Clockwise: Neighbours: The Return, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Love is in the Air, The Kardashians.
Clockwise: Neighbours: The Return, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Love is in the Air, The Kardashians.

Pop CultureSeptember 25, 2023

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

Clockwise: Neighbours: The Return, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Love is in the Air, The Kardashians.
Clockwise: Neighbours: The Return, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Love is in the Air, The Kardashians.

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+, ThreeNow, Neon and TVNZ+.

The biggies

Neighbours: The Return (on Prime Video from September 25)

Neighbours is back, baby. The long-running Australian soap that ended emotionally in 2022 has now risen from the dead in a twist even Madge Bishop wouldn’t have seen coming. Last November – three months after Neighbours ended “for good” – Amazon announced they would revive the show that launched the careers of Kylie Minogue, Margot Robbie and Delta Goodrem. The rebooted soap features a mix of old and new characters, including one unlikely star who travelled all the way from Newport Beach: Mischa bloody Barton (read more about this exciting news here). / Tara Ward

The Man Who Played with Fire (on TVNZ+ from September 26)

Nope, this isn’t another adaptation of a Stieg Larsson book, this is a documentary about Stieg Larsson! It follows the best-selling author’s secret, decade-long investigation into the assassination of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme, and uncovers the breakthrough he was on the brink of before his sudden death in 2004. Sounds like a plot worthy of… a Stieg Larsson novel, really./ SB

Project Greenlight (on Neon from September 27)

How hard is it to make a movie, really? This competitive reality show gets to the bottom of it all. Project Greenlight seems to be the reality competition show that won’t ever properly go away. It debuted in the early-00s, was revived in 2015, and now returns once more under the stewardship of Issa Rae. The reviews of this one were really great, framing the show as less a competition and more a look behind the scenes of what it is to make a movie that isn’t that good, really! I’m intrigued. / SB

The notables

The Kardashians (season four on Disney+ from September 28)

Like a bad vampire facial, season four of The Kardashians is sucking out the last drops of season three’s sisterly feud storyline and injecting it into this season to see just how anaemic it can get. The season four trailer ends with Kourtney telling Kim she’s a witch and she hates her. It could be a promotional tie-in for the new American Horror Story, which Kim is starring in, or they might actually hate each other in real life. Who knows anymore? The show has largely become a beige vehicle for the family to rewrite the narrative on events already reported and anchor them to a mafia-esque concept of family.

Because everything has already happened, we can look forward to the director’s cut of Kourtney’s “Trav I’m pregnant” announcement, nothing but allusions to Kylie dating Timothée Chalamet (who has refused to appear in the show) and more extravagant birthday parties for children who will only know they took place if they rewatch the show in 10 years’ time. At this point, we’re justifying watching the show on the basis of some pseudo-intellectual interest in pop culture phenomena, right? Do I hate it? Yes. Will I still watch it? To quote Kylie, “family time is my favourite time”, so, yes, absolutely. Please send help. / Anna Rawhiti-Connell

Grimm (all seasons on TVNZ+ from September 27)

There are dozens of procedurals that went on for more than a hundred episodes despite never quite making the headlines or hitting the cultural zeitgeist, even though they were actually good! Grimm is one of those, following homicide detective Nick Burkhardt (David Giuntoli) who learns he is descended from a line of guardians known as Grimms, charged with keep the balance between humanity and mythical creatures, for a cool 123 episodes. / SB

Love Island UK season five (on TVNZ+ from October 1)

The “legendary” fifth season from 2019 – featuring, among others, Molly-Mae and Tommy Fury – is coming to TVNZ+. From Alex Casey and Tara Ward’s conversation about the most recent season: “There’s just something so comforting about the fact that, especially as we plummet into the depths of winter, a new episode of Love Island UK will almost always be there at the end of the day. Obviously, not gonna lie, there’s simply too much TV to choose from and sometimes you just want to watch a group of people in their 20s try and figure out if a prawn is in the sea or not. Also, as Iain Stirling himself said, Love Island is fundamentally about people finding people and that is always interesting, regardless of whether those people have a working knowledge of crustacean habitation or not.”

The films

Love is in the Air (on Netflix from September 28)

Delta Goodrem is back on our screens in a role she was truly born to try: a fiercely independent seaplane pilot who is definitely NOT going to fall in love with the brash city CEO who turns up to shut down her family business. This cheesy romance has been on my “To Watch” list for weeks, and if Delta’s character doesn’t sing “Lost Without You” on a grand piano hidden under a dusty parachute in the corner of her airport hanger, I’ll eat my captain’s hat. / TW

Flora and the Sun (on AppleTV+ from September 29)

John Carney (Once, Begin Again, Sing Street) has been making the same film – tearjerking romantic musical dramas – over and over again for close to two decades, which might be annoying if it weren’t for the fact that these films are all actually really good! Flora (Eve Hewson) is a single mother living in Dublin having trouble with her rebellious son who happens upon a guitar in a skip one day. With the help of a Los Angeles-based online guitar teacher (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, at his most Gordon-Levitty), she discovers that one person’s trash is, yes, another’s person’s treasure. I’m already crying!/ SB

The first four Indiana Jones films (on Neon from October 1)

There’s never a wrong time to watch Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, especially in the two weeks leading up to the election. Give yourself some joy, watch some Indy movies. (On the flipside, there is almost never a right time to watch Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, but go with your chosen deity on that one.) / SB

Netflix

September 25

Little Baby Bum: Music Time

September 26

Who Killed Jill Dando?

September 27

Overhaul

Streetflow 2

Encounters

September 28

Castlevania: Nocture

Love is in the Air

The Darkness with La Luz del Mondo

September 29

Do Not Disturb

Nowhere

Power Rangers Cosmic Fury

September 20

Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning

Neon

September 25

Grace’s Amazing Machines: Season 4

September 26

Scream VI

September 27

Project Greenlight

Tracey Morgan: Taking it Too Far

September 28

Our Idiot Brother

September 30

Paw Patrol: Season 8b

Wedding Crashers

October 1

Paw Patrol: Season 9a

Little Monsters

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

TVNZ+

September 26

The Man Who Played With Fire

September 27

Grimm: Seasons 1-7

September 29

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK: Season Five

Cubicle Confessions

September 30

The Killing Kind

October 1

Love Island UK: Season 5

Oasis: Supersonic

Studio 54: The Documentary

Nas: Time is Illmatic

Arthur Christmas

Smurfs: The Lost Village

Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Season 9-11

Teenage Euthanasia: Season 2

Persian Lessons

Sputnik

Scattering CJ

My Millennial Life

Winston Churchill: Blood, Sweat and Oil Paint

Basquiat: Rage to Riches

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder

A Mother’s Nightmare

Reba McEntire’s The Hammer

The Simone Biles Story: Courage to Soar

Death, She Wrote

Black Mamba: Kiss of Death

Find Me a Beach House

Bushwhacked: Season 3

Brave Wilderness

Pride: Season 4

Camp Wannakiki: Season 5b

Gogo For The Gold: Season 2a

The Sherry Vine Variety Show: Season 2a

Life After Flash

Life After The Navigator

Dying Laughing

Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story

ThreeNow

N/A

Disney+

September 27

All the Same… or Not: Season 2

The Worst of Evil

Reply 1997: Season 1

September 29

Beautiful, FL

Project CC

Maxine

The Ghost

The Roof

Black Belts

Prime Video

September 25

Neighbours: The Return

September 29

Gen V

September 30

Ski Jumpers

Apple TV+

September 29

Flora and Son

AMC+

N/A

Acorn

N/A

Shudder

September 29

Nightmare

Keep going!