I hope you didn’t make any plans this weekend, because Netflix, HBO Max and Hulu have programmed some of their biggest — and most intriguing — shows to debut right now.
Netflix just launched its next bingeworthy thriller, Hostage, while also premiering a new animated series from the creator of BoJack Horseman, Long Story Short.
Not to be outdone, Hulu has its own mystery series, The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox featuring Sharon Horgan, to hook viewers, while its new reality show, Are You the First?, has the potential to be a late summer breakout hit.
Finally, the DCU continues on HBO Max with Peacemaker season 2, which sees the titular hero get into all sorts of comic book trouble.
‘Hostage’ Season 1- Netflix
Fans of the hit 2018 Netflix series Bodyguard with Richard Madden and Keeley Hawes are sure to love Hostage, a thriller show that gives off similar conspiracy theory vibes. Hawes look-alike Suranne Jones stars as Abigail Dalton, a relatively successful British prime minister whose life is upended when her husband is kidnapped during a summit with the French president, Vivenne Toussaint (Julie Delpy). Abigail has 24 hours to resign as Great Britain’s leader, or her husband, as well as others, will be killed.
What to Watch This Weekend: 10 New Movies on Netflix, Prime Video, HBO Max, and Hulu
I’m tense just writing that plot description! While some of its later plot developments strain credibility, by that point, you won’t care. The show does a great job of placing all of its characters in impossible situations where there’s seemingly no way out. Hostage season 1 consists of five episodes, all of which are streaming right now.
‘Peacemaker’ Season 2 – HBO Max
One of the few survivors of the old DCEU is Peacemaker, a relatively obscure DC Comics character who was given his own successful show back in 2022. The show returns for a second season, and so does John Cena, who plays the violent anti-hero with a fondness for crunching people’s heads and — orgies?!?
Yeah, season 2 is even more violent and explicit, but the big change is that it’s now set in the new DCU that was started with Superman in July. What’s different? Well, expect a few characters from that movie to appear throughout the series, as well as returning cast members Danielle Brooks, Jennifer Holland and Freddie Stroma as the masked vigilante named, er, Vigilante.
‘The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox’ Season 1 – Hulu
Chances are, you know about Amanda Knox, the American college student who was arrested for murder in Italy in 2007 before being exonerated after a lengthy trial in 2011. But if you don’t, or are just curious to relive the whole controversial affair, you should watch The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox.
Tell Me Lies’ Grace Van Patten stars as Knox, whose discovery of British student Meredith Kercher’s body led to a chain of events that saw her behind bars in Italy and at the center of an international scandal that captivated the press. The show does a good job at showing Knox through various degrees of bewilderment, despair and cautious optimism.
With striking visuals, including one of Knox reimagining the ceiling of her prison cell as a night sky filled with stars, The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox is more ambitious than your usual ripped-from-the-headlines miniseries like Hulu’s early summer hit Good American Family with Ellen Pompeo.
‘Are You My First?’ Season 1 – Hulu
Reality dating shows are a dime a dozen these days, but Are You My First? has an intriguing premise. Hosted by Bachelor Nation’s Colton Underwood and Kaitlyn Bristowe, the series gathers 21 virgins on a tropical island to see if any of them are compatible with one another.
The premise is potentially salacious, but what makes Are You My First? so compelling to watch is how sweet and laid back it is. The show’s not interested in cheap hookups and manufactured drama; instead, Underwood and Bristowe seem to genuinely want to have these contestants find the one they can be intimate with — and potentially marry.
‘Long Story Short’ Season 1 – Netflix
BoJack Horseman is a modern animated masterpiece, so it’s not a surprise that creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s follow-up is on our what to watch list. Long Story Short chronicles the complicated lives of the Schwooper siblings: big brother Avi (voiced by Superstore’s Ben Feldman), middle child Shira (Broad City’s Abbi Jacobson) and the immature youngest, Yoshi (New Girl’s Max Greenfield).
The series plays fast and loose with time, moving from the Schwoopers’ current lives to their childhood, which was dominated by their religious parents. The result is a deeply moving, very funny, animated series that looks at the strong ties that bind families together, even if sometimes they threaten to strangle some of them.
