Everything streaming in August on Netflix, Disney, Prime, Apple, Stan, Paramount and more

ONLY MURDERS IN THE BUILDING S4 (Disney+, 27)

You don’t want to be in the vicinity of Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez because people keep turning up dead. This season, they’ll investigate the killing of Charles’ stunt double Sazz and will venture beyond the confines of Manhattan to Los Angeles.

Coming along for the cosy murder ride besides the core three are returnees Meryl Streep, Paul Rudd while newcomers include Molly Shannon, Melissa McCarthy, Eva Longoria, Eugene Levy and Zach Galifianakis. Talk about star-studded.

PACHINKO S2 (Apple TV+, 23rd)

One of the more under-appreciated series of 2022, the lush historical drama Pachinko is returning for its second season. Based on Min Jin Lee’s acclaimed tome, the story tracks four generations of a family from Korea in 1915 to the US in the 1980s, via Japan.

The second season will focus more on matriarch Sunja’s experiences resettling in Osaka in 1945 at a tumultuous time while further exploring Solomon’s time in Tokyo in 1989. The series’ cast includes Jin Ha (Devs), Anna Sawai (Shogun) and Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung (Minari).

RINGS OF POWER S2 (Prime Video, 29th)

Amazon paid a lot of money for the rights to Rings of Power, based on the appendices of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books, so you can bet it looks amazing.

The story is set in the Second Age of Middle-earth, thousands of years before Frodo and his fellowship set off to destroy the one ring to rule them all. Here, the story is about the forging of many rings that have the power to bend the will of men. Surprise! Uber baddie on the rise, Sauron, wants them. He’s such a rascal.

EMILY IN PARIS S4.1 (Netflix, 15th)

Love it or hate it — or is that love her or hate her — but you can’t deny Emily in Paris is popular.

If nothing else, the series sparkles with colour and makes Paris look like a cultural, sartorial and gastronomic wonderland. It’s pure wish fulfilment escapism because, in any real job, Emily Cooper would’ve been sacked yonks ago for bringing chaos and ineptitude to everything she does.

The show may be in the fourth season but Emily is still stuck in some form of love triangle involving Gabrielle. It’s true, she sucks. But at least we have Sylvie.

THE INSTIGATORS (Apple TV+, 9th)

The Instigators is a heist action comedy about two thieves on the run. There are some reunions in The Instigators that’s definitely worth noting — Matt Damon and his Downsizing co-star Hong Chau, Damon with his The Bourne Identity director Doug Liman, and Damon with Casey Affleck.

The last of those three is a little thorny given Affleck has had a few quiet years, laying low after being spotlighted during the MeToo movement over 2010 lawsuits alleging sexual harassment on the set of I’m Still Here, which were settled for a collective $US4.2 million. Between this and his supporting role in Oppenheimer last year, Affleck is waging a comeback campaign.

INDUSTRY S3 (Binge, 11th)

Set in the toxic world of high finance in London, Industry follows a group of 20-somethings as they try to thrive but mostly survive at a fictional bank. Ambition and smarts are essential, but the tenacity and willingness to enable truly terrible people and even worse ethics is what separates so-called winners from their humanity.

It’s been about two years since the most recent season so fans have been patient, and there are a couple of new faces joining the cast for the new episodes, Game of Thrones’ Kit Harington and Barry’s Sarah Goldberg.

JACKPOT (Prime Video, 15th)

If you want a goofy but chuckle-inducing time, you could do worse than Paul Feig, who has directed great studio comedies such as Bridesmaids, Spy and The Heat.

In Jackpot, he teams up with two very funny people, Awkwafina and John Cena, to tell an unhinged story about the near future in which the winner of the ultimate jackpot can only claim their prize if they manage to stay alive before sundown. Otherwise, whoever legally murders them will win instead. Awkwafina is the unwitting and unwilling jackpot winner and Cena her protector. It looks whack and comically violent.

THE BUREAU S1-5 (Paramount+, 15th)

You may have heard about the development of a fancy American espionage series called The Agency, produced by George Clooney and starring Michael Fassbender and Jeffrey Wright.

Well, this is the original award-winning 2015 French series the Yanks are remaking, which has been not-streamable in Australia for the last bit but all five seasons will drop this month. It follows French spies as they go on undercover missions all over the world while also trying to maintain normal lives “off-duty”. The Bureau has been compared to the likes of The Americans and Homeland.

CRITICAL INCIDENT (Stan, 12th)

The Australian crime thriller starts with an inciting event. A teenage suspect is on the run and police officer Zil Ahmed spots someone who meets the description and gives chase.

In the chaos, a bystander is hurt, and it turns out the person he was chasing wasn’t the one responsible. The consequences for the cop and for the mistaken teen are wide-ranging and have the potential to fracture an already on-edge community.

The drama is set in Sydney’s western suburbs and draws inspiration from real-life incidents in the juvenile justice system.

DEVS (7plus, 13th)

Devs is the only time British writer and filmmaker Alex Garland ventured into episodic storytelling and the eight-episode series has the same cerebral puzzles and atmospheric vibes as his films which include Ex Machina, Annihilation and this year’s Civil War.

In fact, many of his Devs cast (Sonoya Mizuno, Nick Offerman, Jin Ha, Cailee Spaeny, Stephen McKinley Henderson and Karl Glusman) were in Civil War.

On the surface, Devs is about a software developer investigating the unexplainable death of her boyfriend but the story is a Trojan Horse for Garland to explore head-tripping ideas on determinism versus free will, multiverses and simulated realities.

UNSTABLE S2 (Netflix, 1st)

John Owen Lowe seemingly doesn’t have issues about being a nepo baby as the son of Rob Lowe, having worked almost exclusively with his famous father across several screen projects.

Or maybe he’s completely consumed by it because Unstable, which the two Lowes co-created, explores the up-and-down power dynamics of a celebrity dad (in the show’s case, a billionaire scientist and inventor) and his kid who wants to be his own man, out from dad’s shadow.

The workplace comedy also stars Fleabag’s Sian Clifford as a put-upon manager often in the middle of the duo’s problems. And to add to the nepo baby count, this season casts Iris Apatow (daughter of Judd) as a character who only gets her internship job because of her family connections.

SHAUN MICALLEF’S EVE OF DESTRUCTION (ABC iview, 14th)

It has been too long since Shaun Micallef last graced our screens and we have truly missed his wry humour. The satirist and comedian returns with a talk show format. Every week for eight episodes, he’ll have two guests and he’ll ask each of them what two items would they save if their house was burning down.

Micallef and the ABC have not revealed who the guests will be but have promised that Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett and Liam Hemsworth are on their wishlist… of people who may be so good as to watch the show.

ALIAS S1-5 (7plus, 21st)

The second series J.J. Abrams created, Alias was also the breakout role for Jennifer Garner. It’s a classic of the early noughties when kick-arse women were being centred and when broadcast TV was still telling episodic stories threaded with an overall arc.

And mythologies don’t come more deeply embedded than Alias (except maybe The X-Files), which was a spy thriller about a young woman who was recruited out of school by the CIA only to find out she may have been working for the bad guys all along. As the show aged, it delved deeper into conspiracies involving ancient artefacts and grand power plays.

BATMAN: CAPED CRUSADER (Prime Video, 1st)

This moody animated Batman series takes cues from film noir with its 1940s setting and vibey aesthetic, adding to the grit and grime of Gotham City’s crime and corruption. Hamish Linklater voices this version of Batman in a villain-of-the-week format.

There’s serious creative power behind the scenes with J.J. Abrams and Matt Reeves serving as executive producers but the more impressive name is Bruce Timm, the man who co-created the universally beloved 1990s show Batman: The Animated Series.

THE TYRANT (Disney+, 14th)

This South Korean thriller series hails from Park Hoon-jung, a filmmaker whose best-known films include New World and The Witch, both of which have been nominated for awards on the festival circuit.

Now he’s turned his attention to The Tyrant, a series that involves the development of a secret bioweapon that unleashes superhuman powers.

The project was discovered by the US government who ordered the program to be terminated and all samples handed over. But one sample goes missing when a covert attack is launched – now everyone is on the hunt for the elusive weapon.

INCOMING (Netflix, 23rd)

The high school rager is a grand tradition in American cinema. Who doesn’t love a movie about misfits who decide to transcend their outsider status by crashing a riotous party? In Incoming, it’s a group of four year-nine friends whose night turns chaotic. Will they make fools of themselves or will they become legends?

The adult cast includes Kaitlin Olson and Bobby Cannavale, and the filmmakers, Dave and John Chernin, said they were inspired by Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Can’t Hardly Wait and Superbad.