got to be part of the motivation behind The Mosquito Bowl, its new film from veteran director Peter Berg.

Berg has some great flicks in his back catalogue, including the cult classic Deepwater Horizon. He's a pretty darn safe pair of hands, and from the looks of the brutal red-band trailer that just came out for Netflix's new film, it seems he's done exactly what he was asked.

The Mosquito Bowl tells the almost unbelievable true story of a group of young American Football players who put their lives and careers on hold to go fight in the Second World War, and how their camaraderie helped some of them to make it through what was almost hell on earth. It's broadly true that almost any soldier in that conflict had an affecting personal story to explain their presence, but these guys might trump a lot of those.

Their journeys took them to the Pacific theatre, where the fighting was some of the most horrific and bloody in the entire war, and it looks like this film is committed to portraying things accurately. To that end, it's chock-full of gory moments, which is sort of the point of this unrated trailer, which showcases how mature the movie aims to be.

Whether that commitment to an accurate battlefield is matched by the sort of verve and style that will see the film actually win over critics is basically impossible to judge from this trailer, though. Still, you don't have long to wait if you want to find out for yourself – it'll be in cinemas from 30 October.

That's a sign that Netflix thinks it's got a good one on its hands, since it really only puts movies in cinemas to make them eligible for awards (and some bonus box office cash). We'll see if The Mosquito Bowl can generate some hype, then.

There have been few more exciting announcements for fans of romantic period dramas in recent years than that Netflix was making a Pride and Prejudice series. Many people feel it's the most romantic novel of all time, after all, and it's been the subject of some truly great adaptations down the years.

Helmed by writer Dolly Alderton, this big-budget interpretation of Jane Austen's novel has been kept impressively mysterious ahead of its arrival on 3 December, and after one teaser a good few weeks ago, we've finally now got a proper trailer for the show. It gives us a proper look at various important characters from the novel, including all of the most central figures.

Of course, the story revolves around Elizabeth Bennett, played this time by Emma Corrin, and the fascination she causes in the extravagantly grumpy Mr Darcy. He's played by Jack Lowden, whose star has risen so consistently thanks to his excellent work in Apple TV's Slow Horses.

Indeed, it's now one of the chief notes of interest about the show that it might just feature the next James Bond – Lowden is said to be one of the final four actors being considered for the role. If he could land Darcy and Bond in the same period of time, he'd really be checking off massive male figures from pop culture's annals.

We also get to see a good amount of the peerless Olivia Colman as Mrs Bennett, the matriarch to five young women, in all her anxious and fretting glory. She looks like she's having enormous fun with the role, and the same goes for Jamie Demetriou as the hapless Mr Collins.

There are, in fact, a few too many stars to just rattle through, and we don't get to see the likes of Rufus Sewell (as Mr Bennett) actually deliver a line. What is apparent, though, is that this one isn't ripping up the rule book – it looks like a really traditional approach has been taken, which will be music to the ears of Austen fans. That also means we should be in for a few very steamy scenes, with Darcy's wild swimming habit hinted at more than once in the trailer.

I can't quite believe it's been a year (almost to the day) since I went to Picturehouse Central to watch a Netflix movie in the flesh – Frankenstein was enticing to me in a way that Netflix's 2026 slate can't quite match. It was also one of a few films in a row that Netflix put into cinemas to hype up the quality of its additions.

Well, a year has indeed passed, and that makes it a pretty great time for The Criterion Collection to have released the movie in a loving, high-quality 4K version, complete with oodles of extra features and even an extended director's cut. It's a great reminder of why Netflix's model can feel limited – it made the film with Guillermo del Toro, yet these features are nowhere to be found on its streaming platform.

I've got the disc, and watched it this past weekend, and it underlined the fact that Criterion's partnership with Netflix is a deeply valuable thing for fans of cinema. After all, getting to hear from the creators of these movies about the amount of work that went into them is always a reward in and of itself.

Even by Criterion's lofty standards, this is a really premium release, too. The 4K version comes with four discs – the film as originally released (one 4K disc with Atmos soundtrack, and one standard Blu-ray) and then the new Reborn Cut version (also in a 4K version and a standard version).

That cut adds another eight minutes of footage to the movie, giving us a little more time to live with Elordi's monster and to see some more details in the stupendous sets and props that went into this sumptuous film.

It's also a great reminder of how even the top of Netflix's subscription tiers can't match a 4K disc played properly – the soundtrack, in full Atmos mode, sounds frankly brilliant through my Sonos Beam Ultra, while the beautiful light and moody visual design of the film really shine, too.

When a filmmaker like del Toro underscores his commitment to practical effects, sets and costumes like this, it really pays off in the form of a 4K release, and I'd recommend this heartily to anyone looking to cap off the spooky season with a bit of a modern cult classic.

That said, while it's always relevant that Criterion's new releases are fairly pricey on 4K, this one's particularly expensive at £45 here in the UK. That might come down over time (and during sales), but it does raise a point I've thought about a few times. Every time you buy a 4K set, you get a standard Blu-ray in the package (or two, in this case).

Is that necessary? I'd happily forego the standard Blu-ray if it saved me a little money on the sticker price. I appreciate the fact that special features can often only fit on an extra disc, but in this box set that could still mean two 4K discs and then one Blu-ray for the extras, saving on one disc.

Perhaps that question just underscores the fact that I'm not in a pay bracket to make such decisions, but I'll be interested to see how much longer these packages keep standard Blu-rays as part of the mix.

Regardless, though, and getting back to the movie in question, this is a real collector's item of a release, and if you either enjoyed Frankenstein a lot or want to see it at home in the best possible quality, it's a bit of a no-brainer. For those without the budget, though, there's always Netflix, where you can watch it as part of any subscription.

October's been a fairly massive month for the biggest streaming services on the planet, and that's perhaps resulted in an interesting situation at the tail-end of the month. After a few weeks in which you would be absolutely spoiled for choice when it comes to new additions, things are a little slimmer this time around.

That might be a good thing, since you could get the chance to catch up on some shows you might have missed over the last few months, but don't assume there's nothing coming this week. I've looked through every addition on its way to both Netflix and Prime Video, and picked out three really interesting-looking ones – they might be the surprise solution to fix up your weekday evenings.

A Couple of Lies

• Streaming on: Netflix from 30 October

House-swapping is the sort of topic that can really easily be turned into material for a good thriller – and A Couple of Lies looks like it's going to do just that, with some inventive and interesting plotting choices. It sets things up by having a couple swap houses to experience each others' living situations, but that all goes off the rails when someone's murdered.

With the two couples starting to fray at the seams, it looks like the whole thing might have been planned out as a sort of trap, but I'd imagine there are going to be some major twists on the way to that being clarified. Set in both Sicily and Stockholm, this looks like a super interesting new four-parter – and it'll all be done without sequel-bait, I'd guess.

Apocalypse Z: New World

• Streaming on: Prime Video from 30 October

I'm not going to pretend that this Spanish-language zombie movie sequel is about to change the world of cinema, but it's not that often that a foreign-language film like Apocalypse Z: The Beginning of the End gets a sequel this quickly. That serves to underline the fact that it was a riot of a good time, and now we're going to get more of its simple zombie fun.

This time around, it seems the action will shift to the Canary Islands, where a degree of isolation from other societies has left things in limbo, with the dead hunting down the remaining living one by one. As those living try to secure their futures, they'll have to deal with each other as much as with the undead – which sounds like a good setup for some proper drama (and bloody fight scenes).

The One About Matthew Perry

• Streaming on: Netflix from 27 October

Look, for its singular cultural impact and enduring popularity, there's never been a show to top Friends, and the death of Matthew Perry in 2023 was a terrible moment for fans of the show. Since then, much has been revealed about what he was going through around the time of his passing, and this documentary from Netflix looks to memorialise him properly.

It looks like an overview of his life and career, with some talking heads who were impressively close to the man himself. If you're a big fan of Friends or The West Wing, this look highly likely to be one for you, although it might be quite a sad one for weeknight viewing!

Coming up with a new series for Netflix is never simple, I'd imagine, but there are certain pillars that you can include to give yourself a great chance of not just getting picked up, but also of scoring a proper hit once your show eventually hits the streaming service. I think The Body ticks quite a few of those hypothetical boxes, personally.

The new series got its first proper trailer last week, which is full of arresting imagery, and it'll hit Netflix on 11 November. What boxes does it tick, you ask? Well, it's got teenagers bullying each other, high school sports drama, hints of the supernatural, and a strong implication of steamy, messy relationships.

The show appears to revolve around a dance squad at a girls' school, recruiting for new members and putting those new dancers through an initiation rite that goes more than a little wrong. From the blurb, this will apparently kick off a series of prophetic visions among the girls, who start to see things and believe increasingly scary things about each other.

It's clear from the trailer that at least one of them might end up getting literally possessed, whether it's by a demon or the literal devil, or by nothing at all, we don't know right now. What's clear is that this tone will take the show from a high school drama into the territory of a supernatural thriller or even an outright horror show.

The good news for Netflix is that those genres have done brilliantly for it over the years, with audiences clearly hungry for the sort of thrills and frights that come with that territory. If The Body can deliver on them, I think it has all the ingredients to be quite a hit in terms of Netflix's all-important charts.

We know that it's an eight-episode season, and it hasn't been billed as a limited series, so it'll be fascinating to see whether this is a "one and done" scenario, or whether it'll sow some seeds for more potential seasons down the line – with a young cast of relative unknowns, you'd assume that might be at least an option. We'll know more on 11 November, when it starts streaming.

According to some, Netflix has lost its way over the last few years. Where it was once the king of video streaming, rivals have sprung up to offer higher-rated TV series and movies.

Apple TV has become synonymous with some of the most popular and highly regarded TV shows of today, such as Slow Horses, Ted Lasso, Silo, and Dark Matter. While HBO Max continues to cement its reputation for water-cooler programming with the likes of House of the Dragon, The White Lotus, Lanterns, and War.

Netflix viewers on the other hand have been faced with thousands of hours of murder documentaries and imported shows from other stations and services. This from a platform that brought us Squid Game, Tiger King, Stranger Things, and The Crown.

That's not to say it doesn't continue to add Netflix Originals worth watching, but it's been a while since any of them have become a trend or buzz. And they tend to be surrounded on the homepage by games and podcasts.

But that has not gone unnoticed. As the industry waits to see what emerges from the Paramount+ and HBO Max merger, Netflix's co-CEO Ted Sarandos has suggested that the streamer is set to go back to basics. He wants it to "strengthen its core TV and movie offerings", according to the WSJ.

The company has already taken action. Content chief Bela Bajaria and the head of film, Dan Lin, have each departed Netflix in the last week. They joined around 1,000 other employees who have been laid off recently.

A new executive, Peter Rice (formerly of Disney and Fox), has stepped in and $20 billion has been budgeted for new scripted and un-scripted programming.

The WSJ suggests that Rice's biggest task will be to rediscover the spark that made the service so essential just a few years ago. Hopefully, that means we'll be getting a wave of exciting new TV series and films in the coming years – and fewer external acquisitions made just to bulk out the library.

Our world is one of content, and there's never really enough for people to get through (even though we all know the fear of browsing Netflix's catalogue for hours before managing to decide on what to watch). So, the big streamers know that they have to keep pumping new shows and movies out, or people will eventually cancel their subscriptions.

That's why I spend the first few hours of every working week going through the release plans of both Netflix and Prime Video in proper detail, to highlight the three new additions that you should know about for the evenings to come. If you're on the lookout for something to binge this week, here are the most interesting new arrivals for you to preview.

The Terminal List (Season 2)

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from 21 October

Amazon went pretty big on The Terminal List the first time around, nabbing Chris Pratt to star in the show at a time when his star was shining really brightly thanks to his involvement with Marvel. After its first season, though, the show went as AWOL as his character in it, James Reece.

Now, though, years later and just past the point when I had started to assume that the show was effectively on ice, it's back. The second season sees Reece start things off in full anonymity (or so he thinks), before being tracked down by the US because it needs his unique skills once again. With the offer of a full pardon on the table (but doubtless with some asterisks attached), it's his best chance to get something resembling a normal life back. Cue some crazy tactical missions, if nothing else.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2

• Streaming on: Netflix from 20 October

Edgerunners might be one of the most celebrated new anime of all time, an addition to Netflix's library that really marked its ability to create impressive modern animated shows. Now, a few years later, we're getting another season, but it's important to note that the story won't be related. Sure, we'll probably get some little references to the first run, but this is going to involve a brand new cast of characters.

In some ways that's obvious, since the ending of the first season didn't exactly leave too many of our favourite chooms alive, but still. This time around, you can expect another burning story of body modification, cyberpsychosis, revenge and violence. The trailer makes it clear that we'll see some crazy fights, gory deaths, and impactful exchanges – sign us up.

Lupin (Part 4)

• Streaming on: Netflix from 23 October

Lupin has been a really strong performer for Netflix over the last few years, even as the gaps between its seasons have stretched to slightly annoying levels. Now, we're finally getting a fourth outing from our favourite French thief. Framed for a crime he didn't commit (for once), it looks like he's going to be in pretty hot water, and literally in jail at least for some amount of time.

You know a French show's doing well, quite frankly, when it manages to film not just around the Eiffel Tower, but actually inside it – and that's what it looks like we're getting this time around. Assane will have to chase down a rival thief copying his methods, while evading recapture and both trying to clear his name and, frankly, score some theft along the way. What fun!

Daniel Craig is returning to the big screen in a fantasy movie that's quite the departure from the Bond role he's best known for, or his Knives Out character Benoit Blanc. In fact, it's a little more like his 2007 dalliance in The Golden Compass.

Netflix has just released the first trailer for Narnia: The Magician's Nephew, the latest installation in The Chronicles of Narnia. While The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the best known and was the first published from CS Lewis' novels, The Magician's Nephew serves as prequel for the universe in which Narnia exists and was one of the last books written.

So this is an origin story, starring Craig as the magician, but putting young actors David McKenna (as Diggory Kirke) and Beatrice Campbell (as Polly Plummer) into the frame.

The Magician's Nephew sees the children exploring other worlds thanks to a magic ring that the magician (Daniel Craig) gives to them.

The trailer shows us a fantastical world, including a glimpse of a celestial Aslan, while the story revolves around how Narnia comes into being and how evil enters that world through Emma Mackey's White Witch.

Greta Gerwig's (Barbie) portrayal of the various worlds is bright, vibrant and instantly engaging, while having a distinct Ragnarok feeling to it. As a movie it looks like a lot of fun for all ages, both long-time fans and kids who are easily distracted. Visually, at least, Narnia: The Magician's Nephew should hold their attention.

And it's probably a part of the universe that many CS Lewis readers never got to. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Price Caspian and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader make sense as a trilogy, following the adventures of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy, but that adventure concludes with Dawn Treader.

So this is an interesting part of Narnia's universe, adjacent to the characters and world that is familiar and makes for a good entry point to the adventures for new fans. It could also serve to draw some to the novel before the cinema release in February 2027, or at least put it on parents' reading lists.

This is a Netflix movie that's heading to the big screen first, so streamers will have to wait for it to hit the small screen, although typically that wait isn't long.

Begun, the streaming wars have – or, more to the point, they begun long ago. Netflix and Prime Video are now locked in what feels like a fight to the death, albeit one that Netflix appears to be winning handily if you go by viewership alone. Neither has any interest in letting up the pressure on the other, though, and that means content.

Sure, it's probably the worst word in history used to describe what should be artistic pursuits, but in a time full of more TV shows, movies and other material to watch than any other era in history, maybe we have to use it. If you're a Netflix subscriber, an Amazon Prime member, or both, you have a vested interest in knowing when good stuff hits either platform.

So, I've taken a careful look at everything being added to Netflix and Prime Video this week, and have picked out three highlights that you should be aware of. They're below, with trailers and release dates so that you can plan around them for your mid-week viewing pleasure.

The Diplomat (Season 4)

• Streaming on: Netflix from 15 October

One of the biggest hits that Netflix has had in recent years has been The Diplomat, starring Keri Russell in the title role as an extremely stressed diplomat for whom nothing seems to ever be simple. If you haven't watched the first few seasons, head off and do that, because this next paragraph will be spoilerish.

Kate (Russell's character) has always had a super complicated marriage, but things are even more fraught now that Hal (Rufus Sewell) is vice-President, and becoming ever more exposed to the sort of influence that she's afraid of. Whether she can keep a grip on the whole situation is anyone's guess, and doubtless there's going to be at least one major twist to keep her on her toes.

Love of Your Life

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from 14 October

If you're in the mood for a story that's a little bit more optimistic about the potential for love to strike when you're least expecting it, then Love of Your Life seems like the perfect pick for a mid-week evening pick-me-up. It stars the always-glowing Margaret Qualley as a young woman mourning the messy end of a relationship that she thought would go the distance.

She takes herself on a European trip to clear her mind, but with no intention of falling for anyone else while she's there. Life has other plans, though, as it so often does, and she's soon doing her best to stop catching feelings for none other than Aaron Pierre (fresh from his profile-raising work in Lanterns).

Masterplan

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from 16 October

My final pick this week is the most light-hearted of the lot, so it might be a great pick if you're in the mood for something snackish and easygoing this week. Stanley Tucci stars in Masterplan as a master thief who's planning a job just a little bit too big for him to tackle on his own: stealing literally the Mona Lisa. This means it's a Louvre heist, which is obviously more topical than it might have been a decade ago.

The movie looks, frankly, like a bit of light fun – Tucci's clearly having a ball, from the trailer, and he's the only really recognisable face in the whole thing. That hopefully won't stop it from putting together an inventive story, and if it can nail the fundamentals of a good heist sequence, then it'll be well worth the price of entry (which you already paid in your Prime sub).

Netflix has a long history, at this point, of revealing fairly massive projects just before they hit the streaming service. After all, that's sort of its entire plan – keep people guessing about what it has coming, but in a way that incentivises them to leave their subscriptions recurring, assuming that there will indeed be a constant drip-feed of decent stuff.

Well, decent stuff is probably underselling its latest reveal – a country music-themed mystery thriller that stars an Oscar-winner and looks like it could have some extremely entertaining twists and turns. Heartland sees Jessica Chastain playing Misty Jones, a semi-retired country superstar who heads back to her home town of Nashville when her niece (also a musician) goes missing.

Misty seems like a certified badass, and suspects from the start that something's not right – her niece is famous, and famous people don't just disappear without anyone having a solitary clue where they've gone. She's clearly going to take it into her own hands to progress the case where the police seem largely stumped.

From the trailer Netflix dropped this week, it looks like it won't take her long to find some fairly harrowing stuff, and that's just the half of it. It's clear that Misty will also get embroiled back into the world of the Nashville music scene, and there are going to be some concert appearances for the movie to portray, too. In fact, Netflix says the soundtrack will be available before the film arrives, so it's clearly proud of it.

We'll get a better sense of whether that pride is in the right place when the film arrives – it premieres on Netflix on 13 November. Interestingly, there's no word of it getting a theatrical release, which tends to indicate that Netflix is keen for a movie to be in contention for awards in a few months' time. Whether that says anything about the likely quality of Heartland is up to you.

I suspect it just means that this is a gripping thriller that should keep you engaged, rather than something deeper and more artistic – and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Expect this one to rocket up Netflix's charts when it comes out.

The crown weighs heavily in the world of streaming – for however long Netflix has been able to call itself the biggest streaming service in the world, it's known the whole time that it can't rest easy. The likes of Prime Video are there in the back of its mind at all times, trying to steal away the status it earned.

Some of us, of course, will just play both sides in this one, and if you're a subscriber to either or both of Prime Video and Netflix, then you're likely curious about what you can expect from the pair of streamers this week. It's actually a really big one for releases, too, with some massive additions rounding out my three picks below. You'll find each with a trailer for some context, along with a release date to plan around.

Animals

• Streaming on: Netflix from 9 October

Ben Affleck's new film looks like a thriller that should have you on the edge of your seat, not least because there seem to be a few different angles on its plot. On the surface, he plays a mayoral candidate in California whose life is upended when his son is kidnapped, driving him to desperation.

Below that, though, there are clearly some sordid details percolating. Affleck's character seems to be hiding more than one secret, and he's not the only one – his wife (Kerry Washington) is clearly at least somewhat compromised too. Throw in Gillian Anderson as a shadowy fixer that comes in to theoretically help things move forward, and you've got a pretty interesting equation for a movie.

Carrie

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from 7 October

Carrie launched the career of a certain Stephen King, which is quite the accolade, and was later adapted into one of the most iconic horror movies of all time, albeit subsequent remakes have generally been fairly dire. Now it's time for a new vision, though, and Mike Flanagan's horror credentials are basically peerless.

He's running this new show, which looks like it'll take a slower-paced view of Carrie's journey into the hellish world of school bullying, and also update it for modern times. Harrowing scenes from the original might be even more troubling in the age of smartphones and cameras, and this looks like it could be quite the addition for Prime Video this week.

Below

• Streaming on: Netflix from 8 October

Back to Netflix we go, though, for my last pick, which sees Josh Hartnett return to our screens for what looks like a supernatural horror-thriller, which is quite the combination of genre flags. Below looks like nothing else we've seen recently, and I consider that an accolade. Hartnett's character is scarred by a confusing event from his childhood, and hopes that it'll never crop up again.

He's left to process his disappointment, then, when a mysterious and giant iceberg floats into the bay of his quiet fishing town, inexplicably, and seemingly starts to fuel odd happenings and unrest. The trailers for this one have been mercifully vague, so I'm looking forward to discovering some big twists about the bizarre plot that Below might offer up when it arrives midweek.

Netflix, perhaps more than any other part of the huge streaming ecosystem that we all now participate in, knows that it can't take a month off. Its subscribers (who basically know that their plans will get more expensive as time goes on) need a whole heap of content to keep them from jumping ship, and that means Netflix is under constant pressure to deliver.

This October, it looks like it's doing the best job it's done in ages. There are some huge additions coming to its catalogue, in a whole range of genres, from the very start of the month right through to the end of it. I've taken a look at not just the big guns, but at every single new addition coming to Netflix this October, and have picked out the five incoming arrivals that you need to know about. These might be the best of a bumper crop in the month to come.

East of Eden

• Streaming from: 1 October

Florence Pugh steps into the spotlight for Netflix in this new adaptation of one of the great American novels, from master author John Steinbeck. The novel tells the story of the Trask family, and while this new series will clearly have the same ambitious plotting and multi-generational focus, it'll tell that story through a different lens.

Pugh plays Cathy Ames, who has a fairly terrible reputation among those who've read the book (and I'll freely admit here that I haven't). She's something of a villain in the novel, but here we'll see the story through her eyes, perhaps revealing depths that were previously untapped. Whether that experiment is a success will be fascinating to find out.

Animals

• Streaming from: 9 October

Ben Affleck is another big name to have starring in a major Netflix project, but he's also in the directorial chair for Animals, which makes this movie even more interesting. Affleck has proven himself a pretty capable director of thrillers, after all, and that's exactly what this is – one with a political side.

He's playing a mayoral candidate whose son is kidnapped, and the ensuing blackmail saga uncovers way more secrets and dodginess than you might expect. He's not the only one with some skeletons in his closet, either, with his wife (Kerry Washington) also in the crosshairs. Throw in Gillian Anderson as a mysterious fixer with a crazy sense of style, and you have a pretty enticing mystery movie for people to sink into.

Below

• Streaming from: 8 October

Another excellent-looking thriller arrives just a day before Animals, but it has a very different tone and genre to explore. Below looks, if anything, like a sort of gothic supernatural thriller, but that lack of certainty is a testament to its trailers, which have kept things impressively ambiguous.

Josh Hartnett stars as a father living a quiet life in a rural fishing village. He's quietly haunted by a bizarre episode from his childhood, one that has sometimes been dismissed as a bad dream, and hopes to forget all that when his adult kids come to stay. The arrival of a huge, mysterious iceberg in the bay, though, promises to set the cat amongst the pigeons, and it'll only get weirder from there.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2

• Streaming from: 20 October

The first season of Edgerunners is a modern anime classic, showing that the world of Cyberpunk has a huge amount to give, and it's fairly thrilling to know that it's coming back a few years later. Sensibly, the team behind the show have completely left behind the story from the last run of episodes, and will now tell a new 10-episode story with all-new characters.

It looks like the extremely poppy and stylised visuals are here to stay, though, and we're almost certain to get another story of how Night City can corrupt people from basically any background. Expect hyper-violent moments, uber-saturated neon-soaked scenes, and to re-familiarise yourself with slang like "choom".

Nobody Wants This (Season 3)

• Streaming from: 22 October

A hit comedy series?! In this day and age?! Netflix has something very good going on with Nobody Wants This, a tightly-scripted and really funny series about the challenges of love and faith that face us as we get a little older and still very much want to find love and friendship.

Its main characters, Joanne and Noah, have moved in together, taking that very big step towards making their partnership as permanent as they're able, but that doesn't mean there are no more hurdles to jump. While they're working out how to integrate their lives even more fully, their friends are busy having crises of their own, and we might get to see plenty more of the latter this season, to fill the cast out with a bit more detail.

I think it's fair to say that even the biggest and best streaming services don't always know for sure before they release a show that it'll be a huge hit. It's probably fairly easy to spot the real turkeys when they're in the editing suite, but the alchemy of a success can be harder to nail down. Take Nobody Wants This.

Sure, Kristen Bell is a pretty bankable star and had already played the lead in one really long-running and critically well-loved sitcom (The Good Place), but that didn't necessarily make her an AAA-lister, and Adam Brody was arguably from a lower bracket in terms of fame – yet the show was an enormous hit. Now it's back for a third season in as many years, and it looks fairly terrific.

After negotiating some doubts last time around, Joanne and Noah are now all in on each other, it looks like. They've made good on their promise to move in together, and Joanne's getting closer and closer to Noah's family, and indeed his faith by extension.

That doesn't mean everything's going to be simple and smooth this time around, though. It's pretty clear that Joanne will have some major insecurities to work on, while Noah might be under continued pressure from more traditional folks to settle down with someone closer to what they'd imagined for him. It's a familiar cocktail, to be fair, but also one that's worked wonders in the previous two seasons.

Meanwhile, their friends will continue to be fleshed out further as they go through little crises of their own, with life changes leaving some of them searching for love and others for meaning. The best comedies of this type are generally adept at bringing the supporting cast closer to the centre as things unfold, so this is a very good sign.

The show's also right around the corner, since it drops on 22 October, so if you haven't yet sampled its first two seasons you have just under a month to do so. They come highly recommended, too, and the promise of more to come is always a nice enticement.

Every week is a big week when you're Netflix and Prime Video, locked in a never-ending battle to be the biggest streaming service in the world, knowing that the only way you'll cement your position is by releasing new content all the time. People expect a lot of volume from their subscriptions now, after all, with prices only ever seeming to trend upwards.

If you've got a quiet week with some evenings free this time around, and either a Netflix or Prime Video subscription (or both), you might be interested to know what the big additions this week will be. I've gone through both streamers' release schedules in detail to pick out three highlights around which you could anchor your week – with release dates and trailers for you to check out, too.

The Love Hypothesis

• Streaming on: Prime Video from 23 September

This steamy looking romance movie clearly verges into comedy territory at times, but I have a feeling it's going to be a refreshingly old-school romantic story rather than one that undercuts its own sincerity. Lili Reinhart stars a Olive, a PhD student who makes an impulsive decision to kiss someone in an attempt to convince her friend to go on a date of her own.

The man she kisses just happens to be senior to her in the lab, but he's surprisingly interested in a potential ruse – they can pretend to be an item and each benefit from the conclusions that others make about the situation. Needless to say, they're clearly going to develop feelings for each other in no time at all, and that should bring with it plenty of fodder for romantic situations.

Unabomber

• Streaming on: Netflix from 25 September

Netflix has become a specialist at adapting true crime stories into dramatic, tense series, and it looks like Unabomber might be one of its biggest examples yet. Jacob Tremblay stars as the young bomber, a boy turning into a man and encountering all sorts of pressures and triggers as he realises that he doesn't feel at home in the world.

In a split timeline, we'll also see the police as they embark on a major manhunt to find the criminal once his spree has started, and this should mean we get plenty of tension along with the psychological depth of Tremblay's performance. How exactly those two timelines are juggled will be fascinating to observe, and nobody should be surprised when this storms to the top of Netflix's charts on release.

Wonka's The Golden Ticket

• Streaming on: Netflix from 23 September

Reality shows haven't always been the biggest hits for Netflix, at least in terms of quality and critical reception, but this one looks as big-budget as any I can recall seeing. It basically puts on a real-life version of Wonka's chocolate factory, and thenm puts a group of contestants into it to compete in confectionary-themed games against each other.

With sets that look frankly unbelievable at times, and the impression that some of those games will push people to their limits, this could actually be a surprise hit. Netflix clearly thinks it's on to something, given the resources it's put behind the show, and its finale will have a week-long delay before it airs on 30 September, to build up the suspense.

Netflix knows a good thing when it sees it, and The Diplomat has absolutely been that for it over the last couple of years. It's a show that seems to be able to roll back the years to the golden age of network TV, with big stars giving great performances in tightly-written dramas that didn't take five years to create.

As if to underline that last point, Netflix just dropped a full trailer for the show's fourth season, which is quite a remarkable release schedule given the show's first season only came out in late 2023. To already have a fourth run on the way at this point is something that plenty of other streaming franchises could basically never manage, and it also happens to look terrific.

The show is picking up in the wake of some explosive, well, diplomacy in the last season, as the US and UK continue to walk a very fine line in terms of potential international incidents. Right at the heart of it remains the marriage of Kate Wyler (Russell) and Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell), now the US vice president. His star continues to rise, but Kate's increasingly uneasy about what him and the president (Alison Janney) might be willing to cook up.

This time around, it looks we'll be heading to Italy, whether as part of a diplomatic visit or an international summit, and what a backdrop that should be for some of the tensest conversations the show has yet offered up. After all, while it does occasionally boil over into brief moments of actual action or real tension, the best of The Diplomat comes down to verbal exchanges.

Of course, this is also the point in many shows' runs when they start to feel long in the tooth, unless they manage to really hit their stride. So far, The Diplomat has had smooth sailing amid some really fun plotting and storytelling decisions, so here's hoping it sticks the landing for a fourth time.

The show hits Netflix on 15 October, so you've got a few weeks left if you're still not quite caught up on the third season, or if you're yet to dip your toes into its world at all.

In some ways, it's a bit of a surprise that it took Netflix this long to figure out that Ben Affleck's an absolute banker of a star. This year we've already had one big movie with him in a lead role – The Rip, opposite his bestie Matt Damon. Now, there's another one coming down the pike, and Affleck's even more central to its hopes.

Animals not only stars him in the lead, but it's also directed by Affleck himself, which makes it a bit of a double whammy. After an atmospheric teaser a couple of weeks ago, we now have a full trailer to digest, and it does an impressive job of remaining somewhat ambiguous about the movie's plot ahead of a release date of 9 October.

Affleck stars as a politician running to become the mayor of Los Angeles, but it looks like the shiny life he and his wife (Kerry Washington) are projecting for the press might be a bit of a fabrication. In fact, things are tense between them, and that tension spills out dangerously when their son is kidnapped.

The "why" of that kidnapping is likely to be of central importance to the movie's overall plot, and from the glimpses we get in this trailer, it seems like Affleck and Washington both have sizeable secrets from each other to make things more complicated. Getting a ransom together might be just the first problem they're forced to confront. All the while, they'll work with Gillian Anderson as a shady fixer who seems morally dubious in the extreme.

Her shadowy dialogue narrates much of this trailer, and makes it sound like the movie could go to some impressively dark places, but I'm pleased to see that it doesn't actually drop any out and out spoilers on us. It's always nice when a big movie like this hits Netflix without people already having a good sense of what's going to happen in it.

Animals will almost certainly rocket up the Netflix charts when it releases in a few weeks, but it'll be both streaming and in a limited number of cinemas, so keep an eye out in case it's screening near you.

Every week is a big one when you're one of the biggest and best streaming services on the planet, and if you want to dominate in the manner that Prime Video and Netflix are both aspiring to, you'd better fill each week with content. Subscribers are savvier than ever right now, not least because prices keep going up, so they need to be kept satisfied with new additions.

This week is a fruitful one if you're a Prime Video or Netflix subscriber, as it happens, with some really intriguing arrivals swelling each service. From horror to animated fare, these highlights run the gamut, and I've arranged each with its trailer and release date so that you can plan your week of viewing more carefully.

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story

• Streaming on: Netflix from 17 September

Netflix has made quite a success out of the twisted Monster series, which makes fictionalised versions of the stories of world-famous killers. It's tackling its oldest subject so far in the form of Lizzie Borden, whose repute as an axe-murderer stands in contrast to the outcome of her actual trial, interestingly.

Because her story is the subject of so much less documentary evidence, it looks like this might be the loosest and therefore most creatively interesting Monster season yet, with license to take a more impressionistic view of her story. It looks like we'll get to experience some of the horrible adversity she lived with, and get a fuller sense for why she might have done something terrible to change it (if she indeed did).

Neagley

• Streaming on: Prime Video from 16 September

Reacher has been a phenomenal success for Prime Video, to the point where it's a wonder it took anyone this long to adapt Lee Child's novels properly (without Tom Cruise in one of the most tragic miscasting incidents ever). You can underline that success with the fact that it's now getting a spinoff centred around his sometime colleague Neagley, a pretty interesting operator in her own right.

While she's a very different character, you can probably expect this season of TV to unfold in a roughly similar way – with Neagley uncovering and then slowly dismantling a criminal conspiracy. That said, I'm hoping that her investigative methods are meaningfully different, hopefully with a bit more deduction and reasoning compared to Reacher's blunt-force approach.

Stranger Things: Tales From '85 (Season 2)

• Streaming on: Netflix from 17 September

This is one of the most surprising releases of the year, in my opinion, simply because of its timing – just six months on from the first season's release, we're now getting another dose of Tales from '85, Netflix's exploration of what might have happened between seasons of Stranger Things.

With the mainline series now over, fans of the gang from Hawkins don't really have any other options for spinoffs right now – and now they've got two seasons of this one within the same year. This time around we should get another story of teenage derring-do as the gang takes on more supernatural monsters and grows together while doing it.

I'm a big fan of the career revival that Josh Hartnett has had in the last few years, one that felt like it really started with M. Night Shyamalan's film Trap in 2024. I watched that movie on a plane and it felt like the perfect choice for the circumstances, with Hartnett very clearly having oodles of fun in the lead role.

Now he's anchoring a new limited series for Netflix, and it looks like almost as interesting a choice once again. Below looks like a gothic horror story, or at the very least, a thriller, and Hartnett is in the lead as a father with a complex trauma buried in his past – one that comes to the surface when a mysterious iceberg floats up next to his fishing town.

It looks like Hartnett's character, Calvin, had something extremely weird happen to him as a teenager – his father disappeared inside an odd floating house, then was taken down into the depths. Now, as an adult, he's carved out a decent enough life for himself, fishing and keeping himself to himself.

When a couple of his kids come back for a visit, he's pleased to see them, but it looks like he'll start to get fairly tied up in anxiety when weird phenomena start to plague the town. We don't get a proper look at what might be lurking below the placid surface of the sea they live by, but it sure doesn't seem normal – and that's before the massive iceberg rocks up out of nowhere.

I don't often have this opinion, but for a full trailer from Netflix I actually think this one is really well-judged. It gets you interested in what's going to happen to the town, and just what the nature of the disturbances could really be, but manages to resist the temptation to show us too much. We get a vibe check, basically, but don't get too much spoiled for us.

With the series dropping in full on 8 October, there's still probably some time left for Netflix to reverse course and show us more than we want, but if you're in the mood for something a little eery this could be a perfect one to queue up. It might be Netflix's answer to Widow's Bay on Apple TV, frankly.

I'm not necessarily in the group of people who think that awards mean all that much for movies nowadays – I've lived through too many travesties for that attitude to really stick. Still, I'll definitely defend the place of film festivals, and their attendant awards, in the distribution system, and when a movie arrives with an award from one of the bigger festivals it's generally a great sign that it has real promise.

That's exactly the box that's been ticked by La Bola Negra on Netflix, which just got a full trailer that gives us only its theatrical release date (16 October), although Netflix has separately confirmed its streaming date as 2 December. It looks like a pretty stunning film, and crucially it won the Best Director prize at the Cannes film festival.

The film looks hugely ambitious and striking, and Netflix says that it follows three generations of men in three drastically important phases of Spanish history – 1932, 1937, and 2017. Each makes discoveries that rock them to their core, as they try to find a sense of belonging in times that don't make such a thing easy.

Two of those moments are obviously set during war, and it looks like we'll meet a ragtag bunch of characters fighting in those conflicts, which won't be glamourised at all. Perhaps the most curious part of the film is one of its stars, the Spanish musician known as Guitarricadelafuente, who's been getting wild plaudits for this breakout acting role.

It's rare to see this sort of self-built star branching out into a new medium and basically smashing it out of the park at the first attempt, and you'd have to assume that his existing musical fanbase will be a big asset for the film's popularity on arrival. Netflix rarely dresses up its trailers quite so pretentiously as this one, suggesting that it has confidence in the artistic merit here.

It's certainly got me interested – this looks like it could be a great one to see in the cinema, although it might be hard to know how long that theatrical run will be. At least it's coming to streaming before the year's out.

A big week beckons in the world of streaming, if you're keeping up with things, and I've been through the (long, long) lists of releases coming this week to see what you should know about this time around. Normally, these round-ups tend to skew in Netflix's favour, since it has a more fulsome release schedule than Prime Video, but this week's an exception.

Amazon's queued up a couple of big new additions for people to sink into, but Netflix is certainly keeping things fresh on its own front too. So, if you want some ideas about what new arrivals could fill your evenings with action, romance or more this week, keep reading. You'll find a trio of highlights along with their trailers and release dates for clarity.

Crew Girl

• Streaming on: Netflix from 10 September

Crew Girl has all the ingredients to be a smash for Netflix, largely because it's continuing what might just be the most popular genre in the world right now – steamy romances set around sports teams. This time, rather than ice hockey or some other wintery sport, though, it's a rowing team that's stepping into the spotlight.

Our main character will become the female cox to an all-male team when she joins a new school without a women's rowing programme, and that is a pretty obvious setup for romantic complications. It wouldn't be much of a drama without a love triangle, and one looks like it'll spring up almost immediately after she joins.

In The Grey

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from 9 September

Guy Ritchie seems to find time to make multiple films a year, and that's before you consider his renewed commitment to TV and streaming series. This movie looks like a characteristically fun one, and reunites him with Henry Cavill after The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare a couple of years ago. Where that was wartime action, this is a modern spy thriller.

Cavill's part of a team (along with Jake Gyllenhaal and Eiza Gonzalez) who specialise in helping people recover what's been stolen from them, whether it's in a kidnapping or a robbery. This time they're chasing down literal billions, and that means the stakes will be super high. It's still a Ritchie flick, though, so expect repartee throughout.

Drawn Together

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from 9 September

If you want your dose of steamy romance this week but don't have a Netflix subscription or don't fancy rowing-themed fun, then this Spanish-language option on Prime Video looks enticing. It's a classic bodyguard setup, where a rich young woman is forced to accept a new guard when she's kidnapped and then mysteriously released.

The trailer makes it obvious that sparks will fly between them almost immediately, especially since they have to live together in really close proximity. Don't be too shocked when they fall for each other, or when plot twists make any potential relationship fraught with risk. Prime Video has a great track record for romances in languages other than English, so this could be the start of another big franchise if it finds an audience.

Well, if this doesn't have all the ingredients to be a banger, what does? Netflix has finally given us a proper trailer for Ink, its upcoming Danny Boyle film based on an award-winning play, and it looks absolutely terrific. Telling the story of The Sun, one of the UK's most popular and controversial newspapers, it promises a whole heap of interesting moments.

Netflix is giving broadly equal billing to three stars for the movie – Jack O’Connell as Larry Lamb (the editor who changed everything for the paper), Guy Pearce as Rupert Murdoch (the world-famous magnate who bought it) and Claire Foy as Jules Davies (a more complicated character, as I'll explain). They all look to be in pretty magnetic form, too.

If it follows the play quite closely (and James Graham is adapting his own work, so you'd think it probably will), the movie will open in late 1969, as Australian Ruper Murdoch looks to buy The Sun and revamp is as part of his big plans to become a global media magnate. He approaches Larry Lamb to be the paper's new editor-in-chief and gives him a mandate to tear up the rules.

The third major player here is Jules Davies, but she's complicated; rather than a single real-life professional from the true story, she's instead an amalgamation of a few different female reporters from the paper's tumultuous history, showing that it wasn't quite as much of a boys' club as the famous Page 3 might make one think.

Of course, there's no point pretending that The Sun isn't without its controversies, with some observers over the years blaming it for bringing down the tone and standards of mainstream reporting, among other things, and the film is sure to touch on that sort of area quite heavily. In fact, from the trailer it remarkably even looks like it paints the Rupert Murdoch of the time as being concerned about its reputation.

Most interesting is the verve and style that Boyle's used to film the story, which makes it look like his zippiest and most interesting work in a good while (as a certified 28 Years Later hater, here). It's a big release for Netflix, as a result of all this – heading to cinemas on 11 December this year before only hitting streaming on 8 January 2027.

I'll admit up front that this isn't a compunction that applies to everyone out there, but the simple fact is that when a massive streaming service announces an adaptation of a classic novel I haven't read, I go into fight or flight mode. I'm a big reader, and I have a rule that I'll almost always read the source novel before I watch any adaptation, since the original is almost always the best.

Well, Netflix is putting me in quite a spot with its latest big-budget series, starring none other than Florence Pugh. It's an adaptation of East of Eden, a classic by John Steinbeck (he of Grapes of Wrath), and crucially I haven't read it. The series arrives on 1 October, which really doesn't give me long to get up to speed, given it's an objectively chunky novel.

Frankly, the start of October is way too soon for me to readjust my to-read pile, so I'm a sunk before I've even begun, which means I now have a secondary objective – showcase this series for you without accidentally spoiling a quite old novel for myself. Here's what I know for sure:

East of Eden is a massive story that spans the generations of an unhappy family, the Trask clan, in their relationships and fortunes. It famously has one of literatures great villains, if you're to believe at least some of those who've read it – Cathy. Now, though, writer and showrunner Zoe Kazan is reframing this long-established story and telling it moreso through Cathy's eyes.

That means that a story that might (perhaps) have previously served to demonise Cathy, not without some reason, might now instead serve to humanise her. We'll get more interiority from her, and you'd be hard pressed to argue with casting Pugh, who's already demonstrated a huge amount of range in her career.

Crucially, she's also something of a star, so Netflix will be hoping that she drawns in a crowd for what otherwise could be mistaken for a pretty traditional slice of programming. Honestly, if you want more details than that I'd recommend heading to Wikipedia or some other source to see plot information – that's a sacrifice I'm not willing to make right now!

Here in the UK we've just enjoyed a long weekend thanks to the late-August bank holiday, which means it's a shorter week than usual. Thankfully, though, Prime Video and Netflix have both stepped up to the plate with a pretty interesting slate of additions through the rest of the week, in case you're wondering what you'll be watching in the evenings to come.

In fact, as a trio of additions, these will make for one of the highest-profile weeks I can remember from Netflix and Prime Video in a joint capacity. If you're a subscriber to either (and they're both among the best streaming services going), then you'll probably want to check out the highlights below. Each is showcased with a trailer and its release date for your convenience!

The Gentlemen Season 2

• Streaming on: Netflix from 3 September

Guy Ritchie has found a real renaissance in a TV career, although that's not to say he's done with movies by a long stretch. The Gentlemen proved with its first season that his snappy dialogue and fast action can work terrifically when elongated over the course of more time for streaming, and now it's back for a second season that promises to be a big deal for Netflix.

The show will return to the story of Theo James' reluctant drug kingpin, a Duke who found himself inheriting a weed empire last time around. Now he's fully used to the idea and indeed the market, he's starting to get ideas about expansion, and that means conflict. Expect dirty dealing and plenty of action when this drops midweek.

The Runner

• Streaming on: Prime Video from 2 September

If you want a thriller that's open and shut in a couple of hours, rather than offering up an entire season of episodes to get through, then you might want to turn to Prime Video this week for The Runner. This Gal Gadot film is a one-off release and looks like it could spin a really quite entertaining yarn through the streets of London.

Gadot plays a bigshot lawyer whose life gets put in the tumble dryer when her son is kidnapped. The criminals want to change the outcome of her biggest case (which is ongoing) and they're happy to force her into submission with twisted theats. She'll have to run through some crazy sequences to keep her son safe, and it looks like pretty hair-raising stuff.

The Grand Tour

• Streaming on: Prime Video from 4 September

One of the biggest early swings that Prime Video took was poaching Top Gear's talent after the implosion of that show on the BBC, and repackaging it into The Grand Tour. Now that era's over and there'd been some anticipation building about what would follow it. The answer? Francis Bourgeois. It's not just the trainspotting sensation, though, but also YouTube powerhouses from Throttle House.

The show will be pretty fascinating to observe, with the chemistry of those three new faces being key to its potential success. Either way, this season looks really high-budget and globetrotting, which is basically the whole point of a motoring show like The Grand Tour. Prime Video will be hoping this is the start of something huge.

Every month is a big month when you're one of the biggest and best streaming services on the planet – and Netflix most certainly ticks both of those boxes. It knows that it has to keep up a steady cadence of releases if it wants to keep its subscribers locked in, which means never having a slow month.

So, now that we're looking down both barrels at September, you might be wondering what's coming down the pike from Netflix this month. Well, it's good news, since this is going to be a really busy few weeks on the streamer, with some of its biggest shows dropping new seasons, and some very intriguing brand-new additions, too. You'll find the five key highlights below with trailers and release dates.

The Gentlemen Season 2

• Streaming from: 3 September

Guy Ritchie created something of a sensation when he took the British gangster material he's best known for, and transplanted it into a longer-form TV setting. The result was a blockbuster hit for Netflix, and it's absolutely no surprise to see it get a swift second season.

The Duke (Theo James) is back and he's just as keen as ever to keep his weed empire on top of the various other criminal cartels he's so far interacted with. In fact, the more experienced he gets, the more he seems likely to start lashing out at those who think they can control him. The stage is set for him to start some hostile takeovers, and the trailers we've seen suggest the show will go from strength to strength.

Crew Girl

• Streaming from: 10 September

Another guaranteed hit for Neflix comes in the form of Crew Girl, which takes the tried-and-true format of high school sports and romance blended together. This makes it probable a little tamer than the more mature Off Campus, which was set at college, but there's still every chance that things will get pretty heated in this one.

Crew Girl makes rowing its sport of choice, which is a great excuse to put its lead characters in skintight aerodynamic rowing suits. Our main character Teagan is new to a high-end school, but has a talent that takes her right into the men's rowing squad as their new cox, and which also fires up an almost immediate love triangle.

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story

• Streaming from: 17 September

Netflix is making a real thing of its Monster shows, which dramatise real-life killings and give us a look at the psychology of the world-famous killers in question. This time around it's Lizzie Borden, a famous potential axe-murderer whose case has long lived in the collective imagination of Americans (she's less famous here in the UK).

We'll get to see her domestic environment and the challenging situation she lived in, all with a huge dose of creative license. Since this story is from well before the time of TV news or documentary footage, expect this to be the loosest and potentially most colourful Monster yet.

Unabomber

• Streaming from: 25 September

Jacob Tremblay became a sensation for starring in Room as just a precocious 8-year-old, but now he's 19 and getting to choose his own projects – and Unabomber is definitely an interesting choice. He'll star as the eponymous bomber in his younger days, giving us a look at the origins of a man who did terrible things.

The show itself, though, will seemingly jump into two timelines. In one we'll see the bomber's adolescence, and in the other we'll follow the enormous manhunt that eventually located him, with the perspective of police but also at times his victims. Expect some harrowing stuff, but what a treat of a month for true-crime fans.

Stranger Things: Tales From '85 Season 2

• Streaming from: 17 September

Although the first season didn't get the most rave write-ups from critics, it clearly got enough viewers for Netflix to keep going with this animated spin-off from Stranger Things. Where the show got darker and darker as it unfolded, this one stays a lot lighter and promises more concise stories, too.

It has a really fun art style that emphasises the character of all the gang's faces, and gives us a bit more time to get to know some of those who only joined it after a season or two. If you loved your time in Hawkins and want some more of that nostalgic vibe, this could be perfect for you.

I say this every week, but it never stops being true – there's no such thing as a slow week in the world of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, two titans of the streaming world. Each platforms knows it needs constant additions to hold people's interest, let alone their hard-earned subscription cash.

That means that nary a week goes by without them both adding something pretty interesting to their respective libraries. This is a great example, too, with Netflix adding one of its biggest new series of the year, and Prime Video serving up some properly steamy romance – two shows that are sure to be hits. Check them out, with one surprise extra, below, along with trailers and release dates.

The Whisper Man

• Streaming on: Netflix from Friday 28 August

This dark thriller, based on a best-selling novel, has a pretty stacked central cast, in the form of Adam Scott, Robert De Niro and Michelle Monaghan. It looks impressively twisty and unpredictable, too, with a plot that revolves around the question of what would happen if a notorious serial killer, imprisoned for life, somehow got out and started out for revenge.

The show theorises that he'd probably go after the family of the cop who put him in prison – and in this case that means taking on his son, since De Niro plays the older retired cop, and Adam Scott is his estranged adult child. Watch the trailer and you'll get a pretty quick sense of how the movie's going to feel to watch, which is to say, grimy and scary.

The Last Sunrise

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from Wednesday 26 August

If you want something a little more encouraging to pick you up midweek, then Amazon's got a romance that could do the trick. The Last Sunrise is also a movie, so it's a one-off binge to fill an evening, and stars Maia Reficco as Ry, a young American who relocates to Spain with her mother in the hope that it could help her chronic illness.

She discovers a coastal wonderland that promises a whole heap, along with a specific boy who she can't help but be magnetised towards. Their relationship will start out testily thanks to her outsider status, but it clearly won't take long for them to fall for each other, even despite some complications.

All the Truth in My Lies

• Streaming on: Netflix from Friday 28 August

This one won't capture the same number of eyes and headlines as the other two on my list for the week, but it still looks like a pretty charming addition to Netflix's library. It's a five-episode miniseries in Spanish, portraying the chaotic hen party of a bride with her friendship group. What's meant to be a campervan trip in a small group soon balloons past that.

As new additions join the party and love triangles start to take centre stage, this looks like a fun exploration of how relationships and friendships change as we age. I think it's a safe bet that it'll end in a heartwarming way, even if there's some emotional strife on the way to that conclusion.

Netflix has made a whole heap of original productions in the last decade, starting from a modest position and rapidly growing into one of the biggest TV producers in the world. Now it has its fingers in all sorts of pies, including the ability to make genuinely brilliant animated shows like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Blue Eye Samurai.

With that first show getting a second season very soon, it's fitting that Netflix has taken this opportunity to also unveil a second outing for Blue Eye Samurai, one that takes the story in a really interesting new direction. The first teaser trailer dropped this week, and makes it clear that you can expect new things from the new material when it arrives in early 2027.

The show's taking a big swing by putting its main character Mizu in a whole new world – as she travels from Japan all the way to London, in search of answers and the continuation of her path of revenge. She continuing to hunt down the white men who ruined her young life, and this time she's going to have to do so in unfamiliar environments.

The teaser actually shows us very little of that, of course – it gives us a glimpse of the London skyline and confirms that Mizu is on her way there, but is more concerned with the harrowing voyage she'll take to actually make it. This will clearly involve a huge storm and a near-death experience on the high seas, but we can only assume she'll make it through.

While animated shows can sometimes be niche pursuits for the best streaming services, Blue Eye Samurai became a huge critical and audience darling – its Rotten Tomatoes scores prove that point. Critics gave it 97% on average, while audiences basically agreed, at 94%.

Those are the sort of numbers that Netflix executives probably dream about at night in their LA mansions, so it's perhaps not a huge surprise that we're getting more of the show more than three years on from its first run. Hopefully it can maintain that level of quality, too.

Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are in a basically never-ending battle to be not just the best streaming service, but crucially the biggest, and that means that both platforms need constant additions to keep subscribers sated. There's a pretty good chance that you have access to one of those two massive streamers, frankly.

So, each time a week starts, I take a look at everything (and I mean everything) that's being added to these two huge platforms, and filter that long list right down. Below, you'll find the three additions you should know about – rather than the dozens you can safely ignore. They've got trailers and release dates, too, for your convenience.

Outer Banks Season 5

• Streaming on: Netflix from 20 August

Outer Banks is something of a mystery to me – a show that's got all the way to a fifth season on Netflix, and which has a fairly big fanbase. I've never seen it, but having watched multiple seasons' trailers it looks like a really fun treasure-hunting adventure, a bit like The Goonies aged up for a more teenage audience and with quite a lot more edge to it.

The show's heroes, a gang of friends that style themselves The Pogues, are always on the back foot, with nasty forces and law enforcement typically teaming up to try to rob them of their hard-earned treasure, and this seems to be their last hurrah. They'll go out doing what they love – searching for more mysterious lost booty, and having a great time together.

Novak Djokovic: The Wolf in Winter

• Streaming on: Prime Video from 20 August

The world isn't short of magnetic personalities, but when it comes to the sporting arena, we do live in an era of increasingly guarded and media-trained athletes. That's why it could be fascinating to get a proper look behind the curtain at Novak Djokovic, unquestionably one of the all-time greats of tennis, but quite a private individual.

He's got a documentary with Prime Video coming this week, and it promises to give some insight into the psychology of a player who's managed to stay at his peak for an absurd length of time. He's not just an also-ran nowadays, often still penetrating to the late stages of major tournaments, so this could be a really fascinating behind-the-scenes profile for fans of the game.

Blood Sacrifice

• Streaming on: Netflix from 20 August

There's nothing like a good Scandi-noir to get the blood pumping, and Blood Sacrifice could be a great example of the genre done well. It's a whodunnit, effectively, playing out around Stockholm as a serial killer methodically targets police officers for murders then arranges their bodies artfully.

That's enough to make any other police officer nervous, let alone the detective tasked with chasing the killer down with few leads. He'll enlist the help of his father, a retired investigator, and soon find himself drawn into a typically dark and frankly scary game. This looks like it could be a breakout hit, and Netflix's success with previous subtitled shows should stand it in good stead.

The 'romance set in the surroundings of high school or college sports teams' genre is quickly becoming one of the biggest sub-genres in the streaming world – people can't seem to get enough of steamy locker-room love affairs. Heated Rivalry really kicked things off, but Off Campus underlined the trend this year, too.

Neither of those shows were made by Netflix, notably, so it's perhaps not a huge surprise that it's been working on something of its own – and this time it's going for a new sport. Crew Girl sets up a fairly familiar love triangle, but where the school athletes are all elite rowers, with all the training and discipline that comes with the territory.

The show stars Miku Martineau as Teagan Tao, a hugely talented young rower who's forced to move schools when her parents' home life falls apart for depressing reasons. She's enrolled into a fancy new school by her mum, but soon discovers that it only has a men's rowing program, with no way for her to have a boat of her own.

That is, until she starts to realise that the men's team is having trouble finding a reliable cox to steer and organise them through competitive races. The first trailer makes it clear that she'll make it her mission to become their cox, and in the process she'll find sparks flying with more than one member of the team.

There's no point in a good romance like this without a triangle, after all, and it seems like Teagan will have her affections split between two different men. One, as tradition dictates, is the bad boy who starts off aggressive with her, while the other seems to have no flaws but perhaps lacks a little edge.

Who can say who'll she'll end up with? Part of the fun of this sort of show is the journey, rather than the destination, which can generally be guessed at pretty easily. Netflix viewers in need of some steamy fun can check out Crew Girl when it arrives on the streaming service on 10 September, in a little under a month's time.

If you're going to reel in a massive star to front a new movie for your giant streaming service, why not get them to play two roles at once? I'm not talking about on-screen twins, either – Ben Affleck is pulling double duty in Netflix's newly unveiled movie Animals, since he's both playing the lead and actually directing the whole thing.

Affleck isn't a prolific director, but he has a few good movies to his name, and many critics think very fondly of The Town, which he made back in 2010 – so there's plenty of evidence to suggest that he could do a great job here. Like that film, Animals looks like a gritty portrayal of crime and criminality, but it has its focus on the apparent victim, rather than the criminals.

Affleck plays Mark Kimball, a politician who's fighting a mayoral election in Los Angeles while trying to balance his home life – but it looks like that home life is in for a reckoning. The teaser trailer uploaded by Netflix this week doesn't outright confirm that his kids are going to get kidnapped, but it does everything but say that explicitly.

It looks like he's going to be haunted by phone calls from the kidnappers as they try to presumably extort something out of him, and we can see the growing strain this'll exert on him and his wife (Kerry Washington) as the trailer unfolds. Stephen Yeun looks like he plays Kimball's fixer or security man, but there's at least one fascinating figure in the trailer.

We don't really know who she is, but Gillian Anderson gets an extremely glamorous entrance, and seems to be running the rule over Kimball. Is she a crisis manager? A fixer herself? Part of the criminal element? Any number of options could be accurate, and she might just be the movie's ace up its sleeve.

Intriguingly, the film's getting a rare simultaneous release – Netflix is putting it in cinemas as part of a limited run on 9 October, but it's also going to put it up for streaming subscribers on the very same day. That's a curious strategy, but we can't really know how it'll play out until that day arrives.

Every so often, one of the biggest and best streaming services will drop a trailer that makes me stand up and pay a little more attention than usual. Sometimes that's because it's managed to reel in an even bigger star than the norm, and sometimes it's because the film's been showered in awards on the festival circuit. Gentle Monster is another type entirely.

While it was shown as part of the competition at both the Cannes and Toronto Film Festivals, it didn't come away with any major prizes – but the first trailer for the movie is out now on YouTube, and makes it look pretty phenomenal. It's coming to Netflix on 18 November, after a couple of weeks in cinemas starting on 30 October.

The film stars Léa Seydoux as a young mother whose world is absolutely rocked when the police turn up at her house one day to take custody of her partner and to search his belongings. While the trailer is understandably vague about exactly what they're looking for, it's not hard to draw some conclusions about the matter, and it's easy to see how it would make for a compelling drama.

As Seydoux's character attempts to process what's happening, it looks like much of the film will concern itself with how a relationship changes and is strained by a betrayal like this. As she says to her mother at one point in the trailer, it's not like a long-term love has an off switch that you can flick when it's no longer convenient to have deep feelings for someone.

While she tries to figure out where her life goes from here, there's apparently another subplot that's not featured in the trailer to the same degree, since this is just a teaser. The lead investigator in the case turns out to have her own dramas unfolding, reckoning with the trauma of caring for her elderly father as his dementia advances.

It's all extremely emotional-sounding, and the teaser makes the movie look really considered and careful, so I'll be fascinated to see how it's received when it arrives later this year. Netflix generally only puts safe bets into cinemas, so that alone suggests it thinks it could have a critical darling on its hands.

The pace of the streaming world is sometimes something to behold. While the rest of us hunker down for yet another heatwave here in the UK, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video presumably sniff another opportunity to own our eyes and attention spans. If you're wondering what that means for you, the answer is more movies and shows coming to the best streaming platforms.

I've gone through the whole list of what's coming to both Netflix and Prime Video this week (and it's a long list), to pick out three total highlights for you. These new arrivals are the ones I think you'll want to know about, and all of them might make for a lovely bit of mid-week watching in the August heat.

Reacher Season 4

• Streaming on: Prime Video from 12 August

While it might not be the single biggest one in terms of budget or numbers, I do think that Reacher might nonetheless be Amazon's best original show ever. That's because it's incredibly true to the source material that it's adapting, giving us an on-screen version of Jack Reacher who really feels like a proper fit (as opposed to Tom Cruise, about a foot too short).

This time around he's going to find himself embroiled in quite a conspiracy, all kicked off when he tries to be a good samaritan after spotting a woman in distress on the subway. When she dies dramatically, he's unable to let sleeping dogs lie, and starts digging into the circumstances she found herself in. You won't believe this, but it won't take long until he's beating people up – hallelujah!

My Brilliant Career

• Streaming on: Netflix from 13 August

This looks like a really spirited new show for Netflix, adapting a beloved Autralian novel that might not be quite as well-known on other shores. It tells the story of Sybylla, a young woman in search of a direction for her life, at a time when the standard solution would be to simply get married. She decides instead to pursue her gift for writing, and to see the world.

Little does she know, though, that her attempts to get out and about will put her in the path of more than one suitor, meaning we're going to get plenty of steamy romance from My Brilliant Career despite Sybylla's apparent feminism. That's a great setup, and the costuming and performances seem top-notch. Could this be a new Bridgerton-level hit?

Don't Say Good Luck

• Streaming on: Netflix from 14 August

For a more traditional coming-of-age story, this movie starring Adam Sandler's daughter Sunny seems like it's going to be heartwarming and potentially tearjerking in equal measure. Sandler plays Sophie Birenbaum, who is desperate to make it in her high school's musical for the year, with all the social benefits it would bring.

That aim seems to become a little more modest when her home life starts to deteriorate thanks to her mother getting sick – throwing her own desires into perspective. It's a classic recipe for some life lessons, and the movie seems to be nice and sympathetic to how teenagers can be battered by these emotional situations. It looks charming, and comes out at the end of the week.

We all know that Grand Theft Auto VI is going to make absolutely filthy money when it comes out later this year – it'll probably make Spider-Man: Brand New Day's box office records look like child's play. Still, I didn't have a slot on my bingo card for Rockstar successfully monetising the title's gameplay reveal.

That seems to be what it's managed, though, because Netflix just confirmed that an "extended look" at the game will drop on its streaming platform on 27 August, with the strong implication of exclusivity.

Despite that implication, though, the same footage will be up on YouTube six hours after it hits Netflix, as confirmed by Rockstar's own YouTube channel. Still, you'd have to assume that Rockstar is making money from the partnership with Netflix, which is quite something to consider.

Right now you can head to Netflix's site to see the placeholder page where the footage will debut, which confirms that it's basically being treated like a standalone movie in terms of Netflix's catalogue. It even has a list of tags about what the "series" is like: "Slick, Rousing, Adventure, High-Octane, Imaginative, Cars, Action Thriller, Movie".

Some of those are more obviously applicable than others, dare I say. Still, this is obviously a big deal, and it's a significant enough marketing beat to get its own teaser trailer.

This teaser also confirms that the footage will go live on Netflix at 3:00 PM ET, meaning 8:00 PM BST here in the UK – so it's very much in a headline slot for your evening's entertainment here in Europe.

The YouTube version of the extended look will be out six hours later, at 9:00 PM ET or 2:00 AM BST, which is much less sociable. If you're a Netflix subscriber, that's not your problem, of course, but it might mean I end up watching it the next morning, on 28 August.

This also means that we're almost certainly not getting any other new looks at the game before the end of August, so that should put a whole load of rumour-mongering to bed. Strap in for a long month before the footage drops, though, and a whole heaping of hype in the meantime.

A Netflix Premium subscription is not cheap. At £18.99 / $26.99 per month, it's one of the priciest streaming tiers there is. And that includes competitors.

Disney+ Premium is £4 / $8 cheaper, so £48 / $96 less expensive per year, for example. So, as a Netflix Premium subscriber I really want to make the most of my membership. That includes the ability to watch 4K content wherever I want.

However, that's not really been possible. While most apps support 4K HDR, including Dolby Vision where possible, viewing through a Chrome browser hasn't. Until now, at least.

Netflix finally streams 4K video through Chrome, allowing Premium subscribers to view Ultra HD shows and movies without having to leave the browser window. There are limitations and caveats still, but it's a welcome start.

As discovered by @saurax04 on X (via The Mac Observer), Chrome on Windows 11 now supports 4K (3840 x 2160) streaming. PC owners have previously had to use Edge or the dedicated Netflix app for Windows to get the best quality. But now Chrome users can watch UHD content without having to switch browsers or load additional software.

Sadly, this hasn't yet arrived on Mac, and you will require a decent enough Windows 11 laptop or desktop – ie. with a minimum of GeForce GTX 1050 or Radeon RX 400 graphics. It's a sign of things to come though.

It's also worth noting that some Mac models will already run Netflix in 4K (and Dolby Vision) through Safari. Surely Chrome will soon follow.

How much does Netflix Premium and the other tiers cost?

Netflix recently simplified its tier structure, with just three plans available generally.

Standard with adverts is priced at £5.99 / $8.99 / €7.99 / AU$9.99 per month and gives you access to 1080p streaming with 5.1 surround sound. As the name suggests, content is ad-supported and the number of devices you can stream on / download to is limited to two.

Standard costs £12.99 / $19.99 / €14.99 / AU$20.99 per month and is the same as the above, but without the ads.

And finally, Netflix Premium will set you back £18.99 / $26.99 / €21.99 / AU$28.99 per month. It ups the simultaneous device count to four and the picture quality to 4K HDR (Dolby Vision). You also get Dolby Atmos audio where supported.

When you're one of the biggest and best streaming services on the planet, there's no such thing as a week off. Both Netflix and Prime Video's execs know that their subscribers expect pretty much constant new arrivals, and rightly so after a few years of price hikes and the arrival of ads.

So, if you're a subscriber to either or both of these platforms and you're eyeing up some empty evenings this week, you're in the right place. I've taken a fine-toothed comb through everything being added to each streamer, and I've picked out three highlights that I think are particularly interesting. These are the additions to Netflix and Prime Video to know about this week.

The Last House

• Streaming on: Netflix from 7 June

I really like the look of this one – a horror movie that also has clear sci-fi themes but seems to potentially contain two distinct parts. In the first, a family wakes up on a regular day only to discover that their house has been mysteriously sealed so they can't leave. They're not the only ones, either, with all their neighbours similarly locked-in.

The trailer then shows us a period some time later, with the world overgrown by plants and few survivors managing to stay alive in their homes. It's entirely possible that the family will finally be able to venture outside, but also that they might encounter the beings responsible for their imprisonment, and I'm eager to learn more about either.

Sterling Point

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from 5 August

All the biggest streamers have realised that romantic shows and movies are a huge attractor for audiences right now, and Sterling Point looks like an interesting twist on that format. Rather than being purely about finding love, it's also about discovering that your family might have more stories swirling in it than you realised.

The show's main character is a young woman who's surprised by a major bequest when her grandfather dies – a cottage in Sterling Point. When she gets there, she discovers that another young woman has also been left the property: a half-sister she never knew about, from the mum who died when she was younger. Secrets won't take long to spill out from there.

One Hundred Years of Solitude: Part Two

• Streaming on: Netflix from 5 August

This sensational South American series is midway through adapting one of the most celebrated novels of all time, and the second part promises to take the story to soaring new heights (and the depths of drama). Netflix is clearly proud of the series, since it's breaking out the final part to give it a premiere laster in the month.

Until then, though, this week will see the arrival of the rest of the second season, which continues the story of the Buendía family as eras pass and characters age and have families of their own. If you were into the first part of the show, this will be a must-watch when it arrives midweek.

Netflix seems to have a bit of a thing for recapturing the hysteria that greeted Jaws way back when it came out. While there have been movie sensations since then, of course, the sense that a film could genuinely change a generation of movie-goers' attitude to the sea seems like a taller order.

After already scoring one huge hit earlier this year with Thrash, reminding people that sharks are indeed terrifying, Netflix now has a new series on the way centring on a threat in the water. Below is a slightly different proposition, though, as its first teaser trailer makes clear – this might not even be a shark movie at all.

Below stars Josh Hartnett as a dad living in a rural fishing community, eking out a soulful existence. When his daughter comes home to visit, he's thrilled to see her, and it looks like she might have a new boyfriend in tow, too. Introducing him to the world of hard work and seafaring graft that he lives in could be a challenge.

What's even more of a challenge, though, is finding out that there's something stalking the boats and swimmers in the area – something causing disturbances that can't really be explained. The teaser goes out of its way to avoid clarifying what that might mean, and while the natural assumption is that it's a shark (or more than one), that's hardly confirmed.

In fact, the weird imagery in the teaser includes an extended sequence involving a floating house, and it all seems to suggest that there might be something a little more supernatural going on. Again, I don't have any confirmation of that, and Netflix's own blurb about the movie is intentionally vague, but there's definitely more than a whiff of the horror genre about how the trailer is cut.

That all makes Below quite intriguing, as does the fact that it's a limited series rather than a movie. We should get a few hours of mystery and thrills from it when it arrives on 8 October, so drop a reminder in your calendar if you're curious to find out just what is going on.

Netflix has a big month ahead of it – August brings a whole new list of films and shows being added to the service, and anyone who's looked over the full range knows that there are too many to really process. That hasn't stopped me, though. I've taken a deep look into what's coming and filtered out all the chaff.

That means you'll find five genuine highlights below, each one worthy of your interest. Check them out with trailers embedded for your convenience, as well as details of when they'll start streaming, so that you can circle the relevant dates in your diary if you're really motivated.

The Last House

• Streaming from: 7 August

This is a wild-looking one – a horror movie that definitely has elements of sci-fi playing around in its web. The Last House stars Greta Lee and Wagner Moura as a husband and wife who wake up one day, get their kids ready like normal, then discover that they've been sealed in their house.

In fact, it doesn't take too long for them to realise that this might be happening to everyone, a sort of pandemic-style lockdown being enforced by seemingly supernatural forces. Whether the source is alien or paranormal, I can't be sure, but the trailer makes the movie look properly unsettling, and it could be quite a hit when it arrives early in August.

The Whisper Man

• Streaming from: 28 August

Another scary-looking thriller rounds out the month on Netflix's side, but it's probably the most high-profile addition of the whole month. The Whisper Man makes me think of Zodiac every time I watch its trailer – something about the oppressive atmosphere of Fincher's film is summoned up by the rain and grottiness of this new movie's setting.

Adam Scott plays a father whose son goes missing, and he soon realises that it's the work of a serial killer who'd been locked up for a long time but might now be out and about. He's forced to turn to his estranged dad (Robert De Niro, no less), who once put that killer away, and there are clearly plenty of secrets to be spilled about what happened all those years ago.

My Brilliant Career

• Streaming from: 13 August

If you want something a little more light-hearted, don't worry – Netflix isn't exclusively making scary stuff this month. This lovely series set in Australia, for example, might scratch the itch of any costume drama fan. It's the story of a spirited young woman who doesn't want to conform to expectations.

Rather than simply waiting to be courted and married, she decides to see the world as best she can, and to make the most of her talent for writing while she does it. Of course, that's too simple – the fact that love is going to land in her lap while she does so should make things more complicated.

Don't Say Good Luck

• Streaming from: 14 August

Another romantic-looking movie, but set in a very different time, Don't Say Good Luck pits all the normal travails and challenges of adolescence against a common but no less sad tragedy. Adam Sandler's daughter Sunny stars as a teenager whose mother is extremely sick, but who has her own regular problems to compartmentalise at the same time.

That's a familiar story for so many of us, and it looks like the film's approach should be really heartwarming, as she goes through moments that are normal but also at times extraordinary. Growing up can be brutal, as most of us know, but this looks like it might do a good job of capturing some of the sheer joy that comes our way during the process.

Outer Banks (Season 5)

• Streaming from: 20 August

One of Netflix's most long-running ongoing shows is coming to an end this month, with Outer Banks finally taking a bow. Its story of treasure hunters and fierce rivalries has taken some surprising twists over the years, and had some shocking enough moments, but now it looks like it's all about to end.

The Pogues have one last heist in their sights, but with more power than ever arrayed against them, they're going to have to rely on each other and their wits to get through everything. The big question is whether they'll all make it, or whether some of them will be left behind while the others ride off into the sunset once more.

Nary a week goes by without a big addition to the libraries of the world's biggest and best streaming services – it's a vital part of their plan to become people's default destination for entertainment. While the summer months are sometimes a little slower in the TV world, on streamers it's a different story.

That said, this is an interesting week for the twin dragons of Netflix and Prime Video, and the shows and movies they're adding are arguably a little less high-profile than some recent weeks. I've taken a look at every new project they're uploading, to pick out three intriguing highlights that you'll want to know about regardless.

The Bombing of Pan Am 103

• Streaming on: Netflix from 30 July

This looks like quite a heavy one, but as a co-production between Netflix and the BBC, The Bombing of Pan Am 103 might be one of the more important shows released this year. It tells the story of the Lockerbie bombing, but does so from multiple angles. It'll take in not just those on the plane, but also those on the ground in the UK and US, trying to investigate an unthinkable situation.

With a long time span to focus on and plenty of sensitivity given the very real event that it's portraying, everything points towards this being an extremely memorable show. That said, it's not going to be the easiest watch, for obvious reasons, so factor that in while you plan your evenings.

Batman: Caped Crusader Season 2

• Streaming on: Prime Video from 31 July

Prime Video brings the caped crusader back for a second season of this animated series, and it's got a great reputation. Fans of The Animated Series have been waiting for a real successor for quite some time now, and this version might just be the closest thing we've ever got.

It shows a version of Batman set in the golden age, without all the technology and gizmos that became associated with the character in some more recent portrayals. That arguably keeps the show simpler and more faithful to the detective roots, with mysteries forming a key role in its drama.

Final Project

• Streaming on: Netflix from 29 July

This interesting-looking Spanish-language show takes a look at cyberbullying and the toxic environment that high school can become for students if they're targeted by malicious classmates. Tamara is an alternative teenager who has become the butt of constant jokes and abuse from some popular kids.

Her final project for the year takes a twist when tragedy strikes Tamara, but the trailer makes it pretty clear that this might all be part of her plan to get revenge on her tormentors. This might sink without a trace, but don't be surprised if it becomes a sleeper hit, either – Netflix has form on that front.

Are we past the nepo-baby era? By that I don't mean are we now fine with them, but I am curious as to whether people still care as much about the whole concept. Rightly or wrongly, it seems clear that they're here to stay, and Netflix's latest movie is a great example of that – starring none other than Adam Sandler's daughter in the lead role.

To do her proper justice, though, it's Sunny Sandler (what a name), and this isn't exactly her first rodeo. She's had roles in multiple of her dad's movies over the years, including You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah recently, and a small part in Happy Gilmore 2. Now she's the lead in Don't Say Good Luck, which looks like a very different proposition.

The first key point is that the movie doesn't star Adam Sandler – it's a totally fresh project, and Sunny Sandler seems to be the key to it. She plays Sophie Birenbaum, a high schooler going through all the regular stress of school life, as she tries to get a role in the school musical without making a fool of herself.

The real meat of the emotion in the movie, though, comes from the fact that Sophie's mum (Melanie Lynskey) gets what sounds like a cancer diagnosis. That's a devastating turn, and it clearly rocks her dad (Max Greenfield) too, as you'd expect. Sophie's attempts to maintain some normality while dealing with this traumatic process will clearly be pretty emotional to behold.

In fact, this first trailer makes the movie look incredibly sweet, and full of that adolescent lack of confidence that can be so affecting to watch when it's done right. Sunny Sandler might be in this position because of her father's fame (that's quite hard to argue with, to be honest), but from the glimpses we see here, she's clearly going to be quite a performer in her own right.

Plus, she might have the bravery to do what her dad did and pick some weird projects – that's the only way to end up in something magical like Punch-Drunk Love, after all. I'm not saying Don't Say Good Luck is in that bracket, but it'll be interesting to see how it's received. It hits Netflix on 14 August.

Over the last decade or so, Netflix has repeatedly succeeded in predicting what people want from the biggest streaming service on the planet, and one of its biggest successes has been knowing that romance is hugely popular. People want steamy love stories, and they want them regularly.

It's already got more than one giant franchise out of this tactic, with Bridgerton standing out as the jewel in its crown, and now we're getting another new one – My Brilliant Career. The story of a precocious young woman in Australia starts in 1900 and looks like a classic take on what it was like to be of marriageable age at a challenging time for women.

Philippa Northeast stars as Sybylla, that gifted young woman, who sees herself as an untameable writer, but has to contend with the expectations of her family, who see marriage as her only way to economic security. The problem for Sybylla is that they're not entirely wrong – her chances of becoming a writer are slim, despite her undeniable talent.

She decides to humour them and meet some young men, all the while intending to see as much of the world as she can to fuel her writing. Little does she know, though, that she'll meet more than one man who does indeed ignite something in her, which is the one twist she wasn't expecting.

One of those men is a familiar face – Christopher Chung from Slow Horses, in a role that's the polar opposite of his more famous one. Rather than a repulsive IT support worker, he's a hunky romantic lead, with Jake Dunn playing his main rival. It looks like a classic love triangle as Sybylla is faced with a choice between the two.

Her other option, of course, is to ignore them both and stick to her craft, so it'll be fascinating to learn how it all unfolds – as someone who obviously hasn't read the beloved Australian novel this is all based on. The show hits Netflix on 13 August and looks like it'll bring some stunning costumes with it: get this one in your diary.

The advent of a new week means an age-old question for those with subscriptions to Netflix, Prime Video or both – what's coming out? These huge streamers know that the only way to keep us all satisfied is by maintaining a steady stream of new shows and movies for us to pick from, after all.

If you tick one of those boxes and you're wondering what new stuff there's going to be for you to watch this week, you're in the right place – I've taken a look at everything coming down the pike, and picked out three highlights. In a world where there's no World Cup action any more, these could be life-savers for your evenings, to be honest.

72 Hours

• Streaming on: Netflix from 24 July

This looks like about as much of a throwback comedy as you can reasonably expect from a big streaming service right now – Netflix is going broad-brush with a Kevin Hart movie about blokey exploits. He stars as a middle-aged man who finds himself accidentally added to the messaging group of a bunch of younger guys going on a stag trip.

He decides to throw caution to the wind and turn up to see what happens, and from there has what looks like a fairly wild three days. It seems fairly obviously inspired by The Hangover and its sequels, but with that age-gap dynamic providing a twist. Ridiculous, for sure, but possibly some fun low-maintenance silliness for an evening later this week.

Ransom County: Season 2

• Streaming on: Netflix from 23 July

When this show's first season came out, I said that it looked like a direct rival to the Yellowstone dynasty being built by the folks at Paramount+, and I stand by that comparison now that Ransom Canyon has an imminent second season. The show continues to focus on similar dynamics and storylines, giving us an insight into the complicated life of a rancher.

That said, there are some important differences – namely, that this show is much more focused on the relationships and love lives of its characters, and less on the politics and brutality of land ownership and disputes. So, again, it's a pretty low-maintenance watch, and if you enjoyed the first season, you'll doubtless be pleased to see it return.

The Wild Robot

• Streaming on: Amazon Prime Video from 24 July

This one's not a Prime Original, but in a lean week for Amazon's streamer, it's a pretty fantastic addition, especially for family viewing. Telling the story of a long-lost robot awakening into a world full of animals and trying to work out what its place in that tableau might be, it's a beautiful story.

It's got all the touchpoints you might want right now, including a focus on the dangers of technology compared to our natural roots, but also a touching optimism. Plus, the art style of its 3D animation is really gorgeous, with designs that are almost like painting shifting in front of your eyes.

As we recently reported, the UK government is considering changes to the UK TV Licence to make it more relevant to today's services, with the potential of even lowering the fee for British households.

These proposals include adding streaming services, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney+ to the licence, meaning you'll need one to stream content – even if you're only using your mobile phone.

But what does the TV Licence cover now, when is it mandatory, and how much does it cost?

We answer these questions and more in this handy guide to the UK TV Licence as it stands, with one eye on how it could change in the future.

Why do I need a TV Licence?

Rather uniquely, the UK's main broadcaster – the BBC – is a public funded organisation rather than commercial. That means it doesn't carry adverts, but is paid for through a form of taxation – ie. the TV Licence.

Each household that watches live TV in the UK is required to pay a fee (monthly or yearly) and the government then dispenses that money to the Beeb to spend on its programming and operations.

Where it can become confusing for some is that while the BBC is the beneficiary of the TV Licence fee, it is mandatory to pay it even if you only watch other channels.

Indeed, all live TV is covered by the TV Licence, including the vast array of TV channels in the electronic programme guide – whether free or paid-for via the likes of Sky or Virgin Media. The same is true when watching live TV content on YouTube or Prime Video in the UK.

The licence is also required if you watch and stream content on BBC iPlayer, even if it's not live (ie. on demand).

What aren't currently covered by the TV Licence are sole streaming services when not viewing live TV content. For example, you can watch Stranger Things or Squid Game on Netflix without needing a TV Licence, but if you watch a live show such as WWE Raw or Smackdown, you will.

So, do I need a TV Licence to watch Netflix and Amazon Prime Video?

As mentioned above, you don't generally need a TV Licence to watch content streamed via the likes of Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and Apple TV. Not even YouTube.

But, that depends on what you watch. If you watch any live shows broadcast on the streaming platforms, you do need one. And considering each of them is moving more and more into live TV, they are entering a grey area.

This is where the UK government's new proposals come in. It is already proving hard to encourage all households to purchase a licence, with only a reported 80% in the UK said to be paying already.

That's a lot lower than the amount of households thought to be watching the BBC or other eligible television programming – that's reportedly 94%.

The shortfall is an issue for the BBC, which is growing having to cut budgets and jobs as its funding shrinks. Which is why both the BBC board of governors and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are considering different plans to alter the licence to suit changing trends.

This could lead to streaming services being covered by the TV Licence completely, regardless of whether you are watching live TV or on demand content. In that scenario, you will require a TV Licence no matter what, where or on what device you watch.

We're keeping a close eye on any further developments, and will update in due course.

How much does a TV Licence cost in the UK?

A UK TV Licence currently costs £180 per year which covers an entire household. That includes student or shared accommodation if you watch TV in a single shared area. Businesses also need at least one TV Licence to show live TV content in the office or in hotel rooms.

If you only have a black and white TV, you only have to pay £60.50 per year.

Note, if you are found to be recording or watching live TV without a TV Licence, you can be fined up to £1,000.

And finally, what has the BBC ever done for me?

As part of its drive to get more UK households paying for a TV Licence, the BBC has made its own commercial titled: "What has the BBC ever done for me?"

Starring comedian and presenter Romesh Ranganathan, it looks at the most popular programming and initiatives that are synonymous with the corporation, to remind viewers exactly how much it might mean to their daily lives.

It's well worth a watch.