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    What Your Favorite Streaming Services Will Cost You in 2024

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    Amazon will start showing ads to some Prime Video subscribers who pay less. They’re not alone.If you were planning on watching the final season of “Jack Ryan” or eight seasons of “House” without commercials on Amazon Prime next year, get ready to dig a little deeper into your pockets.In September, Amazon announced it would soon add advertisements to Prime Video, its streaming service, and this week announced when that change would go into effect: Jan 29. Customers wanting to avoid the ads would have to pay an extra $2.99 a month.Less than a decade ago, the streaming era took off on the promise of letting users cut the cord from expensive cable bills and enjoy a blissful ad-free viewing experience. But as we enter 2024, Amazon isn’t the only service bringing back ads or driving prices higher.Studios and streaming companies that make all this entertainment say they are struggling, and that it’s getting increasingly hard to attract new customers. The result is higher prices, or plans that are cheaper but include ads.There are also other measures. This fall, Netflix announced a price hike and said it would start clamping down on users who share their passwords with people outside of their households for free.To help you make a choice for the new year, here’s what some of the main streaming services will cost and what they will offer. (All prices are in U.S. dollars and apply to U.S. accounts.)Amazon Prime VideoAmazon executives have said that including the video service helped keep people subscribed to its Prime memberships, which include free shipping.In 2022, the company completed its purchase of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer — and, crucially, its extensive catalog of movies and television shows, including titles like James Bond, which is available on Prime Video.The current price for an Amazon Prime membership is $14.99 a month (or $139 per year). Prime Video by itself is $8.99 a month. For ad-free viewing, Amazon will add $2.99 per month to your bill starting Jan. 29. And careful: If you opt into a free trial, Amazon will automatically start charging you after it ends.John Turturro in “Severance” on Apple TV+.Wilson Webb/Apple TV+, via Associated PressApple TV+In 2019, Apple announced that it would start creating its own television shows and movies at an extremely star-studded event in California. The streaming service offers Apple originals — “Severance” and “Ted Lasso” — and a subscription can be shared with up to five people. There are no ads.A monthly subscription for the streaming service costs $9.99. Apple also offers three free months when you buy one of their devices.Disney+For $7.99 a month, subscribers get content with ads. For $13.99 a month (or $139.99 a year) you can stream Disney+ without ads and download content for when you’re offline.Its offerings include Pixar and Disney movies as well as “Star Wars” and Marvel movies and TV shows, 34 seasons of “The Simpsons” and about 7,500 episodes of old Disney-branded shows.MaxWarner Bros. Discovery unveiled this combined streaming service in April, rebranding the former HBO Max. An ad-free experience will cost you $15.99 a month. An “Ultimate ad-free” version for $19.99 allows users to add more devices to the account as well as up to 100 downloads. For a $9.99 add-on per month, you can also watch live sports.Max offers the “Harry Potter” movies, classic HBO shows such as “The Wire,” “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City,” as well as newer releases, such as “Barbie.” The streamer has also ordered a “Harry Potter” TV series.HuluFor $17.99 a month you can watch Hulu’s vast catalog — titles include “New Girl,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and “Fargo” — without ads. If you’re willing to sit through commercials, it’s $7.99 a month.Hulu also offers the option of adding live television to your plan, as well as content from other streaming services such as Disney+ and ESPN+, although the latter does come with ads. Those options range from $75.99 to $89.99 a month.If you want to watch Lauren Graham, left, and Alexis Bledel in “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life,” that’ll be at least $6.99 a month on Netflix.Saeed Adyani/NetflixNetflixRaise your hand if you remember getting DVDs from Netflix in the mail in the early 2000s. In 2010, Netflix started selling its streaming service for $8 a month and offering one DVD at a time for an additional $2.Netflix now offers a $6.99 per month subscription, which is ad-supported, which the company says “allows you to enjoy movies and TV shows at a lower price.” A standard plan (without ads) is $15.49 a month. For access to more devices, the cost goes up to $22.99 a month. Adding additional people that aren’t included in your subscription will cost you an additional $7.99 per person per month. Netflix mailed its last DVD in September.Among its offerings: “Gilmore Girls,” “La La Land,” and international series such as “Squid Game.”Paramount+In 2021, CBS rebranded its streaming platform, which it heralded as “a big day, a new day, a new beginning.” That announcement came with promises of a “Frasier” reboot and a revival of the animated series “Rugrats.”A lot of other Paramount content can be found elsewhere. The company sold the rights to the “South Park” library to HBO Max, and series like “Jack Ryan,” produced by Paramount, have gone to Amazon.Paramount+ Essential will cost you $5.99 a month (or $59.99 a year) and includes “limited commercial interruptions.” The service also offers a bundle together with SHOWTIME in a plan that costs $11.99 a month (or $119.99 a year).PeacockThe premium subscription for NBC Universal’s streaming service will cost you $5.99 a month and includes original content, films, live sporting events and more. A Premium Plus subscription is priced at $11.99 a month and offers — mostly — no ads as well as the ability to download content.Some of the programs you can watch include “Parks and Recreation,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” “Downton Abbey,” and “Everybody Loves Raymond,” as well as Bravo content like the “Real Housewives” franchise. More

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      Hollywood Writers Strike Is ‘Going to Be a While’

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      The writers and entertainment companies remain far apart on several key issues, including money, and the standoff could last for months.It’s not just posturing: As screenwriters continue their strike against Hollywood companies, the two sides remain a galaxy apart, portending a potentially long and destructive standoff.“Any hope that this would be fast has faded,” said Tara Kole, a founding partner of JSSK, an entertainment law firm that counts Emma Stone, Adam McKay and Halle Berry as clients. “I hate to say it, but it’s going to be a while.”The Writers Guild of America, which represents 11,500 screenwriters, went on strike on Tuesday after contract negotiations with studios, streaming services and networks failed. By the end of the week, as companies punched back at union in the news media, and striking writers celebrated the disruption of shows filming from finished scripts, Doug Creutz, an analyst at TD Cowen, told clients that a “protracted affair seems likely.” He defined protracted as more than three months — perhaps long enough to affect the Emmy Awards, scheduled for Sept. 18, and delay the fall TV season.The W.G.A. has vowed to stay on strike for as long as it takes. “The week has shown, I think, just how committed and fervent writers’ feelings are about all of this,” Chris Keyser, a chair of the W.G.A. negotiating committee, said in an interview on Friday. “They’re going to stay out until something changes because they can’t afford not to.”The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of studios, streaming services and networks, has maintained that it hopes “to reach a deal that is mutually beneficial to writers and the health and longevity of the industry.” Privately, however, member companies say they are prepared to weather a strike of at least 100 days. The most recent writers strike, which began in 2007 and ended in 2008, lasted that long.“It’s fair to say there’s a pretty big gap,” Bob Bakish, chief executive of Paramount Global, told analysts and investors on a conference call on Thursday. Paramount and its CBS subsidiary are prepared to “manage through this strike,” he added, “even if it’s for an extended duration.”Among the writers’ demands is that studios not let artificial intelligence encroach on writers’ credit or compensation.James Estrin/The New York TimesBoth sides have insisted that the other needs to make the first move to restart talks. None are scheduled. For the moment, media companies have turned to contract renewal negotiations with the Directors Guild of America, which start on Wednesday. That contract expires on June 30.Like writers, directors want more money, especially regarding residual payments (a type of royalty) from streaming services, which have rapidly expanded overseas. Before streaming, writers and directors (and other creative contributors, including actors) could receive residual payments whenever a show was licensed, whether that was for syndication, an international deal or DVD sales. In the streaming era, as global services like Netflix and Amazon have been reluctant to license their series, those distribution arms have been cut off.In addition to raises, however, writers want media companies — Netflix, in particular — to make structural changes to the way they do business. The companies — Netflix, in particular — say that is a bridge too far.The W.G.A. has proposals for mandatory staffing and employment guarantees, for instance. The union contends that the proposals are necessary because entertainment companies are increasingly relying on what is known in Hollywood slang as a miniroom. In one example of a miniroom, studios hire a small group of writers to develop a series and write several scripts over two or three months. Because they have not officially ordered the series, studios pay writers less than if they were in a large, traditional writers’ room.And given the relatively short duration of the position, those writers are then left scrambling to find another job if the show is not picked up. If a show does get a green light, fewer writers are sometimes hired because blueprints and several scripts have already been created.“While the W.G.A. has argued” that mandatory staffing and duration of employment “is necessary to preserve the writers’ room, it is in reality a hiring quota that is incompatible with the creative nature of our industry,” the studio alliance said in a statement on Thursday.Writers responded with indignation. “We don’t need the companies protecting us from our own creativity,” said Mr. Keyser, whose writing credits include “Party of Five” and “The Last Tycoon.” “What we need is protection from them essentially eliminating the job of the writer.”Writers also want companies to agree to guarantee that artificial intelligence will not encroach on writers’ credits and compensation. Such guarantees are a nonstarter, the studio alliance has said, instead suggesting an annual meeting on advances in the technology. “A.I. raises hard, important creative and legal questions for everyone,” the studios said on Thursday. “It’s something that requires a lot more discussion, which we have committed to doing.”Mr. Keyser’s response: Go pound sand.“This is exactly what they offered us with the internet in 2007 — let’s chat about it every year, until it progresses so far that there’s nothing we can do about it,” he said. In that case, have fun on the picket lines, studio executives have said privately: It’s going to be hot out there in July.Over the last week, media companies conveyed an air of business as usual. On Thursday, HBO hosted a red carpet premiere for a documentary, while the Fox broadcast network announced a survivalist reality show called “Stars on Mars” hosted by William Shatner.“3 … 2 … 1 … LIFT OFF!” the network’s promotional materials read.With the exception of late-night shows, which immediately went dark, Mr. Bakish assured Wall Street, “consumers really won’t notice anything for a while.” Networks and streaming services have a large amount of banked content. Reality shows, news programs and some scripted series made by overseas companies are unaffected by the strike. Most movies scheduled for release this year are well past the writing stage.Shares climbed on Friday for every company involved with the failed contract talks; investors tend to like it when costs go down, which is what happens when production slows, as during a strike. If the strike drags into July, analysts pointed out, studios can exit pricey deals with writers under “force majeure” clauses of contracts.“The sorry news for writers is that, in declaring a strike, they may in fact be helping the streaming giants and their parent companies,” Luke Landis, a media and internet analyst at SBV MoffettNathanson, wrote in a report on Wednesday.Writers, however, succeeded in making things difficult for studios over the first week. Apple TV+ was forced to postpone the premiere of “Still,” about Michael J. Fox and his struggle with Parkinson’s disease, because Mr. Fox refused to cross a picket line. In Los Angeles, writers picketed the Apple TV+ set for “Loot,” starring Maya Rudolph, causing taping to halt. In New York, similar actions disrupted production for shows like “Billions,” the Showtime drama. Other affected shows included “Stranger Things” on Netflix, “Hacks” on HBO Max and the MTV Movie & TV Awards telecast on Sunday, which went forward without a host after Drew Barrymore pulled out, citing the strike.“The corporations have gotten too greedy,” Sasha Stewart, a writer for the Netflix documentary series, “Amend: The Fight for America” as well as “The Nightly Show With Larry Wilmore,” said from a picket line last week. “They want to break us. We have to show them we will not be broken.”Writers went into the strike energized. But a rally at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on Wednesday seemed to supercharge the group, in part because leaders from other entertainment unions turned out to support them — and in fiery fashion. During the 2007 strike, writers were largely left to stand alone, while a union representing camera operators, set electricians, makeup artists and other crafts workers blasted the writers for causing “devastation.”Ellen Stutzman, chief negotiator for the writers, received a standing ovation from the estimated 1,800 people who attended the rally. During the session, writers suggested expanding picket lines to the homes of studio chief executives and starting a public campaign to get people to cancel their streaming subscriptions.Some writers realized that Teamsters locals, which represent the many drivers that studios rely on to transport materials (and people), would not cross picket lines. So they started to picket before dawn to intercept them. (The W.G.A. has advised a 9 a.m. starting time.) At least one show, the Apple TV+ dystopian workplace drama “Severance,” was forced to shut down production on Friday as a result of Teamsters drivers’ refusing to cross. More

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      ‘Ghosted’ Review: A C.I.A. Meet Cute

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      A date becomes a spy skirmish in this action-heavy, paint-by-numbers Apple TV+ rom-com starring Chris Evans and Ana de Armas.“Ghosted,” a frothy spy-thriller rom-com in the tradition of “Romancing the Stone” and “The Jewel of the Nile,” is one of the least convincing movies I have ever seen. I don’t just mean that the dialogue is trite and phony, or that the characters feel inauthentic, or that the action is badly choreographed, or even that the plot is paper-thin and contrived, although all of this is regrettably true.I mean that “Ghosted” barely seems like a real movie. It has movie stars, in the figures of Ana de Armas and Chris Evans (and, as the villain, Adrien Brody). It has a competent director, Dexter Fletcher, whose hit “Rocketman” wasn’t half-bad.But this tedious, unfunny, screamingly unoriginal romantic adventure film is so flimsy and so insubstantial that it’s practically vaporous.Evans, who can be charming, stars as Cole, a clean-cut, down-to-earth farmer who dreams of publishing a book on the history of agriculture. While working at his family market stall one afternoon, he meets Sadie (de Armas), and within minutes the two embark on a high-speed fling. But it turns out that Sadie is a C.I.A. agent, code name the Taxman, and in a gender-reversed “True Lies” situation, Cole is swiftly embroiled in Sadie’s high-stakes world of international espionage, whisked off in escapades across London and far-flung destinations that look like they were filmed on green screens.Evans and de Armas are likable actors, but any charm they might have mustered for each other is torpedoed by the facile writing, featuring such memorable zingers as “I have dated some crazies in my day, but you are certifiable!”The spy stuff is also laughable. The movie seems more concerned with shoehorning in transparently fan-baiting cameos (including Sebastian Stan and Ryan Reynolds) than with developing anything remotely like credible stakes, while the action set pieces suffer from unimaginative staging and some of the cheapest-looking visual effects in recent memory.GhostedRated PG-13 for some graphic violence, torture, strong language and mild sexual content. Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes. Watch on Apple TV+. More

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      ‘Next Exit’ Review: End of the Road

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      Two strangers reflect on their lives as they embark on a cross-country drive to join a study involving life after death.In Mali Elfman’s debut feature “Next Exit,” Rose and Teddy (Katie Parker and Rahul Kohli) are two strangers with something in common: They’d both rather be dead.They embark on a cross-country drive to join an experiment run by a controversial scientist who claims there is life after death. But rather than a spiritual meditation on the great beyond, or a dystopian fable, Elfman’s road movie fits the largely conventional mold of stories about people taking stock before ending their lives.The film begins with the scientist (Karen Gillan) presenting evidence of the afterlife — a slightly janky recording of a boy playing cards with his father’s ghost. Her study involves the assisted suicide of its participants, who can now look forward to an afterlife. (The arrangement sounds more macabre than the film fully acknowledges.) Rose is eager to ditch what she regards as an ill-spent life, and she ends up sharing a rental car with Teddy, who is also deeply dissatisfied but tries to be an upbeat companion.On Rose and Teddy’s drive to San Francisco they have instructive encounters with a priest, a regretful cop, a hippie-dippy hitchhiker, and estranged family members. The reluctant pair keeps recalibrating in response, and trade prickly banter. Their trek sometimes taps the tragicomic feel of a soul-bearing late-night conversation in a bar.But the actors’ chemistry feels brittle, and like many road movies it has trouble mining drama out of disparate episodes. When the subject is the explicit consideration of a life’s worth, it’s a tricky road to take and not get lost along the way.Next ExitNot rated. 1 hour 46 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘Plan A’ Review: Seeking Vengeance for the Holocaust

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      Set in postwar Germany, this film dramatizes the true story of a group of Jewish survivors who sought revenge through an astonishing undercover operation.Movies about the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust often focus on the long journey to begin life anew, but “Plan A” dramatizes attempts by some survivors first to seek retribution — on a huge scale. The directors, Doron and Yoav Paz, fashion an undercover thriller from the true story of some 50 Jewish vigilantes called the Avengers who tried to poison millions in German cities.Max (August Diehl) returns to Germany in 1945 to search for his family and finds antisemitism still widespread. He meets a Jewish brigade of the British Army that is secretly targeting war criminals for off-the-books executions. They’re efficient — cue a montage sequence of Nazis being shot in the head — and Max helps them until he learns of the Avengers, or Nakam, which means revenge in Hebrew.Max joins their mission to infiltrate a water plant, while their leader smuggles toxic substances from abroad. The scale and ambition of the plan can’t fail to create some suspense, even as it falls apart. But the storytelling is surprisingly slack, while it grasps for anguished romantic tension between Max and another plotter (Sylvia Hoeks). Diehl moves from looking stricken to single-minded but doesn’t bring much weight, moral or otherwise, to his pivotal protagonist.An opening voice-over asks what you would do if your entire family were murdered. Despite sounding like a preview trailer’s hook, the blunt question emotionally situates us in the Nazi hellscape more effectively than the film’s visuals of ruins and hide-outs. The rest of “Plan A” never quite rises to the challenge posed by this remarkable chapter in history.Plan ANot rated. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘Succession’ Wins Best Drama at Emmys as HBO Triumphs Again

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      “Succession,” HBO’s portrait of a dysfunctional media dynasty, won best drama at the 74th Emmy Awards on Monday night, the second time the series has taken the prize.Jesse Armstrong, the show’s creator, also took home the Emmy for best writing, the third time he’s won in that category. And Matthew Macfadyen won best supporting actor in a drama for the first time for his performance on the show.It was the sixth time in eight years that HBO has taken the television industry’s biggest prize for a recurring series, making it yet another triumphant night for the cable network. HBO, as well as its streaming service, HBO Max, won more Emmys (38) than any other outlet, besting its chief rival, Netflix (26).“The White Lotus,” the cable network’s beloved upstairs-downstairs dramedy that took place at a Hawaiian resort, won best limited series, and tore through several other categories. The show won 10 Emmys altogether, more than any other series. Mike White, the show’s creator and director, won a pair of Emmys for best directing and writing. And performers from the show, Murray Bartlett and Jennifer Coolidge, both received acting Emmys.“Mike White, my God, thank you for giving me one of the best experiences of my life,” Bartlett, who played an off-the-wagon hotel manager, said from the Emmys stage.But HBO’s chronicles of the rich were not the only winners on Monday night.“Ted Lasso,” the Apple TV+ sports series, won best comedy for a second consecutive year, as the tech giant continues on an awards show tear. Apple TV+, which had its debut in November 2019, won best picture at the Oscars (“CODA”) earlier this year. And Jason Sudeikis repeated as best actor in a comedy as the fish-out-of-water soccer coach in “Ted Lasso.”There were other big moments in the comedy awards. Quinta Brunson, the creator of the good-natured ABC workplace sitcom, “Abbott Elementary,” about a group of elementary schoolteachers at an underfunded Philadelphia public school, won for best writing in a comedy. It was only the second time a Black woman won the award (Lena Waithe was the first, in 2017, for “Master of None”).In one of the night’s most electric moments, Sheryl Lee Ralph won best supporting actress in a comedy for her role on “Abbott Elementary” as a veteran teacher at the school. Ralph began her Emmys speech by singing “Endangered Species” by Dianne Reeves, and received a standing ovation from the room full of nominees. Her victory was also historic: It was only the second time a Black woman won the award. The last time was in 1987, when Jackée Harry won for her role in the NBC sitcom “227.”This has been the most competitive Emmys season ever: Submissions for all the categories surged, and 2022 is very likely to set yet another record for the highest number of scripted television series.But there was also a sense of concern among the executives, producers and agents in attendance at Monday night’s Emmy Awards, that 2022 represents the pinnacle of the so-called Peak TV era, which has produced the highest number of scripted television series, nearly every year, for more than a decade.Netflix, which lost subscribers this year for the first time in a decade, has laid off hundreds of staffers and is reining in its spending. HBO’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, has shelved projects and is about to lay off a significant number of employees. NBC executives are considering ending its prime-time lineup at 10 p.m., and handing the hour over to local stations.Business challenges aside, the night was mostly a feel-good celebration. Zendaya won her second Emmy by taking best actress in a drama for her role as a troubled teen in HBO’s “Euphoria.” Jean Smart repeated as the best actress in a comedy for her role as a Joan Rivers-like comedian in HBO Max’s “Hacks.”“Squid Game,” the blood-splattered, South Korean Netflix series, won a pair of awards: Lee Jung-jae for best actor in a drama, and Hwang Dong-hyuk for directing. Those wins represented a major breakthrough for a foreign language show as television becomes more global, and as American audiences are increasingly receptive to series with subtitles.Michael Keaton, who played a small town doctor in “Dopesick,” took the best actor award in a limited series. And Amanda Seyfried won best actress in a limited series for her well-received performance as Elizabeth Holmes in “The Dropout.”Emmy voters often have a habit of finding a winner, and sticking with it, and this year was no different. John Oliver’s “Last Week Tonight” won the best talk show category for a seventh consecutive year, and “Saturday Night Live” took the best variety sketch series for a sixth straight year.This year’s ceremony was the first return to the Microsoft Theater since the pandemic. Producers for the Emmys incorporated an element that it experimented with at last year’s ceremony, which took place inside a tent: Instead of theater-style seating, nominees were gathered around tables with bottles of champagne and wine around them.This year’s host, Kenan Thompson, the “Saturday Night Live” veteran, opened the ceremony in a top hat and led a group of dancers in a bizarre interpretive dance to theme songs of famous TV series like “Law & Order,” “The Brady Bunch” and “Game of Thrones.”During his monologue, Thompson took a dig at Netflix’s recent woes.“If you don’t know what ‘Squid Game’ is, it is the contest you enter when you’re in massive debt and desperate for money,” the host said. “Joining the cast next season? Netflix.” More

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      September 2022: What’s New on Amazon, Hulu, Apple TV+ and More

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      Every month, streaming services add movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for some of September’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.)Morfydd Clark and Benjamin Walker, center, in “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.”Amazon StudiosNew to Amazon Prime‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 1When J.R.R. Tolkien died, the author of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” left behind thousands of pages of partial stories and detailed notes, which collectively expanded on the history of his fictional Middle Earth and its surrounding lands, across many cycles of war and peace. The expensive Prime Video series “The Rings of Power” — which could cost around a billion dollars by the time its planned five-season run ends — draws on some of those stray Tolkien tales as the inspiration for an epic saga set thousands of years before “The Hobbit,” at a time when the world’s different races formed wary alliances in an effort to thwart the dark power of Sauron. The show maintains the bright look and sense of wonder that made Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” movies so popular, though the large cast and varied settings also recall “Game of Thrones.”Also arriving:Sept. 9“Flight/Risk”Sept. 16“Goodnight Mommy”Sept. 21“Prisma”Sept. 23“September Mornings”Sept. 30“Jungle” Season 1“My Best Friend’s Exorcism”Maddie, voiced by Katie Chang, and David, voiced by Daniel Dae Kim, in the animated series “Pantheon.”Titmouse Inc/AMCNew to AMC+‘Pantheon’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 1The acclaimed Chinese American science fiction and fantasy author Ken Liu is known for stories that consider ordinary human lives and relationships in the context of pulpy scenarios that are not too far removed from reality. The animated series “Pantheon” combines multiple Liu short stories into one interconnected drama. At the show’s center is a troubled teen named Maddie (voiced by Katie Chang) who receives advice on the internet from someone who may be her late father (Daniel Dad Kim) living on in the cloud as an “uploaded intelligence.” Her situation swells into a broader crisis, keyed to the potential dangers of a future where people’s lives feel “realer” online than in physical reality.Also arriving:Sept. 2“Rubikon”Sept. 9“There Are No Saints”Sept. 16“Official Competition”Sept. 23“Section 8”Sept. 30“Sissy”Sidney Poitier as seen in the documentary “Sidney.”Apple TV+New to Apple TV+‘Sidney’Starts streaming: Sept. 23The actor Sidney Poitier, who died earlier this year at 94, set a standard of excellence that placed him among the all-time greats. The documentary “Sidney” (directed by Reginald Hudlin for Oprah Winfrey’s production company Harpo) covers Poitier’s life from his childhood in the Bahamas through his rapid rise in the theater and then in Hollywood at a time when the opportunities for Black actors were slim. The film features an impressive slate of A-list actors and directors — plus one of the final interviews with the man himself — all explaining how Poitier’s influence as an artist and as a Civil Rights pioneer continues to endure.Also arriving:Sept. 9“Central Park” Season 3“Gutsy”Sept. 30“The Greatest Beer Run Ever”Diego Luna as the title character in the new Stars Wars series “Andor.”Disney+New to Disney+‘Cars on the Road’Starts streaming: Sept. 8The “Cars” crew is among the most popular of Pixar’s creations, inspiring three feature films, a spinoff franchise (“Planes”) and countless toys, games and theme park attractions. The new series “Cars on the Road” sends the champion racer Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) and his tow-truck buddy Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) on a trip across the country, parceled out across nine short episodes that more or less add up to an hourlong “Cars” mini-movie. Unlike the grander big-screen adventures, these little eight-minute morsels are comic vignettes, set in a variety of locations and always rooted in the unlikely bond between these two mismatched pals.‘Andor’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 21The latest addition to the “Star Wars” TV universe is a prequel to a prequel, filling in the backstory of one of the major characters from the 2016 movie “Rogue One” — and, in the process, fleshing out more of the pre-“A New Hope” saga of the Rebel Alliance’s rise as a legitimate challenge to the dominance of the Galactic Empire. Diego Luna reprises his role as Cassian Andor, a cynical crook with a tragic past, who is persuaded to use his talents for deception and thievery to aid the Rebel cause. The 12-episode first season will be followed later by an already in-the-works 12-episode second season, which will take “Andor” all the way up to to the part of the “Star Wars” timeline where “Rogue One” begins.Also arriving:Sept. 8“Epic Adventures with Bertie Gregory” Season 1“Growing Up” Season 1“Pinocchio”“Remembering”“Tierra Incognita”Sept. 16“Mija”Sept. 19“Dancing with the Stars” Season 31Sept. 21“Super/Natural” Season 1Sept. 28“The Mighty Ducks: Game Changers” Season 2Sept. 30“Hocus Pocus 2”From left, Fred Armisen, Ana Fabrega, Julio Torres, Bernardo Velasco and Cassandra Ciangherotti in the second season of “Los Espookys.”HBONew to HBO Max‘Los Espookys’ Season 2Starts streaming: Sept. 16For their unclassifiable “Los Espookys,” the creators Julio Torres, Ana Fabrega and Fred Armisen have brought a gently surreal comic sensibility to the weird adventures of a horror-loving theater troupe in a fictional Latin American country. Torres and Fabrega play two members of the troupe, Andrés and Tati, who alongside their visionary leader Renaldo (Bernardo Velasco) and their more pragmatic partner Úrsula (Cassandra Ciangherotti) hire themselves out to people looking for someone to provide realistic haunted house effects. Season 1 introduced this eccentric crew and featured subplots with Renaldo’s Uncle Tico (Armisen), a valet parking attendant who lives in Hollywood. It’s hard to predict what’s in store for Season 2, given that the first run featured such a unique mix of supernatural fantasy and low-key hangout comedy.Also arriving:Sept. 17“Secret Origin of the Batwheels”Sept. 21“Escape from Kabul”Sept. 22“The Hype” Season 2Sept. 28“Hostages”Rachel Bloom, left, and Krista Marie Yu in Hulu’s show-within-a-show comedy “Reboot.”Michael Desmond/HuluNew to Hulu‘Reboot’ Season 1Starts streaming: Sept. 20This inside-Hollywood farce pokes fun at the modern phenomenon of streaming services and TV networks reviving classic shows. “Reboot” is about a neurotic writer (Rachel Bloom) who sells Hulu an edgy update of a long-cancelled family sitcom, but then discovers that the original showrunner (Paul Reiser) still has the rights to make new episodes. The show-within-the-show’s cast members — Keegan-Michael Key, Judy Greer and Johnny Knoxville — encourage the old guard and the new to work together to bring some heat back to their own flagging careers. The veteran TV writer Steven Levitan (“Modern Family”) created “Reboot,” drawing on his own years in the complicated business of making “comfort” comedies that are equal parts funny and true.‘Ramy’ Season 3Starts streaming: Sept. 28In Season 2 of the comedian Ramy Youssef’s semi-autobiographical dramedy, his title character tried hard to straighten out his life by recommitting himself to his Muslim faith and even pursuing a traditional marriage. Then all of Ramy’s plans fell apart, leaving him with a choice at the end of the finale: to stay on the righteous path he had been on, or to backslide. The belated Season 3 will pick up that larger story, about one man’s attempts to balance his interest in religious traditions with the pleasures of a secular American life. “Ramy” will also continue to spend time with the character’s eclectic batch of friends and family members, who face traumas and hangups of their own.Also arriving:Sept. 1“The Mighty Ones” Season 3Sept. 7“Grid” Season 1“Tell Me Lies”Sept. 8“Wedding Season” Season 1“The Zone: Survival Mission” Season 1Sept. 14“The Handmaid’s Tale” Season 5Sept. 16“Atlanta” Season 4Sept. 19“Best in Dough” Season 1Sept. 22“The Kardashians” Season 2Sept. 26“A Chiara”“Chefs vs. Wild” Season 1Sept. 27“Reasonable Doubt” Season 1Sept. 28“The D’Amelio Show” Season 2New to Paramount+‘The Good Fight’ Season 6Starts streaming: Sept. 8The sixth and final season of one of TV’s best dramas adds Andre Braugher and John Slattery to its ace cast, as part of the aftermath to a Season 5 finale which saw the venerable attorney Diane Lockhart (Christine Baranski) step away from her partnership with Liz Reddick (Audra McDonald) in their progressive Chicago law firm. Braugher plays the firm’s charismatic new partner, while Slattery plays Diane’s doctor, helping her adjust to whatever comes next. “The Good Fight” — a spinoff of the long-running legal drama “The Good Wife” — has been through multiple on-screen and behind-the-scenes upheavals since its 2017 debut, but what has remained consistent is the head writers Michelle and Robert King’s sharp-witted approach to ripped-from-the-headlines political stories, which playfully examine how the American justice system is trying to hold the line against the tumult of our crazy times.Also arriving:Sept. 3“Taylor Hawkins Tribute Concert”Sept. 7“Ink Master” Season 14Sept. 23“On the Come Up”New to Peacock‘Last Light’Starts streaming: Sept. 8Though based on a 2007 Alex Scarrow novel, the thriller miniseries “Last Light” is very much of the moment, with its story of a society thrown into chaos by a sudden drop in the oil supply. Matthew Fox plays Andy Yeats, a brilliant chemical engineer who gets summoned to a key Middle Eastern petroleum reserve to investigate a potentially catastrophic problem. Joanne Froggatt plays his wife Elena, who is in Paris helping their young son through an experimental eye operation, while their college-aged daughter Laura (Alyth Ross) is home in London raising awareness about climate change. When the long-feared fuel crisis hits, the family has to race across the world to reunite, dodging street-riots and a cabal of powerful people who don’t want Andy to make public what he knows.Also arriving:Sept. 2“Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.”Sept. 14“Hell of a Cruise”Sept. 15“’Til Jail Do Us Part” Season 1“Vampire Academy” Season 1Sept. 21“Meet Cute”“Shadowland”Sept. 28“Sex, Lies and the College Cult” More

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      ‘Paradise Highway’ Review: A Test of Loyalty

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      A truck driver’s brother asks her to deliver a girl to sex traffickers in order to save his life in prison.Growing up in a violent home, Sally (Juliette Binoche) only had one person to rely on: her brother, Dennis (Frank Grillo).Years later, Dennis is in prison, and now depends on Sally, who is a truck driver. When Dennis tells Sally that she must carry illicit cargo or he’ll be harmed, she is determined to come through, even after she finds out that the “package” she’s meant to deliver is a girl named Leila (Hala Finley).“Paradise Highway,” written and directed by Anna Gutto (“A Light Above”), follows Sally and Leila as they run from both the benevolent F.B.I. agents, played by Morgan Freeman and Cameron Monaghan, and the sex traffickers looking to recover Leila. They are kept company only by a shotgun and the radio that connects Sally to a network of other women truck drivers. Their camaraderie and Finley’s performance as the troubled Leila are highlights in a film that otherwise does not quite hit its stride.Perhaps unsurprisingly, Binoche is not believable as a working-class American truck driver, and her lingering French accent seems out of place in that world. In addition, the vague danger to her brother is difficult to accept as enough motivation for her to participate in such a heinous crime.Though it is refreshing to see members of law enforcement focused on recovering and supporting a victim rather than pursuing her abusers, it does not allow for much narrative tension. If only the film had taken a broader view, filling in more details about the lives and motivations of the truck drivers as well as the sex traffickers.Paradise HighwayRated R for language and some violence. Running time: 1 hour 55 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘Flux Gourmet’ Review: Mastering the Art of Fringe Cooking

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      Peter Strickland’s latest film is a speculative comedy about art, desire and gastrointestinal discomfort.What if the primary sensory goal of cooking were to stimulate the ears? What if you experienced a movie through your nostrils and taste buds, or felt it in your gut? These bizarre, intriguing questions are part of the foundation, the spine — the sofrito — of “Flux Gourmet,” the fifth feature by the British writer-director Peter Strickland.The first, “Katalin Varga” (2009) was a revenge drama set in Transylvania. Since then, Strickland has departed both from genre conventions and from known geography, conjuring parallel realities organized around particular aesthetic and erotic obsessions: Italian horror and sound design in “Berberian Sound Studio” (2013); entomology and B.D.S.M. in “The Duke of Burgundy” (2015); high fashion and Italian horror again in “In Fabric” (2019); and now cuisine.Not the kind you eat — though there are some awkward dinner gatherings and episodes of surreptitious snacking. Food, in the world of this film, is the music of love. Culinary sound collectives are the equivalent of rock bands, building walls of expressive noise from the whine of blenders and the sizzle of vegetables dropped in hot oil.One such group, which can’t agree on a name, has been granted a residence at an “institute devoted to culinary and alimentary performance” in a converted rural manor house. One narrative thread follows the simmering tensions between Jan Stevens (Gwendoline Christie), who is in charge of the place, and Elle di Elle (Fatma Mohamed, a Strickland stalwart), the visionary, vegetarian leader of the troupe. Elle adamantly rejects the slightest hint of constructive criticism from Jan, who believes that her largess entitles her to be heard.This tension exacerbates the rivalry within the group. Elle may be the leader, but her bandmates, a floppy-haired emo kid (Asa Butterfield) and an angular avant-gardist (Ariane Labed) have nascent creative agendas of their own. There’s also an element of sexual intrigue, as often happens when aesthetic passions are inflamed. Meanwhile, a rejected band of culinary artists lurks in the shadows, threatening violence.All of this is chronicled — mostly in Greek voice-over with English subtitles — by a saturnine fellow named Stones (Makis Papadimitriou) who works as the institute’s “dossierge.” A writer by trade and a wallflower by temperament, he observes Elle and her colleagues, filming their meetings and performances, interviewing them together and taking notes on their squabbles.The poor man has troubles of his own. Digestive troubles, to be precise, which disrupt his sleep and sour his already gloomy mood. The resident doctor (Richard Bremmer) is a pompous boor, and Stones spends a lot of his time in the lavatory, the rest of it wearing the unmistakable grimace of a man holding back considerable gas.There is obvious comic potential in his predicament, but Strickland doesn’t exploit it in the obvious ways. This isn’t “Blazing Saddles”; audible flatulence is restricted to a single plaintive note, rather than a full symphony. But the unheard music of Stone’s lower intestinal tract is nonetheless a key structural element, organizing “Flux Gourmet” into an elegant fugue of contrapuntal themes: grossness and refinement; pleasure and disgust; appetite and discipline.The film isn’t so much an allegory or fantasy as a witty philosophical speculation on some elemental human issues. We are animals driven by lust, hunger and aggression, but also delicate creatures in love with beauty and abstraction. Those two sides of our nature collide in unexpected, infinitely variable ways.“Flux Gourmet” is Strickland’s funniest film to date, with more outright jokes than its predecessors, and a few sublime visual gags, many of them involving Jan’s outfits (they were designed by Giles Deacon, with hats by Steven Jones). It’s like a Restoration comedy run through a John Waters filter and sprinkled with Luis Buñuel itching powder.Maybe such comparisons are unfair. Certainly Elle insists on the absolute integrity and originality of her work, and even as “Flux Gourmet” mocks her self-seriousness it also defends her dignity. Mohamed, fully committed to the bit, allows you to believe that Elle is both a courageous genius and a complete nut. I’m inclined to think Strickland is more of the former than the latter. I’ve never encountered a flavor palette quite like the one he assembles here, and while this movie isn’t always easy to digest, it’s a taste very much worth acquiring.Flux GourmetNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 51 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More