Ah, spring is here: the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, the mercury is rising ever closer to genuine t-shirt weather – but why venture outside when there’s so much wonderful stuff to watch on the box?
That’s right: the streaming giants have lots in store for us this May, from talking sea creatures to Soviet cosmonauts. And we’ve assembled all our highlights and recommendations right here so that you can mark them all on your calendar.
Remarkably Bright Creatures
Adapted from Shelby Van Pelt’s bestseller, this feel-good yarn casts Sally Field as a lonely widow who strikes up an unlikely friendship with a grouchy but philosophically inclined octopus (voiced by Alfred Molina). The pair team up with a young drifter (Lewis Pullman) to uncover a mystery that will change all their lives.
Film / Netflix, 8 May
Dutton Ranch
Yellowstone’s fieriest couple swap Montana’s hills for the sun-baked prairies of Texas, only to find the heat isn’t purely meteorological. The Sheridan universe’s latest chapter pits Beth Dutton and Rip Taylor against a rival ranch empire, with Ed Harris and Annette Bening arriving to make life considerably more complicated.
S1 / Paramount+, 15 May
Rivals
We’re riding back into Jilly Cooper’s Rutshire, with all the associated 1980s excess and scheming. The battle for the Central South West television franchise enters its most vicious phase, with Tony Baddingham (David Tennant) having apparently survived last season’s cranial walloping and returning more ruthless than ever.
S2 / Disney+, 15 May
Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed
Tatiana Maslany plays a recently divorced mother who, somewhere between a custody battle and ferrying her kids to football practice, becomes convinced that she’s witnessed a murder. What starts as a comedy of suburban bedlam steadily descends into something far more sinister – and more interesting.
S1 / Apple TV+, 20 May
The Boroughs
Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers executive-produce this supernatural mystery set in an idyllic New Mexico retirement community, where a grieving new arrival’s bone-chilling encounter with something inhuman recruits him into a crew of unlikely pensioner-heroes. Alfred Molina, Geena Davis and Alfre Woodard star.
S1 / Netflix, 21 May
Spider-Noir
Set in 1930s New York, this Marvel multiverse caper follows Ben Reilly (Nicolas Cage), a former costumed vigilante who’s hung up his webs to scrape a living as a private detective. When a case involving a murder attempt on a gangland boss called Silvermane (played with relish by Brendan Gleeson) drags him back into the shadows, the Spider must suit up once more. In a touch befitting its hardboiled noir movie inspo, the whole thing is available to stream in both glorious monochrome and full colour.
S1 / Prime Video, 27 May
Star City
For All Mankind has spent five seasons asking what would have happened if America lost the space race. This companion series flips the coin, exploring the same alt-history from inside the Soviet machine. Rhys Ifans leads as the obsessive Chief Designer driving the USSR’s lunar programme.
S1 / Apple TV+, 29 May
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