Netflix
Mother/Android

Film, US, 2022 – out 7 January

Ah yes: the old “rise of Skynet” chestnut, whereby all androids in a dystopian future declare themselves sick of doing our dirty work and rebel against the lousy humans who enslaved them. Director Mattson Tomlin dusts off an old genre that has had some memorable recalibrations recently, such as Ex Machina, I Am Mother, Blade Runner 2049 and the Westworld reboot.

Chloë Grace Moretz plays Georgia, who discovers she is pregnant on Christmas Eve. Soon androids (which in this future are modelled to look like humans) start raising hell, prompting her to embark on a perilous journey to a safe place in Boston where she can give birth. Action and carnage ensue. When the droids go crae-crae, one assumes humans no longer have an ability to send a Windows error report. The horror!

Archive 81

TV, US, 2022 – out 14 January

Here comes another new take on a creaky old genre: the found footage production. Loosely based on the popular podcast of the same name, with Australian horror bigwig James Wan on board as producer, Archive 81 follows an archivist (Mamoudou Athie) who, while repairing damaged VHS tapes, pieces together the story of a documentary film-maker (Dina Shihabi) who investigated a dangerous cult.

It’s probably best not to expect a masterpiece, as the found footage genre is only occasionally interesting: for every Cannibal Holocaust, The Blair Witch Project or Chronicle, there are a zillion forgettable low-rent productions. But hey, stranger things have happened, as has Netflix’s smash-hit show Stranger Things – one of its directors, Rebecca Thomas, helming four episodes of Archive 81.

Honourable mentions: Spider-Man: Far from Home (film, 4 January), The House (TV, 14 January), Ozark season four (TV, 21 January), Munich: The Edge of War (film, 21 January), Snowpiercer season three (TV, 25 January).

Stan

The Tourist

TV, UK/Australia, 2022 – out 2 January

Pulse-pounding action, cliffhanger-filled plotlines and a core mystery involving a character stranded in the outback who cannot remember his own name let alone what he is doing here – now this is a great way to kick off your television watching in 2022. Irish actor Jamie Dornan (AKA Christian Grey from the Fifty Shades franchise) gets plonked in the middle of heat-frazzled Woop Woop, playing “The Man” – an antihero who suffers severe amnesia after being rammed off the road by a psychopathic truck driver.

Why are the locals so … mean? And what did he do to deserve such rudeness? All will eventually be revealed after many a twist and turn. Directors Chris Sweeney and Daniel Nettheim establish a foot-to-the-pedal pace that doesn’t let up across the show’s six-episode arc.

Gold

Film, Australia, 2022 – out 26 January

Jamie Dornan isn’t the only famous, hunky foreigner to be plonked in the arid outback – there’s also heartthrob Zac Efron. Directed by actor Anthony Hayes, who made the very good 2008 Adelaide-set drama Ten Empty, Gold is a survival thriller about a man (Efron) who discovers a big chunk of the good stuff and, of course, executes a plan to keep it.

Any outdoors-set film about greedy hard-bitten men pursuing wealth at the potential expense of life, limb and sanity is inevitably compared with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre – which is a little unfair given John Huston’s 1948 film is a rolled-gold (so to speak) masterpiece. We’ll see how Gold stands up, but one thing we know for sure: it will never get old to see good-looking foreign actors left to fry in the Australian sun.

Honourable mentions: Upgrade (film, 2 January), The Raid 1 and 2 (film, 4 January), Enemy (film, 7 January), That Damn Michael Che (TV, 12 January), Wolf Like Me (TV, 13 January), The Iron Giant (film, 15 January), Unforgiven (film, 15 January), Melancholia (film, 20 January), Mandy (film, 21 January), He Died with a Felafel in his Hand (film, 25 January), Jasper Jones (film, 27 January), Lantana (film, 27 January).

Amazon Prime Video

The Tender Bar

Film, US, 2021 – out 7 January

The latest George Clooney-directed film is a 70s-set coming-of-age drama presented in a postcard-looking retro aesthetic. Adapting JR Moehringer’s 2005 memoir, Daniel Ranieri plays JR as a child, with Ben Affleck as his Uncle Charlie and Christopher Lloyd as his cranky grandfather. Lloyd has been doing the angry old man shtick for what feels like an eternity; he even seemed old and nutty in the Back to the Future movies despite the actor then being only in his late 40s and early 50s.

Shane

TV, Australia, 2022 – out 25 January

Any documentary about Shane Warne has a lot of important ground to cover, including the cricketer’s appearance in Advanced Hair advertisements, his fondness for durries and his extraterrestrial-themed reinterpretation of the theory of evolution.

Oh, there’s also Warne’s huge influence on cricket and his presence in Australian media as one of our most influential sport celebrities. Amazon Prime Video’s documentary claims it presents an “extraordinary untold story” that offers new ways “to understand the man behind the legend”.

Honourable mentions: F9: The Fast Saga (film, 1 January), Red Dog: True Blue (film, 5 January), Happy Feet (film, 6 January), Hotel Transylvania 4: Transformania (film, 14 January), The Lobster (film, 15 January), The Hitman’s Bodyguard (film, 19 January), As We See It (TV, 21 January), Inglourious Basterds (film, 26 January).

Binge
Peacemaker

TV, US, 2022 – out 13 January

The opening credits sequence of James Gunn’s new superhero series shows the titular hero and others dancing on a soundstage lit up with pink and blue lights. It’s hard to imagine a more fitting scene to summarise Gunn’s approach to caped crusader stories – his party-loving vibes making them feel like fun soirees (see also: Guardians of the Galaxy, The Suicide Squad and the underrated Super).

Peacemaker continues where The Suicide Squad finished, even beginning with a “previously on The Suicide Squad” recap. This will limit the show’s broader appeal while satisfying fans of that film in particular. The series fleshes out the hero’s backstory and subsequent adventures, which involve him arguing with random people, evading assassination attempts and hanging out with his pet eagle.

The Cleaning Lady

TV, US, 2022 – out 5 January

An early scene in The Cleaning Lady reveals that protagonist Thony De La Rosa (Élodie Yung), who is working as a cleaner in Las Vegas, is actually a brilliant, quick-thinking doctor. Coming to America from the Philippines, seeking a bone marrow donor for her very sick young son, Thony struggles to make ends meet, fighting for the future for herself and her family. This is difficult enough before she finds herself caught up in organised crime.

This show features a very strong performance from Yung, whose presence has a solidifying effect, binding the drama together.

Honourable mentions: Mad Max: The Road Warrior (film, 1 January), Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (film, 1 January), Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts (TV, 1 January), The Constant Gardener (film, 3 January), Searching for Bobby Fischer (film, 5 January), Lost in Translation (film, 7 January), Pulp Fiction (film, 7 January), Saturday Night Fever (film, 8 January), Euphoria season two (TV, 10 January), Last Cab to Darwin (film, 15 January), Flashdance (film, 15 January), The Dark Tower (film, 29 January), American Beauty (film, 30 January).

SBS on Demand
Araatika: Rise Up!

Film, Australia, 2021 – out 26 January

Larissa Behrendt has carved out a niche as an interesting cine-essayist making documentaries that explore subjects highly significant to Indigenous Australian culture – most recently After the Apology, about the continued removal of Indigenous children from their homes, and now Araatika: Rise Up!, which follows a group of NRL players as they create the First Nations equivalent of a haka.

The doco gets a tournament movie-esque trajectory when Wesley Enoch, artistic director of Sydney festival, invites Dean Widders and others to perform their soon-to-be-invented dance on a world stage, leaving no doubt as to what the final moments of Araatika will be. It is a film that’s softly uplifting and told with a warming sense of optimism.

Delicatessen

Film, France, 1991 – out 1 January

French directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro (AKA Jeunet and Caro) made some amazing films – among them 1995’s The City of Lost Children and also the spectacularly weird and gnarly Delicatessen, a black comedy revolving around a butcher who murders humans then sells them as cheap meat. Grim subject, maybe, but it’s a visual delight from start to finish; if you don’t believe me, check out its innovative opening credits.

Honourable mentions: The Apartment (film, 1 January), Angel Heart (film, 1 January), Mud (film, 3 January), Sextortion (TV, 6 January), Crisis (TV, 13 January), Nasdrovia (TV, 13 January) The Place Beyond the Pines (film, 22 January), Sorry for Your Loss seasons 1 and 2 (TV, 27 January).

ABC iView

ABC iView’s summer binge

ABC iView has launched its “Summer Binge” program, with key strands including family, drama and comedy. Movie-wise there’s a wealth of Australian films in particular – highlights include The Mule, Lore and Strictly Ballroom. Plus there’s loads of international titles such as Buried (starring Ryan Reynolds as a man who’s buried alive), Train to Busan (a ferociously good South Korean horror film) and The Florida Project (a moving drama set in and around a crummy hotel not far from Disney World).

Disney+

The Big Short

Film, US, 2015 – out 7 January

Adam McKay’s latest satire, Don’t Look Up, has divided audiences and critics, some seeing it as an unmitigated disaster while others appreciate it as a thinly veiled commentary on the climate crisis. His GFC-themed comedy The Big Short was, for what it’s worth, more lauded and less divisive, celebrated as a fine example of making an accessible film out of dry and potentially uninteresting subject matter.

A huge cast – including Ryan Gosling, Brad Pitt, Melissa Leo, Marisa Tomei, Margot Robbie and Christian Bale – help the medicine go down. Steve Carell delivers one of several memorable analogies when he describes mortgage bonds as “dog shit wrapped in cat shit”.

Fantastic Mr Fox

Film, US, 2009 – out 7 January

Like Adam McKay, Wes Anderson is a big-name director with a new film that has recently hit screens: the charming but slight The French Dispatch. The highly distinctive auteur’s style is even more fastidious in animation than live action, evidenced in his irresistible stop-motion adaptation of Roald Dahl’s famous children’s novel. Fantastic Mr Fox follows the suave titular character (voiced by George Clooney) as he steals produce from his human farmers then deals with the fallout.

Honourable mentions: The Simpsons season 32 (TV, 5 January), The Eternals (film, 12 January), The Hate U Give (film, 21 January) Marvel’s Hit-Monkey (TV, 26 January).

Paramount+

The Gilded Age

TV, US, 2022 – out 26 January

Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes has moved from early 20th century Yorkshire to late 19th century New York for his new series The Gilded Age. Many essential elements remain the same: namely a focus on extreme wealth (the show being set in NYC high society) and loads of lovely and lavish costumes.

Marian Brook (newcomer Louisa Jacobson, who is Meryl Streep’s daughter) moves to the New York home of her aunts and gets caught up in a war between her family and some very loaded neighbours. Yes: there will be top hats and corsets.

Honourable mentions: Five Bedrooms season three (TV, 1 January) Gossip (TV, 5 January), The Panthers (TV, 13 January), A Quiet Place II (film, 14 January).