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
Girls5Eva: Season 2 (May 6)
With its note perfect satirical soundtrack of early 2000s teen pop bangers and a deceptively scathing outlook on how women are dispensed with the moment they reach their forties, this blithe sitcom was one of the best surprises of 2021.
Creator Meredith Scardino is a graduate of the Robert Carlock and Tina Fey (a guest star in season one) school exemplified by 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, which means a slew of cutaway punchlines and absurd gags as the surviving members of an MTV-friendly girl group—played by Sara Bareilles, Paula Pell, Renee Elise Goldsberry, and Busy Philipps—launch an improbable comeback. Season two should continue their oddball odyssey.
Hacks: Season 2 (May 13)
One of the last year’s best shows makes a thankfully quick return, bringing back the terrific double bill of the legendary Jean Smart (Mare of Easttown) and newcomer, stand-up Hannah Einbinder. With the spiky casino culture of Las Vegas as the backdrop, the pair respectively played veteran stand-up star Deborah Vance, with her 100 shows a year, and broke Los Angeles comic Ava Daniels, who has to flee town and deigns to take a gig punching up Deborah’s material.
They’re plainly mismatched, but the flinty dynamic between the unyielding pair was a revelation and their union was less about meekly seeking understanding and more about recognising the truth behind each other’s flaws. The show’s benchmark is to be funny, fierce, and fulfilling.
Angelyne (May 20)
For years filmmakers looking for a Los Angeles establishing shot would simply cut to a billboard advertising Angelyne, a platinum blonde with a hot pink wardrobe and a 1950s bombshell silhouette. Starting in the 1980s Angelyne was famous for being famous, which in hindsight makes her a fascinating precursor to subsequent generations of influencers.
Created by Nancy Oliver, a writer and producer on Six Feet Under and True Blood, this limited series stars Emmy Rossum (Shameless) as the mysterious star, who eventually released albums and had cameos in numerous movies. The trailer suggests a mix of mockumentary and meta-commentary—a Californian 24 Hour Party People—with a supporting cast that including Martin Freeman (Sherlock) and Alex Karpovsky (Girls).
From: Season 1 (May 27)
If you need a new dose of horror, this American series from neophyte creator John Griffin—with the backing of various Lost alumni—should tick a lot of boxes. When a family’s RV holiday brings them to a dilapidated backwater, they soon discover they’re trapped in an otherworldly space alongside the sundry locals.
Schooled by the “Sheriff” (Harold Perrineau), they quickly realise the indentured residents are all prey for whatever comes out at night when doors are locked and windows nailed shut. It’s a creature feature with a conspiracy angle—none of the survivors appear to be present by accident. Expect a lot of eerie noises in the dark with this one.
Top Picks: Movies + Specials
Rocco and His Brothers (May 3)
Stan recently lost a slew of vintage films, but it gets one back with this 1960 classic from Luchino Visconti, the Milan born filmmaker who was one of the key figures in the rise of Italian neorealism in the decades after the upheaval of World War II. Released to mixed reviews but now considered a classic, the working-class epic follows five brothers who relocate from Italy’s rural south to the industrialised north in the wake of their father’s death.
Brutal in stretches, but with a sense of enquiry that could touch the poetic, the story’s central sibling is the imposing Rocco, who is played by Alain Delon, the impossibly handsome French actor who was one of the great screen stars of the European cinema.
Son of Rambow (May 17)
Having gone from directing Radiohead video clips to helming a 2005 Disney adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, filmmaker Garth Jennings and his quintessentially English eye switched course for the affectionate nostalgia of this paean to childhood creativity.
It’s the story of two pre-teen schoolboys, pint-sized truant Lee Carter (Will Poulter) and the sheltered Will Proudfoot (Bill Milner), who become unlikely allies in making their own version of First Blood, the 1982 Ted Kotcheff action flick that introduced Sylvester Stallone’s one-man army John Rambo. The boys are no-budget producers, unlikely actors, and eventually staunch comrades off-camera. Jennings’ adventure got the ultimate seal of approval: Stallone loved it.
Only Lovers Left Alive (May 29)
As a pair of diffidently cool vampires—married since 1868, but now separated—Tilda Swinton’s Eve and Tom Hiddleston’s Adam are the ultimate hipsters in Jim Jarmusch’s take on the blood-sucking undead. The two, he morose in Detroit, she comfortable in Tangiers, are cultural custodians, possessors of not just first edition books and rare guitars but memories of revered figures.
Jarmusch’s camera matches the long, hypnotic guitar drones Adam records but refuses to release, engaging in tracking shots through the nocturnal cities, and it’s only with the unexpected– and hungry – arrival of Eve’s younger sister, Ava (Mia Wasikowska), that energy overtakes the serene torpor and the former lovers are briefly spurred into action.
All titles arriving on Stan in May
May 1
Jamie & Jimmy’s Food Fight Club: Season 7 -8
Jamie and Jimmy’s Festive Feast (aka Jamie & Jimmy’s Food Fight Club): Season 8
May 2
Star Trek Beyond
May 3
Zero Dark Thirty
Rocco And His Brothers
May 4
They Were Ten: Season 1
The Cult of the Family: Season 1
May 5
Domestic Disturbance
Trial of Christine Keeler: Season 1
Prank You Very Much: Season 1
May 6
Girls5Eva: Season 2 Premiere
The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada Fiore
May 7
Pet Sematary (1989)
Pet Sematary II
May 8
Pirates of the Caribbean (2020)
Valley of Love
May 9
David Attenborough’s Galapagos: Season 1
Here Is Harold (Her er Harold)
May 10
Failure To Launch
May 11
Talking Heads: Season 1
Carmina and Amen
May 12
Gold Diggers: Season 3
The Wiggles: Fun & Games
May 13
Hacks: Season 2 Premiere
The Stepford Wives (2004)
The Day Henry Met: Seasons 2-4
May 14
The Party
Red Flags
Leviathan
May 15
Terminator Genisys
King of Devil’s Island
May 16
Maralinga Tjarutja
Self Made (2014)
May 17
Son Of Rambow
May 18
Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter
Anh’s Brush with Fame: Season 2-3
Quiet Bliss
May 19
The Winemaker: Season 1 Premiere
Bing: Season 2 & 3
Put Grandma in The Freezer
May 20
Angelyne: Season 2 Premiere
Peek Zoo: Season 1
RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars: Season 7 Premiere
A Ghost Story
May 21
K-19: The Widowmaker
Something in the Air (Apres Mai)
May 22
The Exception
May 23
Louis Theroux: Shooting Joe Exotic
May 24
The Big Hit
May 25
The Mexican
Searching for Superhuman: Season 1
May 26
Saving Lisa: Season 1 Premiere
The Wiggles: Choo, Choo Trains, Propeller Planes and Toot, Toot Chugga, Chugga Big Red Car
A Stroke of Luck
May 27
From: Season 1 Premiere
The Core
May 28
Ballmastrz: 9009: Season 1
Ballmastrz: 9009: Season 2 Premiere
Birdgirl: Season 1 Premiere
Yolo: Crystal Fantasy: Season 1
Squidbillies: Seasons 10-12
Squidbillies: Seasons 13 Premiere
Robot Chicken: Seasons 6-11
Bleepin’ Robot Chicken Archie Comics Special
Robot Chicken: Star Wars Specials
Robot Chicken: D.C.
Comics Specials
Robot Chicken: Walking Dead Special
Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law: Seasons 1-4
Harvey Birdman: Attourney General
Black Dynamite: Pilot + Seasons 1-2
Aqua Teen Hunger Force: Seasons 11-13
The Venture Bros.: Seasons 5-7 (+Specials)
Black Jesus: Seasons 1-3
It’s the Law
May 29
Only Lovers Left Alive
The Kindergarten Teacher
May 30
The Intruder
May 31
The Artist and the Model
See also
* Best new movies and TV series on Netflix Australia
* Best new movies and TV series on Amazon Prime
* Best new movies and TV series on Disney+
* All new streaming movies & series
