We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+.

Roofman (Prime Video, February 17)

Roofman is a change of pace for Derek Cianfrance, the Oscar-nominated director of Blue Valentine and The Place Beyond the Pines. Channing Tatum plays the real-life Jeffrey Manchester, a US army veteran turned professional thief. Labelled the Roofman, thanks to his knack for breaking into McDonald’s through the roof, this absurd yet tender true-crime comedy follows what happens when Manchester escapes prison, secretly takes refuge inside a Toys’R’Us, and falls for Kirsten Dunst’s unsuspecting employee Leigh Wainscott. Delivering “laughs, tears, and noughties nostalgia”, Roofman is a “disarming crowd-pleaser”.

Punch (MĀORI+, February 20)

Punch, the lauded feature-length directorial debut of local filmmaker Welby Ings, follows Jordan Oosterhof’s Jim, a promising teenage boxer stuck in small town Aotearoa. Under the thumb of his alcoholic father Stan, Jim’s future is mapped out for him until he strikes up an unlikely friendship with Conan Hayes’ Wetu. Developing feelings for his outcast schoolmate, Jim begins to rethink his sexuality and his life’s trajectory. “Flowing and keenly observant of its characters and setting”, Punch “swings above its weight class”, landing a knockout as a triumph of queer Aotearoa cinema.

Mad Dogs (TVNZ+, February 15)

Starring Ben Chaplin, Romany Malco, Michael Imperioli and Steve Zahn, the White Lotus-eqsue Mad Dogs follows four friends who travel to Belize to celebrate the early retirement of an old pal from high school. In this sun-drenched paradise, their reunion quickly goes awry when their friendship group is exposed to dark secrets, deception and murder. A “gripping, contorted thriller with many spellbinding plot twists”, you’ll love Mad Dogs if you’ve ever been on a holiday that’s gone horribly wrong.

The Swedish Connection (Netflix, February 19)

Set in the midst of World War Two, The Swedish Connection recounts the true tale of Gösta Engzell, a boring bow-tied bureaucrat who becomes an unlikely hero. From his dimly-lit office in the basement of the Swedish foreign ministry, the bumbling Engzell (Triangle of Sadness’s Henrik Dorsin) uses an assortment of legal loopholes to bring in thousands of refugees from across Europe to neutral Sweden, saving them from the genocidal Nazi regime. The synopsis might remind you of Schindler’s List, but the film is a “genial, lightly comic portrait” of a man who outwitted evil with paperwork.

Balance of the Five Elements (MĀORI+, February 16)

Taking home Best NZ Cinematography and Best NZ Editing at the 2022 Doc Edge film festival, German director Jan Hinrik Drevs and New Zealand cinematographer Mike Single embark on an epic expedition across China as they explore the ancient holistic philosophy of Wu Xing. Postulating that everything in our universe is built upon the five elements of wood, fire, earth, metal, and water, the film asks “how we might achieve balance and harmony amidst the complexities and challenges of modernity?”

Pick of the Flicks: Stand by Me (TVNZ+, February 17)

Directed by the late great Rob Reiner, the 40-year-old Stand by Me is a “landmark coming-of-age story” that has aged like a fine wine. Jump-starting the careers of Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell, the quartet of child actors star as best friends who journey across the Pacific Northwest to see the corpse of a boy killed by a train. An adaptation of Stephen King’s 1982 novella The Body, the film unfolds with “wit, pathos and sensitivity”, as their schoolboy adventure evolves into a defining event in their lives. Akin to Little Fugitive and Only Yesterday, never has youthful innocence been so joyous and heartbreaking.

The rest

Netflix

Sommore: Chandelier Fly (February 17)

Being Gordon Ramsay (February 18)

The Night Agent S3 (February 19)

The Swedish Connection (February 19)

Strip Law (February 20)

Firebreak (February 20)

Pavane (February 20)

Mad Dogs (February 15)

Stand by Me (February 17)

Sense and Sensibility (February 17)

Boyz n the Hood (February 17)

The Secret Garden (February 17)

Cadillac Records (February 17)

The Boss Baby: Family Business (February 22)

Transformers: Age of Extinction (February 22)

TVNZ+

Mad Dogs (February 15)

Stand by Me (February 17)

Sense and Sensibility (February 17)

Boyz n the Hood (February 17)

The Secret Garden (February 17)

Cadillac Records (February 17)

The Boss Baby: Family Business (February 22)

Transformers: Age of Extinction (February 22)

Neon

Barney’s World (February 16)

Reef School (February 17)

Inside No. 9 S1-S8 (February 20)

Inside No. 9 Special: Dead Line (February 20)

Murder in Glitter Ball City (February 20)

Playschool: Nursery Rhyme News Time S1-S2 (February 21)

Top Wing (February 22)

MĀORI+

Balance of the Five Elements (February 16)

Flying the Nest (February 20)

Punch (February 20)

Dreambuilders (February 21)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day (February 21)

Prime Video

Mr Burton (February 17)

Roofman (February 17)

50 First Dates (February 17)

Four Letters of Love (February 17)

The Sweetest Thing (February 17)

56 Days (February 18)

Wildcat (February 19)

Disney+

The Eighth Family (February 18)

Armorsaurs (February 18)

Girl on the Run: The Hunt For America’s Most Wanted Woman (February 19)

In Your Radiant Season (February 20)

Apple TV

The Last Thing He Told Me S2 (February 20)

DocPlay

The Bambers: Murder at the Farm (February 16)

Beat the Lotto (February 19)

Bad Actor: A Hollywood Ponzi Scheme (February 19)

AroVision

Kim’s Video (February 18)

Bad Shabbos (February 18)

Deeper (February 18)