What’s New On Netflix?
New Netflix titles are always cause for celebration. On the streaming giant’s roster for April? Everything from a ravishing retelling of The Talented Mr Ripley to a pacy thriller about Prince Andrew’s Newsnight interview.
Here are just some of the most exciting new releases on Netflix.
Courtesy of Netflix1/38Ripley (4 April)
Icy, impossibly tense and filmed in luminous black and white, Steven Zaillian’s eight-part adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr Ripley is a world away from Anthony Minghella’s sun-drenched 1999 film version starring Matt Damon, Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow – and, startlingly, it works. With Andrew Scott as the titular grifter, Johnny Flynn as his wealthy new friend and Dakota Fanning as the latter’s suspicious girlfriend, it’s a gripping thriller that takes you from the sleepy Amalfi Coast town of Atrani to Naples, San Remo, Rome, Palermo and Venice, as the net slowly begins to close in on our nefarious anti hero and he goes to increasingly elaborate lengths to cover his tracks.
PETER MOUNTAIN/NETFLIX2/38Scoop (5 April)
Helmed by The Crown’s Philip Martin and penned by Peter Moffat, this splashy newsroom drama tells the story of how Prince Andrew’s disastrous 2019 interview with BBC’s Newsnight was actually secured, thanks to a team of formidable women: booker extraordinaire Sam McAlister (an icy blonde Billie Piper), the show’s masterful lead presenter Emily Maitlis (Gillian Anderson), and its steely editor Esme Wren (Romola Garai). They face off against Keeley Hawes’s Amanda Thirsk, the Duke of York’s private secretary whom they have to convince to agree to the sit-down, as well as the embattled royal himself, played by a eerie, prosthetics-laden Rufus Sewell. After tense negotiations and endless preparation, the cameras finally roll – and sparks fly.
Netflix3/38Baby Reindeer (11 April)
This tragicomedy – written by and starring Richard Gadd, who has adapted his own award-winning one-man play into a seven-part series – tells an unsettling true story: that of a struggling comedian and his complicated relationship with a woman (Jessica Gunning) who begins stalking him relentlessly. Suddenly on the receiving end of hundreds of hours of voice messages and over 40,000 emails, he’s deeply fearful – and forced to face some long-buried trauma.
Netflix4/38Our Living World (17 April)
An ambitious new four-part series which transports you from overpopulated cities to lush forests, arid deserts, the deepest oceans and beyond – demonstrating the unexpected ways in which our vast ecosystem is connected – this jaw-dropping nature documentary features some truly stunning photography as well as poetic narration courtesy of Cate Blanchett. If this doesn’t make you consider our impact on the planet in a whole new light, nothing will.
Below, see more of Netflix’s recent releases.
Alfredo Falvo Photographer5/38The Beautiful Game (29 March)
Bill Nighy and Micheal Ward lead Thea Sharrock’s spirited true-life tale, which tracks the resilient football players who make up England’s homeless football team, and the flinty coach who takes them to Rome for the Homeless World Cup, a seismic global tournament comprised of unhoused athletes from almost 70 different countries. Can they win? And even if they do, what will the future hold for them? Prepare to be moved, even by the smaller supporting turns, many of which are from performers who were previously real HWC participants themselves.
Glen Wilson/Netflix6/38Shirley (22 March)
Presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm, previously embodied by Uzo Aduba in the 2020 ensemble drama Mrs America, finally takes centre stage in John Ridley’s rousing biopic, which follows the trailblazing politician – the first Black woman to be elected to the US congress – as she embarks on her groundbreaking 1972 campaign. As played by Oscar winner Regina King, sporting the firebrand’s signature bob and a wardrobe of riotously printed skirt suits, she’s a force to be reckoned with, aided by a supporting cast which includes Lance Reddick, Lucas Hedges, André Holland and Terrence Howard.
ED MILLER/NETFLIX7/383 Body Problem (21 March)
Game of Thrones’s David Benioff and DB Weiss have joined forces with Alexander Woo to create this epic, eight-part mind-bender, an ambitious adaptation of Liu Cixin’s lauded novel of the same name. We begin in 1960s China, when a young woman makes a decision that reverberates across space and time, and has an indelible impact on the present day. When the laws of nature inexplicably unravel, a group of pioneering scientists are forced to team up to save humanity from the greatest threat it has faced to date. Look out for Doctor Strange’s Benedict Wong, Babylon’s Jovan Adepo, and I Care A Lot’s Eiza González among the show’s vast, international cast, as well as a few familiar faces from Westeros, including John Bradley, Liam Cunningham and Jonathan Pryce.
Netflix8/38Irish Wish (15 March)
Lindsay Lohan continues her Netflix rom-com era with this frothy romp from Falling for Christmas’s Janeen Damian – the Hallmark-tastic story of Maddie, a shy book editor who is hopelessly in love with the man she’s been ghostwriting for. When he then becomes engaged to her best friend, Maddie puts her feelings aside and agrees to be a bridesmaid at their wedding in Ireland. But then, days before the wedding, she makes a spontaneous wish for true love and wakes up to find that she is now the bride-to-be. Is he the man she’s really meant to be with, though, or is it someone else entirely? Joining our heroine on this madcap journey of self discovery is You’s Ed Speleers, Jane Seymour, Elizabeth Tan, Alexander Vlahos, and Lohan’s younger brother, Dakota.
