New year, new streams! 2025 kicks off with a bang as we see high profile VOD debuts such as Venom: The Last Dance and Smile 2, the local streaming debuts of Back to Black and Dune: Part Two, the premiere of American Primeval, a new Wallace & Gromit movie, and more!

SERIES

On Call S1

6 January 2025 – Prime Video

While Prime Video has lots of different series options options to choose, there is a definite lack when it comes to that staple genre of network television: procedurals. On Call appears to be the fix for that as this gritty police drama puts inside the squad car and on the streets with Long Beach Police training office Traci Harmon and rookie Alex Diaz during their high-octane day to day life.

Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action

7 January 2025 – Netflix

If you were around in the 1990s, the chants of “JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!” will be all too familiar to you. A weird juxtaposition of insightful philosophizing and often-fabricated trashy low-brow spectacle, The Jerry Springer Show was, quite frankly, a global cultural institution. But how did such a talk show (and I use that definition very lightly) even happen? This two-part miniseries digs into that history and tells the story of The Jerry Springer Show as it’s never been told before, packed with extraordinary first-hand testimony and revelations from show insiders, but also exposing some darker truths about the personal destruction that was left in the wake of this bit of late-night entertainment.

American Primeval S1

9 January 2025 – Netflix

Director Peter Berg and actor Taylor Kitsch have collaborated on a number of projects, but it was Friday Night Lights that really cemented their relationship. And now, after a couple of stints on the big screen, the duo is reuniting for a drama series once again. American Primeval could not be further removed from the world of American football obsessed small town life though. Set in 1857, and co-starring Betty Gilpin, Dane DeHaan, Saura Lightfoot-Leon, Shea Whigham, Kim Coates, the show “follows the gritty and adventurous exploration of the birth of the American West, the violent collisions of cults, religion, and men and women fighting for control of the new world.”

MOVIES

Back to Black

31 December 2024 – Showmax

Amy Winehouse only released two albums before her life and career were tragically cut short by her struggles with substance abuse. She was only 27. Before that heartbreaking end though, the British songstress exploded onto the global music scene with her stunning voice and jazzy stylings, racking up awards and making music history. But who was Amy Winehouse? Where did she come from before stepping into the spotlight? Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, biopic drama Back to Black (named after her historic sophomore album) sees actress Marisa Abela bringing to life this extraordinary woman, and telling the story of Winehouse’s rise to fame from her early days in a blue-collar Camden home to topping the worldwide charts and tying the record for most Grammy wins by a female artist in one year. On top of her singing career, it also highlights the tumultuous love story that would inspire her to pen some of her most beloved music.

Dune: Part Two

1 January 2025 – Showmax

Dune: Part Two already made its debut on VOD last year, but some of you may still not have been willing to pay for rental despite the Noelle’s 9/10 review declaring it a masterpiece. But now Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi opus is finally available on a local streaming platform as well as it debuted on Showmax earlier this week. Adapting Frank Herbert’s seminal sci-fi novel was always a daunting task, and most people would say that Villeneuve already achieved greatness in his first attempt. But somehow the auteur managed to outdo himself in every single regard with this absolutely epic on-screen imagining of the second half of Herbert’s novel, fixing some of the problems in the source while also making bold changes that setup a much-anticipated third film that will be combining elements from this story as well as Herbert’s divisive follow-up novel, Dune: Messiah. And all of this done with the most eye-wateringly beautiful visuals and spine-rattling sound that an IMAX cinema can produce. In other words, turn up the volume when you watch this one at home.

Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

3 January 2025 – Netflix

Wallace & Grommit are back! The lovably goofy inventor and his amazingly resourceful dog return for another claymation adventure for the first time in their own feature film since 2005’s The Curse of the Wererabbit. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl sees the intrepid duo caught up in a calamity of their own making, as Wallace’s increasing dependence on his inventions sees him inventing a “smart” gnome that seems to develop a mind of its own. When it emerges that a vengeful figure from the past might be masterminding things, it falls to Gromit to battle sinister forces and save his master… or Wallace may never be able to invent again!

One Life

6 January 2025 – Showmax

If you’re looking for a story that caters more to mature tastes than a cartoon man and his dog, the Anthony Hopkins-led One Life may be more your speed. Starring Hopkins and Johnny Flynn as old and young versions of the same character, respectively, this true-story drama tells the story of Nicholas Winton, a young London broker who, on the brink of World War II, helped rescue as many Jewish children as possible from the Nazis. Fifty years later, Winton is haunted by the fate of the children he couldn’t save. It’s not until a TV show reintroduces him to some of those he helped rescue that he finally begins to come to terms with the guilt and grief he carried. Keep the tissues handy for this one.

The Last Rifleman

6 January 2025 – Showmax

And seemingly continuing the theme of WWII-adjacent true story dramas starring veteran actors, we also have The Last Rifleman. Pierce Brosnan stars as a World War II veteran who escapes his care home in Northern Ireland and embarks on a tough but inspirational journey to France to attend the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, finding the courage to face the ghosts of his past. The film also stars Clémence Poésy, Jürgen Prochnow, Ian McElhinney, and the late John Amos. At the Irish Film and Television Awards (IFTA) last year, Brosnan and Prochnow were nominated for Best Lead Actor and Supporting Actor respectively for their performances.

VOD RENTALS/PURCHASES

The following movies have recently become available for digital purchase/rental:

Venom: The Last Dance

Purchase: Apple TV – R170 / Google Play Movies – R135

Rental: Apple TV – R45 / Google Play Movies – R30

Let’s just get this out of the way: I really did not like Venom: The Last Dance. But to be fair, I never liked the previous two films in Sony’s Spider-Man-less Spider-Man universe movie either, with only the first being mildly entertaining at best due to star Tom Hardy’s completely unhinged take on Eddie Brock and the alien symbiote inhabiting his body. The final chapter in the Venom trilogy, The Last Dance, is at least not as painful as the trainwreck Let There Be Carnage, but it has several problems, most notable being that you can clearly feel and see the post-production editing that took place to seemingly patch this movie together from several disparate parts. That being said, I completely understand that there is an audience for these movies. And if you’re a part of that audience, but somehow missed The Last Dance in cinemas, you’re in luck now as The Last Dance is now available for VOD rental.

Lee

Purchase: Apple TV – R170 / Google Play Movies – R150

Rental: Apple TV – R45 / Google Play Movies – R35

If you’ve seen Alex Garland’s hard-hitting Civil War, you would have seen Kirsten Dunst’s veteran war photographer character was named Lee Smith. That name was not random at all as it was a tribute to Lee Miller, the very real trailblazing WWII war photographer. Initially known as a fashion model, Miller’s photographic work in war-torn Europe was mostly unknown until her son, Antony Penrose, penned a biography of his mother in the early 1980s after discovering thousands of photographs, negatives, documents, journals, cameras, love letters, and souvenirs from her younger life. Adapting that biography to the screen, Lee is feature film directing debut of Oscar-nominated cinematographer and documentarian Ellen Kuras, and stars Oscar-winner Kate Winslett in the title role of Lee Smith (for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination. A production that took a staggering eight years to complete (at one point, due to financing issues, Winslett – who also produced – ended up personally paying the salaries of the cast and crew), this film tells of how Miller’s fashion work for Vogue magazine took a massive turn when she volunteered to work on the frontlines of the war, despite the military’s insistence that women did not belong there.

Smile 2

Purchase: Apple TV – R170 / Google Play Movies – R216

Rental: Apple TV – R45 / Google Play Movies – R45

2022’s Smile was one of the biggest surprises of that year for me. Writer/director Parker Finn took an idea he first put to screen in his short film, Laura Hasn’t Slept, and just ran with it, giving us one seriously unnerving horror thriller as it followed a therapist who witnesses the bizarre suicide of a patient and then starts being haunted by an entity manifesting itself in creepy smiling visages. Yes, the film sometimes got a little heavy-handed with jump scares, but Finn also showed an incredible eye for cinematography and a commitment to his story that didn’t always follow conventional tropes. And so, I was really looking forward to his follow-up, Smile 2, and it did not disappoint. Essentially a bigger, better version of the first film, the sequel pivots to a new lead character, Skye Riley (Naomi Scott), a pop star trying to make a comeback after a substance abuse-fueled accident derailed her life. After she witnesses an inexplicable death herself, she sees her life start to unravel in horrific ways as she becomes the target of a demonic entity. The film is now available for rental and totally worth the price for two things alone: Scott is absolutely fantastic in the role, and Finn also gives us one of the best shot opening sequences in any film in recent memory.

Absolution

Purchase: Apple TV – R170 / Google Play Movies – R150

Rental: Apple TV – R45

On the far opposite end of the genre spectrum, we have the latest Liam Neeson crime-drama Absolution, which is now also available for rental. At this very comfortable point in the actor’s career, you can easily predict how these things go, but if you still need some convincing… Neeson plays an aging gangster starting to face his mortality, who decides to reconnect with his estranged children and grandson. But despite his efforts to make amends for the many mistakes he’s made, his old criminal life won’t let him go. As he embarks on his latest job, he finds his family inadvertently drawn into the firing line, forcing him to take action one last time.