Staying in for Valentines Day? Well, you’ll love your streaming options this week, even if things are surprisingly light on romance. We have the Miles Teller/Anya-Taylor Joy left action thriller The Gorge, the VOD debut of blockbuster musical Wicked, Robert De Niro-led conspiracy thriller series Zero Day, the third season returns of Reacher, The White Lotus, and Yellowjackets, and a whole lot more.
SERIES
Melo Movie S1
14 February 2025 – Netflix
Your new romantic K-drama obsession is here! Set in and around the world of movies, this new Korean series follows the journeys of love and healing of four young people. Ko Gyeom is a lifelong cinephile turned film critic who crosses paths again with Mubee, a budding director with whom he shared a complex past relationship, who is now his neighbour. Meanwhile, Hong Si-jun, an aspiring musician and Gyeom’s best friend, sees his romantic past also revisited when his screenwriter ex-girlfriend of many years past Son Ju-a, suddenly shows up in his life again, asking him to make the music for the film script she wrote about them. Can second chances at love and dreams mend the scars of the past?
Yellowjackets S3
15 February 2025 – Showmax
If I had a nickel for every time an acclaimed and popular TV series returned for its third season this week, I would have… well, only three nickels but it’s still weird that it’s happening thrice. The first of these TV series threequels is the Emmy-nominated series Yellowjackets, which continues to explore the harrowing survival story of the high school women’s soccer team that crashed in the wilderness in 1996. I am yet to start on the second season of the show, so I will defer to Noelle who got early access to the first three of ten episodes. Those three episodes unfortunately didn’t feature the two new big additions to the cast in two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby) and fan-favourite Joel McHale (Community), so we don’t know how they shake things up, but the rest of it is living up to its “dark entertainment” reputation.
The White Lotus S3
17 February 2025 – Showmax
Ever have something be incredibly popular and acclaimed and yet you just couldn’t gel with it? That’s me and The White Lotus. Series writer/director Mike White’s anthology drama has scored itself 15 Emmys across two seasons and manages to nab one big talent after another to tell its interwoven tales of broken people as they visit the various branches of the fictional titular luxury holiday resorts. But to me, despite trying for two seasons to get into it, the show just nothing but a collection of rich assholes being assholes to each other and poor hotel staff. Your mileage may vary. Hell, mine may as well seeing as the third season sees the drama now transplanted to the White Lotus hotel in Thailand, one of my favourite places in the whole world. It also doesn’t hurt that this season’s ensemble cast boast such hot talents as Carrie Coon, Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Leslie Bibb, Michelle Monaghan, Parker Posey, and more.
Win or Lose S1
19 February 2025 – Disney+
And now for something completely different! Pixar has given us some of the most beloved animated feature films of all time, and then followed that up with various spinoff TV series. When it comes to original series though, the studio has been rather lacking. But new release Win or Lose is changing that as Pixar’s first original animated series on Disney+, featuring the intertwined stories of eight different characters as they each prepare for their big championship softball game. The series reveals what it actually feels like to be in the shoes of each character—the insecure kids, their helicopter parents, even a lovesick umpire—with incredibly funny, very emotional and uniquely animated perspectives.
Zero Day S1
20 February 2025 – Netflix
If you’re looking for a break from the real-world news cycle spinning around an elderly US President, then how about a new series about… an elderly US President? Waitaminute! Zero Day sees screen legend Robert De Niro taking a starring role in a TV series for the first time in his long, illustrious career as former US President George Mullen, the head of the Zero Day Commission. In his position, Mullen is charged with finding the perpetrators of a devastating cyberattack that has caused chaos, and thousands of fatalities, across the country. His investigation is complicated though by a rampant campaign of disinformation pushed by ambitious global tech brokers and boy is this sounding familiar again! De Niro isn’t the only star here as the rest of the cast features – as the veteran himself put it – a “murderer’s row” of talent including Angela Bassett, Dan Stevens, Connie Britton, Lizzy Caplan, Matthew Modine, Joan Allen, Jesse Plemons, and Gaby Hoffmann.
Reacher S3
20 February 2025 – Prime Video
Alan Ritchson is back as Jack Reacher, and this time the man-mountain might just have met his match and then some. Based on the seventh book in Lee Child’s best-selling series, “Persuader”, season three of Reacher sees him hurtle into the dark heart of a vast criminal enterprise when trying to rescue an undercover DEA informant whose time is running out. And to be honest, most people won’t care too much about that admittedly boilerplate blurb. No, the major selling point here is undoubtedly the new cast addition of Olivier Richters, a Dutch bodybuilder and actor, who at 2.18m tall and weighing 160kg of pure muscle (that’s 7ft2 and 350lb in freedom units) even makes the normally towering Reacher look small in their numerous tussles. I can’t wait!
MOVIES
The Gorge
14 February 2025 – Apple TV+
It’s Valentines Day, so if you were to see the screencap of the trailer above with and even heard the simplified synopsis that this was a story about two people from contrasting backgrounds who meet and bond in the most unexpected way, you would probably think that The Gorge was a new romantic drama starring Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy. And while, according to early reviews, there is a surprising amount of romance going on, the fact that this film comes from horror filmmaking maestro Scott Derrickson (The Black Phone, Sinister) should clue you in that there’s a whole lot more to it than that. Teller and Taylor-Joy star as two highly trained military operatives from different countries, respectively appointed to posts in guard towers on opposite sides of a vast and highly classified gorge. Their collective job: protecting the world from mysterious evil that lurks within.
Soos Pynappel op Pizza
14 February 2025 – Showmax
For a more traditional “enemies to lovers” story, check out Soos Pynappel of Pizza. The new local rom-com stars SAFTA winner Schalk Bezuidenhout (Kanarie, Hotel) and SAFTA nominee Kate Pinchuck (Tali’s Baby Diary) as the Afrikaans-speaking Waldo and English-speaking Becca, who discover they have three things in common. They are both chefs. They are both single. And they both hate each other. But when they end up at a wacky singles retreat in the mountains, fate keeps dumping them headfirst, together, into one crazy scenario after the other, forcing them to reexamine what they think they know about love
She Came to Me
17 February 2025 – Showmax
And if you’re looking for more rom-com goodness, check out She Came to Me. Emmy Award-winner Peter Dinklage stars as a composer struggling to complete an unfinished opera after a mental breakdown. Upon the encouragement of his strait-laced psychiatrist wife (Anne Hathaway), he decides to get out in the world to get a mental reprieve. When he unexpectedly meets and then has a sexual tryst with a free-spirited tugboat captain (Marisa Tomei), it doesn’t only spark his creativity but sets up a calamitous collision course between the three parties.
Despicable Me 4
20 February 2025 – Showmax
If you’re looking for something to keep the kids (or maybe even you) busy, Showmax gets the latest entry in the fan-favourite Despicable Me animated franchise. Fittingly the fourth biggest box office hit of 2024, Despicable Me 4 sees Gru, Lucy and the girls welcome a new member to the family: Gru Jr, who is intent on tormenting his dad. The family is forced to go on the run when Gru faces a new nemesis: Maxime Le Mal and his femme fatale girlfriend, Valentina. Oscar nominee Steve Carrell and Kristen Wiig return to lead the voice cast as Gru and Lucy, with Emmy winner Will Ferrell and Emmy nominee Sofia Vergara joining as Maxime Le Mal and Valentina. Fun fact: the screenplay is co-written by Mike White, none other than the creator of the previously mentioned and very non-family-friendly The White Lotus.
VOD RENTALS/PURCHASES
The following movies have recently become available for digital purchase/rental:
Wicked
Purchase: Apple TV – R46/ Google Play Movies – R171
Rental: Apple TV – R45 / Google Play Movies – R170
I will be the first to admit that I’m really not a big musical fan, which is why Wicked wasn’t much a big deal to me at the end of last year. I am most definitely the exception though as director Jon M. Chu’s big-budget film adaptation of the long-running and award-winning Broadway stage musical didn’t only break box office records to become the highest-grossing musical movie of all time with a $726.4 million global haul, but also earned itself ten nominations at the upcoming Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Actress for Cynthia Erivo, and Best Supporting Actress for Ariana Grande. And now it’s available for VOD rental at home so you can defy gravity from the comfort of your lounge! For the uninitiated, Wicked (which is only the first installment in a two-part adaptation) is a prequel to classic tale The Wizard of Oz, telling the surprising origin stories of Elphaba (Erivo) and Glinda (Grande), long before they would eventually become known as the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good. As Noelle noted in her 7.5/10 review, Wicked ” overstays its welcome at 2 hours and 40 minutes for an unfinished story”, and doesn’t effectively marry its CGI and practical components. That said, Wicked: Part I is” but is still “a polished musical blockbuster, very well cast, plus full of enjoyable surprises, energy and emotional resonance.”