Everything new to streaming in August 2019

Hundreds of new TV shows and movies will drop on the streaming services in August. Not all of them are worth watching. These are.

New month, new streaming goodies.

We’ve picked out the highlights of what’s to come, but you’ll find the full lists below. Happy watching!

Succession S2 (Foxtel Now, August 12): Let the backstabbing, manipulations and jostling for power begin. It’s Game of Thrones but in the boardroom, and the beheadings are more metaphorical. The Roys are under threat from within and from all sides, but who will win out?

Ready to fight

Mindhunter S2 (Netflix, August 16): It’s been a long wait for fans Mindhunter, having kept vigil for two years for the gritty crime drama to return. The 1970s-set series about FBI profilers, before such a thing was a thing, is gloriously high-end, thanks in part to David Fincher’s involvement.

GLOW season S3 (Netflix, August 9): The Gorgeous Ladies Of Wrestling will pull on their spandex and tease out their hair one last time. This hugely underrated series returns for its final season — and now they’re in Vegas and with Geena Davis. Whaaaat?

Vertigo (Netflix, August 16): Often declared as the best movie in the history of cinema, Alfred Hitchcock’s classic paranoid, obsessive thriller still holds up as an absolute masterpiece. Jimmy Stewart plays a retired cop suffering from vertigo who is recruited to keep tabs on an old acquaintance’s “troubled” wife.

Frances Ha (Stan, August 29): Charming and quirky, Noah Baumbach’s black-and-white comedy about an oddball dancer stars Greta Gerwig, who also co-wrote the screenplay. Frances Ha is one of those movies you can watch over and over again, and fall in love with its leading lady each time.

Frances Ha is one of the most rewatchable comedies

The Cabin in the Woods (Netflix, August 1): Drew Goddard’s horror-comedy is an inventive and fresh as it is terrifying. Starring a pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth and Bradley Whitford, the story follows a group of uni students who find more than they were expecting during a weekend away.

The Hunting (SBS On Demand, August 1): SBS’s new local drama delves into the fallout of a teen sexting scandal that’s embroiled two schools, four teenagers and their families. It’s wonderfully written and the performances from Asher Keddie, Richard Roxburgh and Kavitha Anandasivam are excellent.

Rushmore (Foxtel Now, August 1): Wes Anderson’s fanciful second feature is every bit as delightful as it was 21 years ago. Jason Schwartzman stars as Max Fischer, an over-involved, extracurricular-obsessed 15-year-old who’s in love with his English teacher. Rushmore is also Anderson’s first movie with Bill Murray, the beginning of an enduring and treasured collaboration.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Amazon Prime, August 13): Vivid and kaleidoscopic, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a rollicking comic book adventure teeming with colour, emotion and smarts. But this isn’t Peter Parker’s story, it’s Miles Morales’.

Carnival Row (Amazon Prime, August 30): Carnival Row is Amazon’s signature release this month, a star-studded neo-noir fantasy featuring Orlando Bloom, Jared Harris and Cara Delevingne. The eight episode series follow mythical creatures fleeing devastation to the city where there are tensions between the citizens and new arrivals. Meanwhile, a string of murders remain unsolved.

Carnival Row will close out August

The Insult (Stan, August 3): This Lebanese drama is a desperate cry for empathy in a divided world and features some of the most moving performances committed to screen. When angry words are exchanged between a Lebanese Christian and a Palestinian refugee, it stirs personal and social tensions, culminating in heartbreaking revelations.

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Netflix, August 16): Moody and tense, Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of John Le Carre’s classic Cold War spy novel stars Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt and Mark Strong. Set in the 1970s, the hunt for a Soviet mole threatens to bring down the whole British intelligence establishment.

In The Loop (SBS On Demand, August 12): It’s like The Thick of It, The Movie, but it’s really the genesis for Veep. Once Armando Iannucci realised politicians and staffers were even more absurd on the other side of the Atlantic, he had no choice but to take the band over to Washington, where political ineptitude reaches new levels. So funny, you may wet yourself.

Down With Love is adorable

Down With Love (Amazon Prime, August 14): Before Peyton Reed shrunk Paul Rudd down to Ant-Man size, he put Renée Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, Sarah Paulson and David Hyde Pierce in the irrepressibly charming Down With Love, a bright pastiche of Doris Day and Rock Hudson rom-coms. The costumes are something else.

Widows (Foxtel Now, August 27): Steve McQueen is a master storyteller and Widows is his underrated action thriller that most audiences shamefully overlooked. Viola Davis leads a team of widows whose husbands died in a botched robbery. They’re here to finish the job.

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