Each month, lots of new films and TV shows are added to Stan‘s library. Critic Craig Mathieson surveys each month’s selections and picks for titles most worth watching. For the full list of everything arriving on the platform, scroll down.
Top Picks: TV
Your Honor season one (December 7)
It’s been seven years since the conclusion of Breaking Bad, one of the benchmark television series of the 21st century. Star Bryan Cranston, who played the unforgettable chemistry teacher turned meth kingpin Walter White, has finally found a lead role to bring him back to television. Adapted from the Israeli drama Kvodo, the weekly episodes of Your Honor will chart the treacherous dynamic that engulf a respected New Orleans judge, Cranston’s Michael Desiato, when he helps cover up his son’s hit-and-run accident.
It’s a limited series of just 10 episodes, and not surprisingly the supporting cast is stacked: Michael Stuhlbarg (Call Me by Your Name) plays a suspicious crime boss, alongside Carmen Ejogo (True Detective) and Isiah Whitlock Jr (The Wire).
You, Me and the Apocalypse season one (December 7)
This apocalyptic black comedy, set against the countdown of a comet heading for the Earth and the resulting Extinction Level Event, was too ambitious for audiences in 2016—and that may still be in the case in 2020. But it gets a second life via streaming, so you can find out if its dramatic twists and mordant coincidences hit the spot.
The eclectic transatlantic cast include Matthew Baynton (Horrible Histories) as twins—one a bank manager, the other a cyber terrorist—plus Jenna Fischer (The Office) as a mother imprisoned for her son’s crime, Megan Mullally (Will & Grace) as a white supremacist, and Rob Lowe (every second show on TV) as a foulmouthed Vatican priest charged with identifying the messiah.
The Good Wife seasons one to seven (December 17)
This is quite the summer binge. Robert and Michelle King’s legal drama, which aired between 2009 and 2016, starred Julianna Margulies (E.R.) as Alicia Florrick, the newly separated wife of a disgraced Chicago politician (Sex and the City’s Chris Noth) who returns to the law after her husband is jailed.
From that starting point, it careened outwards through weekly cases and season-long plots that explored the difficulties of a woman starting over and frequently topical storylines whose courtroom battles had character-laden detail. The likes of Alan Cumming and Michael J. Fox, in a recurring guest role, were terrific nemeses, while Christine Baranski was so sharp as Alicia’s boss, Diane Lockhart, that she now headlines the spin-off series, The Good Fight.
Four Weddings and a Funeral season one (December 18)
Rebooting one of the beloved romantic comedies of the 1990s, penned by Richard Curtis at his peak, is a considerable challenge, but the prolific Mindy Kaling (The Office, The Mindy Project) steps up with this love-laden comedy about a group of 30-something American friends who reunite in London for a wedding. When it goes askew this limited series finds new parameters, including deception, a satire of British society, and unfulfilled longing. In a terrifically diverse cast the lead role of a political speechwriter is played by Nathalie Emmanuel (Game of Thrones), although you may wonder whether you’re watching a rom-com or an affectionate send-up of one.
Top Picks: Movies + Specials
Sweet Country (December 3)
In Warwick Thornton’s 2017 film, a modern Australian classic set in the 1920s Northern Territory where white farmers treat the Indigenous population with shattering cruelty, dispossession begins with land and ends with the control of bodies and the loss of humanity itself. When Aboriginal station hand Sam Kelly (Hamilton Morris) kills a white farmer in self-defence, he’s pursued by both a local constable (Bryan Brown) and historic inevitability. Whether red dust or shimmering salt pans, the landscape is defined by beauty and threat. Thornton steadily reveals his vision of colonial Australia, rife with racism and violence.
A Sunburnt Christmas (December 11)
Now this sounds like a suitable Australian Christmas tale: when on the run criminal Daryl (Acute Misfortune’s Daniel Henshall) ends up dressed as Santa on a struggling single mother’s farm, the host’s youngest daughter, Daisy (newcomer Lena Nankivell), decides that he is the real thing. With the child’s older siblings hatching their own schemes for the fugitive, it’s not so much a wonderful life as a very shambolic one. Certified tough guy actor Sullivan Stapleton plays the mobster looking for Daryl, and if director Christiaan Van Vuuren (who is having a very busy month on Stan—see below) can make the disparate elements tie together the holiday season might have a new yearly staple.
Dom and Adrian: 2020 (December 13)
Van Vuuren also pulls triple duty, as writer, director, and one of the leads, in this feature length comedy about Sydney’s finest—that is self-centred and capable of farcical decisions—DJ duo. Van Vuuren’s Dom and Nicholas Boshier’s Adrian have moved up from YouTube stars to the ABC comedy series Soul Mates, so this mockumentary is an obvious next step as the fictional pair find that their fame, livelihood, and soon bond together is challenged by a year starting with bushfires and graduating to a global pandemic lockdown. Will stupidity eventuate? Absolutely.
All titles arriving on Stan in December
December 1
Boy
Precious
Siren: Season 3
The Great Gatsby
Young Offenders: Christmas Special 2018
Royal Christmas Engagement
Christmas Together
Colonia
The Switch (2010)
Monster Beach: Season 1, Episode 36 & 37
December 2
The Silver Brumby
Flash Gordon
Monster Beach: Season 1, Episode 38
White Reindeer
December 3
Thomas Banks’ Quest for Love – Premiere
Next of Kin: Season 1
Sweet Country
The Program
Monster Beach: Season 1, Episode 39
December 4
No Reservations
Jacob’s Ladder
Monster Beach: Season 1, Episode 40
Full Moon in Paris
December 5
A Long Way Down
Street Dance 2
December 6
Power Book II: Ghost – Season 1, Episode 6 – Midseason Premiere
The Reagans: Episode 4 – Final
Man Up (2014)
My Tehran For Sale
December 7
Your Honor: Season 1, Episode 1 – Premiere
You, Me and the Apocalypse: Season 1
Passion
Alex Cross
Monster Beach: Season 1, Episode 41
Leap Year
December 8
A Most Wanted Man
Mulholland Drive
The Ice Storm
Monster Beach: Season 1, Episode 42
The Violin Teacher
December 9
Brassic: Season 1
Orlando
Fair Game
Monster Beach: Season 1, Episode 43
The Mine
December 10
Concussion (2015)
Tinka
Monster Beach: Season 1, Episode 44
Absolution
Lux Aeterna
December 11
A Sunburnt Christmas – Premiere
Curious George: Season 13 – Premiere
A Million Little Things: Seasons 1 – 2
Monster Beach: Season 1, Episode 45
Marguerite
December 12
Madagascar: A Little Wild: Season 1, Episodes 8-13
Where’s Wally?: Season 2 – Premiere
Legend Of The Guardians: The Owls Of Ga’Hoole
The Ghost Writer
December 13
Dom & Adrian 2020 – Premiere
Power Book II: Ghost – Season 1, Episode 7
Deep Blue Sea (1999)
December 14
Your Honor: Season 1, Episode 2
Music and Lyrics
The Ides of March
Monster Beach: Season 1, Episode 46
Big Bad Wolves
Ted – Show Me Love
December 15
Fearless: Season 1
Cuban Fury
The Gunman
Monster Beach: Season 1, Episode 47
God of the Piano
December 16
Camping (2016): Season 1
Delinquents
Daughter of God
Monster Beach: Season 1, Episode 48 – Final
Love and Bullets
December 17
The Good Wife: Seasons 1 – 7
3 Days to Kill
The Guest
December 18
Four Weddings and a Funeral: Season 1 – Premiere
Twister
The Zookeeper’s Wife
There’s No Place Like Home
December 19
Shaun Of The Dead
Proof
December 20
Power Book II: Ghost – Season 1, Episode 8
Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains
December 21
Your Honor: Season 1, Episode 3
Swordfish
Escape From New York
December 22
Braindead: Season 1
Boytown
December 23
Tutankhamun: Season 1
Triple 9
December 24
The Book of Love
Bluebeard
December 25
About Time
The Three Musketeers (2011)
Return of the Musketeers (1989)
December 26
Seven Types of Ambiguity: Season 1
King Kong (’05)
Gavin & Stacey: Christmas Special 2019
December 27
Power Book II: Ghost – Season 1, Episode 9
Constantine
December 28
Your Honor: Season 1, Episode 4
Robin Hood (2010)
Love Happens
Flesh Out
December 29
End Of Watch
Instinct
December 30
Wanted
Cerulean Blue
December 31
Hoges: The Paul Hogan Story (Miniseries)
Darklands: Season 1
Luther: Season 5
See also
* Best new movies and TV series on Netflix Austalia
* Best new movies and TV series on Amazon Prime
* Best new movies and TV series on Disney+
* All new streaming movies & series
