Maybe 2024 will be the year of touching grass: of unsubscribing from all those needless streaming platforms, getting up from the couch, and choosing instead to watch an under-appreciated bit of dramedy content known as “real life”. Could that be your New Years Eve resolution, come the end of 2023?
Pfffft, nah. There’s too much sick stuff to add to your watchlist!
Stay tuned to this mega-list of 2024’s most exciting new series, for updates on release dates and the best shows we’re only just learning about. Life is but a stream.
3 Body Problem
Based on a celebrated sci-fi novel by Liu Cixin, this trippy project will be a big test of David Benioff and D.B. Weiss’s mettle, after their work on the Game of Thrones finale got so savagely roasted by fans. It follows a Chinese scientist whose 1960s experiments have space-time shattering consequences on humanity’s present and future—and yep, Samwell Tarly and Davos Seaworth are among the cast.
6666
Yellowstone remains one of the most popular shows on the planet, and so the greedy Dutton clan gets treated to more and more ranch-set spin-offs. This one’s apparently set in the present day on Texas’s Four Sixes Ranch, and we already got a sneaky “backdoor pilot” into the action back in the main series’ fourth season. Expect big hats and bigger drama.
The Acolyte
Comedy director Leslye Headland makes her take on the Star Wars galaxy sound pretty tantalising: it’s female-driven, focused on High Republic bad guys, and was pitched as “Frozen meets Kill Bill”. Whatever that means. Set 100 years before The Phantom Menace, the freshest Jedi saga stars Amandla Stenberg, Dafne Keen, and Jodie Turner-Smith.
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Netflix has been steadily gaining confidence in their lush, live-action remakes of anime or animated classics—and there may be no adventure-fantasy epic more beloved than Aang’s ascension to greatness. Season one is gonna be a short eight episodes, and each of ‘em has been reported to cost more than $15 million to produce. Netflix: The Last Budgetbender.
The Brothers Sun
A Californian average Joe finds out that the family he left behind in Taiwan has dark gangster affiliations, in this genre-mashing dark action comedy. Since Michelle Yeoh is featured as the poor guy’s secretive mum, we’re almost getting a Crazy Rich Asians vibe—but with more pulse-pounding mobster violence.
Creature Commandos
Superhero movie maestro James Gunn sets off the DCU’s first fresh chapter with this adult animated melee. The heroes are even weirder than The Suicide Squad, with radioactive, amphibious, and, um, Frankenstein powers, and each voice actor has been cast with the potential to portray their wacky characters in live action at some point, too. Clever thinking ahead there, Jim.
Daredevil: Born Again
Charlie Cox has been bringing justice to the courtrooms and streets of Hell’s Kitchen as lawyer/vigilante Daredevil since 2015. Now the character finally gets to enjoy some justice of his own, returning to small screens after the MCU unceremoniously scrapped his character development somewhere along the line. Think of it as a soft reboot rather than a mere sequel series.
Disclaimer
This Apple TV+ psychological thriller series is absolutely reeking with prestige: Cate Blanchett stars, Oscar-winner Alfonso Cuarón directs, and all-time great cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki is behind its stirring visuals. The plot’s compelling enough, too, following a TV journalist whose darkest secrets get revealed in a popular new novel.
Echo
We first met new Marvel character Maya Lopez (Alaquo Cox) in the streaming series Hawkeye, and now she’s the star of her own gritty homecoming story. Reeling from her time in Kingpin’s criminal gang, the deaf hero returns to her native Oklahoma, setting up a refreshingly grounded street-level adventure compared to the MCU’s recent trend for galaxy-shattering bombast.
Expats
The Farewell director Lulu Wang helms this mosaic of Hong Kong-set migrant drama for Prime Video, starring Nicole Kidman (who is extremely booked and blessed with TV roles this year!). The series courted controversy way back when it was filmed in 2021, its release perhaps signifying that any perceived insensitivity around the project has now died down enough for us to get a look.
Fallout
The murky, post-apocalyptic world building of the Fallout video game franchise feels ideal for episodic adaptation, and the creators of Westworld are taking on that very task in April 2024. Walton Goggins, Ella Purnell, and Kyle MacLachlan are among the famous faces to expect amongst the debris of a retro-futuristic nuclear war.
A Gentleman in Moscow
Ewan McGregor and Mary Elizabeth Winstead (who are also a couple IRL, just in case ya didn’t know) star in this adaptation of a well-received historical fictional novel. He’s Count Alexander Rostov, a Russian aristocrat exiled to house arrest in an attic hotel room post-Revolution. We’re curious to see whether the series adapts the book’s complex, unspooling structure.
Griselda
Colombian drug boss Griselda Blanco goes by many names: the Cocaine Godmother, La Madrina, the Black Widow…and now Sofia Vergara, who transforms into the infamous crime figure for a Netflix miniseries. Definitely one for the Narcos addicts out there.
Hazbin Hotel
A24 and Amazon have wisely jumped on board to bring this quirky animated project to streaming life, after its indie-made pilot gained a massive fanbase on YouTube, Tumblr and Patreon. It’s an irreverent, song-filled, and attention-grabbing journey into the underworld, where a princess of Hell hopes to rehabilitate demons and sneak ‘em into Heaven.
House of the Dragon: Season 2
If you felt like the first season of this GoT prequel took a little too long getting its characters and drama established, the new batch of episodes should be right up the top of your 2024 wishlist. The fiery house of Targaryen is more fractured than ever after the shock betrayals in season one’s finale—we’re particularly curious how that uncle-niece romance (euggh) will turn out.
Masters of the Air
Produced by Steven Spielberg with a team of pedigreed directors helming each episode, this war drama miniseries focuses on the “Bloody Hundredth”— a bombardment group who earned their tragic nickname due to the heavy losses they incurred in WWII combat missions. It’s packed with up-and-coming male actors, too: Austin Butler, Barry Keoghan, and Ncuti Gatwa among them.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
The original 2005 Brangelina spy thriller upon which this show is based wasn’t particularly funny—but new stars Donald Glover and Maya Erskine should sort that out stat. Pen15 star Erskine takes over from Phoebe Waller-Bridge who exited the project in 2021, and the supporting cast is packed with hilarious faves (Michaela Coel! John Turturro! Paul Dano! Queen Parker Posey!).
The Penguin
Colin Farrell’s squawking baddie was one of the real highlights of 2022’s The Batman: menacing and unexpectedly funny at once. DC has taken a hot minute getting the villain’s spin-off series ready, so we hope the show quickly justifies itself as both a sequel and a standalone portrait of Gotham nastiness.
The Perfect Couple
Nicole Kidman can’t get enough of beachy murders on the US East Coast! Here she’ll play the disapproving mother-in-law of Eve Hewson, whose engagement to a wealthy family gets ruined by the mysterious discovery of a dead body. Dakota Fanning, Liev Schreiber, and Jack Reynor pad out the fab cast.
The Regime
Just because this luxe HBO drama is set in a fictional authoritarian country, it doesn’t mean the societal collapse won’t feel any more real. Kate Winslet stars, with Andrea Riseborough and Hugh Grant providing steely (and potentially traitorous?) support.
Squid Game: Season 2
Okay, we’re not certain that another season of Netflix’s viral Korean hit will land by 2024’s end…but we’re definitely hopeful, after the IRL spin-off got us all riled up about the show’s addictive game-of-death format. Season one ended with survivor Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae) inspired to take down the gamemakers, so we hope the tension picks up right from that point.
Stranger Things: Season 5
The last season of Netflix’s juggernaut sci-fi success made everyone fangirl over Eddie Munson, and reintroduced Kate Bush to the pop charts. Could this conclusion to the Hawkins saga go one better, and definitively stick the landing? They’d better hurry up, before the entire cast are onto bigger, more adult things.
The Sympathizer
It’s directed by Korean thriller legend Park Chan-wook and produced by A24; it’s based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel; and Robert Downey Jr. gets wiggy with it, playing multiple antagonistic characters in a variety of chaotic, improvised scenes. We don’t know quite what to expect from this Vietnam War-era black comedy, and that’s just how we like it.
Ted: Season 1
Was anyone begging for a prequel to Seth MacFarlane’s movie about a swearing, binge-drinking teddy bear? It’s arriving in January anyhow, with MacFarlane voicing the adorable/aggro toy once again, now living in the early 1990s with his best buddy John (the child who will one day grow into Marky Mark, we guess).
Time Bandits
The blokes behind What We Do In The Shadows tackle Terry Gilliam’s bonkers 1981 fantasy feature, turning it into a sprawling comedy series that features Lisa Kudrow and Rachel House. There’s seriously funny talent involved, from Jemaine Clement to the creators of Peep Show and The Inbetweeners. Hope it’s hilarious enough to go down in history, much like its’ 11-year-old history nerd protagonist.
True Detective: Night Country
Jodie Foster returns to the realm of eerie cop drama, in the fourth, Alaskan-set season of HBO’s twisty crime anthology. We can trust her to get to the bottom of a frosty mystery, solving the case of six men missing from a research station.
The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live
Somehow, this is the SIXTH spin-off series of unkillable zombie epic The Walking Dead. What on earth could make fans of the undead franchise tune in yet again? Maybe more of Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) and his GF/badass fighter Michonne (Danai Gurira), with Gurira returning here as creator/producer as well as star.
Wednesday: Season 2
Tim Burton’s altogether ooky Addams Family spin-off got renewed for a second season in January of 2023, so our (disembodied) fingers are crossed that new episodes could land on Netflix in 2024. Even when season one was disappointingly conventional, star Jenna Ortega was always a dark, deadpan delight: she’ll definitely get another meme-ready dance scene in season two.
Welcome to Derry
There’s unfortunately no news yet to confirm whether Pennywise performer Bill Skarsgård will be back for this eerie It prequel. Set in 1960s Derry, the Stephen King adaptation promises to reveal the dancing clown’s backstory, long before the Losers Club ever bested him in Andy Muschietti’s horror films.
