elissam jannik makfield
Beatrix Gerke
Indeed, with the second of 2024's new Star Wars shows debuting on Disney Plus this week, the next entry in Lucasfilm's juggernaut sci-fi franchise is likely to be high on your list of priority viewing. If you'd prefer to take a walk on the dark side, though, Netflix is coming in hot with a new crime-based black comedy movie, plus the return of a beloved dark fantasy series.
There's plenty more genre fare to immerse yourself in on a number of the world's best streaming services if none of the above takes your fancy, including a surprise Peacock entry. So, what are you waiting for? Dig out your replica lightsaber and slice your way through the below recommendations. Happy streaming!
Set during The High Republic era, around one century before Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, and intriguingly described as "Frozen meets Kill Bill", Star Wars: The Acolyte is a mystery thriller that'll supposedly shock and amaze you. Its narrative, which primarily follows a Jedi Master who's investigating the unexplained deaths of his fellow Force wielders, will also show you "how the Sith infiltrated the Jedi Order", one of its many stars Dafne Keen exclusively told TechRadar.
Sweet Tooth season 3 picks up immediately after its predecessor, with the hybrid known as Gus and his human protector Jeppard embarking on a perilous journey to Alaska to find Gus' mom. Unsurprisingly, dangers lurk around every corner, including the emergence of a new foe and the ever-looming Sick, the human-threatening virus that's prevented the birth of new humans since its unexplained arrival. Have a box of tissues handy, everyone.
From Top Gun: Maverick to Anyone But You, Glen Powell is Hollywood's current flavor of the month. It's not a great surprise, then, that his next film is one of June's most anticipated new Netflix movies.
With its near-perfect critical and audience ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, you can expect Hit Man to be a, well, certified hit upon its streaming debut. Look out for its likely addition to our best Netflix movies list.
One of June's new Max movies, Am I OK? sees Johnson play Lucy, a closeted lesbian who, with the aid of best friend Jane (Sonoya Mizuno), attempts to navigate coming out and dating women in her 30s. However, one day, when Jane drops the unexpected bombshell that she's permanently moving to London, the pair's friendship is thrown into chaos.
Based on its 79% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, it seems that this Johnson-led Max film is not only worth your time, but should be added to our best Max movies guide. We'll see if general viewers agree with the critics before we pre-emptively include it on said list, though.
Will The Emperor of Fashion's dramatized story have enough about it to make it onto our best Hulu shows and best Disney Plus shows lists? Perhaps, but it'll need plenty of people to tune in to ensure it can be labeled "in vogue".
Building on the acclaim that his debut feature flick Problemista received in late 2023, Julio Torres puts his wildly creative and absurd sense of humor on full display in this Max-based TV venture. A surreal, six-parter, Fantasmas sees Torres portray a fictional version of himself, who embarks on a mission to retrieve a lost gold oyster earring. Along the way, Torres meets all sorts of offbeat characters, who span the comedy spectrum from the eerie to the introspective, in a dreamscape-style New York City.
With A-listers including Emma Stone, Paul Dano, Steve Buscemi, and Julia Fox among others along for the ride, Fantasmas' weird and abstract narrative and setting, coupled with its rich exploration of deeply human themes, imply it'll be a shoo-in for inclusion on our best Max shows list. You know, as long as it's good.
Narrated by Big Mouth's Andrew Rannells, Queer Planet shines an unexpected light on nature's hidden LGBTQ-plus community, and explores the same-sex relationships and non-binary traits exhibited by a wide variety of species. A first-of-its-kind docufilm with expert insight from numerous scientists, Queer Planet aims to educate and entertain with its eye-opening and heart-warming examination of LGBTQ-plus behavior throughout the natural world.
As TechRadar's senior entertainment reporter, Tom covers all of the latest movies, TV shows, and streaming service news that you need to know about. You'll regularly find him writing about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, Netflix, Prime Video, Disney Plus, and many other topics of interest.
An NCTJ-accredited journalist, Tom also writes reviews, analytical articles, opinion pieces, and interview-led features on the biggest franchises, actors, directors and other industry leaders. You may see his quotes pop up in the odd official Marvel Studios video, too, such as this Moon Knight TV spot.
Away from work, Tom can be found checking out the latest video games, immersing himself in his favorite sporting pastime of football, reading the many unread books on his shelf, staying fit at the gym, and petting every dog he comes across.Got a scoop, interesting story, or an intriguing angle on the latest news in entertainment? Feel free to drop him a line.
So, Indigenous moviemakers have been working for decades in the independent film world to tell their stories. But over the past few years, the number of movies and television shows with a strong Indigenous presence both in front of and behind the camera has been rapidly growing. And Native creatives based in or hailing from Oklahoma are playing key roles in many of the hot new titles.
One of the most critically acclaimed shows out now follows four Native teenagers in rural Oklahoma, while the most popular title ever on one major streaming service is a long-running film franchise's latest installment, which features an Indigenous heroine.
Filmed primarily in Oklahoma, the FX Networks hit debuted in 2021 to almost universal acclaim and premiered its sophomore season last year to more high praise. It has blazed trails as the first mainstream TV show on which every writer, director and series regular performer is Indigenous.
Co-created and executive produced by Oscar-winning New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi ("Thor: Love and Thunder"), who is of Maori ancestry, and Tulsa-based moviemaker Sterlin Harjo ("Barking Water"), who is Seminole and Muscogee, the bawdy and uproarious coming-of-age comedy focuses on four present-day Native teenagers who set out to escape their rural Oklahoma home for sunny California.
The long-awaited big-budget series based on Oklahoma-born and bred novelist Tony Hillerman's best-selling mystery novels about fictional Navajo detectives Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee debuted in summer 2022. The series was created by Chickasaw Nation citizen and Ardmore native Graham Roland.
With Cheyenne-Arapaho filmmaker Chris Eyre (best known for the groundbreaking 1998 indie film "Smoke Signals") directing many of its episodes, the series counts film icon Robert Redford and "Game of Thrones" mastermind George R.R. Martin among its executive producers, along with Roland.
Set in the 1970s, the series stars Lakota actor Zahn McClarnon ("Reservation Dogs") as Leaphorn and Hualapai actor Kiowa Gordon ("The Twilight Saga") as Chee. The six-episode first season made a powerful enough impression that the show was quickly renewed for a second.
The show centers on the lifelong friendship between Nathan Rutherford (Ed Helms, "The Office"), a descendant of the titular town's white founding family, and Reagan Wells (Jana Schmieding, who is Cheyenne River Lakota Sioux and now has a hilarious recurring role on "Reservation Dogs"), the head of the cultural center for the fictional Minishonka Nation.
The latest installment in the long-running "Predator" sci-fi film franchise is set in the Northern Great Plains of the Comanche Nation in 1719. Filmed in the Stoney Nakoda Nation near Calgary, Alberta, Canada, with a largely Indigenous cast, the prequel pits one of the now-iconic alien trophy hunters against Naru (Amber Midthunder, "The Ice Road"), a Comanche woman determined to prove herself as a warrior.
Soon after the movie premiered in July 2022, 20th Century Studios revealed that the action-thriller, which earned strong reviews, scored the biggest premiere on the Disney-owned streamer to date, topping all film and TV series debuts. Based on hours watched in the first three days of its release, "Prey" also marked the most-watched film premiere on Star+ in Latin America and Disney+ under the Star Banner in all other territories, according to a news release.
Disney and Trachtenberg recently confirmed that "Prey" is the rare streaming-only movie to get a physical media release. It was unleashed Oct. 3 on 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD. According to Slash Film, the Blu-ray release includes the Comanche audio track as well as two hours of bonus features, including a making-of featurette, panel discussion, alternative opening sequence, deleted scenes and audio commentary.
Filmed in Oklahoma in early 2020, the crime drama marks the feature film debut of Native American writer-director Lyle Mitchell Corbine Jr. (Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Chippewa Indians) and made its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.
Chickasaw Nation Productions spent years turning the epic life of the titular Chickasaw Rancher, Montford Johnson, into a biopic that spans from his birth in 1843, through the tumultuous years of the Civil War and its aftermath and on to the Land Run of 1889.
The son of an Englishman and a Chickasaw woman, Johnson (Martin Sensmeier, who is Tlingit and Koyukon-Athabascan) befriended Cherokee fur trader and merchant Jesse Chisholm (Chickasaw citizen Eddie Easterling), who convinced him to establish cattle ranches and trading posts in the newly created Indian Territory to serve his fellow First Americans. At the height of his ranching operations, Johnson accumulated a herd of more than 35,000 head of cattle grazing over a million acres.
Marvel Studios leaps into Native storytelling with this new series, with all five episodes set to debut Jan. 10, 2024, on both Disney+ and Hulu. They'll be available on Hulu until April 9. "Echo" also marks the first Marvel Studios series to drop all episodes at once for maximum binge-watching.
90f70e40cf