What’s New on Netflix in August—and What to Watch Before It Disappears

Don’t you know what’s out there in the world? Some streaming network must shield you from the world! Enter Netflix, which has a predictable buffet of goodies premiering this August—though as always, a few old dishes must be cleared away in order to make room for them. We’ve combed Netflix’s latest list to bring you the best of what to expect from its movie and TV offerings next month—as well as a few picks to catch now before they fade into the black hole of the Internet. After all, there’s no better way to spend the dog days of summer than drawing the shades and staying inside.

MOVIES

What’s arriving . . .

Blue Is the Warmest Color

A controversial Cannes Palme d’Or winner from 2013, Abdellatif Kechiche’s long, occasionally graphic romantic drama was reportedly grueling to make. But what was produced under those unfavorable conditions is something extraordinary: a sensitive, sharply observant, funny, sad, sexy look at the emotional and sexual awakening of a late-adolescent woman (the remarkable Adèle Exarchopoulos) and the turbulent relationship she has with the love of her young life (a terrific Léa Seydoux). Told in the rambling, unadorned style of much French art-house cinema these days, Blue Is the Warmest Color is light on plot, but always achingly alive. If there is a leering to some of its lesbianism, and there probably is, it is balanced out elsewhere, in some richly realized moment of reflection or discovery. Featuring one of the most beguiling endings of its year, if not its decade, Blue Is the Warmest Color is an absolute must-watch, even if, or maybe especially if, a three-hour French movie doesn’t sound like your ideal way to spend a summer night.

No Country for Old Men

The BBC recently conducted a massive poll of movie critics, including yours truly, asking them to list the best movies of the 21st century so far. (The list will be out sometime this fall, I believe.) I won’t tell you my whole list, but I’ll say that 2008’s Oscar winner for best picture—a masterpiece of such finely wrought tension and melancholic existential dread—was number two. Joel and Ethan Coen tapped into something unnervingly profound in author Cormac McCarthy’s lonely, dusty West Texas thriller, creating a picture as soul-stirring as it is heart-thumpingly scary. What a movie.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Because this film doesn’t star Vin Diesel and/or Paul Walker, it is often viewed as the strange outlier in the Fast and Furious cinematic universe. And it is. But this is also the first Fast and Furious movie directed by Justin Lin, and it’s the first to expand the films’ geographic and stylistic scope beyond sunny parts of drag-race America. The film series was about to get wild and crazy after this, making Tokyo Drift an interesting turning point (drifting point?) that’s worth revisiting.

What’s leaving . . .

Inside Man

Director Spike Lee’s most commercial film to date is a nervy, knotty bank-heist thriller with an outstanding cast—Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Willem Dafoe, Jodie Foster, Christopher Plummer. It’s also an interesting time capsule of jittery, post-9/11 New York, and of a moment when Lee seemed to both gain a taste for big commercial filmmaking and simultaneously lose it. (His next film, Miracle at St. Anna, had a similar budget, but performed badly with audiences and critics, perhaps sealing the deal for Lee and those who would finance him.) It’s also just a terrifically engaging movie, a plot bristling with surprising connections to the past and a lot of snappy, dry New York wit.

Wish Upon a Star

I am not recommending this 1996 teen body-switching comedy, starring a young Katherine Heigl, for any reason other than that I used to watch it a lot as a teenager and had almost forgotten that it existed, let alone knowing that it was on Netflix, before writing this post. So, I’m definitely going to watch it before it leaves Netflix—to, I dunno, recapture some lost youth in this hot, hazy summer—and you might as well too.

TELEVISION

What’s arriving . . .

Roseanne Collection 3: This year at San Diego’s Comic-Con, John Goodman answered the question of “What’s your favorite thing to Netflix and chill?” the best way he possibly could: “I like to watchRoseanne and say the lines before the characters.” Goodman—star of the award-winning, blue-collar comedy—probably does own a digital copy of every single episode, but if you, humble Netflix watcher, are looking to binge the entire series in one greedy gulp, you’re out of luck. Due to a quirk in licensing, Netflix doesn’t host all of—or even necessarily complete seasons of—Roseanne. Instead the show is available in “collections” with episodes arranged inexplicably out of order and in multiple-season chunks. The arrangement might be frustrating for Roseanne completists, but for those of us who grew up catching random episodes here and there in re-runs on syndication, the “collection” approach isn’t all that dissimilar. So pop yourself a bowl of popcorn, grab your favorite brightly colored crochet blanket, and enjoy the show that not only appealed to middle America, but sharply pushed the boundaries of social issues at the same time.

The Get Down: Racial tensions explode on the sweaty streets of a broken American metropolis. Sound familiar? The new musical series from executive producers Baz Luhrmann and Nas may be set in 1977 during the heyday of disco and the birth of hip-hop, but some of its visuals look all too familiar. In the background of the roiling frustrations and thumping beats, a love story blossoms between a pair of star-crossed lovers played by relative newcomers Justice Smith and Herizen Guardiola. The New York setting immediately recalls West Side Story, but the pair of lovestruck teens quoting rhymes to each other on a disco dance floor will remind Luhrmann fans of his Romeo + Juliet. Smith and Guardiola may be mostly unknown to audiences, but that’s unlikely to be the case once their bravura vocal performances break wide. The lovers are supported by a cast of familiar faces including Jimmy Smits, Giancarlo Esposito, Dope’s Shameik Moore, and eccentric celebrity spawn Jaden Smith. Like Netflix’s July hit,Stranger Things, you can feel the summer heat rolling off this show, but it will leave you feeling effortlessly cool and with a song in your heart.

Slow TV: This Norwegian sensation (yes, you heard correctly) is coming to Netflix, and the world of binge-watching may never be the same. Slow TV (or Sakte-TV in Norwegian) is exactly what it sounds like: slow. Originally aired live in Norway, these multi-hour programs would allow viewers to marathon-watch a leisurely paced event unfurl in real time. The sensation kicked off in 2009 with a broadcast of a 7-hour train journey. The subjects on offer for Netflix in August include unseasonably cozy topics like “National Firewood Night,” “National Knitting Morning,” “Salmon Fishing,” and the aforementioned train journey. Will these sedate, Nordic topics catch on with Americans? It’s hard to say. But, then again, no one could have predicted the gentle, warm-hearted The Great British Baking Show (née The Great British Bake Off) would catch on with cynical American audiences the way it has.

Fearless: If roasting logs and endurance knitting aren’t for you, then this docuseries may provide a bit more excitement. From Chef’s Table show-runner Andrew Fried, this six-part show follows the death-defying world of competitive U.S. and Brazilian professional bull riders as they compete at the highest levels of the sport. And while the series will no doubt offer keen insight into the psychology behind the men who take these high-stakes rides, it promises other stars as well: as Netflix puts it, ”the heart of the series are the 1,500-lb. celebrities, each bull with its own distinctive personality and athleticism.” Chef’s Tablewas surprisingly popular (as far as we can measure these things on Netflix), and under Fried’s guidance, the breathless, deathly world of bull riding will no doubt be even more captivating.

What’s leaving . . .

Roseanne Collection 2: Am I talking about Roseanne again? I am. Truth be told, I don’t have much to say about the only other series leaving Netflix at the end of the month: Clifford the Big Red Dog. As I mentioned above, Netflix airs Roseanne out of order and in multi-season chunks. This collection spans Seasons 6 and 7 and features an all-time great Roseanne episode: “A Stash from the Past.” A masterclass in two sitcom tropes—intoxication episodes and bottle episodes—it’s 21 minutes of, mostly, Dan (Goodman), Roseanne (Roseanne Barr), and Jackie (Laurie Metcalf) holed up in the Connor family bathroom smoking weed and reminiscing before the pressure of their adult lives set in. Though “A Stash from the Past” originally aired as Season 6, Episode 4, it’s oddly labelled as Collection 2, Episode 1 on Netflix. Watch that classic episode, at least, before rolling on to Collection 3.

FULL LIST OF ARRIVALS

August 1

The American Side (2016)

An Inconvenient Truth (2006)

APEX: The Story of the Hypercar (2016)

Beethoven’s Christmas Adventure (2011)

Big Daddy (1999)

Black Widow (1987)

Critical Condition (1987)

Deadfall (2012)

Destination: T​eam USA (2016)

Funny or Die Presents: Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal: The Movie ​

The Family Man (2000)

The Fast and the Furious (2001)

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

Final Destination 3 (2006)

From the Terrace (1960)

Holding the Man (2015)

How To Win The US Presidency (2016)

In the Shadow of the Moon (2007)

ISIS: Women Unveiled (2016)

Masha and the Bear, Season 2

Memoria (2015)

The Naked Prey (1966)

NCIS, Season 13

Pay It Forward (2000)

The Real Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003)

Roseanne Collection: Collection 3

Sleepy Hollow (1999)

Sliding Doors (1998)

Star Trek: Nemesis (2002)

Teacher’s Pet (1958)

The Verdict (1982)

The Wedding Planner (2001)

What Women Want (2000)

Young@Heart (2007)

Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)

August 3

Beat Bugs, Season 1

August 5

David Cross: Making America Great Again (2016)

Ever After High: Epic Winter

The Little Prince (2016)

Punk’s Dead: SLC Punk 2 (2016)

Slow TV: National Firewood Evening (2016)

Slow TV: National Firewood Morning (2016)

Slow TV: National Firewood Night (2016)

Slow TV: National Knitting Evening (2016)

Slow TV: National Knitting Morning (2016)

Slow TV: National Knitting Night (2016)

Slow TV: Northern Passage (2016)

Slow TV: Northern Railway (2016)

Slow TV: Salmon Fishing (2016)

Slow TV: The Telemark Canal (2016)

Slow TV: Train Ride Bergen to Oslo (2016)

August 6

The Confirmation (2016)

August 9

Real Husbands of Hollywood, Season 4

T­Rex (2015)

August 10

St. Vincent (2014)

August 11

Flight of the Butterflies (2012)

No Country for Old Men (2007)

August 12

Ask the StoryBots, Season 1

The Get Down, Part 1

Project Mc2, Season 2

August 13

13 Cameras (2016)

August 15

Louis CK: Live at the Comedy Store (2015)

August 16

Let’s Go to Prison (2006)

Our Last Tango (2015)

August 17

The Curse of Sleeping Beauty (2016)

The Last Heist (2016)

Puffin Rock, Season 2

August 19

Bottersnikes and Gumbles, Season 1

Fearless, Season 1

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead

August 21

Maz Jobrani: I’m Not a Terrorist, But I’ve Played One On TV (2015)

August 22

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, The Seventeenth Year

August 23

Septembers of Shiraz (2015)

August 25

The Road (2009)

August 26

Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013)

Dawn of the Croods, Season 2

Glitter Force, Season 2

Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy: We’ve Been Thinking…

Once Upon a Time, Season 5

XOXO (2016)

August 27

Rams (2015)

August 29

The State of Marriage (2015)

Aaugust 31

Ku’damm 56, Season 1

FULL LIST OF WHAT’S LEAVING

August 1

Addams Family Values (1993)

The Best Man (1999)

Bowfinger (1999)

The Gabby Douglas Story (2014)

Jennifer 8 (1992)

Johnny English (2003)

The Nutty Professor (1996)

The Replacements (2000)

Roseanne Collection: Collection 2 (1996)

Rugrats Go Wild (2003)

The Sandlot (1993)

Suspect Zero (2004)

Teen Witch (1989)

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993)

Vampire in Brooklyn (1995)

Where the Red Fern Grows (1974)

The Wild Thornberrys Movie (2002)

August 11

Mr. Peabody & Sherman (2014)

August 14

Clifford the Big Red Dog, Seasons 1­2

Clifford’s Puppy Days, Seasons 1­2

August 15

Charlie’s Angels (2000)

Wish Upon a Star (1996)

August 16

Inside Man (2006)

August 20

Harry the Bunny (2009)

August 23

Blitz (2011)

August 27

The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

August 30

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)

August 31

Death Note (2006)

Naruto Shippûden the Movie: Bonds (2008)

Naruto Shippuden: The Movie (2007)

Zathura (2005)

Source: vanityfair.com