Looking for your next binge? This month’s streaming picks span galaxies, high school hallways, and creepy online worlds.
Whether you’re after a clever Australian mystery or a fresh new medical drama, our critics have rounded up the best new releases and hidden gems to stream this month.
The F Ward
Stan
The F Ward is the latest Australian medical drama. And it’s a good one. Created by Dan Edwards and Kelsey Munro, the show is centred around the emergency department in The Pines Hospital, a fictional hospital on Sydney’s Northern Beaches that offers the last chance for failing medical interns to prove their mettle and become full-fledged doctors.
These interns come under the aegis of Gloria Wall (Anna Friel), a strong-willed but benevolent task master who demands the best from the interns as she does from herself as a surgeon (“Whatever you do this is your last chance – don’t fuck it up this time,” she tells them sternly on their first day). Alongside her is Curtis Parker (Dan Wyllie), an eccentric avuncular type who’s always willing to bend the rules if it’s the right thing to do for a patient – or to support one of the interns.
The show’s inevitably soapy quality (not necessarily bad for an episodic TV show) is offset by its genuinely wry sense of humour and a touch so light the episodes feel like they breeze by you.
There are only six 45-minute episodes in the first season, and I can imagine it would be pretty easy to watch all of them on a lazy night.
– Ari Mattes
The Killings at Parrish Station
Stan
In 1987, at a space research station in the remote Australian outback, detectives Georgia Cooke (Mia Wasikowska) and Michael Thorne (Xavier Samuel) arrive at a grisly, inexplicable crime scene where four researchers have died in unusual ways.
Almost 40 years later, a copycat killer starts recreating the massacre one death at a time, forcing the pair (now played by Heather Mitchell and Robert Taylor) to revisit the unsolved case.
Viewers are drip-fed contextual information through the incorporation of a true crime podcast covering the story in 2024 – a clever expository device that also critiques the big business of exploiting real tragedies for clicks, with the hosts thanking their #sponsor in between details about the gruesome deaths.
Deftly jumping between time periods and locations, and shot with the sophisticated eye of director Daniel Nettheim, The Killings at Parrish Station carves its own niche in Australia’s catalogue of homegrown murder mysteries. Some viewers will be surprised by where the story ends up – and might even outright dislike it – with creator Ben Jenkins unafraid to take risks and play with genre.
Audiences tend to have very specific expectations with something as formulaic as a crime drama. But for those willing to lean into some unusual twists, this show is worth a watch.
– Dante DeBono
Elle
Prime Video
In an antidote to cynicism and neutral palettes, Elle adds a prequel to the much-loved Legally Blonde franchise, exploring titular character Elle Woods’ high school life before Harvard law.
When her plastic surgeon father botches a nose job, Elle (Lexi Minetree) and family move from Bel Air to Seattle. Elle’s signature pink Y2K fashion stands in stark contrast to her new school’s grey flannel, emphasising the humorous juxtaposition that drives this “fish out of water” teen comedy.
At one point, Elle modifies the grunge uniform towards her style by incorporating a Nirvana shirt. But the plan backfires; “people are saying you wearing that shirt was the second worst thing to ever happen to Nirvana”, mean girl Kimberley quips.
From the 1990s soundtrack, to Easter eggs referencing teen classics, to ‘zines and carphones, Elle embraces nostalgia and romanticises the era of pre-smartphone adolescence.
Directed by Laura Kittrell and deftly steered by Reese Witherspoon, the original Elle Woods and executive producer of the prequel, the series honours filmic themes of girlie feminism, valuing individuality and rejecting appearance-based judgement. Meanwhile, the new characters extend Gen Z values, further shaping Elle’s commitment to inclusion and social justice.
Elle is bright, nostalgic viewing that will appeal to teens and fans of teen films. A second season is scheduled for 2027.
– Jennifer Stokes
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021)
SBS on Demand
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021), the first narrative feature from American producer-turned-filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun, is an experimental meditation on adolescent loneliness and gender/identity dysphoria in the age of the chronically online.
The film centres on teenager Casey (Anna Cobb). Casey repeats the mantra “I want to go to the World’s Fair” three times, while smearing a blood-pricked finger across her computer screen and watching a hypnotic video, and becomes immersed in a viral online horror game called “The World’s Fair”.
While documenting the ambiguous effects of the “game” – almost paranormal in nature – Casey connects with a mysterious online figure named JLB (Michael J Rogers) who insists she is in danger. Concealing his identity, JLB’s avatar references an early-2010s creepypasta image of a dark, shadow-faced figure.
As JLB is revealed to be a middle-aged man, the film lends further ambiguity into the character’s intentions, and whether the interactions are of a paternal or predatory nature. Schoenbrun approaches this uncertainty with both complexity and sympathy, capturing the ambivalence of online relationships.
Largely inspired by Schoenbrun’s own childhood experiences on creepypasta forums, We’re All Going to the World’s Fair masterfully explores the internet as a liminal void – an uncanny threshold wherein the barriers between reality and performance, intimacy and alienation, break down.
– Oscar Bloomfield
Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story
HBO Max
Antipodean audiences may not know much about Robin Byrd – a cable-TV producer who broadcasted her saucy after-hours show to a localised audience of New Yorkers every week from the 1970s to the 1990s.
In Bang My Box, ably directed by Jyllian Gunther and Stephanie Schwam, we learn about Byrd, her program and more.
Robin Byrd is the perfect interlocutor for a film that probes the theme of freedom. She’s an open book in the broadest sense: a porn star with a tough childhood and heart of gold turned sex-positive presenter, chat-line entrepreneur, and safe-sex activist during the AIDS crisis.
This feature documentary follows a narrative spine of Byrd, now turning 70, trying to find a home for her archive of The Robin Byrd Show master tapes, which are gathering dust in her apartment. All the while, she is caring for her husband, Shelly, who suffers from the gradual decline of dementia. Their scenes together provide a touching counterpoint to the clothing-optional retro footage.
Interviewees such as comedian Sandra Bernhardt contribute to the film, though the documentary shrewdly limits their presence to voice-only appearances. After all, this is Robin’s story and she clearly relishes being the star of the show.
Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story is a delight; a well-paced, joyful and irreverent romp through human sexuality, pop culture, ageing, and identity politics.
– Phoebe Hart
Project Hail Mary
Prime Video
As an astrophysicist, I can be a tough critic of science fiction films. But Project Hail Mary brought tears of joy to my eyes. It’s an epic adventure film jam-packed with beautiful visuals and plenty of science.
The story revolves around Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling), who wakes from a coma on a spaceship far away from Earth. As his memories slowly return, the truth becomes clear. The Sun is dying due to an alien organism that has spread to our part of the Milky Way – and he must save us.
Some scientists, believe it’s possible an organism could spread from one solar system to another. While we have no evidence for this now, we know material from solar systems can be transported great distances.
The film also draws on special relativity to explain how Grace can reach the star system Tau Ceti, which sits 11.9 light years away from Earth. Basically, the closer to the speed of light something travels, the slower it experiences time. Grace has only been in a coma for four years due to the effects of time dilation.
He also meets another being, Rocky, on his mission. If we break down life, we find one thing: nucleotides. These organic compounds are the foundation of our DNA – and we’ve identified them in space, including from asteroid and meteorite samples.
– Sara Webb
Saccharine
Stan, from August 13
The Australian supernatural body-horror film Saccharine is truly horror for the Ozempic era – a time when emaciation is praised, inclusive messages about body positivity have been silenced, and weight loss is framed as virtuous, no matter the physical or psychological cost.
Hana (Midori Francis) is a Japanese-Australian medical student who struggles with poor body image and a compulsive eating disorder. She feels trapped between the pressures of study, the expectations of her overbearing mother, social media “wellness” challenges, the body-positive attitudes of her friends, and her attraction to her hot and skinny new gym instructor Alanya (Madeleine Madden).
An old school friend introduces Hana to a new weight loss craze – an expensive supplement nicknamed “grey”, made from cremated human remains. Hana steals and incinerates parts of a cadaver she is dissecting in anatomy class.
After starting the pills, Hana finds herself haunted by the cadaver’s ghost (Anna Adams) – quite the unwanted side effect. Hana shrinks rapidly, but remains ravenously hungry. The more she eats, the more weight she loses, and the bigger and more aggressive ghostly Bertha gets.
Writer-director Natalie Erika James excels at probing complex female relationships and unstable mental states.
Francis gives an engaging and vulnerable performance, exploring Hana’s struggles with care. It is a very physical role, and hard to watch as Hana gets thinner, backsliding into her disordered eating again and again, finding equal parts pleasure and terror in her compulsions.
Saccharine is sometimes sensual, sometimes revolting, and sometimes both at the same time.
– Erin Harrington
