What to watch on streaming: today's picks from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and more

Conceived during the making of Ti West's excellent slasher film X (2022) and shot right after that wrapped, this prequel details the backstory of X's pensioner antagonist Pearl (Mia Goth). Set in 1918, we meet Pearl as a lonely young woman who dreams of becoming a dancer, and falls under the spell of a charming cinema projectionist (David Corenswet).

West creates a technicolor psychodrama steeped in classical Hollywood lore that casts new light on the original film.

Matt Glasby

Courtney Eaton (Yellowjackets) and Thomas Mann impress in an otherwise rote issues-drama. Riley (Eaton) struggles with body image and an eating disorder, and finds her journey both helped and hindered when she meets Mann's amiable Ethan.

The script is a touch thudding and contrived, but the stars' natural chemistry papers over the cracks.

Calum Baker

Ralph Fiennes leads a fine cast in this sophisticated thriller, which has 12 Bafta nominations including best film and actor. After the Pope dies, Cardinal Lawrence (Fiennes) has to oversee the secretive selection of a new leader. What follows is a surprisingly exciting, twisty drama, as four papal candidates emerge, including ideological opposites Stanley Tucci and John Lithgow.

Director Edward Berger pays due respect to Catholicism, while asking deep questions of the institution.

James Mottram

This breathless twist on Cinderella from writer/ director Sean Baker has seven Bafta nominations, including best film and actress. Ani (Mikey Madison) is a fiery New York sex worker who is introduced to rich client Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn).

The two elope to Las Vegas, but Ivan's parents quickly dispatch the lad's hapless minders to have the marriage annulled. Baker's electric script shifts effortlessly between tense drama and screwball comedy, while Madison is magnetic at the centre of it all, anchoring a complex character study.

Max Copeman

A high-concept drama, but one that is still hanging together as it returns for a long-awaited second series. Adam Scott is Mark, an employee of a mysterious company that puts its staff through a procedure, the result of which is that in the office they remember nothing about their lives outside, and vice versa. But now that divide has fractured, Mark and his colleagues are closer to sniffing out a grand conspiracy.

Smart writing and Ben Stiller’s angular, innovative direction keeps you forever on your toes.

Jack Seale

The world of factual television was dealt a hammer blow when social media influencer Molly-Mae Hague and boxer Tommy Fury announced their split last August — it had been hoped the couple would make a behind-the-scenes documentary about their life together.

Fear not, however, because Molly-Mae has gone solo with this revelatory series, in which she speaks about the break-up, adapts to motherhood and launches a new clothing brand.

Jack Seale

In her first film since 2014, a Cameron Diaz plays Emily, a former CIA spy who, along with husband Matt (Jamie Foxx), has been keeping a low profile after their covers were blown 15 years prior. Since then, they've taken on a job that's equally unforgiving: raising children.

Co-written and directed by Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses), this mostly family-friendly action-comedy is at its best when exploring domestic conflict. Emily is under-appreciated by her teen daughter Alice (McKenna Roberts) and yearns to reconnect with her former ass-kicking identity. Their relationship forms the core of a film that tries to balance heart with blood-pumping stunts.

Sean McGeady

The fourth film in the buddy cop franchise sees Miami detectives Martin Lawrence and Will Smith trying to clear the name of their late captain, only to find themselves on the run from the law.

The cliché-ridden screenplay lacks any surprises but the movie delivers generously when it comes to the slick comic interplay between the two leads and superbly choreographed fast-cut action sequences.

Terry Staunton

Eve Myles and Katherine Kelly lead an excellent new crime series. First we meet DCI Jeanette Kilburn (Myles, above, with Dougray Scott as her colleague, DI Lou Stanley), a likeable and down-to-earth Bristol detective who finds her common-sense professionalism isn’t enough to solve a disturbing new case — enter psychologist Sophie Craven (Kelly), who might be able to unlock the darker elements.

The real star, however, is writer Milly Thomas, who elevates the whole piece by ensuring each scene is its own tough, neat mini-drama.

Jack Seale

As conventional as it gets, this biopic of one-legged college wrestling champion Anthony Robles inspires despite a predictable trajectory. Jharrel Jerome stars as the Arizona teen, determined to prove himself but facing troubles at home from his abusive stepfather (Bobby Cannvale).

The cast, including Jennifer Lopez as Anthony’s struggling mother, does well with a screenplay that often resorts to caricature. But Jerome brings conviction to his role and director William Goldenberg slots the pieces into place with assurance.

David Parkinson

The Netflix fact-based drama Monsters: the Lyle and Erik Menendez Story has reignited interest in a case that was a huge global news story in the mid-1990s. As young adults, the two brothers gunned down their parents in the family home in California; this series from 2017 offers an opportunity for one of them, Erik, to give his version of events.

Other interviewees reflect on the trial and its wider cultural impact.

Jack Seale

The island of Harris is a spectacular location for a flashback-heavy detective drama, with dialogue in a mixture of Gaelic and English. When murder strikes the rich family who dominate Harris life, former islander PC Kat Crichton (Sorcha Groundsell) is sent there as a family liaison officer. She hasn’t told her bosses that she has a connection to the victim — this knowledge becomes powerful when the tragedy disturbs a tangle of dark secrets.

Plot-wise it’s by the numbers but it’s well performed and atmospheric.

Jack Seale

Colm Meaney stars here as undertaker Ciaran, tasked by his ailing dad with reconciling the Irish and American sides of the family. Ciaran contacts and befriends his New York cousin Barry (Paul Reiser), who gets a royal welcome in rural Ireland, but the situation descends back to squabbling.

This tourist-board tale painted in broad strokes is perfectly likeable, with a wry humour.

Sean McGeady

Writer Bruno Heller (Rome, The Mentalist) is behind this eccentric Batman prequel — first shown on Starzplay way back
in 2019 — in which future butler Alfred (Jack Bannon) is a former soldier trying to make his way in an alternate-reality 1950s London. Immediately he’s enmeshed in a war between sinister fascist goons and the CIA and a casting process that’s determined to include as many familiar British faces in amusingly unexpected roles as possible.

It’s hammy and objectively not very good, but it’s not dull.

Jack Seale

Set in the walled city of Kowloon, this 1980s-set thriller from Hong Kong bustles with bruising fights and offbeat touches. Lok (Raymond Lam) is on the run from the Triads and finds refuge in this high-rise slum run by a crime lord (Louis Koo). And when a gang war erupts, veteran stars Koo and Sammo Hung give as good as they get in the bonkers, bone-crunching mayhem.

But it’s Philip Ng who makes the biggest mark, as a cackling villain with supernatural abilities.

Jame Healy

Having starred in one of the great basketball films, 1992’s White Men Can’t Jump, Woody Harrelson returns to the sport in this charming comedy drama. He plays Marcus, a basketball coach whose drink-driving charge results in a court order to instruct a team of teens with intellectual disabilities.

While Marcus initially resents his task, he slowly warms to the players. The film does cram in too many subplots, but there’s much to enjoy as it gently addresses themes of prejudice and personal redemption.

James Mottram

Arriving just in time for the US Presidential inauguration, writer/director Alex Garland’s tense action drama imagines a near future in which the country is locked in violent internal conflict. The focus falls on a team of journalists, including Kirsten Dunst’s war photographer, traversing the nation to secure an interview with the President.

It’s a complex film well served by a terrific cast: Jesse Plemons provides a memorably chilling brief turn as a psychopathic soldier.

Patrick Cremona

The smash stage musical by Stephen Schwartz — inspired by The Wizard of Oz — gets the film treatment with this opulent adaptation. Part I is the origin story of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo), the green- skinned sorceress who ultimately becomes Oz’s cackling Wicked Witch of the West. At Shiz University, she meets the self-absorbed vision in pink, Galinda (Ariana Grande), who is destined to be the Good Witch of the North.

Director Jon M Chu is in full command of the film’s big musical numbers, aided by the terrific Erivo and Grande. There’s also fine work from Michelle Yeoh as school principal Madame Morrible and Jeff Goldblum as Oz’s charlatan wizard. A long run time aside, this is a mouth- watering musical packed with power.

James Mottram

Director Greg Kwedar stretches prison movie clichés with this affecting tale. Colman Domingo plays John “Divine G” Whitfield, the leader of a theatre group in the titular facility. When Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin (playing himself) joins the troupe and challenges its methods, G’s position is tested.

Drawing on a 2005 magazine article, Kwedar casts real-life alumni of the Rehabilitation through the Arts programme, spotlighting the inmates’ search for purpose with tough, tender power.

Kevin Harley

The formative years of Donald Trump are chronicled in this drama from Ali Abbasi, which is less a biopic than a villain origin story. Sebastian Stan plays the young “Donny”, a tabloid celebrity who sets out to become a real-estate mogul, making a deal with infamous attorney Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong).

Stan impressively pinpoints details of Trump’s body language and speech, but the intensity of Strong’s supporting performance is more compelling than anything else.

Max Copeman

Loose and low-key to a fault, this light drama about two 30-something best friends reaching a crossroads makes for
a pleasantly undemanding watch. Lucy (Dakota Johnson) realises she’s gay and begins, with amusing timidity, to explore her sexuality. But Lucy’s deep anxieties cause friction with bosom buddy Jane (Sonoya Mizuno), who is in turn preparing to move away for work.

Though far from revelatory, it’s a breezy watch with an appealing unforced sincerity.

Calum Baker

Parker Finn’s 2022 hit Smile was a slickly executed horror with a jet-black sense of humour. Kicking off six days after the events of that movie, this sequel offers more of the same. When pop star Skye (Naomi Scott) sees her friend violently take his own life, she takes over as the unwitting host of the evil entity that was possessing him. But an unexpected ally has a plan to end the curse.

The film follows the structure of its predecessor, but with a few more ambitious tricks.

Sean McGeady

This drama is not the titillating romp you might expect: beneath the bosoms and fruity language, the saga of rival female brothel owners in 18th-century London is a sharp and at times brutal show about money, power and women in a man’s world.

The fine cast includes Jessica Brown Findlay, Julian Rhind-Tutt, future Slow Horses star Rosalind Eleazar and the excellent Samantha Morton and Lesley Manville.

Jack Seale