Clockwise: Creamerie, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Full Circle, Love to Love You, Donna Summer.
Clockwise: Creamerie, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Full Circle, Love to Love You, Donna Summer.

Pop CultureJuly 10, 2023

New to streaming: What to watch on Netflix NZ, Neon and more this week

Clockwise: Creamerie, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Full Circle, Love to Love You, Donna Summer.
Clockwise: Creamerie, The Summer I Turned Pretty, Full Circle, Love to Love You, Donna Summer.

What are you going to be watching this week? We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Apple TV+, Neon and TVNZ+.

The biggies

Full Circle (on Neon from July 14)

A Steven Soderbergh limited series starring Claire Danes and Zazie Beetz? Sign me up, hook me up to a drip, put it in my veins, etc etc. This thriller will look at one specific crime – a New York lawyer’s son being threatened – from many angles, including the investigator, her supervisor, the lawyer’s family, and as the series unravels, so do the long-buried secrets of these characters and their cultures./ Sam Brooks

The Afterparty (season two on AppleTV+ from July 12)

The Afterparty’s first season never quiiite managed to live up to its post-Knives Out, murder-mystery-comedy-with-an-all-star-cast promise. In retrospect, having each episode replay the events of the same night from a different character’s perspective was probably high-concept enough; making them all different genres too was a hat on a hat, as they say. Season two offers another shot at sticking the landing – the setting shifts from a school reunion to a wedding, with the cast featuring a new set of funnypeople, including Zach Woods (The Office), Anna Konkle (Pen15), Poppy Liu (Hacks) and Jack Whitehall (Bad Education). / Calum Henderson

Creamerie (season two on TVNZ+ from July 14)

In season one, local black comedy Creamerie welcomed us into a dystopia unlike anything this country (or the world) has ever seen. Set in the aftermath of a viral plague that has killed every man on Earth, the series explores what happens when a new, matriarchal order gets complicated. The final episode ended with one of the most shocking, confronting and bizarre scenes I’ve ever seen in any television show, so you have to wonder what the hell they are going to do to raise the bar in season two. / Alex Casey

The notables

Survival of the Thickest (on Netflix from July 13)

After some successful stand-up specials, Michelle Buteau returns to Netflix in this comedy-drama series as Mavis Beaumont, a recently single woman attempting to rebuild her life after “putting all her eggs in one man’s basket”. While trying to make it as a stylist, she faces various hurdles to get her life back on track. Look, Buteau is hilarious and has been the cameo highlight of many a disposable Netflix film, so I’m stoked to see her get a vehicle of her own./ SB

What We Do in the Shadows (season five on Neon from July 16)

Who’d have thought that a quirky little comedy from New Zealand would blow up into an acclaimed, multi-season American sitcom? Back for a remarkable fifth season, What We Do in the Shadows has lost some of its bite, simply by virtue of losing its original writers a couple of years back, but remains one of the freshest, funniest and most inventive comedies on TV. Plus: you’re guaranteed at least one outlandish line reading from Matt Berry every single week. What more could you ask for?/ Stewart Sowman-Lund

The Summer I Turned Pretty (season two on Prime Video from July 14)

The Summer I Turned Pretty is the second season of a show following Belly, a young woman who, well, becomes conventionally pretty and has this change the way that her longtime crush and also his brother see her.  Obviously, there’s a messy love triangle – can you tell that this has been adapted from a YA novel published in 2009? Jenny Han, the original author and an executive producer of the series was also responsible for To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (also featuring conventionally beautiful people, love geometry and teenage yearning), adapted into the 2018 Netflix movie, and now featuring a spinoff show called XO, Kitty about the original protagonists younger sister.  Shows like The Summer I Turned Pretty are a reminder that the YA heyday of the 2000s has cast a long shadow. Apparently this features the love triangle triangling and also a house renovation. The trailer has a new (Taylor’s Version) song from the Speak Now album; if that sentence means anything to you, it’s probably redundant. / Shanti Mathias

The films

Love to Love You, Donna Summer (on Neon from July 10)

It is what it says on the tin: A documentary about the pop and disco legend that was Donna Summer, directed by her daughter Brooklyn Sudano and Black American doco legend Roger Ross Williams. The film received warm reviews after bowing at both the Berlin International Film Festival and SXSW, and promises not to be a puff piece, but to instead explore the difficult aspects of Summer’s life and career. / SB

Warrior (on Netflix from July 14)

Something fun to know about me is that I really, really like Warrior, the 2011 film about two estranged brothers (Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton) who enter the same MMA tournament and shock, they have to come to terms with their lives and each other. It’s a lean, macho film that is deeper and more complex than it seems at first glance. It is definitely a “dads have feelings too” kind of movie, which may sway you towards or away./ SB

Best in Show (on Neon from July 13)

Christopher Guest’s Best in Show, a mockumentary set in and around a dog competition, is one of the best and funniest films ever made. Now you can watch it on demand! Go forth. / SB

Netflix

July 10

Unknown: Killer Robots

StoryBots: Answer Time: Season 2

July 11

Nineteen to Twenty

July 12

Quarterback

Sugar Rush: The Baking Point

Mr. Car and the Knights Templar

Record of Ragnarok: Season 2: Episodes 11-15

July 13

Survival of the Thickest

Devil’s Advocate

Burn the House Down

Sonic Prime: Season 2

July 14

Too Hot to Handle: Season 5

Five Star Chef

The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem: Season 2

Bird Box Barcelona

Love Tactics 2

Warrior

July 15

Country Queen

Neon

July 10

Spongebob Squarepants: Season 12B

Love to Love You, Donna Summer

July 11

Spin Me Round

July 12

A Cinderella Story

Beethoven

Beethoven’s 12

July 13

Gotham: Season 1-5

Best in Show

July 14

Full Circle

3 Days to Kill

July 15

Sisters

July 16

What We Do In The Shadows: Season 5

On the Line

TVNZ+

July 10

Significant Other

July 11

Haka Life: Season 2

Tangata Whenua

Secrets of Playboy: Season 2

July 14

Creamerie: Season 2

Mānawatia a Matariki

Island of Mystery – Te Wā o Matariki

Goodbye Pork Pie

July 15

Siwa’s Dance Pop Revolution

Disney+

July 10

Synduality Noir

July 12

Alice’s Wonderland Bakery: Season 2

Pupstruction

The Superfantastic Story of Balao

When Sharks Attack 360

Most Extreme Sharks

July 14

Sharks vs Dolphins: Bahamas Battleground

Prime Video

July 14

The Summer I Turned Pretty: Season 2

Apple TV+

July 12

The Afterparty: Season 2

July 14

Foundation: Season 2

Acorn

N/A

Shudder

July 10

Baby Blood

July 13

The Price We Pay

July 14

Quicksand

AMC+

N/A

Keep going!