If you like your entertainment star-studded, this week’s streaming releases are for you. On the movie front we get the Spike Lee/Denzel Washington collab Highest 2 Lowest, and a stack of awards winners in The Brutalist, Conclave, and September 5, while on the series side, we have the Mark Ruffalo-led Task, the return of Only Murders in the Building, and more!

SERIES

Task S1

8 September 2025 – Showmax

Mark Ruffalo’s name will undoubtedly be the big drawcard for new crime drama series Task, but for it’s actually who’s behind the camera that has me excited. The stacked show – the cast of which includes Tom Pelphrey, Emilia Jones, and South African-born Thuso Mbedu – was created by Brad Ingelsby, the same creator of the four-time Emmy winner Mare of Easttown and the screenwriter for acclaimed movies Echo Valley and The Way Back. So, yeah, sign me right up. Task will see play a Philadelphia-based FBI agent who is put in charge of a task force to end a string of violent robberies undertaken by an unassuming family man (Pelphrey).

Only Murders in the Building S5

9 September 2025 – Disney+

The boys – and girl – are back! Everybody’s favourite amateur sleuths/podcast artists return for another season of murder mystery hijinx, picking up right where the previous season left off after Charles (Steve Martin), Oliver (Martin Shorts), and Mabel (Selena Gomez) discovered the murdered body of their building’s beloved doorman, Lester, dead in the Arconia’s fountain. There’s just one problem: Police say it wasn’t a murder but accidental. Ah, what do those cops know?! As is usually the case for this show, season 5 will see the already stacked regular cast joined by a bunch of new Hollywood talent in the form of Keegan-Michael Key, Christoph Waltz, Renée Zellweger, Logan Lerman, Jermaine Fowler, Beanie Feldstein, Dianne Wiest, and Bobby Cannavale.

The Girlfriend S1

10 September 2025 – Prime Video

Based on Michelle Frances’ novel of the same name, The Girlfriend is a new six-episode psychological thriller series both starring and directed by Robin Wright. The veteran actress stars as Laura, a woman who seemingly has it all: a glittering career, and a loving family, including her personal pride and joy, her son Danny (Laurie Davidson). However, when Danny brings home his new girlfriend Cherry (Olivia Cooke), whom he has fallen passionately unlike any other partner before, it changes everything. When things get off on the wrong foot between them, it immediately raises Laura’s suspicions that Cherry is hiding something. But is this just a case of an overbearing, paranoid mother, or is there something more malicious going on?

Landman S1

10 September 2025 – Showmax

If you’re a fan of Taylor Sheridan’s whole empire of TV series (Yellowstone and its prequels 1883 and 1923), then you may want to check out Landman. The new original show stars Billy Bob Thornton and is set in the unforgiving oilfields of West Texas, where “roughnecks and wildcat billionaires are fueling a boom so big it’s reshaping our climate, our economy, and our geopolitics.” Inspired by the podcast Boomtown, Landman sees Thornton as Tommy Norris, an abrasive petroleum landman (basically somebody who performs various services in acquring and maintaining land for oil and gas exploration companies), who has to deal with the repercussions of a fatal accident at one of the oil fields. As is usually his M.O., Sheridan has assembled quite the cast for this one, with Thornton being joined by Ali Larter, Jon Hamm, Demi Moore, Colm Feore, Michael Pena, and more.

MOVIES

Ice Road: Vengeance

4 September 2025 – Prime Video

When I first saw the trailer for Ice Road: Vengeance earlier in the year, I joked about how clunky the title was, as if it was trying to launch some kind of new franchise. Well, the joke was on me because it already was a franchise! Ice Road: Vengeance is actually the sequel to 2021’s The Ice Road, which is a movie I had no idea even existed before then. Clearly, enough other people did though. In fact, much to my surprise, it was the most streamed film on Prime Video when it hit the platform in June 2021. I have a feeling though that a little pandemic happening outside may have contributed to a bunch of people at home hitting play on that one. Either way, here we are four years later, with star Liam Neeson returning as big rig ice road driver Mike McCann. Picking up a few years after the events of the first film, it follows Mike as he travels to Nepal to scatter his late brother’s ashes on Mt. Everest. While on a packed tour bus traversing the deadly 12,000 ft. terrain of the infamous Road to the Sky, McCann and his mountain guide encounter a group of mercenaries and must fight to save themselves, the busload of innocent travelers, and the local villagers’ homeland. As one normally does on a cross-country bus tour.

The Brutalist

5 September 2025 – Showmax

Going into the awards season at the start of this year, The Brutalist was easily the front runner. And it did not disappoint, nabbing three Oscars (Best Actor for Adrien Brody, Best Cinematography, and Best Original Score) from ten nominations, as well as winning Best Motion Picture – Drama at the Golden Globes. Buoyed by its critical acclaim, it was also a commercial success, having earned $50 million worldwide of a $9.6 million budget. While very profitable, those aren’t big numbers though. And I think one of the major contributing factors as to why more people didn’t see it in cinemas was its runtime. At 3.5 hrs long, The Brutalist is a bladder buster… which is why it’s a good thing that the movie will now be added on Showmax so that you can pause for an intermission! For the uninitiated, filmmaker Brady Corbet’s epic drama is set in 1947 and follows László Toth (Brody), a Hungarian Jewish architect trained in his craft at the acclaimed German Bauhaus. After surviving the Holocaust, László emigrates to the United States to start a new life with the promise of the American Dream. But this ambition proves to be just that, a dream, as László’s skills and reputation back home fail to translate to success in this new land, leading to more personal hardship, until he gets commissioned to work on a grand project.

Highest 2 Lowest

5 September 2025 – Apple TV+

Spike Lee and Denzel Washington have been making movies together ever since the filmmaker and actor teamed up for 1990’s Mo’ Better Blues. It was their 1992 collaboration on Malcolm X that really cemented this as one of Hollywood’s best partnerships. And now, over 30 years later, the duo are back with their fifth “Spike Lee joint” in Highest 2 Lowest. A semi-remake of the great filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime thriller High and Low, now reimagined for the mean streets of modern-day New York City, Highest 2 Lowest follows Washington as David King, a music mogul considered to have the “best ears in the business”. When King becomes the target of a ransom plot, he finds himself caught in a life-or-death moral dilemna.

Conclave

8 September 2025 – Showmax

Thanks to release schedules sometimes lagging behind locally, I only saw my two best movies of 2024 this year (more on that second film shortly). But damn, Conclave blew me away when I watched it and I could fully understand all the hype it had earned (eight Oscar nominations, winning Best Adapted Screenplay). Directed by Edward Berger (All Quiet on the Western Front) and adapted from the novel of the same name by Robert Harris, Conclave is actually a rather simple story. The Pope has passed away, and Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), dean of the College of Cardinals, is tasked with arranging and running the conclave to elect the new head of the Catholic Church. As cardinals from around the world gather to engage in the secretive voting process behind locked doors, four cardinals with very different personal politics emerge as frontrunners. But when rumours of conspiracy emerge, Lawrence finds himself at the centre of a web of intrigue. AND IT IS RIVETING! Despite being nothing more than a series of scenes of men sitting around in rooms talking, Berger’s direction (including incredible cinematography and production design), the editing, and the performances from the likes of Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati, and Isabelle Rossellini, among others, means that you are on the egde of your seat throughout.

September 5

11 September 2025 – Showmax

And speaking of being on the edge of your seat… September 5 (yes, that’s the title, and no, I don’t know why Showmax is only releasing it on 11 September!) was that other Best of 2024 movie I mentioned earlier. An absolutely nerve-jangling nailbiter from start to finish, this based-on-a-true-story thriller tells of the shocking events that occurred during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, when a terrorist group invaded the facilities and took a group of Israeli athletes hostage. The movie is not told from their perspective though, but rather an American sports broadcasting team who just happened to find themselves in the right place at the right time (or actually, wrong place and wrong time) to offer live coverage of the entire unfolding terrorist drama, something which had never been done before in global television history. But how far are you willing to go to cover a story, when the story could result in the deaths of innocents for all the world to see? September 5 is every bit as thrilling as it introspective. Don’t miss it.

RENTALS/PURCHASES

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

I Know What You Did Last Summer

Purchase: Apple TV – R160

Rental: Apple TV – R130

I Know What You Did Last Summer was one of the big franchises in the late 90s/early 2000s heyday of Hollywood slashers, so it felt appropriate that we got a revival in the same year as peer Final Destination made a big splashy return. But while Final Destination: Bloodlines was hogging headlines and breaking box office records, there was almost no real promo hype build-up for the new I Know What You Did Last Summer. It kind of just released out of nowhere, and while profitable at the box office, it was barely a blip on the social zeitgeist radar. All of which is to say that chances are, if you’re reading this, you didn’t see it in cinema. Well, now you can fix that at home as the film hits VOD rental/purchase. Essentially a rebooquel, the new movie introduces a brand-new young cast (with appearances by OGs Freddie Prinze Jr. and Jennifer Love Hewitt) but basically follows the plot of the original: When five friends inadvertently cause a deadly car accident, they cover up their involvement and make a pact to keep it a secret rather than face the consequences. A year later, their past comes back to haunt them and they’re forced to confront a horrifying truth: someone knows what they did last summer… and is hell-bent on revenge.