Max

The Last of Us season 2

TV, US, 2025 – out 14 April

The Australian streaming landscape gets a major new player with HBO’s Max, which launched here on Monday, bringing a huge and impressive back catalogue (see below). Its biggest new release for April is the second season of The Last of Us, the smash-hit adaptation of the blockbuster video game of the same name, set in a woebegone future America where a fungal outbreak has wiped out most of the population and created hordes of zombie-like monsters.

The second series adapts the second video game, continuing to follow the stoic Joel (Pedro Pascal) and teenage Ellie (Bella Ramsey), who happens to be immune to the fungal pathogen. Showrunners Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann have reportedly dialled back some of the violence in the game, which controversially forced people to play as its main antagonist, the vengeance-seeking Abby (portrayed in the series by Kaitlyn Dever).

The Rehearsal season 2

TV, US, 2025 – out 21 April

The first season of Nathan Fielder’s reality-bending series was a very strange spectacle, featuring the comedian helping people rehearse important moments in their lives by constructing elaborate simulations. Fielder took it to dark places, moving in with a stranger to play a father helping to raise their pretend child. God knows where he’ll steer season two. Its single-shot teaser trailer, which reveals five near-identical sets, reminded me of Kitty Green’s great film Casting JonBenet.

Honourable mentions: Max launches with a tonne of other marquee titles, from recent Hollywood movies to full collections of blockbuster franchises (think Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings), plus a boatload of TV shows and older films stored in its Turner Classic Movies collection – featuring works from unknown directors such as Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock.

Netflix

Havoc

Film, US/UK, 2025 – out 25 April

Tom Hardy teams up with The Raid director Gareth Evans to play a happy-go-lucky detective blithely sauntering through a criminal underworld while whistling a merry tune. Kidding, kidding: Hardy is again in no mood to smile as Walker, the aforementioned blunt instrument-wielding detective who kicks all sorts of ass as he attempts to rescue a politician’s son.

Not much is known about Havoc’s plot, but it’s clear we can expect balls-to-the-wall action and a range of hardboiled supporting characters played by the likes of Timothy Olyphant and Forest Whitaker.

Joy Ride

Film, US, 2023 – out 9 April

Adele Lim’s sassy road comedy follows a small group of Asian American friends who head to China. Lawyer Audrey (Ashley Park), the film’s protagonist, is seeking to seal a big deal with a Chinese businessman (Ronny Chieng). When he insists on learning about her birth family, the adopted Audrey lies and says they have a close relationship when in fact she’s never met them – triggering a trip to find her birth mother.

Tonally Joy Ride shares the same ballpark as Bridesmaids and The Hangover, taking an irreverent approach to a story about female friendship. Expect gross-out jokes involving vomit, cocaine binges and a massive vagina tattoo.

Black Mirror season 7

TV, UK, 2025 – out 10 April

Every new batch of Charlie Brooker’s technology-themed anthology series gets tongues wagging; it’s very much “event” television. I’ve watched the trailer for the seventh season a couple of times, and I’ll be buggered if I can tell you what it’s about. It’s clear we can expect mind-boggling concepts involving Westworldian games, doodads that alter neural structures, virtual reality-esque headsets and plenty of actors projecting “what have I done?” expressions. The new season will also include a sequel to USS Callister, one of the show’s greatest episodes.

Honourable mentions: Devil May Cry (TV, 3 April), Pulse (TV, 3 April), Speak No Evil (film, 4 April), BlackBerry (film, 4 April), Bad Influence: The Dark Side of Kidfluencing (TV, 9 April), Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning: Part One (film, 10 April), The Wild Robot (film, 18 April), Turning Point: The Vietnam War (film, 30 April).

Stan

Memoir of a Snail

Film, 2024, Australia – out 15 April

Australian stop-motion auteur Adam Elliot is one of those rare, truly distinctive artists whose work is instantly recognisable. His second feature (which was nominated for Best Animated Film at this year’s Oscars) is an exquisitely crafted and sometimes breathtakingly sad story about an orphan and social misfit, Grace (voiced by Charlotte Belsey and Sarah Snook), who’s separated from her twin brother (Mason Litsos and Kodi Smit-McPhee) and undergoes a range of hardships.

Every frame, as they say, is a painting. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to describe every frame an exquisitely mouldy-looking sculpture, dripping with quirk and pathos. Memoir of a Snail was my favourite Australian film from 2024.

Brazil

Film, 1985, US/UK – out 23 April

Terry Gilliam’s sensationally trippy sci-fi is one of the great dystopian movies, occupying a 1984-adjacent space but ramping up absurdist humour and hallucinogenic atmospheria. Poor old Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a bureaucrat trapped in a preposterous red tape-bound world, who tries to escape the mundanity of his existence by searching for a woman he sees in his dreams. A better word to describe what he experiences is “nightmare”. The production and set design are out of this world.

Honourable mentions: Pretty in Pink (film, 2 April), The Man in the Iron Mask (film, 9 April), Bad Teacher (film, 11 April), Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (film, 17 April), Scrublands season 2 (TV, 17 April), Les Norton (TV, 21 April).

SBS on Demand

Casablanca

Film, US, 1942 – out 4 April

This endlessly rewatchable and exquisitely bittersweet classic evokes a tremendous sense of place. Who doesn’t want to visit Rick’s cafe, where Sam (Dooley Wilson) bangs away on the piano (“a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh …”) and all sorts of scoundrels drink, smoke and scheme.

Gradually the enigma of Humphrey Bogart’s hard-boiled Rick Blaine is peeled back after an old flame – Ingrid Bergman’s Ilsa Lund – unexpectedly arrives and removes the ground from beneath his feet. The chemistry between the stars works perfectly and the script introduced some of the most famous lines in film history. Here’s looking at you, kid!

The Long Weekend

Film, Australia, 1978 – out 25 April

What if Mother Nature was so upset by cavalier humans that it recruited all of its creatures and elements to terrorise them? Colin Eggleston’s Ozploitation masterpiece cranks a The Birds-esque premise to 11, with animals, birds, insects etcetera targeting Marcia (Briony Behets) and Peter (John Hargreaves), who head out on a camping trip to try and save their marriage. They are, shall we say, not successful. As I wrote when I revisited The Long Weekend in 2024: “the film is like a proto-Final Destination, but far more diligently configured and with a mounting psychological intensity that eventually hits fever pitch.”

Honourable mentions: The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (film, 4 April), The Babadook (film, 1 April), A Dangerous Method (film, 4 April), Highlander (film, 4 April), Razorback (film, 4 April), The Devil’s Advocate (film, 4 April), The Handmaid’s Tale season 6 (TV, 8 April), Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence (film, 11 April), Full Metal Jacket (film, 18 April), Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song (film, 18 April), The Heartbreak Kid (film, 25 April).

ABC iView

Fresh Blood season 3

TV, Australia, 2025 – out 9 April

I love the concept of Fresh Blood – a very occasional anthology series that began in 2013 and is predicated on supporting emerging comedic talents. This month two pilot episodes premiere on iview: Urvi Went To An All Girls School (“a coming-of-age comedy about one teen girl’s survival,” according to the marketing materials) and Westerners (which “follows three young diaspora adults navigating the chaos of life in Western Sydney”).

Honourable mentions: Sherwood season 2 (TV, 11 April), Louis Theroux: America’s Medicated Kids (film, 13 April), Big Boys season 3 (TV, 18 April), Bluey’s Big Play (TV, 20 April), The Cleaner season 2 (TV, 22 April).

Amazon Prime Video

The Narrow Road to the Deep North

TV, Australia, 2025 – out 18 April

Fans of the great auteur Justin Kurzel have been spoiled of late. Two films directed by him (The Order and Ellis Park) premiered last year; now here comes a five-episode adaptation of Richard Flanagan’s Booker prize-winning novel of the same name about an Australian prisoner of war in Thailand. Separated into three timelines – before, during and after the war – the narrative follows Dorrigo Evans (Jacob Elordi), who is captured and forced by the Japanese to work on the Burma railway.

My colleague Peter Bradshaw gave the series an enthusiastic thumbs up, writing that “Kurzel handles the material with confidence and storytelling verve and gets fervent, focused performances”.

The Bondsman

Film, US, 2025 – out 3 April

The first sentence of the official synopsis for this screwy American horror series makes it pretty clear whether this show is for you: “Murdered bounty hunter Hub Halloran (Kevin Bacon) is resurrected by the Devil to trap and send back demons that have escaped from the prison of Hell.” So: this will be a complex, layered, elegantly crafted tale of love and loss, exploring the human condition. Right?!

Honourable mentions: The Silence of the Lambs (film, 1 April), Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (film, 1 April), Dead Man Walking (film, 1 April), Fargo (film, 1 April), Rain Man (film, 1 April), Hot Tub Time Machine (film, 1 April), 1984 (film, 1 April), Thelma & Louise (film, 1 April), Legally Blonde 1 and 2 (film, 4 April), White House Down (film, 7 April), Step Brothers (film, 8 April), G20 (film, 10 April), Bad Boys 2 (film, 15 April), #1 Happy Family (TV, 17 April), The Critic (film, 18 April), Étoile (TV, 24 April), Ash (film, 24 April).

Binge

Line of Duty seasons 1-6

TV, UK – out 7 April

The UK has no shortage of great cop shows, that’s for sure. But Line of Duty is one of the best: an extremely addictive confection of action and hot-blooded drama, centred around a police anti-corruption unit – the people who watch the watchers. Key players include DS Steve Arnott (Martin Compston), DC Kate Fleming (Vicky McClure) and their superintendent, Ted Hastings (Adrian Dunbar). The latter is my favourite, delivering – with an irresistible Irish accent – plenty of “Tedisms” like “now we’re suckin’ diesel!” and “Jesus Mary and Joseph and the wee donkey!”

Jesus Christ Superstar

Film, USA, 1973 – out

For me, this spectacularly incandescent and very hippy adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s rock opera peaks in its opening number: a gooseflesh-raising rendition of Heaven on Their Minds, belted out by a vein-bulging Carl Anderson as Judas Iscariot. The back half dips a little, though there are highlights here and there (who can resist Yvonne Elliman crooning “everything’s alright” and “he’s just a man”?) and the film’s funkalicious flavour keeps it weirdly energetic.

Honourable mentions: Intolerable Cruelty (film, 1 April), Paul Blart: Mall Cop (film, 1 April), The Listeners (TV, 1 April), Speak No Evil (film, 4 April), Station 19 seasons 1-7 (TV, 17 April), The Wild Robot (Film, 18 April).

Disney+

Andor season 2

TV, USA, 2025 – out 23 April

Many of us have grown increasingly disinterested in the Star Wars universe as Disney continues to milk it for all it’s worth. But Andor is on a whole other level, reminding us of the franchise’s capacity to tell engaging narratives in stylishly lived-in, far-flung universes. The narrative conveys something so often lacking in Star Wars stories: a real feeling of revolution in the air.

It’s no secret that the show’s rascally rebel protagonist, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), ultimately dies, exiting the mortal coil in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which gives the story a fatalistic tang. The show’s second season will reportedly capture the last four years in the protagonist’s life, jumping forward in time between episodes. Release-wise, the Big Mouse is taking a different approach, launching three new eps every week.

Honourable mentions: Dying for Sex (TV, 4 April), Doctor Who: Season 2 (TV, 12 April), How I Escaped My Cult (TV, 16 April), Secrets of the Penguins (TV, 21 April).

Apple TV+

Your Friends and Neighbours

TV, USA, 2025 – out 11 April

Jon Hamm looks pretty damn good in a tuxedo, as the marketing materials for his new series remind us. The show follows Ham’s protagonist Coop, a hedge fund manager who suddenly finds himself divorced and jobless, potentially on the cusp of losing his high-society existence. His plan to bounce back is to steal from his well-to-do friends and neighbours. The trailer features golf, sex, comments about the interconnected nature of life and lots of expensive, thoroughly robbable items.

Honourable mentions: Government Cheese (TV, 16 April), Carême (TV, 30 April).