What to stream in June: The best new shows and movies on Netflix, Disney, Max, Stan, Apple, iview and more

SQUID GAME S3 (Netflix, 27th)

If we’re really being honest about this, this is Squid Game season 2½ given almost every plot strand was left dangling from the previous instalment. OK, some characters were killed, so their stories were wrapped up, but the main thrust of it - how will Gi-hun and his fellow players escape - is an ongoing narrative.

This promises to be the thrilling conclusion to the murderous games and the power players behind its horrible existence. Will the Squid Games be exposed? Will Gi-hun get justice and revenge? Will anyone manage to survive robot Young-hee’s even more menacing boyfriend? More importantly, will the show pull off a satisfying ending that delivers both heart-thumping spectacle and thematic depth?

THE BEAR S4 (Disney+, 26th)

There’s a decent amount of speculation The Bear will conclude with its fourth season. The show was, reportedly, designed to be a three-season arc and actually had to add stories when it took off like a rocket.

Now, where did we leave things off? Carmy spent the previous episodes opening his fine dining restaurant, and was waiting for an important review to come through, and the scene cut off just as he was reading it - was it a rave or a pan? There’s so much riding on it considering the joint was losing money like mad. Plus, Syd was on the verge of leaving to go somewhere else.

When you see it written out like that, it can seem like low stakes, but these are obsessive personalities with heavy histories, and because we’re invested in their stories, it can feel like everything.

THE GILDED AGE S3 (Paramount+, 23rd)

It took a while for Julian Fellowes’ The Gilded Age to find its feet and in that first season, it struggled to make a persuasive case for why we should care about who wins the society wars among this set of often silly and very rich people.

The opulence of the costumes and production design thanks to its late-19th New York City setting was always pretty to look at, but once the series was deep into season two, something unexpected happened. You started to like these characters, even the determined Bertha (Carrie Coon) whose unwavering belief that as long as she could throw her money at a problem, she will get her way.

DEEP COVER (Prime, 12th)

In some ways, it makes so much sense it’s kind of wild that no one has done this before. Of course there would be a comedy about what happens when the secret service hires a bunch of improv comedians to go undercover in a criminal sting operation.

With a killer cast including Bryce Dallas Howard, Nick Mohammed and Orlando Bloom as the comics, Sean Bean as their handler and Paddy Considine as a gangster, Deep Cover sounds exactly like the kind of riotous good time you want from a movie. But, like with any night at improv, it really could go either way.

THE SURVIVORS (Netflix, 6th)

Australian author Jane Harper was such good source material for the Robert Connolly and Eric Bana film The Dry, so it’s a no-brainer that another one of her tomes has been picked up for adaptation.

The Survivors is set in a small town in Tasmania which harbours a trauma from years earlier when two local boys drowned in a tragic accident on the same day a teen girl vanished. The community still wears these scars, and those wounds are reopened when a young woman is murdered.

The series is led by two young Australian actors doing big things on the international stage, Yerin Ha (Bridgerton) and Charlie Vickers (The Rings of Power), and also features performances from mainstays including Catherine McClements, Martin Sacks and Robyn Malcolm.

MOUNTAINHEAD (Max, 1st)

What happens when four tech titans get together at a mountaintop retreat? A lot of dick measuring. Who’s richer? Who has the better platform? Petty jealousies and rivalries aside, the real drama is in the fact the world is burning down around them as they pontificate about Nietzschean superiority and which of the four of them is better positioned to take over Argentina.

The film is written and directed by Jesse Armstrong, who created Succession, but as much as you think it’ll be a comedic satire, it’s all too realistic and terrifying to be that funny. Tech bros really are the new villain class.

STICK (Apple TV+, 4th)

Before you watch Adam Sandler revisit one of his most iconic roles as a washed-up golf pro, watch Owen Wilson play a washed-up golf pro. Stick is actually tonally very different to Happy Gilmore but the thematic similarities are hard to ignore.

Wilson plays Pryce Hill, who gets by selling golf equipment and hustling people in bars, but then comes across a teenager with a prodigious gift for the game. It’s the first time he’s been excited about anything, so he offers to help him qualify for an amateur competition. It also stars Marc Maron, Mariana Trevino and Peter Dager.

TOWARDS ZERO (Britbox, 3rd)

Every year, one of the British broadcasters will mount a glossy three-episode production of an Agatha Christie classic and this adaptation of Toward Zero is the latest, and with a starry cast to boot, including Anjelica Huston, Matthew Rhys, Clarke Peters and Oliver Jackson-Cohen.

The murder mystery is set in the 1930s and involves a rich aunt’s holiday house and a divorced tennis player. How perfectly quaint and intriguing.

IRONHEART (Disney+, 25th)

If you’ve forgotten that Riri Williams has already been introduced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you’re forgiven. It was almost three years ago when the character made her debut in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

She’s a genius engineering student whose mind is so sharp she is sort of slated to take over from Tony Stark. Of course, now Robert Downey Jr is returning to the MCU (we know, we know), so it’s curious how that’ll work.

The first step will be the Ironheart series, which follows Riri back home in Chicago where she gets into a mess with The Hood, a figure who can tap into dark magic. The series stars Dominique Thorne, Anthony Ramos and Alden Ehrenreich.

THE FEUD (Acorn, 9th)

OK, so The Feud sounds a lot like every other British crime miniseries, which is not a bad thing in itself. But listen to this premise: it’s set on a suburban street where the families are all really close and connected, but then things come to a blow when one of them wants to build an extension on their home.

That might sound like neighbourhood bickering, but throw in the fact there’s a missing son from years earlier and don’t you reckon he’s buried under where this other family wants to excavate for their renos? Now you want to watch the show just to see if you’re right.

THE WATERFRONT (Netflix, 19th)

If you read the logline, The Waterfront sounds like every other drama trying to cash in on Yellowstone’s popularity. Inspired by real events, it’s centred on the Buckley family who for decades has ruled its North Carolinian town with their fishing empire.

But when the patriarch suffers two heart attacks, the rest of the family will do whatever it takes to protect their interests. So far, so familiar.

Here’s the potentially interesting part: the series was created by Kevin Williamson, as in, the man who dreamt up Dawson’s Creeak, which was set in Massachussetts but actually filmed in Williamson’s home state of North Carolina. We’re not expecting to hear the strains of Paula Cole, but here’s hoping there’s some of that sweet, sweet Dawson’s DNA.

CALL HER ALEX (Disney+, 10th)

With a $US60 million Spotify deal under her belt, Alex Cooper is a big name in podcasting, nabbing guests including Chappell Roan, Monica Lewinsky and Jane Fonda. She couldn’t quite help Kamala Harris win an election but John Legend’s music streams went up 200 per cent after appearing on Call Her Daddy.

Now Cooper is the subject of a docuseries, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Across two parts, it will follow her in the lead-up to her first live tour.

MIX TAPE (Binge, 12th)

An Australian-Irish co-production, this four-part romantic miniseries stars Teresa Palmer and Jim Sturgess as Alison and Daniel, who people who once had a teen fling in 1989. Years later and oceans apart, they’re still connected through a shared song and questions over if they were each other’s “the one who got away”.

ATSUKO OKATSUKA: FATHER (Disney, 13th)

Stand-up comic Atsuko Okatsuka toured Australia last year and instantly won over audiences with her disarming and quirky vibes. Her comedy is a subtle seduction, you don’t immediately realise you’re completely under her spell and you’ll follow her anywhere.

This time, it’s just following her to Disney+, where Okatsuka will debut a new special, Father. Prepare for belly laughs.

FAMILIES LIKE OURS (SBS on Demand, 20th)

Not many shows get the prestige of premiering at the Venice Film Festival but then again, not many shows are co-written and directed by Thomas Vinterberg, one of Denmark’s most renowned auteurs, a co-founder of the Dogme 95 cinema movement and the man behind films including The Hunt and Another Round.

Families Like Ours imagines a near-future where the entire population of Denmark become economic and climate change refugees when the country is shut down due to the threat of floods. What happens when a developed country of white, privileged people find themselves in the reverse position?

BEYOND PARADISE S3 (Britbox, 3rd)

Across 14 seasons of Death in Paradise, the series has gone through several leads. They all have their appeal and their fanbases but surely it would not be controversial to say Kris Marshall’s Humphrey was a favourite.

Which is probably why the character got his own spin-off in 2023, following him and his girlfriend Martha back to her English hometown of Shipton Abbott, where local crimes keep the mercurial detective busy, as does the various goings-on of a quintessential market town. The series returns for its third season and there are more cosy mysteries to solve.

HAL & HARPER (Stan, 26th)

Brother and sister Hal and Harper couldn’t be closer - boundaries is not a word in their vocabulary but co-dependency definitely is. Like any young adults, they’re just trying to survive and thrive, navigating friendships, relationships and everything in between.

Their single dad then makes an announcement that forces everyone to reckon with their complicated histories, and set an intention for how to move forward. Cooper Raiff wrote, directed and stars in the eight-part series alongside Lili Reinhart, Mark Ruffalo and Betty Gilpin. The cast alone is surely enough to make you curious.

PRIME SUSPECT S1-7 (iview, 20th)

Helen Mirren has obviously been a legend for a long time, well before she won that Oscar for playing Queen Elizabeth and won the internet for those swimsuit beach photos. For a time, you couldn’t watch an Emmys ceremony without hearing the words, “Helen Mirren, Prime Suspect”. It remains one of her most iconic roles.

The full seven seasons (four which ran from 1991 to 1996, another two in the mid-noughties) will come to iview this month, giving everyone a chance to marvel at her turn as Jane Tennison, a tough-as-nails detective who won’t let the patriarchy or crims get her down.

HOOTEN & THE LADY (7plus, 4th)

For the intrepid armchair explorer who can’t resist any story with derring-do discoveries, this 2016 series features a pair of charismatic performances from Ophelia Lovibond (Minx, Elementary) and Michael Landes (Lois & Clark) as seemingly mismatched treasure hunters.

The Lady is Alexandra, a museum worker who decides she’s had enough of exhibits and would rather be in the field, and Hooten is an American she comes across while in a dicey situation. There are lots of close calls in this adventure series as they travel from the catacombs of Rome to the Himalayans and everything in between, including a search for a lost Faberge egg.