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

As their 40th anniversary looms and with comeback shows to rehearse for, one of America’s biggest ever bands are afforded a lavish retrospective. The group’s life story recalls how Bon Jovi were a product of the same 1970s New Jersey scene that produced Bruce Springsteen, creating a less edgy commentary on the working-class American dream, with million-selling albums following.

In his late middle age Jon Bon Jovi is, however, bracingly honest about the challenge of staying healthy enough to do the old songs justice.

Jack Seale

“The Asunta Case” is what this real-life crime saga is known as in Spain. There, it was a notorious news story in 2013: the adopted daughter of a lawyer and a journalist went missing, then was found dead a few miles from her home. This dramatisation shows how the police (including María León as investigator Cristina Cruces) were slightly suspicious of the parents from the off, becoming more and more so as a tangle of errant behaviour came to light.

But did that mean this odd couple were child-killers? As the media swarm, the tension steadily builds.

Jack Seale

This exciting, behind-enemy-lines thriller is set in the southern Philippines and revolves around a 48-hour battle against Islamic State. Tensions run high as drone operative Sergeant JJ “Playboy” Kinney (Liam Hemsworth) and his team (played by Liam’s brother Luke Hemsworth, plus Ricky Whittle and Milo Ventimiglia) attempt to rescue an asset. When the operation goes wrong, Playboy is left stranded alone in the jungle, while Captain Eddie Grimm “Reaper” (Russell Crowe) is back at base providing air support.

William Eubank is a great action director, and the attack scenes are terrific.

Matt Glasby

What would you do? This forbidding-looking South Korean drama begins with the news that the Korean peninsula is to be wiped out by an asteroid in a matter of months. As a giant Seoul billboard ticks down the days until disaster, martial law is declared and chaos erupts, with vigilantes and cultists on the rise and escaped prisoners on the loose.

When a student is kidnapped during a protest and then killed, young middle-school teacher Se-kyung (Ahn Eun-jin) tries to do her best for the children in her care, despite them apparently having no future.

Jack Seale

Based on the Neil Gaiman comic and qualifying as part of the Sandman Universe, this drama for teens and young adults never sits still: every scene is a visually impressive feat of imagination and, while you might struggle slightly to piece it all together into a coherent narrative, it’s never dull. Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri) are best friends — at least, they are now they’ve died, having lived several decades apart. Their ghostly vocation is to solve paranormal mysteries, with the help of a mortal psychic, Crystal (Kassius Nelson).

As demons, witches and creepy living people cross their path, the cast sell every unlikely twist convincingly.

Jack Seale

The decade-hopping anthology returns, moving from the 1950s setting of Them: Covenant to 1991, while retaining Deborah Ayorinde as its lead performer. Now she’s LAPD detective Dawn Reeve, whose new murder case involves a body so badly damaged, there is speculation that the killer cannot possibly be human.

As the killings continue without any clues emerging, the gaudiness of the period stylings adds an extra layer of discomfort to a crime thriller with a hint of True Detective, but with an overt horror-movie aesthetic.

Jack Seale

Although the title might evoke a Game of Thrones spin-off, this six- parter is instead a police drama with a slice of folklore horror from Toby Whithouse, the writer/creator of BBC Three’s Being Human. Grace (The Lazarus Project’s Anjli Mohindra) is the latest cop to tread that well- worn TV path: getting transferred to a far-flung beat following a yet-undisclosed potential transgression at her previous inner-city post.

So she disembarks onto the island of St Jory — a local place for local people — and her arrival leads to lowered conversations and raised suspicions. An eerie tension hangs heavy in this tight-knit, closed-off community, where tourists are driven away and pagan parades plod through the streets.

When an unsolved case about a missing teenager rears its head, Grace is determined to investigate. Adjoa Andoh, Mark Lewis Jones and Marc Warren add heft to the cast.

Frances Taylor

Dinosaurs now live alongside humans in this third instalment in the Jurassic World series, having been set loose in previous film Fallen Kingdom. This time, the heroes from the original Jurassic Park (Laura Dern, Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum) team up with Chris Pratt (left) and Bryce Dallas Howard to take on the shady BioSyn Genetics company. Fun nods to earlier instalments come thick and fast, a sarcastic Goldblum and a sneaky Dern steal the show, while DeWanda Wise is a great new addition as a tough pilot.

This is a mostly satisfying film for fans of the franchise. The next instalment is due in cinemas in 2025.

Emma Simmonds

A series that just about got away with its unusual concept in season one — a small American town is rocked by the arrival of a machine that issues the user with a card, on which is written a cryptic clue about the different life they might have led — doubles down on it for the second run.

Dusty (Chris O’Dowd) is making some big decisions about his future, in a show that gently asks the question of ordinary family life: is that definitely all there is?

Jack Seale

Along with the podcast Serial and the BBC Four/Netflix television series The Staircase, Andrew Jarecki’s 2015 series The Jinx helped to start a modern true-crime boom that shows no signs of slowing down. In the original programme, Jarecki investigated whether the New York real estate heir Robert Durst was responsible for the disappearance of his first wife, and the deaths of two of his friends. Based on an extensive interview with Durst himself, The Jinx delivered its answer in a stunning final episode.

Durst died in 2022, while serving time for murder, but this follow-up series finds plenty more to talk about, starting with a look back at the impact of the 2015 broadcast. That led to new witnesses coming forward and new evidence being discovered — including some material that changes what seemed previously to be a clear-cut narrative. Durst’s prison phone calls add another layer of intrigue.

Jack Seale

The rapid rise and fall of mobile-phone manufacturer BlackBerry is compellingly chronicled in this true-life drama. In mid-1990s Canada, Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and Doug Fregin (director and co-writer Matt Johnson) are struggling to gain investment for their portable phone prototypes. When fearsome executive Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton) comes on board, BlackBerry is soon the toast of the tech world — but for how long?

With a tone that’s more akin to The Big Short than The Social Network, this is a cautionary tale told with a satirical edge.

Max Copeman

Tye Sheridan and Sean Penn star as New York paramedics in this gritty and grim drama. Sheridan plays rookie Ollie Cross, who joins the night shift with Penn’s grizzled veteran Gene Rutkovsky. Patrolling the Brooklyn borough of Brownsville, they bounce between emergency calls, each one seemingly more brutal and dangerous than the last.

Stylishly made by French film-maker Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire (Johnny Mad Dog), the film feels grungily authentic, though some will find the relentlessly bleak narrative tough to take.

James Mottram

Zack Snyder's Star Wars-lite sci-fi saga continues with this second part. Sofia Boutella returns as Kora, the war orphan with a dark secret who leads a band of rebels on a distant moon against an imperial army. It's more of the same from Snyder, who rolls out more rousing speeches (Djimon Hounsou's warrior chews plenty of futuristic furniture), explosive action sequences and slow-mo duels with weapons that look suspiciously like lightsabers.

While there are some spectacular set-pieces and undeniably beautiful shots - Kora and love interest Gunnar (Michiel Huisman) kissing at sunset - The Scargiver's derivative story means you'll simply be left yearning to rewatch Star Wars.

James Mottram

One of the most wholesome programmes on television returns for a second season of imaginative animal adventures for kids, “inspired by the mission of Dr Jane Goodall”. Jane (Ava Louise Murchison) continues to use her vivid mind and curious brain to liven up life in her ordinary apartment, with her first new quest being to reunite a lost baby panda with its mother. Once that’s sorted out, there’s a quick lesson on pandas’ real lives, and how we can better look after them.

It’s a neat way to teach older primary-schoolers about conservation and climate change.

Jack Seale

Tom Hollander makes for a formidable Truman Capote — mannered and monstrous, without tipping over into unbelievable caricature — in a corkingly gossipy drama based on real events. We hop between various timelines to tell the story of the fabled writer befriending a group of female socialites in the 1960s, only to destroy the relationship in the 1970s by transparently basing a novel on their secrets and heartbreaks.

The portrait of a bygone elite, riven with drugs, booze, betrayal and insecurity, is delicious and the cast is indulgently stellar: Diane Lane, Demi Moore, Chloë Sevigny and Naomi Watts all dial up the vicious glam.

Jack Seale

Almost no animals live in true isolation, and the natural world’s interconnectedness is the theme of a handsomely filmed documentary series, narrated by Cate Blanchett.

It travels the world looking at how the living creatures within different ecosystems rely on each other’s existence to survive — and shows that sometimes those networks spread more widely than you think. Its other main point is that almost every such system is affected by the actions of one animal in particular — us.

Jack Seale

This life-affirming romantic drama follows writer Michael Ausiello (The Big Bang Theory’s Jim Parsons) as he deals with the fallout of his partner Kit’s cancer diagnosis. After Kit (Ben Aldridge) discovers he has a rare form of the disease, he and Michael determine to make the most of their time together, with support from Kit’s parents (played by Bill Irwin and a scene-stealing Sally Field).

Director Michael Showalter nimbly avoids mawkishness in much the same way he did with The Big Sick, and the result is both tongue-in-cheek and touching.

Mark Williams

One of the most talked-about films of the past year, and the one that scooped up an incredible amount of awards, Oppenheimer, is available to stream on Sky Cinema Premiere. Now able to watch at home, our TV screens may not quite be as impressive as the IMAX format director Christopher Nolan intended us all to see it on, but the strong bones of this movie prevail in whatever its format.

Cillian Murphy delivers quite the mesmerising performance as the well-known physicist, who we follow as he works with a team to create the atomic bomb. While the film has been criticised for failing to capture the true extent of the destruction inflicted by the bomb itself, the movie remains a standout, as we see Oppenheimer rally against his own guilt and his growing political influence at the time, as well as reckoning with his legacy.

Morgan Cormack

Richard Gadd may not be a name lots of people are familiar with, but in Baby Reindeer, the comedian, actor and writer takes centre stage as Donny to tell us the very real story of his own stalking experience. Without giving too much away, the series does of course delve into the stalking, but it's so much more than that – instead, the show takes us on a journey through Gadd's burgeoning comedy career, the paths he took to get to where he is and the abuse he endured at the start of it.

Far from an easy watch, this dark series doesn't shy away from pivotal self-reflection as we get a window into Gadd's trauma, his sexuality and dating life. Jessica Gunning is especially captivating (and equally quite terrifying) as Donny's stalker, Martha, who isn't your archetypal villain.

Morgan Cormack

Westworld co-creator Jonathan Nolan is on directing duties for this dramatisation of a popular video-game franchise, which arrives with a bold take on a post-apocalyptic Earth. Ella Purnell is Lucy, a young woman who has grown up in a “Vault” — an underground society created to help humanity survive nuclear armageddon.

When she emerges two centuries after the end of the world, she discovers the people and the fragmented society that exist on the surface. This prompts a retro-futuristic romp with everything from bounty-hunters and full-on warfare to killer mutant sea creatures. The visuals are riotously impressive.

Jack Seale

A mystery thriller set in a quiet town in the Alps? Oh, Anthracite is practically screaming out to be the kind of show that will leave you with chills and a lot of questions. With the setting lending itself well to the kind of foreign language series that do pulsating stories so well, this new Netflix release combines secrets, cults and murder for one multi-layered watch.

When a girl is found killed following the rituals of a strange community, panic rightfully ensues. Does it have ties to the mass suicide of a cult 30 years prior? Or is it perhaps linked to the cold case of a reporter? As we follow the reporter's computer whizz of a daughter, she endeavours to find out what happened to her father - but will uncover so much more in the process.

Morgan Cormack

In this sweet, if slow, romantic drama, grieving Harriet (Lucy Boynton) discovers that she can visit her dead boyfriend Max (David Corenswet) in the past by listening to a song from their time together. While obsessing over finding the specific song that might help her to save him, Harriet is also conflicted over her feelings for David (Justin H Min), a man from her group counselling sessions.

The film’s exploration of grief is rather surface level, but writer/ director Ned Benson uses the time-travel elements well, and Min is hugely likeable.

Jayne Nelson

If you’re aged 60-plus and American, the title of this new animated sitcom will spark some memories: it’s a reboot of a hit live-action comedy from the 1970s, which at the time broke new ground by being the first sitcom in the classic two-parent family set-up to feature black lead characters.

Three generations on, the Evans clan still live in Apartment 17C, but the animated format allows for greater flights of fancy, the social commentary hits harder and the jokes have some of the saltiness of Family Guy — the creator of that show, Seth MacFarlane, is an executive producer.

Jack Seale