Each week our staff of film and television experts surveys the entertainment landscape to select the ten best new/newish shows available for you to stream at home. We put a lot of thought into our selections, and our debates on what to include and what not to include can sometimes get a little heated and feelings may get hurt, but so be it, this is an important service for you, our readers. With that said, here are our selections for this week.
15. Dan Da Dan (Netflix)
The acclaimed anime Dan Da Dan is about Momo, a high school girl from a family of spirit mediums, and her classmate / occult fanatic Okarun, who begin talking after she saves him from getting bullied. However, an argument ensues between them: Momo believes in ghosts but denies aliens, and Okarun believes in aliens but denies ghosts. It’s a real Mulder and Scully dynamic, if they were both Mulder (and there was a Turbo Granny). Dan Da Dan, which is getting a weekly release, comes from animation studio Science Saru, who also made last year’s shockingly good Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.
14. Shrinking (Apple TV Plus)
Bill Lawrence might be rebooting Scrubs, and working on more Ted Lasso, and he has big plans for Bad Monkey season 2, but for now, he — and fellow creators Jason Segel and Brett Goldstein — is focused on Shrinking. The mental health comedy returns for another season with Segel as grieving therapist Jimmy and Harrison Ford as his cranky co-worker Paul. But the show’s real MVP is Jessica Williams.
13. What We Do in the Shadows (Hulu)
Let’s keep it simple: Is What We Do in the Shadows — in its final season — still the funniest show on TV? Yes.
12. Arcane (Netflix)
The animated series on Netflix from creators Christian Linke and Alex Yee is based on League of Legends, but trust me, even if you know zilch about the multiplayer online role-playing game, you can still enjoy Arcane. Season 1 premiered all the way back in 2021 (it’s somehow been an even longer wait than Stranger Things), but the strikingly stylish show is now back for its second season… which is also the final season. The voice cast includes Hailee Steinfeld and Ella Purnell, the queen of the video game show.
11. My Old Ass (Prime Video)
The Aubrey Plaza-starring My Old Ass is the kind of movie that will make you say: wow. During a mushroom trip on her 18th birthday, Ellliott (played by Maisy Stella) comes face to face with her 36-year-old self (Plaza). But when her “old ass” starts giving her advice based on 20 years of experience, Elliott begins to rethink her life during a transformative summer. It’s Gen Z’s defining coming-of-age comedy.
10. Cobra Kai (Netflix)
The final season of Cobra Kai was split into three five-episode chunks, beginning with Part I in July. Part II arrives this weekend, followed by Part III later this year. “The stakes are set at the end of the first five,” star William Zabka, who plays Johnny Lawrence, previously said about the final season. “I think if it was just a movie, it’s a great ending that would beg for a sequel, which fortunately is coming in a few months.” It’s here now.
9. Silo (Apple TV Plus)
You know who rocks? Rebecca Ferguson, that’s who. She rocks in Mission: Impossible. She rocks in Dune. And she rocks in Silo. The future-set Apple TV+ sci-fi series is about a community of people who live in an underground silo due to the toxic conditions of the outside world. Literally toxic, not “social media is bad for your mental health” toxic. Ferguson is joined by Tim Robbins, Common, Harriet Walter, and new addition Steve Zahn.
8. Emilia Pérez (Netflix)
The true star of Emilia Pérez isn’t Zoe Saldaña or Selena Gomez. It’s Karla Sofía Gascón. In Jacques Audiard’s musical crime-drama, the actress, who is trans, plays a feared cartel boss who undergoes sex reassignment surgery with the hope of beginning a new life free from the past. Emilia Pérez has been getting Oscars buzz since it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May, with special attention paid to Sofía Gascón’s performance. Could she make history?
7. Deadpool & Wolverine (Disney Plus)
Deadpool & Wolverine is the second highest-grossing movie of the year behind only Inside Out 2 with a box office gross of over $1.3 billion. Which is to say, you’ve probably already seen it. But if you want to rewatch the bus fight scene with Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine fighting a mini-army of Deadpool variants, or turn the closed captioning on to figure out what the heck Channing Tatum’s Gambit is saying, now you can.
6. Landman (Paramount Plus)
There’s a lot that could be said about Landman. That it’s the latest show from one-man empire Taylor Sheridan; that it’s based on the Boomtown podcast; that it stars Billy Bob Thornton, Ali Larter, Demi Moore, and Jon Hamm. Instead, I’ll let this scene do the talking.
5. Interior Chinatown (Hulu)
Silicon Valley’s Jimmy O. Yang stars as Willis Wu, a background character who is trapped in a police procedural called Black & White. As he goes through the motions of his on-screen job, he witnesses an unlawful act and begins to unravel a criminal web in Chinatown, along with his own family’s history. Interior Chinatown is based on Charles Yu’s novel of the same name, and also stars Ronny Chieng, Chloe Bennet, Lisa Gilroy, Archie Kao, and Diana Lin.
4. Alien: Romulus (Hulu)
There’s decades of expectations that come with playing the female lead in an Alien movie; Sigourney Weaver probably would have become a star no matter what, yet Ripley made her an icon. But Cailee Spaeney crushes it in Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus. She commands the screen when she’s shooting a big gun at a bunch of wet aliens, and her scenes with David Jonsson’s robot brother Andy are genuinely touching. Plus, she looks cool as hell.
3. The Piano Lesson (Netflix)
Malcolm Washington (Denzel’s son) makes his directorial debut with The Piano Lesson. From Netflix: “Set in 1936 Pittsburgh during the aftermath of the Great Depression, The Piano Lesson follows the lives of the Charles family in the Doaker Charles household and an heirloom, the family piano, which documents the family history through carvings made by their enslaved ancestor.” It’s the latest August Wilson play to be adapted into a movie, following 2016’s Fences and 2020’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, and stars Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, Erykah Badu, Skylar Aleece Smith, Danielle Deadwyler, and Corey Hawkins.
2. A Man On The Inside (Netflix)
SNL. The Comeback. The Office. Parks and Recreation. Brooklyn Nine-Nine. The Good Place. Rutherford Falls. What do all these shows have in common? Michael Schur. Regis Philbin’s son-in-law (it’s true) has either written for and/or created all of them. He’s one of the most important names in comedy this century, and he has a new show on Netflix. A Man on the Inside follows retired widower Charles, played by Cheers and The Good Place legend Ted Danson, who goes undercover in a retirement community to solve a mystery.
1. Blitz (Apple TV Plus)
Is Saoirse Ronan capable of giving a bad performance? (No.) The actress gives one of her best in Blitz, the new film from director Steve McQueen. The story follows a young boy, played by Elliott Heffernan, who is sent to the English countryside for his safety by his mom (Ronan) during World War II, and the journey they go on to reunite. Another Oscar nomination, her fifth, is possible.
