This week’s streaming releases are headlined by a pair of films that slipped well under the box office radar in Robbie Williams “monkey” biopic Better Man and Rami Malek-led spy thriller The Amateur, as well as Kathy Bates’ revival of old TV favourite Matlock.

SERIES

Superstar S1

18 July 2025 – Netflix

Superestar (English title “Superstar) is a new Spanish-language series created by Spanish filmmaker Nacho Vigalondo. And if you’re familiar with his feature film work, such as Timecrimes and Colossal, you know he loves to tell unorthodox stories, but Superstar may be very out there, even for him. I can’t summarize the weirdness any better than this official synopsis: “At the turn of the century, a comet crossed the Spanish sky, shattering the laws of fame and success and dissolving the line between the popular and the underground. For a few years, the front pages and prime time were taken over by celebrities from another dimension. Creatures who, until then, seemed condemned to ridicule and contempt, who caught our attention without adapting to any kind of normality. A magical story with room for esoteric conspiracies, eternal nights, quantum bricks, multicolored supervillains and an improbability made star: Tamara.”

Washington Black S1

23 July 2025 – Disney+

Based on Canadian author Esi Edugyan’s award-winning novel of the same name, Washington Black follows the 19th-century odyssey of George Washington “Wash” Black, a young man born on a Barbados sugar plantation, whose prodigious scientific mind sets him on a path of unexpected destiny. When a harrowing incident forces Wash to flee, he is thrust into a globe-spanning adventure that challenges and reshapes his understanding of family, freedom and love. In the novel, Black is an 11-year-old boy, but the show will be aging up the character with Ernest Kingsley Jr. playing the role. Its adult supporting cast is top notch though, including recent Emmy nominee Sterling K. Brown (who also produces) and favourite Lucifer star Tom Ellis.

Matlock S1

23 July 2025 – Showmax

Even if you’re an oldie like I am, the original Matlock is still a distant memory. That old show debuted all the way back in 1986 (I was a whole five years old!) and starred Andy Griffith as the titular Ben Matlock, a criminal defense attorney whose folksy ways hid a keen legal mind. It ran for a whopping nine seasons, being nominated for four Emmy’s and winning once. And now, nearly 40 years later, we have a reboot! Well, kinda. Set in a world in which the characters are actually aware of the original TV series, this time around we have a gender-swapped title character as Emmy and Oscar winner Kathy Bates stars as Madeline “Matty” Matlock, a retired 70-something lawyer who looks to rejoin the workforce at a prestigious law firm. But what the staff there don’t know… Ah, I’ll let you watch it and experience that twist for yourself.

MOVIES

The Amateur

17 July 2025 – Disney+

Not originally on the release schedule, Disney+ simply revealed yesterday that The Amateur was now available for streaming. Adapted from Robert Littell’s 1981 novel, this very solid spy thriller stars Malek as Charlie Heller, a CIA cryptographer whose wife is killed in a London terrorist attack. When his superiors refuse to take action, Charlie is forced to take matters into his own hands to see that his wife’s killers meet their justice, despite the fact that he has no field agent experience. He is forced to turn to anyone willing to help him, no matter how unscrupulous, leading to dangerous consequences. Holt McCallany, Laurence Fishburne, Rachel Brosnahan, and Jon Bernthal co-star.

Better Man

18 July 2025 – Showmax

When Better Man hit theatres at the end of last year, I learned something surprising: Apparently Americans didn’t really know who Robbie Williams was. Given that the ex-Take That frontman was all over the music charts in the 90s and 00s, this was a bit of a shocker. Maybe somebody should have told Williams and director Michael Gracey about that before they decided to make their lives even harder by doing a musical biopic about the singer, but instead of using a human actor to portray Williams, they used a CGI monkey. Despite positive critical reviews for its wildly original take on the usual biographical drama blueprint, Better Man became one of the biggest box office bombs of recent times, earning just $22.5 million globally from a budget of $110 million, without taking advertising costs into account. Ouch! That means that chances are, if you’re reading this right now, you skipped this movie at cinemas, but you can rectify that now as Better Man makes its local streaming debut on Showmax today.

Trap

24 July 2025 – Showmax

M. Night Shyamalan’s career has had more plot twists than his movies and you never seem to know if his offerings will be great or duds. Critical consensus seems to fall somewhere in the middle for his latest offering, Trap, but it sure is an intriguing premise though. None of which I will give away here as I think going into this one completely fresh will benefit it more. At least at it’s worth the price of admission just for Josh Hartnett’s committed performance, which has been universally praised. The erstwhile 2000s heartthrob has been having something of a quiet resurgence recently, with really great and varied showings in the likes of this, Oppenheimer, Fight or Flight, and The Bear.

VOD RENTALS/PURCHASES

The following movies have recently become available for digital purchase/rental:

Shadow Force

Purchase: Apple TV – R160

Rental: Apple TV – R45

Hollywood seemingly loves to churn out similar movies in batches, but when it comes to the “ex assassins/secret agents/mob hitmen are now married and living the suburban family life when their pasts come back to haunt them” schtick, this may be getting a bit much. At last count, the fifth such movie released in the last year or two, Shadow Force stars Kerry Washington and Omar Sy as Kyrah Owens and Issac Sarr, once the romantically involved co-leaders of a CIA-backed multinational special forces group called Shadow Force that had them performing tactical assassinations all over the world under the director of volatile director Jack Cinder. When Kyrah fell pregnant, the couple decided to abandon their team, go underground, and give their burgeoning family a sense of normality. But when Cinder eventually tracks them down eight years later, still upset about their “betrayal”, it forces Kyrah and Issac to defend their family once more.