Best new movies and TV series on Netflix Australia: February 2022

Each month, loads of new films and TV shows are added to Netflix Australia‘s library. Critic Craig Mathieson presents his picks for titles worth watching. For the full list of everything arriving on the platform, scroll down. Also, check out Craig’s top 50 movies on Netflix list.

Top Picks: TV

Murderville season 1 (February 3)

Will Arnett is a talent whose boundaries are flexible: Arrested Development’s Gob, the voice of both Bojack Horseman and a self-important Batman in The Lego Movie universe, a Sopranos arc, and the Netflix drama Flaked are a few of his credits. His improvisational skills will get a considerable workout in this new comedy series, which sends up the murder mystery genre.

Each episode a celebrity guest plays the partner to Arnett’s police detective Terry Seattle—every scene they walk into is unscripted, and at the episode’s end the guest must guess who the culprit is. Arnett’s off-siders will include Conan O’Brien. Sharon Stone, Ken Jeong (above), and Kumail Nanjiani.

Inventing Anna (February 11)

Anna Delvey was a New York story so wild it had to be true. As eventually documented in both a media expose and court documents, the German heiress who ran up exorbitant bills across Manhattan was actually an imposter. Writer-producer Shonda Rhimes, who kick-started her exclusive Netflix deal with a little show called Bridgerton, has the rights to the sensational New York magazine article about Anna, and her limited series has the impeccable casting of Julia Garner in the lead role.

With The Americans, Ozark, and The Assistant to her name, Garner’s one of the finest young American actors, and her piercing presence will be fascinating as the con artist who was able to get an acquaintance to foot a $US62,000 bill.

Why Are You Like This season 1 (February 16)

Having served a year-long sentence within the ABC’s infrastructure, this mocking comedy about a trio of twenty-somethings from Melbourne—progressive equality advocate Penny (Naomi Higgins), second-generation South Asian spitfire Mia (Olivia Junkeer), and the extravagantly gay Austin (Wil King)—now migrates to co-investor Netflix’s platform.

The show picks up from an almost sketch comedy start to become a wily examination of generational mores that both admires and mocks the social politics of its characters. The better they try to do the more mistakes they make, the more they try to get ahead, the slippier their circumstances become.

Space Force season 2 (February 18)

If you have a workplace comedy created by Greg Daniels and starring Steve Carell, then you’re going to get compared to their enduring American sitcom classic The Office. The first season of their new collaboration did just enough to distinguish itself, with Carell’s General Mark Naird put in charge of the fictional version of the new military branch announced by Donald Trump earlier on in his presidency.

Trump wasn’t mentioned by name, but his idea resulted in a perpetually chaotic mission that kept Naird putting out fires in the office and at home, where Lisa Kudrow played the character’s wife. This season has a new POTUS, and hopefully the idiocy and military mindset run wild with more screen time for John Malkovich, whose chief scientist was the MVP of season one.

Top Picks: Movies + Specials

The Tinder Swindler (February 2)

“One little swipe can change your life,” says one of the women whose stories of escalating fraud and fear via a seemingly perfect Tinder match are recounted in this documentary. It’s about a con artist who introduced his victims to a wealthy lifestyle and then made them feel desperate and vulnerable in a bid to score cash before disappearing.

Director Felicity Morris was a producer on the hit 2019 Netflix documentary Don’t Fuck with Cats, which should provide a model for weaving together online investigations into a mission to make good. With a globe-trotting remit, the trailer promises vengeance for the victims, which is either a terrific hook or a very risky ploy.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (February 18)

For the record, this latest invocation of Leatherface—the chainsaw-wielding maniac who gave teenagers nightmares in multiple decades—is a direct sequel to Tobe Hooper’s gory 1974 horror classic The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Disregard the many sequels—including 2017’s Leatherface—as Don’t Breathe director Fede Alvarez produces and co-writes the story for a new take where a group of young entrepreneurs launching a start-up in a remote Texan town stumble across the monster with the sharpest of teeth. Expect the audio post-production team to come up with a truly terrifying chainsaw engine sound.

Tyler Perry’s A Madea Homecoming (February 25)

Forget the Marvel Cinematic Universe: it’s time to consider the Madea Cinematic Universe. Based on his own mother and aunt, Tyler Perry’s character Madea is a wily, rambunctious matriarch who the prolific one-man studio took from the stage into the movies.

In the US, Madea films have long been hugely successful with Black audiences, who recognise the authority figure with quick hands, ready lecture, and occasional transgression as an archetypal character rendered with affection. Homecoming is the 12th Madea film, with Perry writing, directing, and starring in a comedy set at Madea’s great-grandson’s college graduation.