We round up everything coming to streaming services this week, including Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Apple TV, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+.
This Is Home (MĀORI+, August 26)
Directed and co-written by Awanui Simich-Pene, one of the eight Māori wahine filmmakers behind Waru, This Is Home is set in the sprawling suburbs of Tāmaki Makaurau and traces the turbulent lives of Kara (Miriama McDowell) and Nina (Keporah Torrance). The two must grapple with complex family dynamics and the impact of gentrification as they fight tooth and nail to hold onto their family’s 45-year-old homestead. Also starring local acting legend Jim Moriarty, this tender story of an intergenerational whānau living in modern-day Aotearoa is sure to pull on your heartstrings.
The Whisper Man (Netflix, August 28)
Directed by New Zealander James Ashcroft (Coming Home in the Dark, The Rule of Jenny Pen) and based on Alex North’s best-selling novel of the same name, this white-knuckle crime thriller stars Adam Scott as Tom Kennedy. After the widowed crime writer’s son is abducted, Kennedy turns to his estranged father (Robert De Niro), a retired former police detective, for help. The twist? The eerie disappearance is somehow connected to “The Whisper Man”, an imprisoned Zodiac-like serial killer. Reminiscent of The Silence of the Lambs and Se7en, The Whisper Man is sure to be a grisly undertaking.
Adults (Disney+, August 28)
In season two of the Friends-esque Adults, Samir (Malik Elassal), Billie (Lucy Freyer), Paul (Jack Innanen), Issa (Amita Rao) and Anton (Owen Thiele) are “moving past the new-to-the-real-world shenanigans and into juicier interpersonal drama.” The lessons are the same as ever, but these five co-dependent twenty-something flatmates keep finding new ways to make messy mistakes. Labelled as “one for the age(s),” Adults may be swimming in “familiar comic waters,” but it still has plenty of bite.
Dark Matter (Apple TV, August 28)
Created by Blake Crouch, the latest season of the high-concept reality-bending sci-fi thriller Dark Matter follows quantum physicist Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton) as his family settle into a quiet life in a world that finally seems safe. Their illusion of peace is shattered when a dark forces cause them to run for their lives once again. Asking audiences to “consider our own dual natures and how they would be altered if our worlds were different,” Dark Matter is one for those who love intellectually hefty headspinners.
Primate (Neon, August 26)
This “no-frills, all-chills gorefest” is set in Hawaii, and stars movement specialist Miguel Torres Umba as Ben, a chimpanzee owned by the Pinborough family. After being bitten by a rabid mongoose, the beloved and supposedly domesticated pet develops rabies and turns on his owners, transforming the family’s remote cliffside home into a bone-crunching slaughterhouse. This “absorbing, freaky delight” clocks in at a lean and mean 89 minutes and doesn’t reinvent the horror genre, but it’s a bloody good time nonetheless.
Pick of the Flicks: Native Son (HBO Max, August 28)
Directed by Rashid Johnson, one of the leading voices in contemporary American art, the searing Native Son follows Moonlight’s Ashton Sanders as Bigger Thomas. The young African-American green-haired punkster lives in Chicago and finds employment as the live-in chauffeur for a rich white family, but as the family’s headstrong daughter Mary (Margaret Qualley), tries to integrate Big into her life, things go tragically awry. Native Son has been described as “a fiery, flawed, often stunningly made film that provokes uncomfortable discussion,” and is bound to pack one hell of a punch.
The rest
Netflix
Stamptown (August 25)
Untold: The Testimony of Vince Young (August 25)
Mom Knows Best? (August 26)
One Hundred Years of Solitude: Part 2 – Grand Finale (August 26)
Leanne S2 (August 27)
Shrek (August 27)
Graveyard S3 (August 28)
Mousetrap (August 28)
All the Truth in My Lies (August 28)
The Whisper Man (August 28)
The Secret Woman (August 28)
The Garfield Movie (August 28)
Four Hands, Two Sonatas (August 29)
MĀORI+
Saints And Warriors (August 24)
This Is Home (August 26)
Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom (August 28)
The Mountain (August 28)
Power Rangers (August 29)
Midway (August 29)
Neon
Chapelwaite (August 24)
Murdoch Mysteries S1-S15 (August 25)
Murdoch Mysteries Christmas Special (August 25)
Gold (August 26)
Primate (August 26)
The Red Stag Timber Hunters Club S11 (August 27)
A Haunting in Venice (August 27)
The Death and Life of Bobby Z (August 27)
The Lincoln Lawyer (August 28)
McVeigh (August 28)
Free Nelson Mandela (August 29)
American Assassin (August 29)
The Secret Agent (August 29)
The Pickup (August 30)
Prime Video
The Matrix (August 24)
Brothers Under Fire (August 26)
The Last Sunrise (August 26)
Final Destination (August 29)
Disney+
Gracie’s Corner (August 24)
Miraculous Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir S6 (August 26)
The Simpsons: Yellow Mirror (August 26)
Adults S2 (August 28)
Apple TV
Dark Matter S2 (August 28)
DocPlay
Nuremberg: The Real Story (August 25)
AroVision
Evil Dead Burn (August 25)
Re-creation (August 26)
Westgate (August 26)
Kokuhō (August 27)
HBO Max
Moonshiners S15 (August 24)
In the Eye of the Storm S4 (August 24)
John McCain: For Whom the Bell Tolls (August 25)
DMZ (August 26)
Gossip Girl (Reboot) S1-S2 (August 26)
Homestead Rescue: Intervention (August 26)
90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days S1-5, 7 (August 27)
90 Day Fiancé: Love in Paradise S3-4 (August 27)
90 Day: The Single Life S1-S5 (August 27)
Alaskan Bush People S8-S11 (August 27)
Alien Encounters: Fact or Fiction (August 27)
Harpoon Hunters (August 27)
Hoffman Family Gold S1-S3 (August 27)
Homestead Rescue S7-S10 (August 27)
Hustlers Gamblers Crooks S2 (August 27)
MILF Manor S1-S2 (August 27)
Moonshiners S14 (August 27)
Mud Madness S1-S2 (August 27)
Seeking Sister Wife S3-S6 (August 27)
Double Lives of Suburban Wives (August 27)
Cinema Verite: The Saga of an American Family (August 27)
Conspiracy (August 27)
The Producer (August 28)
Native Son (2019) (August 28)
Point of Origin (August 28)
The Robot Chicken Adult Swim Special (August 30)
Brett Goldstein: The Second Best Night of Your Life (August 30)
Jerrod Carmichael: Don’t Be Gay (August 30)
