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Header image courtesy of Netflix
Netflix has a great variety of new content joining its catalogue this month, so pick your poison. From an iconic show set in New York City to an adaptation of a Russian literature classic, an intriguing remake, a royal family story, documentaries, and thrillers, among others, it doesn’t seem like our screen time will be decreasing at all in upcoming weeks. Here’s what we’re watching on Netflix this April 2024.
It’s finally happened! All six seasons of Sex and the City, which have been the exclusive and guarded jewel of HBO streaming platforms for a long time, have landed on Netflix. In other words, if you had any good resolutions not to binge-watch anything in April, forget about it: Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte don’t wait.
A classic show covering romance, drama, comedy, womanhood, and fashion, Sex and the City, which ran from 1998 to 2004, is iconic for some, and a guilty pleasure for others. Whatever category you fall into, there is no denying the show has left an indelible mark on pop culture. For those who are sceptical about the show, now’s the time to be convinced.
After the 1999 film starring Matt Damon and Jude Law, it is time for a new adaption of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Talented Mr Ripley. With its title shortened to Ripley, the new limited series stars Andrew Scott in what looks like another remarkable performance by the actor.
Shot entirely in black and white, the episodes retell the story of grifter Tom Ripley as he ventures from New York to Italy, where he cons shipping magnate heir Dickie Greenleaf. If not for the fascinating plot and Scott’s promising performance, we will be watching Ripley for its cinematography.
Parasyte: The Grey is a science-fiction horror series adapted from the Japanese manga Parasyte by Hitoshi Iwaaki. This South Korean adaptation led by Jeon So-nee and Jeong Soo-in follows a group of extraterrestrial parasites who find their way to Earth and take over human bodies. While some humans find a way to adapt to this new society, others consider the new species a deadly threat, with the show building up to the inevitable war between the two groups.
If you’re looking to quench your thirst for all that royal family gossip that has been capturing headlines these past few weeks (and over the past few decades, too), turning to fictionalised renditions might be a better approach than online speculation.
After playing UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher in The Crown, Gillian Anderson is now tackling another royal story as Emily Maitlis, the journalist who led Prince Andrew’s 2018 interview on the BBC regarding his implication in the Jeffrey Epstein criminal case. According to the leading cast and producers of Scoop, the film questions the relationship between media and the royal family in the United Kingdom.
Criminal or psychological? It isn’t easy to define Anthracite’s genre. What’s certain is that it checks all the boxes of a good thriller: a cult with a grim past, an old criminal case coming back to haunt younger generations, an investigation, murderous chases—need we go on?
Set in a village in the French mountains, the six-episodes series is based on a fictional cult whose members committed a mass suicide in 1994. 30 years later, a woman is killed using the cult’s rituals. A young man and a young woman meet and start investigating the case, realising their implication in it is not only due to fate.
The Swedish adaptation of Malin Persson Giolito’s novel Deliver Me is coming to Netflix Hong Kong at the end of the month. Joining the ranks of crime-thriller television shows that keep us on the edge of our seats, Deliver Me follows two teenage best friends who get mixed up with a gang. One is violently killed, and the other one gets accused of the murder, allowing audiences to explore the question of children let down by society, responsibility, and consequences. Available 24 April.
In a new documentary, Netflix tackles gut health. In the vein of documentaries like Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones and You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment, both also available on the streaming platform, Hack Your Health: The Secrets of Your Gut aims to inform viewers on how to lead a healthier, educated, and more sustainable lifestyle, with food being a big part of that.
It is based on the knowledge that gut health is primordial to overall health, and the fact that people don’t know how to eat properly. The colourful production of the documentary avoids all gut-related queasiness, with all inside-of-your-body elements being represented as cute felt figures. Available 26 April.
Hollywood celebrities are no strangers to narrating wildlife documentaries; Leonardo DiCaprio, Meghan Markle, Meryl Streep, Morgan Freeman, Zac Efron, and Tom Hardy are just a few among those who have taken up the challenge.
This April, Cate Blanchett is joining that list with the narration of Our Living World, a nature documentary series exploring the interconnection of species, ecosystems, and more. Although we’ve already watched our fair share of wildlife and nature documentaries, we never tire of learning more about our planet’s incredible life. Available 17 April.
The 2012 movie adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, directed by Joe Wright and starring Keira Knightley, Jude Law, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the lead characters, is coming to Netflix Hong Kong!
The historical novel details a complicated love affair between Anna Karenina, who is already married, and cavalry officer Count Vrosky in imperial Russia, and is often considered to be one of the best literature works of all time. However, that also means it is not the easiest of reads to take on. So, if you are looking to skip the book (or make sure you like the plot before dedicating hours of your life to reading it), you can watch Anna Karenina first. Available 16 April.
There’s a new anime series coming and it’s looking magical. Reimagining six fairytales from the timeless Brothers Grimm portfolio, The Grimm Variations looks daunting, intriguing, and superbly entertaining. Twists on popular stories can be hit-or-miss, but we’re more than keen about this one, especially because The Grimm Variations goes back to a grimmer (no pun intended) version of the fairytales, one closer to the original versions where happy endings were not a thing. Available 17 April.
In 1982, Harrison Ford headlined Blade Runner, a science-fiction blockbuster directed by Ridley Scott. The movie has now become a cult classic across generations, even leading to a 2017 sequel that was just as successful.
Set in a disturbing dystopian Los Angeles, synthetic humans produced by a big corporation to work on space colonies escape back to Earth, and reluctant detective Rick Deckard is hired to stop them. Having been remastered quite a few times, the final cut has recently been added to Netflix Hong Kong—a great addition to the catalogue, if you ask us.
The comedy drama Shortcomings, released in theatres in 2023, is an Asian-American film based on a graphic novel by Adrian Tomine. Following three characters whose lives are intertwined through friendship and love, it takes them from California to New York for some serious soul-searching. It is at times very intimate while also covering topics of politics, LGBTQ+, racism, and Asian-American people.
Born and raised in the French countryside, Lily arrived in Hong Kong looking for an adventure. Passionate about books, she spent some time in Parisian publishing houses and is the author of an illustrated book about hair. Life in Hong Kong for her entails looking for seaside places to eat and a lot of hiking.
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