There’s no need to hunt for great viewing this Easter – Steve Newall has the highlights to stream on Stan over the long weekend.
For some, Easter is a purely religious experience while for others, it’s a chance for some much-needed R&R after a full-on start to 2025. Whether you fit one of those descriptions, fall somewhere in the middle, or bear no resemblance to them at all, there’s plenty to keep you occupied on Stan over the long weekend.
Namely, brand-new episodes of big shows, series ripe for a binge, shows to catch up on before their return with new seasons, and movies of all shapes and sizes.
Big new shows
Love Triangle season 3
Watch on StanMore episodes of steamy scandal have arrived with season three of Australian dating show Love Triangle. For those unfamiliar, this show from the producers of Married at First Sight echoes the complicated world of modern dating, living up to its title by creating triangular competition between singles and two suitors.
Among them this season? Infamous MAFS star Mike Gunner (not to mention plenty of drama, passion, heartbreak—and did we mention “steamy scandal”? Oh, good).
Hacks
Watch on StanFor three seasons the reputation of this comedy-drama about the drama of comedy has been growing and growing, built off the brilliant pairing of Jean Smart and Hannah Einbinder as legendary stand-up Deborah Vance (Smart) and her put-upon underling Ava (Einbinder).
Their relationship has many dualities—mother/daughter, yin/yang, friend/enemy—with its previous season culminating in the show’s biggest conflict yet. Which all sets the fictional friction up nicely, as season four takes place in the pressure cooker of Vance’s new late-night talk show.
Godfather of Harlem
Watch on StanForest Whitaker is back as real-life crime boss Bumpy Johnson in a new season of this 1960s-set crime drama, following Johnson’s return home from a decade in prison and his fight to regain control of Harlem from the Genovese crime family.
As season four opens, it’s against the backdrop of Johnson ally Malcolm X’s assassination, civil rights and social unrest having been woven tightly into the show’s storytelling since it premiered. With his community in shock at the activist’s killing, Johnson’s underworld struggles continue with the arrival of a new troublemaker on his turf, while closer to home his daughter is getting increasingly involved with the Black Panthers.
Scrublands: Silver
Watch on StanNew episodes of this Australian drama arrive on April 17, with Luke Arnold and Bella Heathcote reprising their roles as Martin and Mandy from the show’s first season. Set over a year after the truth about the tragic killing of church parishioners was revealed in season one, the couple are ready to start a new life together.
But as they relocate to Martin’s hometown, a place filled with difficult memories that he vowed he’d never return to, it’s to a new crisis. Martin’s childhood friend is found murdered, and Mandy—now the mother of Martin’s young child—is the prime suspect…
Shows ripe to binge
Stan has opened the floodgates to a superb lineup of drama over the last year, building up a library of excellent bingeworthy series—shows that are perfect to watch in their entirety over a long weekend. There’s a pronounced Australian focus to be found in shows like Invisible Boys and Ten Pound Poms, which respectively chronicle the experiences of young queer men in small town Australia and post-war British immigrants establishing new lives Down Under.
For gripping storylines set further afield, look no further than the likes of the newest, fifth season of Fargo (starring the triple Js—Juno Temple, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Jon Hamm), or post-plane crash jungle murder mystery Nine Bodies in a Mexican Morgue.
There’s more crime to cosy up to in Long Bright River, following Amanda Seyfried’s murder-investigating cop, and the recent third season of Gangs of London, an action-packed chronicle of the UK underworld.
Coming back soon
That superb lineup I just referred to keeps on coming in 2025, with a bunch of returning series on the horizon. With that in mind, Easter’s a great time to play catch up (or to just reacquaint yourself) with a couple of shows about to make an imminent return.
Rian Johnson’s Poker Face is coming back for a new season of mystery-of-the week frivolity starring Natasha Lyonne, so check out the first, with highly entertaining guest spots from the likes of Adrien Brody, Chloë Sevigny, Ron Perlman, Judith Light, Nick Nolte, Joseph Gordon-Levitt et cetera.
Also back (just like all those pesky zombies) is The Walking Dead‘s sequel series Walking Dead: Dead City. This fifth series in the franchise followed Maggie and Negan on a mission to Manhattan, the island within New York City now cut off from the mainland and populated with a mix of undead and living (possibly even worse to encounter).
Movies
Classics
We can debate the meaning of “classic” all day, but I’m writing this piece, and so I will make this determination: movies of previous decades that stick with us for one reason or another. Some of the following may be critically adored, others pure crowdpleasers, but I’m calling ’em all classics…
Among Stan’s stacked selection, you can find Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis’s iconic pairing as Thelma & Louise, Van Damme’s brutal tournament fighting pic Bloodsport, uncomfortably hairy coming of age pic Teen Wolf and sequel Teen Wolf Too. Then there’s the romance and heartbreak of When Harry Met Sally…, the romance and heartbreak of Pretty in Pink, and the romance and heartbreak of Moonstruck.
Arthouse
Perhaps some of this is a little mainstream for your liking—yes, you, the one over there who likes to be challenged a little more than the average movie watcher.
Movie selections that might appeal more to the arthouse crowd include film festival fave Birds of Passage, a decades-spanning saga of an Indigenous Colombian family’s rise and fall in the marijuana trade, and recent Oscar nominee The Apprentice, chronicling convicted felon and current POTUS Donald Trump’s rise in the real estate biz under the tutelage of brutal mentor Roy Cohn.
Recent award winners
The Apprentice would have ended up in this section had a certain Academy made different choices this year… but they did find their way to—shock!—make the rare move of recognising a horror film, in the form of Coralie Fargeat’s superbly sick satire The Substance, the comedic gross-out now forever able to describe itself as an Oscar winner.
Elsewhere in the awards sphere, New Zealand drama We Were Dangerous had its world premiere at the iconic South by Southwest festival, where it won the Special Jury Award for Filmmaking. Premiering at the even more iconic Sundance, offbeat music biopic Kneecap picked up the NEXT Audience Award, before going on to win a BAFTA and a bevy of British Independent Film Awards.
Horror & sci-fi
Massive Australian horror success story Talk To Me is always worth a(nother) watch, even more so with the impending arrival of the Philippou brothers’ follow-up Bring Her Back, coming to cinemas next month.
Two of the all-time greatest sci-fi franchises can be found on Stan, too, in the form of 1987’s RoboCop (plus Robocop 2, RoboCop 3, and the 2014 RoboCop) and 1979’s Alien (followed by, deep breath, Aliens, Alien 3, Alien: Resurrection, Alien Vs. Predator, Aliens Vs. Predator – Requiem, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant).
Kids & Family
Lest we forget those with more delicate dispositions… A couple of franchises with more interest to the young ‘uns are present on Stan, offering some streaming solutions to school holiday dilemmas. The always dependable Despicable Me films are on hand for child-distracting duties, with the original streaming as well as Despicable Me 2, Despicable Me 3, and Minions.
Slightly older kids (and/or slightly younger parents) are catered for too with The Amazing Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and Spider-Man: Homecoming suiting up for web-slinging duty.
