What to watch: The best new shows to stream in March

March brings a strong mix of new streaming show and movies. You can schedule a truly bizarre true-crime saga (Disney+’s Good American Family), a science-fiction adventure starring Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt (Netflix’s The Electric State) and a Hollywood power satire with Seth Rogen (Apple TV+’s The Studio). We can increase your episodes-per-week average this month.

NETFLIX

My top Netflix recommendation is Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney (March 13).

Netflix’s goal of being a live television destination involves a lot more than big-tick American sports rights and whatever that Logan Paul and Mike Tyson fight was. On the back of last May’s John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in LA, a successful talk show meets conceptual comedy mash-up that aired live for six nightly episodes, the stand-up star and comic actor will return to orchestrate a talk show that will again be broadcast live. There will be 12 weekly episodes, debuting here at 2pm each Thursday, and you can expect an impressive guest list alongside Mulaney’s absurd twists and jinking monologues. This could be the most fun a talk show has had since David Letterman first hit his stride.

Also on Netflix: Ever since 2019’s The Avengers: Endgame became the second highest-grossing film of all time, directors and siblings Anthony and Joe Russo have been making movies for Netflix. No one remembers Cherry, and The Gray Man was an expensive disappointment, so they have something to prove with The Electric State (March 14). Based on Swedish artist Simon Stalenhag’s 2018 illustrated novel, it’s a dystopian alternate history set in an America that has never recovered from a robot rebellion. Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown plays a young woman searching for her younger brother, with Chris Pratt as the veteran who aids her quest alongside a mysterious android. The budget is reportedly $US500 million, so if nothing else it should look amazing.

Hmmm. There’s a lot of US presidential mysteries debuting right now: Paradise, Zero Day and The Residence (March 20). Produced by hitmaker Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy, Bridgerton), this mystery is set in the White House, where a state dinner goes awry when a murder occurs. Uzo Aduba (Orange is the New Black, Painkiller) plays Cordelia Cupp, an eccentric master detective charged with solving a case that alternates between the most powerful people in the world and the secretive staff who keep 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue operating. Nice to see this US president values Australia – one of the fictional guests is Australian prime minister Stephen Roos (Julian McMahon). Expect quirks.

February highlights: The saga of Australian wellness scammer Belle Gibson got a fitting dramatic series with Apple Cider Vinegar, Robert De Niro played a former US president in the conspiracy thriller Zero Day, and Kate Hudson helped bring a sharp edge to the sports comedy Running Point.

BINGE

My top Binge recommendation is The Last Anniversary (March 27).

Usually, the novels of best-selling Australian author Liane Moriarty get relocated to America for their screen adaptation: Big Little Lies went from Sydney’s northern beaches to the central coast of California. But because the landscape of the Hawkesbury River in NSW was so integral to the book, this adaptation of one of Moriarty’s earliest novels stays in Australia. Teresa Palmer (The Clearing) plays a Sophie, a young woman who inherits not only a house on Scribbly Gum Island, but the multiple generations of secrets it holds. Miranda Richardson (Good Omens) and Danielle Macdonald (The Tourist) play two of the women whose past come to the fore in a funny, heartfelt story of family and motherhood. Fresh from creating Netflix’s Apple Cider Vinegar, Samantha Strauss serves as head writer.

Also on Binge: A devilish comedy about a family of corner-cutting televangelists and their US mega-church, The Righteous Gemstones (March 10) has been one of the best comedies on HBO since debuting in 2019. Created by and starring Danny McBride (Eastbound & Down), the show is an outrageous satire of hypocrisy and pious privilege that somehow makes you care about the Gemstone family (having John Goodman play the patriarch was a genius move). This is the fourth and final season of the show, and, hopefully, it goes out strong while showcasing one of the wildest characters on television: current White Lotus star Walton Goggins as the family’s black sheep, “Baby Billy” Freeman. His hair is a true act of God.

February highlights: Everybody’s favourite acidic black comedy about the privileged paying the price, The White Lotus, returned with a new cast and destination, while the Irish actor Chris O’Dowd went home to write and direct the idiosyncratic Small Town, Big Story.

APPLE TV+

My top Apple TV+ recommendation is The Studio (March 26).

Seth Rogen remains a delightful source of comic chaos on screen, but as the Canadian actor and prolific creator has definitely graduated from playing stoners. His latest role, in a series he co-wrote and directed episodes on, is a black comedy about the struggles of 21st century Hollywood. Rogen plays Matt Remick, a film buff who finally gets to run a studio just as the job becomes about everything except making great movies. There’s a top-notch supporting cast, including Kathryn Hahn (Agatha All Along) stealing every scene as Matt’s head of marketing, but the list of stars playing themselves is through the roof. In the first trailer alone, Matt gets cussed out by Martin Scorsese and Charlize Theron. The challenge is to turn all these names into a show that matters.

Also on Apple TV+: There was no shortage of takeaways from Atlanta, one of the finest shows of the last 10 years, but a crucial one was that Brian Tyree Henry is one of the best US actors of his generation. He’s had a slew of supporting parts since his breakthrough – everything from Joker to Godzilla x Kong – but it’s only now that Henry’s getting a headline role for his considerable talents. In the crime drama Dope Thief (March 14), he plays Ray, a Philadelphia criminal who along with his best friend, Manny (Wagner Moura, Civil War), poses as law enforcement officer to rip off drug dealers. When the duo picks the wrong target, in an opening episode directed by Ridley Scott, their lives spin violently out of control.

February highlights: Anya Taylor-Joy and Miles Teller supplied the star power for the horror/action/romance mash-up The Gorge, plus a European take on the emergency room medical drama with Berlin ER.

STAN*

My top Stan recommendation is Long Bright River (March 13).

Amanda Seyfried has laudable range – her CV includes Mamma Mia!, Ted 2, First Reformed, and The Dropout. The US star leans into her dramatic instincts with this new series, a crime drama she headlines as Mickey, a Philadelphia native who now works as a police officer patrolling the grim edges of the community she grew up in. When the opioid drug trade gives way to a series of murders involving sex workers, Mickey’s commitment to her family and the neighbourhood is tested. Author Liz Moore co-wrote the adaptation of her best-selling novel of the same name, with a key supporting role as Mickey’s troubled sister, Casey, for Australian actor Ashleigh Cummings (Puberty Blues).

Also on Stan: Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue (March 2) has all the makings of a classic mystery. When a small passenger plane crash lands in the Mexican jungle, the passengers face an uncertain future that grows more troubling as one of the survivors methodically starts to murder the others. The Agatha Christie vibe is strong, but expect a contemporary twist from British creator Anthony Horowitz, whose many credits include Foyle’s War and the young adult espionage novels Alex Rider. The always reliable Eric McCormack (Will & Grace) tops the cast, while Severance fans will be suspicious of the passenger played by the menacing Olafur Darri Olafsson.

February highlights: Lucy Punch and Joanna Lumley are a mother-and-daughter dream team in the new British comedy Amandaland, plus a deeply held tale of finding your place as a gay teen in the Australian drama Invisible Boys.

AMAZON PRIME VIDEO

My top Amazon Prime recommendation is Holland (March 27).

You can’t fault Nicole Kidman’s work ethic. The Australian star has been busily bouncing between series and movies these past few years, going from Lioness and The Perfect Couple to Babygirl and The Northman. Her latest feature is an Amazon exclusive thriller in which Kidman plays a wife and mother in a Michigan town whose picture-perfect family starts to unravel when she suspects her husband (Matthew MacFadyen, Succession) is leading a double life. When a friendly colleague (Gael Garcia Bernal, La Maquina) helps her investigate, the doubts start to grow. It’s the feature debut of director Mimi Cave, which is another Kidman trait: she’s still willing to back new talent.

Also on Amazon Prime: What if I told you that the best fantasy series on Amazon Prime wasn’t The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, but rather The Wheel of Time (March 13)? Adapted from a vast series of magic and mythology novels written over several decades by Robert Jordan, the show is heading into its third season with a growing fanbase. Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) plays Moiraine Damodred (now that’s a fantasy novel name), a powerful member of an order dedicated to finding the teenager who is the reincarnation of a powerful spirit prophesised to save an ancient medieval world. If you like the genre, this show could be your new favourite.

February highlights: Action-thriller Reacher returned for another season of big, burly Dad TV, while Jude Law showed his character actor talents in the lean crime drama The Order.

DISNEY+

My top Disney+ recommendation is Good American Family (March 19).

Here’s an extremely condensed version of the real-life Natalia Grace story: In 2010 American couple Kristine and Michael Barnett adopted seven-year-old Ukrainian orphan Natalia Grace, who had a rare form of dwarfism. In 2012, they abandoned her, claiming in the courts she was an adult masquerading as a child and was trying to murder them! The true-crime documentary series about this case is up to its third season, but now we’re getting the true-crime drama. Ellen Pompeo (Grey’s Anatomy) and Mark Duplass (Morning Wars) play the Barnett’s, with Imogen Faith Reid as Natalia. Sunny creator Katie Robbins is in charge, and I’m fascinated to see how this plays out. Is it a satire, a horror story, a tragedy? It should be all of that and more.

Also on Disney+: Long ago – OK, around 2015 to 2018 – Marvel’s TV shows aired on Netflix. The best of these comic book adaptations was Jessica Jones (season one is a must-see), but given the subsequent misfires such as Moon Knight, they all look better in retrospect. Marvel agrees, as they’re resurrecting one of those series. Daredevil: Born Again (March 5) brings back Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, the blind lawyer from Hell’s Kitchen in New York who does a night-shift as masked vigilante Daredevil, with Vincent D’Onofrio also returning as his nemesis, crime lord Kingpin One early positive: Jon Bernthal (We Own this City) will be appearing as his uncompromising Marvel character, the Punisher. Give the fight choreographers free rein, please.

February highlights: Victorian-era London was the gritty backdrop for A Thousand Blows, a bare-knuckled drama of crime, ambition and boxing, plus an all-star selection of guests featured on the food and genealogy series No Taste Like Home with Antoni Porowoski.

ABC iVIEW

My top ABC iview recommendation is Boat Story (March 16).

The ABC have picked up this cracking 2023 British crime thriller for its free-to-air debut. Boat Story comes from the reliable team of siblings Harry and Jack Williams, whose previous successes with twisting your expectations include Angela Black and The Tourist. Here, two strangers who are up against it financially and emotionally make a staggering find on an English beach: a cocaine shipment whose couriers have perished. Janet (Daisy Haggard, Breeders) wants to call the police, while Samuel (Patterson Joseph, The Leftovers) wants to sell it and split the proceeds. He prevails, and they get more than they bargained for as they have to figure out drug-dealing and survive the aggrieved original owners. It sounds menacing, but there are unexpected comical flourishes.

February highlights: Getting promoted was the first of many dilemmas facing two young women in the Australian crisis management comedy Optics, while The Newsreader delivered a climactic final season.

SBS ON DEMAND

My top SBS On Demand recommendation is Virdee (March 27).

As the Mystery Road films and series have shown in Australia, there’s heartbreaking dramatic potential in a police officer caught between his job and his community. This six-part British crime thriller explores some of the same concerns, in author Amit Dhand’s adaptation of his series of crime novels about Bradford detective Harry Virdee. As played by Staz Nair (Game of Thrones), Harry is part of a system that questions his south Asian heritage, even as his Sikh family shuns him for marrying a Muslim woman, Saima (Aysha Kala, The Undeclared War). When a serial killer starts targeting south Asian locals, the pressure needle hits the red, with the story examining racial and religious divides.

February highlights: The ground-breaking LGBTQ America drama Pose was a valuable box-set binge about New York’s 1980s underground ball culture, plus a new season of the sardonic World War II drama Rogue Heroes.

OTHER STREAMERS

My top recommendation for the other streaming services is Paramount+’s Happy Face (March 21).

If Dennis Quaid freaked you out in The Substance, get ready for this serial killer thriller in which he plays the Happy Face Killer, an incarcerated murderer who forces his estranged daughter, Melissa Moore (Annaleigh Ashford, Welcome to Chippendales), to engage with him by dangling the possibility an innocent death-row inmate is about to be executed for one of her father’s crimes. The story jumps off from the real-life Melissa Moore, whose father is serving a life sentence for eight murders committed as the Happy Face Killer. The Good Wife and Evil creators Robert and Michell helped develop this fictional extension, which digs into familial legacy, the need to make amends, and uncomfortable prison visits.

Also: Featuring some of the team behind the successful reboot of All Creatures Great and Small, BritBox’s The Hardacres (March 5) is British period drama with some spiky circumstances but plenty of feel-good potential. Set in Yorkshire at the end of the 19th century, it follows the titular working-class family on the edge of ruin after a workplace accident befalls father Sam (Liam McMahon, Hunger), only for mother Mary (Claire Cooper, The Peripheral) to discover an entrepreneurial streak. In classic rags-to-riches fashion, by the end of the first episode, the Hardacres are moving into a mansion, hiring servants and engaging with the upper-class toffs who previously looked down on them. Will the family stay true to their beliefs or be corrupted?

February highlights: 7plus’s Ludwig was a terrific addition to the new crop of unconventional murder mysteries, Paramount+’s Yellowjackets was more unsettling than ever, and 7plus’s St Denis Medical was a promising new mockumentary sitcom.

* Nine is the owner of Stan, the publisher of this masthead.

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