What’s New On Netflix?
New Netflix titles are always cause for celebration. On the streaming giant’s roster for August? The hotly anticipated return of a highly divisive American in Paris, a Halle Berry and Mark Wahlberg-led spy thriller, and a mythical, pitch black comedy starring Jeff Goldblum as Zeus.
Here are just some of the most exciting new releases on Netflix.
Netflix1/39Love Is Blind: UK (7 August)
Everything I know about Love is Blind – the American dating show in which singles get to know each other by chatting in pods without ever having met face to face (and very quickly and earnestly profess their love and get engaged) – tells me that Brits would be allergic to the format, but apparently not so. Hosted by Matt and Emma Willis, in place of Nick and Vanessa Lachey, and with cheeky chappie funeral directors from Bolton and make-up artists from Southampton in place of the usual corporate types, this spin-off will see these lovestruck contestants fall for each other, enjoy their honeymoon period on a sunny getaway, and then face reality before walking down the aisle. Bring on the inevitable love triangles, tears and explosive revelations.
Stephanie Branchu/Netflix © 20242/39Emily in Paris: Season 4 (15 August)
Further developments in the long-running love pentagon between Lily Collins’s Emily, Lucas Bravo’s Gabriel, Lucien Laviscount’s Alfie, Camille Razat’s Camille and Melia Kreiling’s Sofia; a glamorous Roman holiday that brings yet more romantic prospects; Rupert Everett in the part of a high-profile interior designer and friend of Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu’s ice-cold Sylvie; and Ashley Park’s effervescent Mindy finally heading to Eurovision – the upcoming fourth instalment of Darren Star’s madcap rom-com has everything you could possibly wish for in a sugary sweet, air-light, mid-summer binge. Once you’ve devoured the first five episodes, look out for the second half of the season on 12 September.
Laura Radford/Netflix3/39The Union (16 August)
A New Jersey steelworker (a scruffy Mark Wahlberg) runs into his long-lost high school sweetheart (a quippy Halle Berry) after 25 years at a bar at the start of Julian Farino’s zippy crowdpleaser. She whisks him off on a romantic evening – but then, as things get steamy, shoots an injection into his neck, stuffs him into a body bag and takes him to London to meet her new boss (JK Simmons). She is, in fact, a member of a top secret government agency, and her former boyfriend is her latest recruit, brought on board to assist her on a dangerous European mission involving car chases, shoot-outs and eye-popping stunts. Strap in for a breathless ride.
Justin Downing/Netflix4/39Kaos (29 August)
A supremely surreal modern reimagining of Greek mythology from The End of the Fucking World’s Charlie Covell, this hair-raising epic casts Jeff Goldblum as Zeus, the ruthless king of the gods, who delights in tormenting mere mortals with a whole host of natural disasters. But then, as a human uprising looms, he vows to destroy them altogether. Add Ozark’s Janet McTeer as his cunning wife Hera; Industry’s Nabhaan Rizwan as his rebellious son Dionysus; the Harry Potter franchise’s David Thewlis as his brother Hades; Debi Mazar as Medusa; and Game of Thrones’s Stephen Dillane as Prometheus, and you have a series quite unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.
Aaron Ricketts/ Netflix © 20245/39The Deliverance (30 August)
A Lee Daniels-directed supernatural chiller featuring The United States vs Billie Holiday’s Andra Day, Stranger Things’s Caleb McLaughlin, King Richard’s Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and Demi Singleton, Oscar winner Mo’Nique and eight-time Oscar nominee Glenn Close? Say no more. In this disturbing horror, a struggling single mother already battling her own personal demons moves into a new home where mysterious forces threaten to tear her family apart. As the tension ratchets up to unbelievable heights, it’s a fight to the death.
Below, see more of Netflix’s recent releases.
Courtesy of Netflix6/39Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lhakpa Sherpa (31 July)
Lhakpa Sherpa, the first Nepali woman to climb Everest and live to tell the tale, is the subject of double Oscar nominee Lucy Walker’s latest documentary. It opens in 2022, when the titular legend is, staggeringly, living in a tiny apartment in Connecticut, working gruelling hours at a grocery store to support her two daughters, not having summited a mountain in years. It’s then that the clock winds back to her childhood: as the daughter of yak farmers in rural Nepal, she grew up illiterate, but somehow achieved her dream of summiting the highest mountain in the world. She eventually married Romanian-American mountaineer Gheorghe Dijmărescu and immigrated to the US, but her life fell apart when their relationship turned violent. Still, her resilience and passion for mountaineering knew no bounds – she continued climbing, and now holds the record for most Everest summits by a woman, having reached the peak a whopping 10 times.
Giulia Parmigiani/Netflix © 20247/39The Decameron (25 July)
As plague rages across 14th-century Florence, an eccentric set of nobles and their servants retreat to the country and party until dawn in Kathleen Jordan’s loose adaptation of Giovanni Boccaccio’s delightful short story collection of the same name. Girls’s Zosia Mamet and Sex Education’s Tanya Reynolds are joined in this madcap, wine-soaked sex romp by the likes of Jessica Plummer, Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Karan Gill, Leila Farzad, Tony Hale, Amar Chadha-Patel, Lou Gala and Douggie McMeekin. As time goes on, social barriers disintegrate, sickness takes hold and all hell breaks loose.
Courtesy of Sundance Institute8/39Skywalkers: A Love Story (19 July)
You’re sure to recognise the jaw-dropping photos of Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus that have long made the rounds on social media – staggering shots of the Russian daredevils, who’ve made a career out of (often illegally) scaling some of the world’s tallest structures, perched on the edge of skyscrapers, hanging off bridges and standing on tiptoes on cranes. Jeff Zimbalist and Maria Bukhonina’s hair-raising documentary tracks the couple as they gear up for their biggest challenge yet: breaking into and climbing Malaysia’s Merdeka 118 super-skyscraper, currently the second tallest building in the world. Prepare for relationship conflict, run-ins with the law and vertigo-inducing views.
