HUNTING PARTY
Killers are on the loose—and an elite team of investigators is on the case!
Melissa Roxburgh
The Hunting Party SERIES PREMIERE
Tuesday, Feb. 4, PEACOCK
INSTINCTS
Melissa Roxburgh leads a team of elite investigators on the trail of the world’s scariest criminals in the gripping thriller
The Hunting Party
EVEN BEFORE THIS chilling new crime drama premieres, let’s give it kudos for casting. As star Melissa Roxburgh confesses, the first time she faced off against an actor hired to play a psychotic mass murderer in a tense interrogation scene, she told him, “Ooh, if I met you on the street, I would run!”
You can look forward to plenty of running (and shooting and outsmarting) for Roxburgh, who plays Bex Henderson, a former FBI profiler now leading a team tracking down serial killers who escaped when a top-secret prison was destroyed in a mysterious explosion.
BY KATE HAHN
Nicknamed “the Pit,” the facility, which goes boom in the series premiere, was in a converted nuclear missile silo in Wyoming and housed hundreds whose supposed executions had been faked. The series launches with 10 episodes, each of which covers the search for a different killer. In the opening hour, the hunt is on for a maniac who blinds women as revenge on his mother, who locked him in a dark basement. There’s a government cover-up after the explosion, of course, and the inmates must be nabbed fast. Bex is up to the task. Roxburgh compares her to Michaela Stone, the cop she
portrayed on NBC/Netflix’s Manifest (2018–23). “Bex is tenacious, stubborn, strong-willed. I carry a bit of stubbornness, so I can relate.” The actress also connects to the role thanks to college studies in criminology, including a seminar analyzing the likes of Ed Gein and Ted Bundy. Still, these are more than your average repeat slashers. The inmates have been subjected to experiments that have further twisted their already creepy minds. (The plot point was inspired by MKUltra, a CIA program that tested psychological torture techniques, in use from 1953 to 1973.) And Bex fears that among the es-
“BEX IS TENACIOUS, STUBBORN, STRONGWILLED. I CARRY A BIT OF STUBBORNNESS, SO I CAN RELATE.”
—Melissa Roxburgh
WINTER PREVIEW
Roxburgh’s Bex tries talking some sense to an escaped murderer in Episode 3
capees is Eli Johnson (Mark Moses), a killer she helped catch as a teen by listening in on her sheriff dad’s phone calls for clues.
“The prison is a lab that was used [through] many decades by the pharmaceutical industries, the defense industries, the military,” says executive producer Jake Coburn, who runs the show with series creator JJ Bailey. “It’s a government conspiracy that just keeps unfolding.”
Even the president is in the dark, so it’s no surprise that Bex must deal with false information, says Roxburgh: “One thing that drives the mystery is that no one really knows who’s in charge.” Also, the brilliant special agent can’t even be sure who among her squad colleagues to trust.
Take the prison warden, Oliver Odell (Nick Wechsler, Revenge), who’s put on the team due to his experience with the
escapees. He was Bex’s FBI mentor, but his unethical treatment of a suspect drove them apart. “It’s been [five] years since they’ve seen each other and nothing’s been resolved,” Roxburgh says. “Who is he as a person having done what he did?” Flashbacks during the first episode piece together that fateful past operation, which also brought Bex together with her adopted, now-collegeage daughter Sam (Kyra Leroux).
No matter how terribly things ended with Odell, “they shared a lot of love prior,” Roxburgh says. And yes, there was romantic tension, which returns. Plus, “everyone loves a good triangle, so we see snippets of that,” Roxburgh reveals. The
Wechsler’s Odell gets a second chance with Bex on the team
It’s hard for Bex to know what role Hassani (Sabongui, right) plays in the mystery
third side is a prison guard/former military man, Shane Florence (Josh McKenzie, La Brea). He and Bex bond quickly after sharing stories of past traumas. “Shane becomes Bex’s safe place, someone she can trust completely. But he’s got his own bag of secrets,” Roxburgh says.
The team’s de facto manager is the CIA’s Jacob Hassani (Patrick Sabongui, Homeland), who has long hunted terrorists and traffickers. He reports directly to the attorney general, Elizabeth Mallory (Zabryna Guevara). “Hassani is running the day-to-day operations from the CIA perspective. He’s brought in to clean this up,” Bailey says.
Whoever’s in charge has provided a big budget. The hunters’ massive plane doubles as a war room, so they can quickly fly to destinations nationwide where the escaped killers have been spotted.
They also get a hand from military intelligence officer Jennifer Morales (Sara Garcia, The Flash). Once an ace student in Bex’s officer candidate course in behavioral science at Quantico, “she’s a drop of sunshine in a dark world,” Bailey says. That world comes through in the series’ big-picture mystery as the team gets clues on who was behind the prison break and why. We’ll learn, says Roxburgh, “how international this goes.” But the more pressing issues come each week as the hunting party does its job. In each episode, says Roxburgh, we’re left to “wonder who’s going to get hurt. And is everyone going to make it out alive?”
THE TOURIST
THURSDAY, FEB. 29
For Season 2, fans of this British comic thriller already know Elliot Stanley (an appealing Jamie Dornan, above) is no saint. Of course, Elliot has no idea—the show began with the flummoxed Irishman waking up in an Australian hospital with amnesia after a car crash, and he’s been on a harrowing journey ever since, running from the consequences of his criminal misdeeds.
In this second go-round (Season 1 premiered on Max; both seasons now stream on Netflix), Elliot—and his girlfriend, former constable Helen Chambers (Danielle Macdonald)—are in Ireland, lured by a missive from a professed old friend, and hoping to somehow learn more about his identity.
“Discovering what ‘Past Elliot’ was capable of is part of the joy of this season,” says executive producer Sarah Hammond. And as he digs into who he was, “he’ll be caught in the crosshairs of a bitter feud between warring families.” Expect the action to be unforgettable. —Ileane Rudolph
GIRLS5EVA
THURSDAY, MARCH 14
Band on the run! After two seasons on Peacock, the recently reunited (and fictional) ’90s girl group is heading off on tour…and is grateful for this Netflix encore. “It’s a dream come true,” says Sara Bareilles (above, right), who stars as logical crooner Dawn opposite (from right) Renée Elise Goldsberry’s fame-hungry Wickie, Paula Pell’s earthy lesbian Gloria and Busy Philipps’s flaky Summer. “There was so much relief [with the move to Netflix],”
adds Bareilles, “because we all love making this show so much.” When the series returns, Girls5eva is on the road, Dawn is pregnant with her second child (“I was in prosthetic bellies for most of the season” Bareilles says), Wickie’s “secret history” is set to be revealed during one of the tour stops and all sorts of Girls power blooms. Notes the Grammy winner, “There’s a real sisterhood blooming, and I love seeing that!” —Damian Holbrook
SUPERSEX
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6
Rocco Siffredi (Alessandro Borghi, left) has long been a legend in his native Italy—the famed porn star fronted some 1,500 hardcore films during his award-winning career. The seven-episode drama series Supersex uncovers pivotal moments from his childhood and myriad relationships and looks at the successes and disappointments that affected the course of his life. As he says in this compelling drama, “Every existence lived to the fullest has a price to pay.”
3 BODY PROBLEM
THURSDAY, MARCH 21
The aliens are coming. In David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’ (Game of Thrones) thriller, Earth’s population is under deadly threat from interstellar forces.
And, as in Thrones, it’s a tense build to battle. The sci-fi epic begins with scientist Ye Wenjie (Zine Tseng), whose brutal treatment as a young woman during China’s 1960s Cultural Revolution drives her to make a terrible choice that will lead invaders to Earth. The aggressors have yet to reach our planet when we see her in present day (Rosalind Chao), but something’s strange. Science experts are mysteriously committing suicide—or are they being killed? Realizing she might be next is tech company founder Auggie Salazar (Eiza González, below), one of a circle of Oxford scientist friends trying to save humankind.
Alexander Woo (True Blood) cocreated the stunning show, and a slew of Thrones vets—including John Bradley, Jonathan Pryce and Liam Cunningham— play characters involved in the life-or-death struggle. “There’s something scary coming from somewhere,” Weiss sums up the series, “and we need to get our s- -t together.” —Kate Hahn
TWISTS OF FATE
Life’s thorniest turns have always been the stuff of great drama, and these three series are among the most affecting—and bingeable
THIS IS US
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Coincidences, serendipity and straight-up happy accidents abound in this stellar NBC drama that scored four Emmys and proved that network TV could still create watercooler conversations.
Justin Hartley, Chrissy Metz and Sterling K. Brown (right) star as Pearson siblings Kevin, Kate and Randall, whose modern lives fuel the story’s many flashbacks to the past, where parents Rebecca and Jack (Mandy
SIX FEET
UNDER
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We all die…and most of us won’t know when. Ironically, each episode of HBO’s terrifically dark 2001–05 soap about the Fisher & Sons funeral home family began with a death before digging into the chaotic, crisis-filled lives of brothers David and Nate (Michael C. Hall and Peter Krause, above), as well as their wild-child sister (Lauren Ambrose) and emotionally repressed mother (Frances Conroy). Even more ironic? The show left us after five seasons with a series finale that was utterly to die for. —DH
Moore and Milo Ventimiglia) struggled to do the best they could for their kids. Over the show’s six stellar seasons, countless tear-inducing twists tied these characters together in ways we never saw coming, including reveals regarding deaths, divorces and declines in health that broke our hearts on a weekly basis. So keep those tissues close by! —Damian Holbrook
THE CROWN
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It’s not all protocols and politics in this 2016–23 drama focused on the life and legacy of Queen Elizabeth II, played through its six seasons by Claire Foy (above, with Matt Smith’s Prince Philip), Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton. As fans know, a battalion of unexpected circumstances changed history (starting with Elizabeth’s ascendancy), from infidelities and surprise splits to unrest and, of course, the tragedy of Princess Diana’s death, all of which played out in the acclaimed series. —DH
PLAYERS
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Love is a contact sport in this feisty little rom-com. Not Dead Yet’s Gina Rodriguez stars as Mack, a Brooklyn sportswriter who relies on a series of “plays” that she and her crew, including bestie Adam (Damon Wayans Jr., right, with, from left, Rodriguez, Augustus Prew and Joel Courtney), have crafted to score with casual hookups. That all changes when a hot ex–foreign correspondent named Nick (Lucifer’s Tom Ellis) gets Mack rethinking the rules of the game. “He speaks seven languages, and he saved an actual orphan from an actual burning building,” she points out. “You don’t run a play on that…that is a man that you get into debt with.” But can she afford to turn a one-night stand into a true romance? Or might there be another heavy hitter who could win Mack’s heart and give her a happily ever Damian Holbrook
TAYLOR TOMLINSON: HAVE IT ALL
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“New relationships are awkward, ’cause you gotta tell a whole new person what you like in bed, and the only reason you know what you like in bed is ’cause someone else did it to you first.” With such eyepopping truths, Tomlinson (right) has seen her profile grow in the stand-up world, leading to her perch hosting CBS’s After Midnight game show. But jokes are her game, in a career that began with her taking a stand-up class in a church basement at age 16. In Tomlinson’s third Netflix special (following Quarter-Life Crisis and Look at You ), she covers topics related to that age-old question of whether or not we can truly have it all. Onstage at Capital One Hall in Tysons, Virginia, she cracks wise about finding the ideal partner, having the perfect job, dealing with the anxiety and insomnia related to all of life’s struggles, and tons more funny observations.
JACK WHITEHALL: SETTLE DOWN AVAILABLE NOW
He’ll quip about dogs. And drinking. And dining alone. But in his latest stand-up special—and first since 2020’s Jack Whitehall: I’m Only Joking— the British comedian and personality (left) really riffs about the true sign you’ve settled down: being a parent. (It’s a perfect topic, given the several shows he’s done alongside his famous TV presenter dad, Michael John Whitehall.) “You ask other parents about having a kid, there is no middle ground,” he tells the crowd at London’s 02 Arena. “One end of the spectrum, you have those parents that talk to you about it with demented enthusiasm…like they’re the only people to have ever done it. ‘Oh my god, you’ve got to get one; it’s gonna change your life.’ They’re like those f- - -ers with air fryers.” On the other end? “You’ve got parents who are like Vietnam War veterans [shouting], ’Don’t do it, man!’”
ALEXANDER: THE MAKING OF A GOD
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Alexander the Great packed lots of living into 33 years, and these six episodes cover all the highlights of the king of ancient Greece, who ruled more than three centuries before Christ. “Alexander was the greatest military mind of all time, and yet at the same time, he was a poet, philosopher, a scientist, an inventor and a builder of [an] empire,” says Cardiff University professor Lloyd LlewellynJones in the series. ‘It’s no wonder that, after 2,000 years, we are still obsessed with him.” The show weaves its tale through drama (with Buck Braithwaite, above, as Alexander), education and excavation, as a prominent archaeologist uncovers fascinating ruins in modern-day Alexandria, offering more clues to this ancient man’s life.
QUEEN CLEOPATRA
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This powerful pharaoh of Egypt used wiles and will to save the country she loved. Dramatic reenactments (featuring Adele James, above, as Cleopatra) and expert interviews combine in these episodes to bring the cunning, daring beauty, who also romanced both Mark Antony and Julius Caesar, to life.
EINSTEIN AND THE BOMB
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REAL-TO-REEL LIFE
Documentaries and dramas bring vibrant eras of history to home screens in these series
In the wake of Oppenheimer’s success, this doc delves into the guilty conscience of another of the atom bomb’s many fathers—Albert Einstein. “I made…one great mistake in my life,” says the renowned thinker, seen in both archive footage and in docudrama scenes played by Aidan McArdle. “Had I known the Germans would not succeed in producing the bomb…I would not have taken part in opening that Pandora’s box.” We see the building of the ultimate weapon through the eyes of the tortured genius, who fled the Nazis only to face alarming questions such as: Was the bomb a price worth paying for peace?
BAND OF BROTHERS
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This extraordinary 10-episode 2001 miniseries won seven Emmys and told the WWII tale of the 101st Airborne Division’s “Easy” Company of paratroopers. Damian Lewis (above) led the cast as Maj. Dick Winters; Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg were among the producers.
THE LAST CZARS
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People obsessed with Russia’s doomed Romanovs will embrace this 2019 six-parter. It blends the dramatic tale of Nicholas II (Robert Jack, center, with Susanna Herbert and Oskar Mowdy) from his 1894 ascension to his 1918 assassination with expert commentary.
Movies
SPACEMAN
FRIDAY, MARCH 1
This trippy, atmospheric drama delivers a big bang for fans of Adam Sandler (above) in dramatic roles (Uncut Gems, Punch Drunk Love). Here, he’s a Czech astronaut, Jakub, who, six months into a solo research mission, realizes his marriage to Lenka (Carey Mulligan) may be over by the time he returns. Fortunately, an ancient spiderlike creature named Hanuš (voiced by Paul Dano), who’s been hiding in the ship, offers important counsel. Hanuš may not be real, but Sandler wanted his own performance to be grounded in truth. “During quarantine, we had late-night two-hour conversations about the character and book, what it is to be Czech and Czech history,” recalls Jaroslav Kalfar, whose novel served as the basis for the film. Kalfar adds that he loved how the movie turned out. “People who love weird things and weird art will hopefully be delighted.” —KH
DAMSEL
FRIDAY, MARCH 8
“I can fight,” Millie Bobby Brown once vowed as telekinetic heroine Eleven in sci-fi horror hit Stranger Things before facing a monster at least 10 times her size. The actress conjures the same gutsy spirit in this adrenaline-pumping fantasy as Princess Elodie (right), battling spectacularly to escape a fire-breathing dragon’s labyrinthine lair.
Elodie gets into the cavernous mess after agreeing to marry a handsome prince, Henry (Nick Robinson). But the wedding is a ruse: The royal family just wanted Elodie as a sacrifice to repay an age-old debt, so into the scaly beast’s cave she goes, despite her stepmother Lady Bayford (Angela Bassett) going head-to-head with Queen Isabelle (Robin Wright).
“[It’s a] dark and thrilling adventure about a young woman becoming a strong, independent, empowered adult,” says director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. “Elodie doesn’t have any support. It’s a real survival experience.” —Kate Hahn
GOOD GRIEF AVAILABLE NOW
Daniel Levy trades Schitt’s Creek for the Seine in this beautifully poignant exploration of love, loss and the power of friendship. “At the time of this film, I had lost my grandmother and my dog, and was questioning what grief was and whether I was feeling it appropriately,” says firsttime feature director Levy, who also wrote and stars as Marc, a London-based illustrator sent reeling by the sudden death of his author husband, Oliver (Luke Evans). Faced with settling one of Oliver’s messier affairs, Marc and his best mates (Himesh Patel and Ruth Negga, left, with Levy) head off to Paris. But as the trio take in the City of Light, much is revealed about their bond, leading to a transformative journey in the kind of movie Levy hopes will make you “laugh and cry and hug your friends and feel grateful for what you have in your life.” —Damian Holbrook
A PIECE OF THE ACTION
There’s always something huge at stake in the most memorable clash-filled films—a specialty at Netflix. Here are a few favorites both new and classic.
BADLAND HUNTERS
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Some startling effects will drop you right into a jagged vision of Seoul no one would recognize—right after a devastating earthquake. The city has become an apocalyptic mess where water is scarce, dangerous factions abound and an evil doctor (Lee Hee-jun) is creating a master race through human experiments. Good thing the mighty tough yet tender Nam San (celebrated South Korean–American action star Don Lee) is there to keep his small community safe. And when a teen survivor is drawn to the evil doctor’s lair, Nam San and his faithful arrow-shooting sidekick Ji-wan (Lee Jun-young, right) are on the case. Will they prevail? One look at how quickly Nam San turns a vicious croc into dinner in the early going and you won’t ask.
FURY
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The action is relentless in this 2014 look at an American tank crew slowly working its way through Germany in the final weeks of WWII. When the gunfire slows down, the film becomes a well-played exercise in courage, heroism and the idea of how a person manages to accept the ugliness of combat. It’s also beautifully cast, with Brad Pitt (above), Jon Bernthal, Shia LaBeouf and Michael Peña in the M4 Sherman that’s been nicknamed “Fury,” alongside Percy Jackson star Logan Lerman as a young private.
60 MINUTES
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Octavio Bergmann (fit, formidable and mighty funny actor and singer Emilio Sakraya, left) has no trouble training for a long-delayed MMA “gladiator fight” against an equally chiseled opponent. What is it that really stresses him out? Figuring out how to write the appropriately cute birthday card for his seven-year-old daughter. But when the girl’s mother threatens to cut him out unless he can show up to her party in an hour—just as the fight, with six-figure bets at stake, is about to start—he’s off and running. And jumping. And eluding bad guys and surviving wrecks all over Berlin. All to get there on time with dessert (“She hasn’t eaten all day because she’s waiting for my cake,” he argues to his promoter) and a really cute kitten named Onion in this flight-not-fight joyride. —RE
PACIFIC RIM
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It’s one big monster mashup in Guillermo del Toro’s future-set 2013 sci-fi crunchfest. The Kaiju are huge alien-created creatures, attacking Earth from a portal at the bottom of the Pacific. The only hope for planetary survival are the human-built Jaegers, giant mechas looking to destroy the Kaiju in an all-or-nothing smackdown. Idris Elba and Charlie Hunnam (above) costar as mission specialists working together to end this threat. Will it work? Well…this film did start a continuing franchise.
DEAL OR NO DEAL ISLAND
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 27
“The bones of Deal or No Deal are there, so fans of the original game will be happy,” promises Joe Manganiello (True Blood, Magic Mike), who hosts this juiced-up, island-centric version of the game show. Yes, the briefcases containing big bucks are back—but with Fear Factor and Big Brother on the résumés of the creative team, expect a different spin on the 2005–09 NBC hit hosted by Howie Mandel (now an executive producer). Manganiello shares more intel.
Since this update doesn’t take place in a studio like the original, what’s the premise? Thirteen contestants are dropped onto an [undisclosed] jungle island. There’s an excursion in every episode where the contestants duke it out for cases worth millions and millions of dollars that are hidden all over this island. [In one example], out in the water, there are briefcases connected to dynamite! Have any prizes been added to the cases, or are they still strictly cash? It’s all about cash. When I say cash, I mean obscene amounts of money! How do the cases work? The lowest value cases put people up for elimination. The highest-value cases give people the power to choose who faces the Banker in a game of “Deal or No Deal” in a temple.
Tell us about the new Banker. He’s on his yacht in the bay observing these sick and twisted games. So it’s kind of the depraved billionaire searching for his equal amongst these competitors who have been lured onto his island. What are the 13 contestants like? [They’re from] every walk of life. And the personal stories are at times uplifting and at times heartbreaking. But there’s also a clear-cut villain right out of the gate that I was shocked about. The social experiment is what always fascinated me about Survivor, and that is very much in play.
Any hosting advice from Howie? We shot a promo where Howie passes me the torch—or briefcase, if you will—but no advice. We’ve known each other a long time, and it was like, out of everybody on the planet, out of all the gin joints, here I’m the one who’s taking it over. We had a good laugh about it. —Jim Halterman
Manganiello loves a good game, from poker to Dungeons & Dragons!
LA BREA
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FINAL SEASON!
The pothole from hell meets Jurassic Park in NBC’s just-wrapped sci-fi thrill ride, which kicked off with a massive sinkhole opening up at the famed La Brea Tar Pits. During the catastrophic rupture, “dozens of people fall in,” showrunner David Appelbaum told us back when it premiered in 2021. “They’re transported to [10,000 B.C.] where they have to band together to survive.” And for three seasons, those survivors, like troubled shrink Ty (Chiké Okonkwo, left, with Rohan Mirchandaney and Asmara Feik), endure both prehistoric and existential threats because, as some of them learn, you can’t outrun your past, even in the past.
BOSCO
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In this thrilling based-on-a-true-story film, Quawntay “Bosco” Adams (Aubrey Joseph, Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger) escapes a federal maximum security prison—he’s serving 35 years for attempting to possess marijuana— in a mission to be at the hospital for the birth of his firstborn. How? A solitary Missouri woman, Tammy (Hairspray’s Nikki Blonsky), offers to help boost the young man. Bosco also pulls strength from his mom Willa (Vivica A. Fox, above). Listen up for new hip hop music from Snoop Dogg, French Montana and The Game.
APPLES NEVER FALL
THURSDAY, MARCH 14
A blood-spattered bicycle lies on a sunny West Palm Beach street in the premiere of this limited mystery series based on Liane Moriarty’s (Big Little Lies) bestseller. Nowhere to be found is the last person seen happily pedaling it, Joy Delaney (Annette Bening), who was also cruising toward retirement with her husband Stan (Sam Neill). The respected tennis coaches had sold their successful academy and were preparing for more time with their four adult children. Instead, Joy’s terrified family and the police try to learn what happened to the Delaney matriarch over seven chilling hours.
“Joy has a lot of secrets,” Bening reveals. “There are things she did that
didn’t serve her in the long run. There’s a lot of conflict [with Stan], stuff that has built up underneath the surface.”
The siblings, all ex-tennis prodigies, look into the vanishing. Initially, chill marina manager Logan (Conor Merrigan-Turner) thinks it has to do with Savannah (Georgia Flood), an enigmatic young woman taken in by Joy and Stan. Physical therapist Brooke (Essie Randles) agrees. Venture capitalist Troy (Jake Lacy) suspects Stan. And arty, aimless Amy (Alison Brie) falls somewhere in between.
“Stan’s a dominant guy and all of his kids have some trauma,” Neill says. “He is also capable of anything, and that’s terrifying.” —Kate Hahn
Former tennis pro Sam Stosur, who ranked as the No. 1 in the world in doubles, trained the cast, like Bening (left)
The fan fave series was cut short, ending with multiple cliffhangers; could newfound interest bring it back for a reboot?
LAS VEGAS
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Fans of NBC’s high-roller dramedy hit the jackpot at the end of 2023 when all five seasons of Las Vegas began streaming. In this 2003–08 series, Josh Duhamel (The Thing About Pam) starred as Danny McCoy, a former Marine running security for the Montecito, a lavish fictional casino on the Vegas Strip run by retired CIA operative Ed Deline (James Caan, above). Like a
MORE BELOVED CRIME DRAMAS
CHICAGO P.D.
AVAILABLE NOW
Deadly risk comes with the job in the CPD’s Intelligence Unit, where undercover work reigns supreme. In Season 10’s finale, a severely injured Ruzek (Patrick John Flueger) was left for dead after being shot. Months later, he was still rehabbing—and gambling due to boredom. In Season 11 (new episodes stream on Thursdays), Burgess (Marina Squerciati, above), who’s nearly died several times, finds herself in the middle of a drive-by attack, while Torres (Benjamin Levy Aguilar) is endangered on a highstakes drug trafficking case.
LAW & ORDER: SVU
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SIN
Love Boat with penny slots and Pai Gow, the Montecito welcomed weekly guest stars looking to change their fortunes, sometimes illegally, while Danny and the staff (including General Hospital alum Vanessa Marcil as the casino’s host and Tom Selleck as its new owner in the final season) engaged in naughty entanglements and risky power plays. —Damian Holbrook
For a groundbreaking 25 years, millions of fans have followed the committed cops of NYPD’s sex crimes unit as they race to save victims of homicidal predators and vicious sex traffickers. Luckily, Capt. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay, below) is on the hunt, never wavering in her dedication. During this landmark season (new episodes stream on Fridays), Benson is haunted by a difficult choice she made—allowing a kidnapper to escape with his teenage victim—and eventually works with the FBI on the yet-to-besolved case.
CITY FUN!
Movies
THE HOLDOVERS
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OPPENHEIMER
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It’s no surprise Christopher Nolan’s ambitious movie about the Manhattan Project’s wartime race to build a nuclear weapon before Nazi Germany has triumphed at award shows. A nuanced script depicting the superbomb’s creation and misgivings over its destructive power, explorations of the complicated marital and political life of theoretical physicist J.
BATMAN BEGINS
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Holy cowl, it’s the film that changed the rules for superhero movies! After decades of bright and campy takes on comic book do-gooders, director Christopher Nolan did the unthinkable in 2005 and gave us a violent, gritty retelling of the iconic DC Comics character, with Christian Bale as brooding billionaire orphan Bruce Wayne, who trains to take on the mantle of Gotham City’s protector against the madman known as the Scarecrow (Nolan’s future Oppenheimer lead, Cillian Murphy, right, with Bale). Katie Holmes, Liam Neeson and Gary Oldman costar.
Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy, above), who shepherded the project, plus star turns by Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon and Florence Pugh, assured those honors. What was unexpected: its status as 2023’s third highest-grossing film, earning close to $1 billion, trailing only Barbie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. —Ileane Rudolph
“Troglodytes!” is what grumpy ancient civilizations teacher Paul Hunham (Paul Giamatti, above) angrily calls his class at an elite boys’ boarding school in this 2023 film. To his dismay, the loner intellectual gets saddled with babysitting the “holdovers”: students stuck at the academy during Christmas break. Hunham haltingly forms a bond with smart, unsettled Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) and the head of the school’s cafeteria, Mary Lamb (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). The trio lean on each other as they deal with past tragedies and the messy, hopeful business of being human.
NOPE
AVAILABLE NOW
Director Jordan Peele has described this 2022 sci-fi horror film that drew critical praise for its fresh take on the genre as a “great American UFO story.” The adult Haywood siblings, reserved OJ (Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out) and exuberant Emerald (Keke Palmer), take on a massive alien that appears in the sky over their ranch, the only Black-owned horse training business in Hollywood. Their neighbor, washed-up child star Ricky “Jupe” Park (The Walking Dead vet Steven Yeun, above), who runs a nearby theme park, tries to profit from the creature’s arrival.
THE NATURAL WORLD
EARTH AT NIGHT IN COLOR
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“The night—a shadowy world that hides more than half the animals on our planet,” says narrator Tom Hiddleston to begin this first true look at nocturnal lives around the globe. These visually stunning 12 episodes bring to vivid light playful and dangerous scenes of polar bears in winter (above), a young puma in the Patagonian mountains, the colorful beauty of the coral reef and more. Using cameras 100 times more sensitive than the human eye, the filmmakers give us a glimpse of Earth’s dark wilderness.
MESSI’S WORLD CUP: THE RISE OF A LEGEND
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During his 17-year career, international soccer icon Lionel Messi had won a slew of individual awards and lofted every conceivable trophy except one: the 18-karat gold FIFA World Cup. That finally changed in 2022, when he led Argentina to victory in Qatar, sending soccer fans everywhere—especially those in his home country and in Barcelona, where he played for two decades—into a frenzy. It’s the stuff of legend, and documentaries. Messi describes his triumphant fifth World Cup try in this four-episode series that looks at the athlete’s early life and greatest successes. But Rise places special emphasis on that 2022 victory over defending champs France, led by Kylian Mbappé. It also benefits from the filmmakers’ extensive access to Messi, his teammates and coaches, as well as Argentina’s team bus and plane. Looking back, Messi knows his cup runneth over. “After all,” he says, “I’m just a kid from Rosario who loves to play ball.” —Ian Spelling
TAKE THESE EXTRAORDINARY JOURNEYS TO WITNESS TALES OF WONDER ACROSS THE GLOBE AND BEYOND
THE YEAR THE EARTH CHANGED
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Humankind hit the pause button starting in March 2020, once the COVID-19 lockdown had us staying at home to remain safe from the virus. But animals had no such edict, setting in motion “a global experiment of epic proportions,” intones narrator David Attenborough in this fascinating documentary. Filming from the start of the pandemic across five continents, the makers of The Year the Earth Changed captured remarkable shifts in nature, from breeding penguins to thriving cheetahs (above), on land, sea and air.
FIREBALL: VISITORS FROM DARKER WORLDS
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Meteorites have hit Earth in years past; what we don’t realize is how much those impacts have affected us beyond the dents in our terrain. Acclaimed filmmaker Werner Herzog and Cambridge University professor Clive Oppenheimer suggest these cosmic happenings have shaped world culture for centuries. Herzog in his narration suggests a meteorite may have landed where Mecca was built, and Oppenheimer’s colleague Prof. Simon Schaffer (above) describes how the falling of a 300-lb. rock in 1492 France shaped an empire.
Menzies sees Lincoln’s shooting as “one of the iconic crimes of American history”; below: Linklater
MANHUNT
FRIDAY, MARCH 15
Everyone knows the name John Wilkes Booth. The actor shot U.S. president Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre in 1865, only five days after Union forces won the Civil War. But have you heard of Edwin M. Stanton, the driven secretary of war and close friend of Lincoln who led the ensuing manhunt to nab the assassin? His liferisking 12-day pursuit through a fractured nation is brought to life in this seven-episode limited drama based on James L. Swanson’s 2006 bestseller and starring Tobias Menzies.
“Stanton’s not necessarily straightforwardly likable; he’s fierce, uncompromising,” says Menzies, who counts him among the “deeply complex and contradictory” types he’s drawn to play, such as Prince Philip in The Crown, for which he won an Emmy, and sadistic “Black Jack” Randall in Outlander Booth (Anthony Boyle), who sees himself as a hero, eludes
capture, despite a broken leg, with the help of a secret Confederate network. Stanton hunts down the traitors and coolly questions them, assuring some they will hang—and they do.
“It’s personal and political [for him],” Menzies says. Not only is he avenging his friend’s death—flashbacks show the depth of the bond between Stanton and Lincoln (Hamish Linklater)—but the longtime abolitionist is also defending the newfound freedoms of African Americans.
Stanton even ignores doctor’s orders for bed rest to recover from one of his severe asthma attacks. “He’s pushed to his limits emotionally and physically, traveling across large areas, no sleep. Is he going to get Booth first or is he going to die?” says Menzies, who had his own way of coping with the fact that Booth was a fellow member of his profession. “I held the idea that maybe he wasn’t a very good actor.” —Kate Hahn
Movie
KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON AVAILABLE NOW
Silence and steely determination speak volumes in the person of Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone, below), a Native woman confronting the wrenching betrayal and violence that have infested her community in director Martin Scorsese’s 2023 masterpiece. The tender yet heartbreaking love story between Mollie and her husband, Ernest (Leonardo DiCaprio), is the core of this searing drama about a series of unsolved murders that shook the Osage Nation in the 1920s after a wealth of oil was discovered under their land.
Using David Grann’s nonfiction book as a jumpingoff point, Scorsese also focuses the narrative on the exploitation of the Osage by a cabal of white men such as William “King” Hale (Robert De Niro, above, with DiCaprio), who ingratiated themselves with the community and stuffed their bank accounts by any means necessary.
Jesse Plemons, John Lithgow and Brendan Fraser costar.
Christopher Wallenberg
