Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to their libraries. Here are our picks for some of April’s most promising new titles. (Note: Streaming services occasionally change schedules without giving notice. For more recommendations on what to stream, sign up for our Watching newsletter here.)
New to AMC+
‘The Audacity’ Season 1 Starts streaming: April 12
Created by Jonathan Glatzer — a writer on “Succession” and “Better Call Saul” — this tech world satire is about how all the money and influence in the world can’t satisfy the hunger of insanely rich executives. Billy Magnussen plays Duncan Park, a once-hot executive who has been cutting corners and making promises he can’t keep, in hopes of becoming a major industry player again. Sarah Goldberg plays Joanne Felder, Duncan’s therapist, who is used to massaging the egos of Silicon Valley types, while also trading on what she learns in her sessions. Rob Corddry is Tom Ruffage, a fading military fund-raiser who comes to California seeking to partner with one of the big companies on a program to help veterans. The lives of these three people — and many more — intertwine in a story about how power and privilege can become addictive.
Also arriving:
April 3
“Deathstalker”
April 6 “The Brokenwood Mysteries” Season 12
April 9 “Original Gangsters With Sean Bean”
April 10 “The Plague” “Somnium”
April 17 “Night Patrol”
April 22 “Sisters” Season 2
April 25 “Dolly”
New to Amazon Prime Video
‘The House of the Spirits’ Starts streaming: April 29
The first major attempt at adapting Isabel Allende’s novel “The House of the Spirits” to the screen was a star-studded 1994 movie that fell flat with critics and audiences, in part because of the casting of Anglo actors in Latin roles, and in part because of the challenge of condensing a sprawling domestic melodrama into a feature film. A new TV mini-series aims to remedy the problems, with a cast of a native Spanish speakers, and with eight episodes to cover the five decades of Allende’s story. The narrative features four generations of the Trueba family, focusing mainly on four women who watch their country change over time. While what’s going on in the outside world matters, these ladies have plenty to occupy themselves with in their home, where they are haunted by profound loss and ill omens.
Also arriving:
April 5 “Nippon Sangoku: The Three Nations of the Crimson Sun”
April 8 “The Boys” Season 5
April 10 “Fist of the North Star” Season 1
April 15 “Balls Up”
April 16 “Jerry West: The Logo”
April 17 “Absolute Value of Romance” “American Gladiators” Season 1 “Vengeance”
April 20 “Kevin”
April 24 “New Bandits” Season 2
New to Apple TV
‘Outcome’ Starts streaming: April 10
Jonah Hill co-wrote and directed this dark comedy, about a universally beloved Hollywood megastar — Reef Hawk, played by Keanu Reeves — who hears rumors that someone has found a video that could destroy his reputation. Reef, who has spent the past few years in seclusion recovering from a heroin addiction, has no idea what is on the video or who could be blackmailing him. Hill plays Ira Slitz, a crisis-management lawyer who assembles a dream team of social activists to handle any possible cancel-worthy controversy. But Reef decides to use this mystery to reconnect with anyone he might have wronged, with the help of two old friends (played by Cameron Diaz and Matt Bomer) who stayed by his side when he was at his worst. “Outcome” swings between absurdity and pathos as it digs into the psyche of a celebrity everybody thinks they know.
‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’ Season 1 Starts streaming: April 15
Based on a Rufi Thorpe novel of the same name, “Margo’s Got Money Troubles” has Elle Fanning playing the title character: a junior college student who sleeps with her married professor (Michael Angarano), gets pregnant, has the baby against the advice of her mom (Michelle Pfeiffer), and then has to figure out how she’s going to make a living while talking care of an infant. Margo ultimately decides to become an OnlyFans model, and when her estranged pro wrestler father (Nick Offerman) re-enters her life, he gives her tips on presentation that help her become popular — which creates a new set of problems. Created by the veteran TV producer David E. Kelley, this series is about people who lead messy lives finding solutions to their problems when they learn to lean on each other.
‘Widow’s Bay’ Season 1 Starts streaming: April 29
In this low-key horror spoof, Matthew Rhys plays Tom Loftis, the mayor of a tiny New England island community that could become a major tourist attraction someday, if only the eccentric locals would work with Tom to fix some of their many problems. The biggest issue? Widow’s Bay may be cursed. Created by Katie Dippold (a “Parks and Recreation” writer who also wrote the 2016 “Ghostbusters” reboot), “Widow’s Bay” has a genre-bending premise, imagining what might happen if the greedy mayor from “Jaws” was in charge of one of those spooky Stephen King towns. The show mixes sitcom beats with creepy surprises, to tell a story about people living day-to-day with ancient superstitions and spooky phenomena.
Also arriving:
April 3 “Your Friends & Neighbors” Season 2
April 22 “Criminal Record” Season 2
New to Disney+
‘Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord’ Season 1 Starts streaming: April 6
The red-faced, double-lightsaber-wielding Sith lord Darth Maul debuted — and appeared to be killed — in the 1999 movie “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.” But the character was so popular with fans that he was revived for the animated series “The Clone Wars” and “Star Wars Rebels.” Now he gets an animated series of his own, set between those two shows. “Shadow Lord” finds Maul (Sam Witwer) settled on the planet Janix, having long ago left the Sith order behind to pursue a career as a crime boss. On Janix he dodges the local law enforcement officials while also mentoring a fugitive Jedi named Devon Izara (Gideon Adlon), teaching her how to wield dark powers and take revenge on the Empire.
Also arriving:
April 1 “Donna Hay Coastal Celebrations” Season 1 “O11CE: New Generation” “Secrets of the Bees”
April 8 “Hey A.J.!”
April 10 “Perfect Crown” Season 1 “RoboGobo” Season 2
April 14 “Meet Iron Man and His Awesome Friends” Season 1
April 22 “Orangutan”
April 24 “The Prep School Disappearance”
New to HBO Max
‘The Dark Wizard’ Starts streaming: April 14
Dean Potter was one of the most accomplished and innovative free solo mountain climbers of his generation, featured regularly in outdoor magazines and videos in the late-1990s and early 2000s. But climbing alone didn’t satisfy Potter, who died in 2015. He also tried highlining and BASE jumping, often breaking rules and taking terrifying risks. In the four-part docuseries “The Dark Wizard,” Potter’s fellow alpinists look back at the huge chances he took, and try to figure out what drove him more: a love of nature or something deeply broken inside. The co-directors Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen have a lot of jaw-dropping footage to work with — including many intense old interviews with Potter — but they also draw a lot out of Potter’s peers, who speak of him with equal parts admiration and regret.
‘Half Man’ Starts streaming: April 23
The “Baby Reindeer” creator Richard Gadd follows up that award-winning drama with another dark exploration of a dysfunctional relationship. In “Half Man,” Gadd plays Ruben, a hyper-macho tough guy who has a twisted friendship with Niall (Jamie Bell), a respectable gentleman he has known since high school, when their mothers lived together and the two teenagers shared a bedroom. The story jumps between the two of them as adults and the two as teenagers, when the frequently bullied Niall (played by Mitchell Robertson) relied on Ruben (Stuart Campbell) to punish his enemies — and to introduce him to vices like drugs and sex. “Half Man” gradually fills in the gaps between those boyhood years and the present, showing how these two have continued across the decades to need each other — or, just as often, to be a burden.
Also arriving:
April 3 “Alien: Romulus”
April 9 “Hacks” Season 5
April 10 “Christy”
April 12 “Euphoria” Season 3
April 17 “Dust Bunny”
April 24 “Marty Supreme”
New to Hulu
‘The Testaments’ Season 1 Starts streaming: April 8
This sequel to the dystopian series “The Handmaid’s Tale” is based on another Margaret Atwood novel, which examines the harshly theocratic culture of Gilead from a fresh perspective. While the first book and series were mainly about the society’s “handmaids” — fertile women forced into ritualized sexual slavery — “The Testaments” shifts the focus to the daughters of the social elites, and to the school where they learn how to be wives. Ann Dowd returns as Aunt Lydia, a teacher who serves the regime but has her own agenda. The show’s main character, though, is one of Lydia’s students, Agnes (Chase Infiniti), a privileged teenager who starts to see a different side of Gilead when she meets her new classmate, Daisy (Lucy Halliday), a poor refugee from the godless land of Canada.
Also arriving:
April 1 “Atomic” Season 1 “Dear Killer Nannies”
April 3 “Pizza Movie”
April 6 “Sirat”
April 10 “Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair” Season 1
April 14 “#SKYKING”
April 24 “Nikki Glaser: Good Girl” “No Other Choice”
April 25 “Good Boy”
New to Peacock
‘The Miniature Wife’ Season 1 Starts streaming: April 9
In this fantastical comedy series, Elizabeth Banks plays Lindy Littlejohn, an award-winning novelist struggling to follow up her best-selling debut. Matthew Macfadyen is her husband, Les, a scientist and inventor working on a potentially world-saving process to shrink agricultural crops for cultivation and then re-enlarge them for consumption. When Lindy accidentally stumbles on this formula and shrinks herself to six inches high, the crisis fractures an already crumbling marriage. It doesn’t help that Lindy is also dealing with a looming plagiarism scandal, or that the perpetually anxious Les still needs to convince a big donor to back his project. Despite the science-fiction premise, “The Miniature Wife” is primarily a story about relationships, and how people try — usually unsuccessfully — to minimize their loved one’s demands so they can focus more on their own needs.
Also arriving:
April 3 “Five Nights at Freddy’s 2”
April 10 “If I Can’t Have You”
April 17 “The Heartbreak Kid: Becoming Shawn Michaels”
The post The Best Movies and TV Shows Coming to AMC+, Hulu, Apple TV and More in April appeared first on New York Times.
