Pop CultureAugust 25, 2025

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

Thomas Giblin

Guest writer

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

Forever Auckland FC (Neon, August 27)

Cover your eyes Phoenix fans, as the thrilling docuseries about the inception, rise, and inner workings of Auckland FC’s fairytale debut season arrives on this week. Produced by the pioneering Dame Julie Christie, and made in the mould of Ted Lasso, Forever Auckland FC is an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at the star players, veteran coaches, determined owners and passionate fans who made the club’s rollercoaster first season a history-making one. For more candid Auckland FC conversations, CEO Nick Becke recently joined Duncan Greive on The Fold to discuss “how Auckland FC aced (almost) everything.”

New Zealand Tomorrow (ThreeNow, August 28)

In this spinoff of New Zealand Today, local comedian and “volunteer journalist” Guy Williams is back to investigate some of the biggest challenges facing small-town Aotearoa. In Waimate for a puff piece on an adorable troupe of wallabies, Williams gets sidetracked by a story stranger than fiction: the town has just won an award for “Best Tasting Water” despite locals claiming it is “undrinkable.” Going from comedian to Columbo, Williams sets out to uncover the murky truth behind Waimate’s temperamental taps. If this comedic current-affairs show is anything like the iconic New Zealand Today, it’s bound to be side-splittingly strange.

Cutting the Curve (RNZ, August 25)

In a world where the Ozempic era might only just be getting started and being skinny is officially back in fashion, RNZ’s new docuseries Cutting the Curve examines the intersection of fashion, power and visibility. Directed by Julia Parnell and centred around Samoan Kiwi opera singer-turned-model Isabella Moore, the series speaks to the urgent issue of inclusivity in the fashion industry. Traversing Auckland, London, and New York, Cutting the Curve takes a global issue and looks at it through a local lens, platforming the experiences of Pacific and plus-size women wondering where they fit in fashion in 2025. Or, as the trailer asks: “we’re meant to be the changemakers – but are we just an industry of oppressors?”. / Alex Casey

Atomic (TVNZ+, August 28)

Inspired by William Langewiesche’s landmark non-fiction book The Atomic Bazaar, don’t let the white-knuckle action-adventure series Atomic fly under your radar. Penned by master of pulse-pounding thrillers Gregory Burke (’71, Entebbe and Six Four) Atomic focusses on unlikely friends Max (Alfie Allen) and Mohammed (Shazad Latif). The two less-than-likely heroes are swept up in an insidious plot to traffic uranium across the sand-swept plains of North Africa, forcing the incongruous duo to make a monumental decision: for once, will they do the right thing and be the good guys? Tune in to find out.

The Thursday Murder Club (Netflix, August 28)

Based on Richard Osman’s smash-hit debut novel, and directed by Harry Potter’s Chris Columbus, The Thursday Murder Club is shaping up to be an even bigger sensation than its sublime source material. Starring an ensemble of beloved British actors and set in a posh retirement home, a group of senior sleuths decide to solve cold-cases for fun. One day there’s a suspicious death close to home and the gang of gutsy geriatrics find themselves with a high-stakes case to crack. This cottage-core comedy-crime caper is sure to be a hoot.

Warren’s Vortex (TVNZ+, August 24)

From the comedic geniuses behind Wellington Paranormal, sci-fi comedy Warren’s Vortex follows Warren (Maaka Pohatu), a Liam Neeson-obsessed Lower Hutt dad who has an unusual secret – he’s been hiding an inter-dimensional vortex in his garden shed for two decades. One day his cherished 18 year-old daughter Lucy (Louise Jiang) is sucked into the vortex, transporting her to an alternate future where Aotearoa is enslaved by sentient appliances. Warren jumps in after her, and together they must traverse several mind-bending futures to find a way home. Described as a “homage to and piss-take of beloved shows like Doctor Who and Star Trek,” Warren’s Vortex is a binge-worthy rabbit hole worth tumbling down.

Pick of the Flicks: The Monkey (Neon, August 29)

With his father portraying Norman Bates in Psycho, it’s no surprise that Oz Perkins has become one of Hollywood’s most ghoulish filmmakers. An adaptation of a Stephen King short story, Perkins’s latest outing follows Hal and Bill (Theo James), twin brothers who discover a cursed toy that causes people to perish through a wicked array of magnificently macabre mishaps. Despite The Monkey’s morbid premise, Perkins, whose own life has been beset by unthinkable losses, encourages you to laugh in the face of death. Or, as he has said himself, “pointing and laughing at the darkness dispels it nicely.”