The VOD debuts of Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Weapons, and Ballerina headline an absolutely jam-packed streaming release schedule which also boasts Marvel Zombies, House of Guinness, M3GAN 2.0, and more!
SERIES
Haunted Hotel S1
19 September 2025 – Netflix
From Matt Roller, one of the creative minds behind Rick and Morty and Archer, comes new adult animated comedy series Haunted Hotel. Boasting the voice talents of Eliza Coupe, Will Forte, Skyler Gisondo, Natalie Palamides, and Jimmi Simpson, the show follows a single mother of two who is struggling to make ends meet by running a hotel. One of the rather noticeable challenges is that this hotel is haunted. Luckily, her estranged brother is now one of the ghosts haunting the hotel and thinks the other ghosts have some pretty good ideas! Besides for Roller, the show is also executive produced by Chris McKenna (Spider-Man: No Way Home, Spider-Man: Far from Home), Dan Harmon (Rick and Morty, Community), and Steve Levy (Rick and Morty, Community).
Marvel Zombies S1
24 September 2025 – Disney+
Marvel’s What If…? animated series gave us some great alternate timeline stories over its three-season run, and now one fan-favourite is coming back as a full spinoff. Marvel Zombies is set in the alternate timeline introduced in the “What If… Zombies?!” episode of the first season, where a virus has turned most of the world’s population, including the Avengers, into the titular undead. This new series follows a group of survivors as they discover the key to bringing an end to the zombie plague, which leads them to risk their lives traveling across a dystopian landscape and fighting superpowered zombies to save the world. The absolutely stacked ensemble voice cast see numerous MCU actors reprising their roles, including Awkwafina (Tina), David Harbour (Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian), Simu Liu (Shang-Chi), Elizabeth Olsen (Wanda Maximoff aka Scarlet Witch), Randall Park (Agent Jimmy Woo), Florence Pugh (Yelena Balova aka Black Widow), Paul Rudd (Scott Lang aka Ant-Man), Wyatt Russell (John Walker aka U.S.Agent), Hailee Steinfeld (Kate Bishop aka Hawkeye), Tessa Thompson (Valkyrie), Dominique Thorne (Riri Williams aka Ironheart), and Iman Vellani (Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel).
Hotel Costiera S1
24 September 2025 – Prime Video
Given his charm and fan-favourite status for years on Grey’s Anatomy, it’s quite surprising that Jessie Williams hasn’t led more projects. That oversight is being fixed now with Prime Video’s new action series Hotel Costiera which sees Williams starring as Daniel De Luca, a half-Italian former U.S. marine who returns to Italy, the land of his childhood, to work as a fixer in one of the world’s most luxurious hotels. Attending to the problems of the hotel’s wealthy guests is crazy enough, but now Daniel is also on the trail of Alice, one of the owner’s daughters who disappeared a month earlier. Daniel must do everything he can to bring her home, but facing those who kidnapped the girl will be more challenging than any problem Daniel has ever faced.
Slow Horses S5
25 September 2025 – Apple TV+
Slow Horses may not have won any of its Emmy nominations earlier this week, but none of that matters because the best show on TV that far too few people are talking about is back! Like previous seasons, season five adapts one of writer Mick Herron’s novels, which in this case is London Rules. In a bit of twist, it’s annoying techie Roddy Ho at the centre of this one as potential attempts are made on his life while a series of bizarre terrorist attacks rock London. It’s up Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb and his dysfunctional team at Slough House to figure out just who wants to kill Roddy (except them, I mean) and how the terrorist attacks like to his new glamorous girlfriend.
Wayward S1
25 September 2025 – Netflix
Fact: All small towns in rural America harbour some kind of deep, disturbing secret that will destroy the lives of any newcomers that move there. At least that’s what I’ve learned from a very long line of productions such as Wayward. The new eight-episode limited series is created by and stars Canadian comedian Mae Martin and follows police officer Alex Dempsey (Martin) and his pregnant wife Laura (Gadon) after they move into their new home in the picture-perfect town of Tall Pines. Following a strange run-in with two students at the local school for “troubled teens”, Alex begins to investigate a series of unusual incidents, all seemingly leading back to Evelyn Wade (Toni Collette), the school’s mysterious leader.
House of Guinness S1
25 September 2025 – Netflix
Following the conclusion of his beloved crime epic Peaky Blinders, Oscar-nominated writer/director Steven Knight is back on the small screen with another historical crime drama. This one transplants the action from the mean streets of London to the breweries of 19th-century Dublin as it tells the epic story of one of Europe’s most famous and enduring dynasties – the Guinness Family. Following the death of Sir Benjamin Guinness, the family patriarch and the man responsible for the extraordinary success of the Guinness brewery, his four adult children – Arthur (Anthony Boyle), Edward (Louis Partridge), Anne (Emily Fairn), and Ben (Fionn O’Shea) – have to step up to run the company, dealing with the unexpected and far-reaching impact of his will.
MOVIES
Swiped
19 September 2025 – Disney+
We’ve covered Facebook with The Social Network and Blackberry with the movie of the same name, and now we have our next tech-inspired origin story with Swiped. Directed and co-written by Rachel Lee Goldenberg, it is inspired by (hence, not a 100% historically accurate adaptation) the provocative real-life story of Whitney Wolfe Herd (Lily James), a recent college grad who she broke into the male-dominated tech industry using extraordinary grit and ingenuity. After parting ways on not-so-great terms with dating app Tinder, where she was the Vice President of Marketing, she went on to launch the innovative women-focused dating app Bumble, paving the way to becoming the youngest female self-made billionaire in American history.
The Unbreakable Boy
21 September 2025 – Showmax
If you’re looking for another biographical drama but something less techy and much more inspirational, then check out The Unbreakable Boy. Based on the book The Unbreakable Boy: A Father’s Fear, a Son’s Courage, and a Story of Unconditional Love by Scott Michael LeRette and Susy Flory, this is a dramatization of the true story of LeRette’s son Austin. Despite being born with a rare brittle bone disease, while also being on the autism spectrum, Austin’s incredible spirit inspires all those around him, including his addiction-battling father Scott (Zachary Levi) and mother Teresa (Meghan Fahy).
Thelma
22 September 2025 – Showmax
The Expendables franchise has taught us that you’re never too old to be an action star, but 93-year-old Oscar nominee June Squibb is taking that to the extreme. Thelma is an action-comedy that sees Squibb playing the titular feisty grandma who unfortunately gets conned by a phone scammer. With the help of her grandson and ageing friend Ben (Richard Roundtree, in his final role before his passing), TThelma hops onto her motorized scooter and sets out on a treacherous quest across Los Angeles to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice. And while Squibb is definitely no Jason Statham, she actually did her own stunts for this movie, earning herself the Best Actress in an Action Movie award at the 2025 Critics Choice Super Awards.
RENTALS/PURCHASES
The following movies have recently become available for digital purchase/rental:
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning
Purchase: Apple TV – R170
Rental: Apple TV – R45
Speaking of old actors doing their own stunts… Tom Cruise’s superspy Ethan Hunt has finally run his last mission (maybe). Following on directly from the events in Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning sees Hunt and his team on a desperate race around the globe to prevent the Entity, a nigh-omnipotent rogue AI, and its henchmen led by the villainous Gabriel from destroying humanity. Unfortunately, for Cruise and co, this is definitely not the resounding high note he would have liked to end it on. As I explained in my 7/10 review, “While some of its impenetrable and bloated plotting, combined with disappointing villain, stop it from reaching previous franchise heights, The Final Reckoning boasts enough fun character beats and a few all-time great action spectacles to make for a thrilling if uneven series finale.”
Weapons
Purchase: Apple TV – R200
Rental: Apple TV – R170
It would appear that if you want great horror filmmaking, hire a comedian. Following in the footsteps of Jordan Peele, Zach Cregger has become the latest filmmaker to go from sitcoms and silly comedies, to freaking us the hell out. After making a hell of a genre debut with Barbarians, Cregger has now followed that up with Weapons, an absolute wild ride of a film that blends mystery, drama, comedy, and good old fashion bed-wetting terror, all led by a great duo of Julia Garner and Josh Brolin. It’s not perfect and fans looking for relentless horror or gory shocks will find it lacking a bit, but it’s still a damn good time with such a catchy pitch: At 2:17am on a random weeknight, all the children – barring one – who belong to the same elementary school class, suddenly got out of bed, went downstairs, and ran out into the night never to be seen again and nobody knows why. As Noelle remarked in her 8.5/10 review, “It may fumble its final moments, but Weapons builds on the successes of filmmaker Zach Cregger’s previous effort Barbarian, harnessing many of the same techniques to create a more sophisticated, polished and consistently engrossing horror film. Weapons proves that making a pitch-black fairy tale in a modern setting is very much possible.”
M3gan 2.0
Purchase: Apple TV – R170
Rental: Apple TV – R45
I was not as hot on 2023’s M3GAN as some, but the commercial success that the killer robot sci-fi horror attained is undeniable. But by pivoting to a more action-focused approach for this sequel, returning director Gerard Johnstone seemed to have alienated fans as it bombed at the box office with mixed reviews. Your mileage may vary though, so if you missed this one in cinemas you can now check it out at home. And if you’re wondering how M3GAN can be back when the previous film saw the increasingly homicidal AI bot destroyed, this sequel sees the underlying tech for M3GAN stolen and misused by a powerful defense contractor to create a military-grade weapon known as Amelia. This forces M3GAN’s original creator – and eventual destroyer – Gemma to realize that the only option is to fight fire with fire by resurrecting M3GAN and give her a few upgrades, making her faster, stronger, and more lethal.
Ballerina
Purchase: Apple TV – R170
Rental: Apple TV – R45
As we’ve heard, they’re currently working on a fifth John Wick film, despite the fact that John Wick 4 already gave Keanu Reeve’s unstoppable hitman a fittingly bombastic final send-off (seemingly to the grave). Personally, I would much happier if they let poor Keanu rest and instead handed over the reins of the franchise to Ana de Armas. Spinning out of and taking place during the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, Ballerina introduces de Armas as Eve Macarro, one of the other assassins working for the Ruska Roma, the clan who raised and trained John. Having been brought to the Ruska Roma as a child after her assassin father was killed while preventing a mysterious group from killing her, Eve has worked her way up the ranks, earning the title of “Kikimora“. But following a chance encounter with John Wick and a nearly botched mission during which she is attacked by members of something known as the Cult, it sets Eve on the path of uncovering the mysteries of her past and the truth behind the death of not just her father but also her mother. And kicking some serious ass along the way. Under the direction of Len Wiseman (who reportedly needed quite a bit of help from John Wick co-creator Chad Stahelski with extensive reshoots), de Armas proves once again why she’s one of Hollywood’s hottest stars, bringing all the physicality and leading role charm needed to be an action star. Ballerina only had middling success at the box office though, so maybe it can get the attention it needs now on home release.