Best new movies and TV series on Amazon Prime Video Australia: October 2024

Each month, new films and TV shows are added to Amazon Prime Video‘s Australian library. Eliza Janssen presents her picks for titles worth watching. For the full list of everything arriving on the platform, scroll down.

Top picks: TV

The Legend of Vox Machina: Season 3 (October 3)

Foul-mouthed, fast-paced and fantastical, this returning show adapts an improv gang’s Dungeons & Dragons sessions into animated mayhem. The whole flashy ordeal was birthed by Kickstarter, with fans of the webseries Critical Role making season one the most funded film and TV project in the platform’s history. It’s a fluid romp through dice-rollin’ tropes, but this is no kids’ game: four-letter words and more than a touch of sexual vulgarity help to spice up each arc’s dense lore and epic action. The series’ scripting has also grown stronger since it has blossomed beyond straight-forward repetition of the webseries’ early narratives, allowing each cleric, rogue and half-elf character to develop on their own terms.

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Citadel: Diana: Season 1 (October 10)

Y’all remember Citadel? No? Released last year and never spoken of again, the spy series was Prime’s bid at big-budget episodic action, running up a staggering $300 million price tag for Papa Bezos. We’re getting not one but two spin-offs to the dubious franchise this year, in the form of 1990s Indian chapter Honey Bunny and this sidequest, flavoured with Italian intrigue. The show will follow a double agent with a seriously wacky, asymmetrical haircut; Diana (Matilda De Angelis) is actually working undercover for the titular good guy organisation, and when she becomes trapped behind enemy lines at evil syndicate Manticore, the head honcho’s son and heir might be her only ticket out.

The Office: Season 1 (October 18)

Good news: there’s a new Australian comedy coming to Prime, with local cast and crew getting their shot at international recognition! Bad news: it’s a rehash of an existing property that worked so well overseas, and has already received scathing first impressions from angry Office-fans. I’m stunned that this is apparently the 13th iteration of The Office, and only the first with a female Michael Scott/David Brent, played here by Felicity Ward. A classic, cringey micromanager, she’s devastated to learn her branch will be shut down and all her staff will be allowed to work from home, and becomes driven to keep her “work family” together. The very funny and likeable Shari Sebbens and Steen Raskopoulos are our versions of Pam and Jim; Edith Poor seems to be a gender-flipped Dwight.

Top picks: Movies

Challengers (October 1)

This movie almost made me care about sport. Luca Guadagnino’s tennis love-triangle is exhilaratingly sexy, complex, and funny, bouncing between its three players with a sweaty energy that refuses to take a breath until that climactic match point. Mike Faist is Art, a technically great player with no guts; Josh O’Connor is Patrick, a maverick ace with no discipline; and Zendaya is a force of nature as Tashi, a true prodigy forced to tap out of the game early. Both boys in the former champion doubles team want her, and she uses this to propel each of them to greatness—and ruin.

Can you tell I’m obsessed with this movie? After watching, you’ll want to blast Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s propulsive score everywhere you go—sonic motivation in 16 tracks.

House of Spoils (October 3)

Do we eat to live, or live to eat? This enticing new culinary drama seems to borrow much of its intrigue and foodie themes from 2022’s The Menu, but with Oscar-winner Ariana DeBose in the lead we’re already seated and ready for whatever Prime’s latest Original is serving up. The Broadway star plays a hyper-driven young chef who opens a hoity-toity farm-to-table eatery on a remote estate, battling her own ambition and a shadowy force that seems to haunt the restaurant’s operations. If your appetite wasn’t quite sated by the abrupt ending of The Bear‘s most recent season, this could be the perfect, subtly supernatural final course.

Immaculate (October 20)

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Sydney Sweeney: we’ve been praying for some good religious horror, and our salvation was two-fold, with this eerie convent-set thriller and the excellent The First Omen arriving in cinemas simultaneously.

In his review of the former freaky film, Steve Newall commented on the unusual connections between the plot and star Sweeney’s public image: she’s been besieged by pervy comments about her looks ever since attaining fame. “I can’t wait to see how that crowd reacts to Immaculate, in which Sweeney’s devout young nun finds her own body being treated as a means to an end by controlling forces”, Newall said. Thankfully, she’s given plenty of meaty acting moments here to prove she’s far more than just a pretty face.