What to watch on streaming in May in Australia: Highlights on Netflix, Disney, Apple, Prime and more

THE BOROUGHS

Netflix, May 21

In its marketing, Netflix has led with the fact this sci-fi series is produced by the Duffer brothers, the guys behind Stranger Things who are no longer working at the streamer.

But its real appeal — and which maybe Netflix is scared of emphasising in case it alienates its younger audiences — is this cast. Ohmigod, what an amazing ensemble of acting royalty. Alfred Molina, Alfre Woodard, Clarke Peters, Bill Pullman, Denis O’Hare and Geena freaking Davis. That is obviously the actual draw. All in one place! Sorry, Duffers.

The Boroughs refers to the name of a retirement community which hides some spooky secrets, and a newcomer to the residents joins an group of senior heroes to uncover what’s really going on. But, honestly, we’d watch this cast do anything.

MAXIMUM PLEASURE GUARANTEED

Apple TV, May 20

Emmy winner Tatiana Maslany plays Paula, a very stressed out woman with too much going on. She’s recently divorced, is in a custody battle with her ex, and she’s become involved with a camboy (Trevor) who’s blackmailing her.

That little scheme ends up with someone dead and now a couple of detectives (Triangle of Sadness’s Dolly de Leon and Jon Michael Hill) are on her case. So, yes, a breakdown is imminent.

This black comedy drama seems as anxious as its lead character, but when you have Maslany, who once played several clone versions of a character, trying to play all these beats, you know you’re in for something special.

RIVALS S2

Disney+, May 15th

The first season of raunchy British comedy Rivals opened with something incredibly audacious for a Disney show – bare buttocks thrusting in an airplane bathroom. It was very much a declaration that this adaptation of Jilly Cooper’s sexcapades social satire about the 1980s British social elite was going to, well, go there.

The rich and bawdy residents of the English countryside are up to all sorts kinky hijinks, in between all those personal and professional betrayals. There are rival TV broadcasters in a feud and tennis wives in a snit and it’s only going to escalate.

As you may have seen from the promos, David Tennant is back as the moustache-twirling Lord Tony Baddingham, even though he was last scene bleeding on the floor after being smashed in the head with a trophy. Turns out the grievous injury was survivable.

SPIDER-NOIR

Prime Video, May 27

Nicolas Cage did too good a job at voicing a version of Spider-Man Noir in the Spider-Verse movies that someone somewhere immediately jumped at the chance to spin it off as its own thing.

On paper, it sounds ridiculous. A Spider-Man who exists in a 1930s film noir universe , as a private eye whose is reluctantly pulled back into the superhero shenanigans when a strange case comes into his orbit. But its strangeness is probably why it might work.

It has a lot of the tropes of the genre — femme fatales, gangsters, and a shady lighting set-up — and it also feels like Cage playing a sticky, powered Sam Spade-esque PI was exactly what was meant to happen. Especially when he’s contending against Brendan Gleeson as the Big Bad.

THE FOUR SEASONS S2

Netflix, May 2

Do you ever wonder if The Four Seasons will ever get to a fourth instalment? It’s in the name!

Originally based on the 1980s Alan Alda movie, the Tina Fey co-created series will now go off-book in that it is moving beyond its source material while still holding to the general concept of a group of friends who, four times a year, go on holidays together.

There’s been some upheaval in the ranks with the departure of Steve Carell’s character, and the addition of the young baby mama he left behind. The crew will have to settle into these new dynamics while navigating all the changes that come with ageing and shifting relationships.

TUCCI IN ITALY

Disney+, May 12

There are many celebrities who make great travel (show) companions but few are as passionate, knowledgeable and classy as Stanley Tucci. He’s just the best, you know, someone you want to be seated next to at dinner.

He returns with a second season of this delectable travelogue in which he explores his ancestral home with gusto, curiosity and salivating tastebuds.

This season takes him to some regions he’s visited before as part of his previous show, Searching for Italy, but the tone of Tucci in Italy is different enough that no one is going to say no to a revisit.

Expect some dining adventures in Naples, Campania, Sicily, Sardinia, Veneto and Le Marche, and get ready to start planning your own Italian itinerary.

LADIES FIRST

Netflix, May 22

That little thrill you’ll get from hearing Rosamund Pike swearing “fatherf-cker” at Sacha Baron Cohen? Hold onto that feeling.

Based on a French film, Ladies First is a comedic movie posing the ultimate “what if” question – what if men and women’s roles in society were reversed? That’s the parallel universe in which Baron Cohen’s womanising arsehole wakes up in.

Women are in charge, men are objectified, he has to shave his legs, King’s Cross is Queen’s Cross and men flock to Victor’s Secret to gussie themselves up in uncomfortable satin unmentionables. Oh, but we can dream.

The female-led production team includes Thea Sharrock (Wicked Little Letters) while the cast also features Richard E. Grant, Fiona Shaw, Emily Mortimer and Charles Dance.

THE PUNISHER: ONE LAST KILL

Disney+, May 13

Frank Castle has a core conflict that he finds almost impossible to reconcile — his overwhelming rage for revenge and violence, and his desire to live a good life. But after everything he’s seen and experienced, all that death and grief weighs on a person.

The violent Marvel anti-hero, in one of the truest sense of the descriptor in that he has a moral code but a high body count, makes for an interesting subject in the present moment.

The subtitle on this one-off streaming movie is suggestive, but Jon Bernthal is already confirmed to play the character in the upcoming Spider-Man movie which comes out two months after this release.

DUTTON RANCH

Paramount+, May 15

If there’s one thing Yellowstone fans can always rely on is that there will always be more Yellowstone-adjacent projects. The now teeming franchise is far too lucrative to leave well alone.

Dutton Ranch is the fourth spin-off/prequel/sequel to Taylor Sheridan’s original series, this one following daughter Beth Dutton and her husband Rip Wheeler continuing adventures after the sale of the family homestead.

They want to build a new life for themselves, but without straying too far from their essential selves, like, let’s get serious, no one is moving to a Manhattan downtown loft and spending every Thursday night taking in a Broadway show.

The series has already had some behind-the-scenes dramas with showrunner Chad Feehan exiting after production wrapped amid reports of on-set clashes. Maybe they were just rehearsing for all the onscreen rivalry?

JACK RYAN: GHOST WAR

Prime Video, May 20

Wait a second, didn’t John Krasinski call time on his tenure as Jack Ryan, the brawny and brainy world-saving CIA analyst turned deputy director? He did. But in show business, the end is never the end. Especially when Prime is doing so well in the dad TV space.

This sequel film Ghost War, despite what its marketing trailer taglines tell you, is not a “major movie event” (with very few exceptions, or just the one - KPop Demon Hunters- something that goes direct to streaming just isn’t). But it is a point of interest for those who assiduously followed the series over its four seasons.

Here, Jack Ryan has left the CIA for a civilian job and life, but, surprise, he’s pulled back into the fray. Krasinski came up with the story with Noah Oppenheim, a former journalist with several credits on political screen thrillers, and the cast includes series regulars Wendell Pierce and Michael Kelly, as well as Sienna Miller.

LEGENDS

Netflix, May 7

In the spy world, a “legend” is your undercover identity, but in the metaphor world, it’s someone who’s awesome. Both can be true.

Based on a true story, this British caper is about a group of seemingly unassuming customs officers who go undercover to take on some of the UK’s most dangerous criminal gangs against the backdrop of the 1990s drug crisis.

The series is created by Neil Forsyth, who also did The Gold, that 2023 series about the 1983 Brink’s-Mat robbery, so he has form, and stars Steve Coogan, Tom Burke, Aml Ameen and Hayley Squires.

MAKE THAT MOVIE

HBO Max, undated

Now that comedian Aaron Chen is making his mark on the global stage, it’s important to stake our claim on him. At least in this upcoming British series, he plays an Australian, so we haven’t lost him yet.

This six-part comedy was created by and stars Sam Campbell (also an Australian!), who plays a director who try to make regular people’s ideas for movies into reality, and all against a three-day deadline. Chen is playing an intimacy coordinator

WAREHOUSE 13

7plus, May 12

Warehouse 13 is a hidden gem from about 15 years ago that used to be on Foxtel (and DVDs), and a curious cultural artefact from a time when case-of-the-week sci-fi shows could be high concept and procedural, comedic and dramatic. Eureka, a stablemate, was another.

It ran for five seasons and was co-created by Jane Espenson, an alumnus of the Buffy writing room, and she brought that sense of kooky humour to this show about a secret government program which collected and stored supernatural artefacts in these warehouses.

Two lead agents (Eddie McClintock and Joanne Kelly) were sent out into the field to collect them, which led to all sorts of fun plots along the way. Some of the objects have included Lewis Carroll’s two-way mirror, which contained an evil entity named Alice, Lizzie Borden’s compact and Pavlov’s bell.

R.J. DECKER

Disney+, May 6

Is it because Florida is so hot and sweaty that it makes everyone a little bit crazy and occasionally homicidal? It’s also fertile ground for cheeky private detective stories, something writer Carl Hiaasen knows all too well.

R.J. Decker is the latest adaptation of one of Hiaasen’s novels, and it’s centred on a former photojournalist and ex-con who starts over as a PI in South Florida, a place full of oddballs and feverish tempers.

Scott Speedman deploys his easy charm as the lead, while the rest of the cast includes Jaina Lee Ortiz, Kevin Rankin and Australian actor Adelaide Clemens.

THE REVENGE CLUB

Britbox, May 7

When you’ve experienced the ultimate betrayal from an intimate partner, who hasn’t fantasised about revenge?

With cast that includes Martin Compston, Aimee-Ffion Edwards and Amit Shah, the story kicks off in a divorce support group when its members decide to get a little of their own back, first with some silly pranks. But then things turn deadly, as they do.

MARTY, LIFE IS SHORT

Netflix, May 12

Steve Martin already got his documentary so it was only a matter of time before Martin Short did too. As he should.

Marty, Life is Short is directed by Lawrence Kasdan and looks back on a remarkable life and career, with the promise of appearances from friends and colleagues. Maybe Meryl? Maybe not. We’ll see.

The doco was filmed and produced before Short’s daughter’s death in February this year.