5 great Netflix picks worth watching over the long weekend

By Jennifer McShane
01st Aug 2020

5 great Netflix picks worth watching over the long weekend

With new movie releases postponed for the foreseeable, streaming has been a life-saver. Here are our viewing picks for the Bank Holiday

The Fall: Seasons 1-3

The brilliant psychological thriller examines the lives of two hunters – one is a serial killer (Jamie Dornan) who preys on victims in and around Belfast, Northern Ireland, and the other is a female detective (Gillian Anderson) drafted from the London Metropolitan Police to catch him. The local authorities have no suspects and no experience with cases involving sexually motivated serial killers; DSI Stella Gibson has.

She heads a task force dedicated to solving the crime spree, with a simple motto: Anyone not part of the solution is part of the problem. The killer? He’s Paul Spector, a father and a husband leading a double life, as viewers learn from the outset. He’s hiding in plain sight, the protagonist in a cat and mouse game that is every police officer’s worst nightmare. It’s so, so good.

Blue Velvet

In the interest of re-watching film gems of the past, it’s hard to believe that David Lynch’s neo-noir masterpiece is almost 35 years old. Undoubtedly one of his most celebrated films (though Mulholland Drive comes a close second), this psychosexual, visual drama has lost none of its impact, even three decades after its release.

Lynch takes an in-depth look at the twists and turns of the human psyche and the darkness that lingers alongside a quiet suburban town in America, as Jeffrey Beaumont (played by a baby-faced Kyle MacLachlan) investigates the appearance of a severed ear and mysterious nightclub singer, Dorothy Vallens (played by the mesmerising Isabella Rossellini).

Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich

By now, we all know that disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein would stop at nothing to use his wealth and fame to lure young girls to his home and abuse them as he saw fit (and his name is back in the news). This Netflix documentary delves into the darkest details of his lurid deceptions and actions, which were investigated for years with little personal consequence – until he could get away with it no more. Most striking here is the powerful testimonies of each of his survivors, who refused to give up or stay silent until action was taken.

The Umbrella Academy: Season 2

Everyone’s talking about this one. The super-powered Hargreeves siblings return for Season 2. Five warned his family (so, so many times) that using his powers to escape from Vanya’s 2019 apocalypse was risky. Well, he was right – the time jump scatters the siblings in time in and around Dallas, Texas. Over a three year period. Starting in 1960. Some, having been stuck in the past for years, have built lives and moved on, certain they’re the only ones who survived.

Five is the last to land, smack dab in the middle of a nuclear doomsday, which – spoiler alert! – turns out is a result of the group’s disruption of the timeline (déjà vu, anyone?). Now the Umbrella Academy must find a way to reunite, figure out what caused doomsday, put a stop to it, and return to the present timeline to stop that other apocalypse. All while being hunted by a trio of ruthless Swedish assassins. It’s simply a brilliant watch.

Connected

In Netflix’s new documentary series Connected, science reporter and host Latif Nasser hopscotches around the planet to tease out the subtle and surprising ways that we are all inextricably linked to one another and our world. He discovers how everything from the air we breathe, the selfies we post, and even the poop we poop can be traced back to catastrophic shipwrecks, fraudulent elections, and even distant galaxies. From the microscopic to the telescopic to the kaleidoscopic, this show will make you see the world around you in a whole new way.