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

Based on a true story amid the Troubles, this nine-part adaptation of Patrick Radden Keefe’s acclaimed book of the same name spans four decades and several generations. In 1972, masked men arrive at the door of Jean McConville. She’s forcibly taken from her home and her ten children are left distraught. Meanwhile, after young sisters Dolours (Lola Petticrew) and Marian (Hazel Doupe) take part in a civil rights march that ends in violence, they’re soon on a path to joining the IRA...

Almost 30 years later, Dolours (Maxine Peake) finally, but anonymously, tells her story.

Frances Taylor

On 1 May 2023, a small plane crashed in the Colombian jungle, killing all the adults on board. Miraculously, four children survived — but by the time search teams located the plane, the kids had disappeared into the jungle. This film documents the frantic search to save the youngsters.

It was a hunt that united the region’s indigenous residents with the Colombian army; thanks to decades of drug wars, each group must overcome their distrust of the other. Much like the search itself, the film meanders a touch, but its finale is cathartic.

Jayne Nelson

Hopes will be high that Amazon can do for Alex Cross what it’s done for Jack Reacher and turn a crime fiction favourite into a TV hit. Like Reacher, Washington DC homicide detective Cross has been underserved on the big screen, so it’s reassuring that actor Aldis Hodge has the necessary swagger his predecessors lacked.

Yet the series itself lacks focus — it begins at a slow pace, takes some sadistic segues before arriving at a disjointed climax. But Hodge’s hero credentials aren’t in doubt and a second series is already in the works.

David Brown

Sharon Horgan's brilliantly smart and surprising drama gets a very welcome second series, which, based on these opening two episodes at least, is shaping up to be just as dark and delicious as the first. Particularly with the stellar addition of Fiona Shaw to the cast as the superficially well-meaning, yet ambiguously sinister, sister of Roger (Michael Smiley).

But first, we begin with a cliffhanger — literally. Eva (Horgan) has reversed perilously close to the edge of a crag with her sisters inside. Oh, and an ominous outline of something — or someone — in the boot. But whatever is taking place on this dark, windy precipice will be for later.

The titles (which are again stuffed with neat visual clues to the plot) roll and we instead find Grace (Anne-Marie Duff) gearing up to wed her second husband. Eva is cautious about why she wants to get married again so quickly; Becca (Eve Hewson) tells her to “stop waiting for something to go wrong”. But in the lives of the Garvey sisters, things rarely go right. Another juicy mystery is teed up, and not every secret will remain buried (or should that be submerged?) for long...

Frances Taylor

In a musical that redefines what’s possible in the genre, Zoe Saldaña plays a lawyer who is contacted by a drug lord (an exceptional Karla Sofía Gascón) to help stage his own death while he completes gender-reassignment surgery. From there, the film morphs into a story of social justice, as Gascón’s rechristened Emilia tries to reconnect with her estranged wife (Selena Gomez).

It’s a twisty, unique story told with boundless imagination and a memorable song score.

James Mottram

When Elvis famously wiggled his pelvis on stage in 1956, the world had never seen anything like him. A decade later, he was a laughing stock, with a string of cheesy Hollywood musicals under his belt and a younger generation of rockers stealing his crown in the charts. All that changed with his ’68 Comeback Special for NBC.

There are no new revelations in this film about the lead-up to this classic show, but the archive footage is a treat.

Jayne Nelson

Ever wondered what it takes to become the fastest human on the planet? The second series of the athletics docuseries follows elite sprinters on the road, climaxing with the Paris 2024 Olympics. Noah Lyles, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Sha’Carri Richardson and Kishane Thompson are among those going for gold.

From the makers of F1: Drive to Survive, it’s similarly intimate, glossy and gripping. On your marks, get set... Oh, they’ve gone already.

Michael Hogan

Following its premium release, the latest billion-dollar Marvel hit is now available to stream via Disney Plus. After being recruited by the Time Variance Authority, Ryan Reynolds’s Deadpool teams up with a multiversal Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). Send-ups come thick and fast, as do surprising cameos, while the violence quells concerns that the character would get Disneyfied.

Reynolds is at his impish best and has the perfect foil in Jackman, who brings gravitas to the mayhem.

Jeremy Aspinall

Well timed to counter chat about the Netflix series Territory being “the new Yellowstone”, the original Yellowstone finally returns to finish off what is definitely, probably its last ever season. Don’t expect much of departed star Kevin Costner but do expect a rollercoaster of violence and betrayal as the fate of the Montana ranch that has caused ructions for generations is decided.

Last time we saw them, two key members of the Dutton family were plotting to kill each other — it’s not going to get any less fraught from there.

Jack Seale

This elegant adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s children’s book follows a fictionalised version of the author’s childhood self (voiced by Aaron MacGregor) after he is taken to sea by his parents. When he falls overboard and washes up on an island, he bonds with Kensuke (Ken Watanabe), a Japanese man stranded there since the Second World War.

A British production, it’s reminiscent of Studio Ghibli, though lacking its emotional core.

Jayne Nelson

Following a tense three-year wait after the explosive and emotional season 1 cliffhanger left viewers reeling, Arcane fans can finally travel back to the Runeterra universe for an even more expansive season 2.

The Emmy-winning animated series, based on the multiplayer game League of Legends, is a fascinating steampunk dystopia which explores humankind's complicated relationship with power, technological advancement and progress via the central conflict between the prosperous, utopian Piltover and the oppressed and crime-ridden undercity Zaun.

Season 2 picks up immediately after that shocking season 1 cliffhanger - revealing the fate of the Piltover council members among the rubble and embers in the chaotic aftermath of Jinx’s targeted explosion.

Nicola Austin

Gremlins meets National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation for a seasonal shocker spiced up by Nordic mythology. When Bill (Martin Starr) inherits a remote farm in Norway, he moves his family in. But in doing so they enrage the barn elf and discover that there are rules to be followed.

Director Magnus Martens doesn’t quite strike the right balance between horror and comedy, but there’s fun to be had.

Alan Jones

The hunt is on for a secret vault containing alien supertech in this screwball space opera based on a popular video game and starring Cate Blanchett.

Directed by Eli Roth, Borderlands is pacy and action-packed but thin on characterisation and plot. It’s clearly aiming for a wacky Guardians of the Galaxy vibe, but the juvenile humour lacks the wit of James Gunn’s trilogy.

Dave Golder

Eddie Redmayne’s Jackal has much the same box of tricks as Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt in the Mission: Impossible movies, in that both use latex disguises, are expert marksmen and can bob and weave their way around European locations with panache. But the Jackal utilises that skillset for ill rather than good, his job seeing him accept big-money online payments in exchange for cleanly executed assassinations.

This we see early on, with one of Redmayne’s blue-green eyeballs magnified through the sights of a bespoke rifle, as this killer-for-hire takes aim at a target in Germany. But the hunter is about to become the hunted, thanks to the ballistics knowhow of MI6 agent Bianca (Lashana Lynch), a spy who’s as persistent as the Jackal is coolly detached.

Their cat-and-mouse game forms the spine of this stylish updating of Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 bestseller.

David Brown

Only a few weeks after the first half of season four, which makes you wonder why they didn’t just drop it all in one go, here’s the conclusion of the latest escapade for “the Pogues” — young adults from North Carolina who hunt for lost treasures.

They’re currently on the trail of Blackbeard’s booty, but if the episodes we’ve seen so far are any guide, they’ll have to endure a lot of narrow escapes and murderous attempted sabotage if they’re to land the spoils and live to tell the tale.

Jack Seale

Set at a New England boarding school in 1970, this comedy drama follows a crabby classics professor (Paul Giamatti) as he reluctantly supervises the “holdovers” of the title — students who are forced to remain on campus over the Christmas holidays. Joining him and the morose Angus (Dominic Sessa) is the school’s head cook Mary (Oscar winner Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who is grieving the loss of her son.

Alexander Payne (Sideways) directs with droll, slow-burn humour, while David Hemingson’s script conjures plenty of poignancy from the set-up.

Emma Simmonds

A teenager heading to college finds life becoming complicated after meeting her older self in this warm-spirited comedy. Elliott meets the “old ass” version of herself while she’s tripping on mushrooms. Reluctant to reveal much about the future, Elliott’s 39-year-old incarnation offers one piece of advice: “avoid anyone named Chad”.

Director Megan Park explores coming-of-age ideas about leaving your family and first love with humour, heart and cross-generational appeal that suggests older does not always mean wiser.

Amber Wilkinson

Spinning off from the main Citadel show — a grand spy/conspiracy thriller in the style of Mission Impossible or Bond — is an Indian drama serving as a prequel. We meet Honey (Samantha Ruth Prabhu) both as a single mother in 2000 and, eight years earlier, as a struggling actress who finds her way into espionage when she’s recruited to work as a honey trap. The later version of her is a badass agent being pursued by some nasty people.

Not all the dialogue sings but the fight, chase and action scenes do enough.

Jack Seale

The idea behind this spy thriller is intriguing, if sometimes awkward. Alia Shawkat is FBI agent Angela, a woman who — it was gradually revealed during the first season last year — has three dads: a father figure, senior FBI man Harold (John Lithgow); the man she thought was her actual dad, rogue CIA agent Dan (Jeff Bridges); and the man she’s discovered is her biological father, terror mastermind Faraz (Navid Negahban).

Now the two ageing Americans are off to Afghanistan to rescue Angela from Faraz’s clutches, which means more action than there was in season one — alongside more of the show’s annoyingly slow scenes full of boring exposition. The superb cast always paper over the gaps.

Jack Seale

Katherine Parr, the final wife of Henry VIII, is the subject of this tense, occasionally explosive, period drama. Adapted from Elizabeth Fremantle’s novel Queen’s Gambit, it casts Alicia Vikander as the watchful Parr, all too aware that one false move might see her life cut short by her monstrous husband. A terrific Jude Law plays the ailing king, his legs ravaged by ulcers and his temper quick to turn.

With Parr suspected of harbouring radical religious views, Firebrand posits a friendship between her and the Protestant heretic Anne Askew (Erin Doherty), the film’s real firebrand.

James Mottram

Stanley Kubrick’s final movie, now 25 years old, could have been a masterpiece. Though a touch excessive, it’s a hypnotic story of a marriage falling apart. Tom Cruise plays a New York doctor who’s shaken to the core when his wife (Nicole Kidman) reveals that she was once tempted to have an affair. This sends him out in search of sexual revenge.

Many scenes are overlong and the dialogue is often stilted. But this psychological, neon-lit epic boasts a compelling and uniquely eerie mood.

Jayne Nelson

An Asian American teenager experiences growing pains in this tender portrait of adolescence. It follows Chris (Izaac Wang) as a Taiwanese American who has a combustible relationship with his family and struggles to navigate friendships and dating.

Writer/director Sean Wang captures the 2008 setting with aplomb, and the film is anchored by a terrific performance from Wang, who never overstates the painful emotions that wash over his character.

James Mottram

Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg are unrecognisable under prosthetics in David and Nathan Zellner’s tragicomic tale
of a clan of Sasquatches.

This absurdist comedy follows a year in the life of the family as they try to survive against the odds. Although the more primitive humour may not be for everyone, playfulness gives way to poignancy. And despite the outlandishness of the premise, co-directors the Zellners make us believe in the myth.

Amber Wilkinson