August streaming highlights

Luca Fontana

1-8-2026

Translation: Katherine Martin

New month, new streaming recommendations. From Netflix to Prime Video, Disney+ to Apple TV, HBO Max to Paramount+, these are our series and film picks streaming this August.

What do bald guys do instead of tearing their hair out with stress? Tear their own heads off? If so, hopefully our monthly film and TV recommendations won’t trigger that stress. Anyways, here are our August streaming highlights.

Netflix

The Last House (film)

Imagine you get up in the morning, try to open the front door – and it won’t budge a millimetre. The windows? Indestructible. Getting out? Impossible. Plus, there’s something waiting outside. Nope. Nope, nope, nope.

This is exactly what happens to Ann (Greta Lee), Jason (Wagner Moura, Narcos) and their children in The Last House. Though it soon becomes clear they aren’t the only ones trapped. Apparently, the whole world has been locked down in their own homes overnight. No one knows who’s done it or why. While a mysterious threat lurks outside, food and water are running low inside, slowly turning what the family once believed was the safest place in the world into a nightmare.

The film is directed by Louis Leterrier (Lupin, The Incredible Hulk), who’s turned it into a mix of sci-fi, horror and survival thriller. What intrigues me most is the mystery behind it all. Who would lock up an entire world? And what the hell is waiting for the captives outside!?

When: 7 August

The Whisper Man (film)

«If you’re lonely, sad and blue, the Whisper Man will come for you.» Okay. Thanks. I didn’t want to get any sleep tonight anyway.

The Whisper Man is Netflix’s adaptation of Alex North’s bestselling novel of the same name. In it, the eight-year-old son of widowed writer Tom Kennedy (Adam Scott) is kidnapped. Disturbingly, the case is reminiscent of a serial killer who was behind a number of children’s disappearances decades ago. A killer who’s actually been in prison for a long time. Interestingly, Tom’s estranged father (Robert De Niro), a retired police officer, was the one who originally caught him. Now, father and son have to work together to figure out what the heck is going on.

Directed by James Ashcroft, who was behind the gloriously unsettling The Rule of Jenny Pen, the film stars Robert De Niro, Adam Scott and Michelle Monaghan. The trailer veers between Prisoners and Zodiac territory. I’ll be watching the hell out of this.

When: 28 August

Amazon Prime Video

Reacher, Season 4 (series)

Cards on the table, I haven’t seen a single episode of Reacher. It’s embarrassing, I know. Especially since, according to Nielsen, it used to be the most-streamed show ever. At the moment, it’s ranked second only to Rings of Power in terms of Prime Video views. But hey, seeing as each season tells a standalone story based on a different Lee Child novel, I could just start watching it now. It’s not like I’d need to catch up on anything.

Season 4 is based on Gone Tomorrow, the 13th novel in the Jack Reacher series, which begins with a fateful encounter in the New York City subway. Alan Ritchson returns in his role as the ex-military police officer, travelling the country with his bulging muscles and dry sense of humour, stumbling into unfamiliar cities and dishing out justice in a pretty no-nonsense way. It may not be prestige television, but it’s straightforward, honest and full of expertly crafted action.

When: 12 August

Disney+

Star Wars: Visions Presents – The Ninth Jedi (series)

When it aired as a short film in Star Wars: Visions,The Ninth Jedi was one of the strongest episodes in the anthology. At the time, it felt like the introduction to what was actually a much longer saga. Now, with a full eight episodes, the story of lightsabre smith Kara finally has room to breathe.

And when I say «longer», I really do mean it. The Ninth Jedi takes place about 1,000 years after Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker. By this point, the Jedi have long since vanished from the galaxy, their lightsabres all but forgotten. At least until a mysterious man named Juro tries to revive the order by summoning Force-sensitive warriors to join him. Kara’s father, Lah Zhima, is one of the few lightsabre smiths left. When he’s kidnapped, Kara herself is drawn into a conflict between the Jedi and the Sith.

New characters. New rules. New mythology. Finally, a part of the galaxy where even die-hard nerds like me have no idea how the story’s going to play out.

When: 5 August

Apple TV

Ted Lasso, Season 4 (series)

It was all supposed to be over. Ted Lasso was back in Kansas, AFC Richmond had worked its way up from underdog to runner-up and after three seasons, the story felt pretty much complete. Well, apparently Ted hasn’t done quite enough believing.

In Season 4, Jason Sudeikis returns to England, this time with a new mission: to take on a second-division women’s football team. Rebecca, Roy Kent, Keeley and Coach Beard are back too. In other words, all the original ingredients for success are there, but with a totally fresh premise.

And that’s exactly what piques my curiosity. To me, Ted Lasso has never really been a football series anyway. It’s about people learning to believe in themselves and in each other – without it getting unbearably cheesy. Will they be able to pull it off a forth time? Believe.

When: 5 August

Dark Matter, Season 2 (series)

What if, at every turning point in your life, you really could venture down one of those forks in the road? What if those alternative versions of you really existed out there somewhere? This is the very premise Dark Matter explores. One evening in Chicago, Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton), a physicist and family man, is drawn into an alternate version of his own life. Suddenly, he has to fight his way through a multiverse just to find his way back to his wife, Daniela (Jennifer Connelly), and his son.

Based on Blake Crouch’s bestseller, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Season 1 was one of Apple TV’s major hidden gems. The exciting thing about Season 2? There’s no book left to cover. Crouch never wrote a sequel, and Season 1 has already mined all of the source material. So even if you know the novel from cover to cover, you’ll now be entering the same uncharted territory as everyone else.

When: 28 August

HBO Max

Lanterns (series)

Green Lantern? The first things that come to mind are space, aliens and glowing green fists flying through the cosmos. HBO, on the other hand, apparently thought: True Detective. And you know what? It might actually work.

Lanterns follows young John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), who’s taken under the wing of the experienced Green Lantern, Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler). When the two intergalactic cops set out to investigate a murder in the American heartland, they stumble upon a dark secret with cosmic connections.

Interestingly, instead of immediately throwing CGI space battles at us, Lanterns seems to treat its superheroes as detectives. The minds behind the series include Ozark creator Chris Mundy, Watchmen mastermind Damon Lindelof and comic book author Tom King. And even Sinestro, one of the most legendary Green Lantern adversaries is part of the line-up.

When: 16 August

Taylor Sheridan usually tells stories about tough, unapproachable guys. Cowboys in Yellowstone, gangsters in Tulsa King, oilmen in Landman. Men who’d rather wash their feelings down with whisky than talk about them. And then there’s Lioness.

Contrary to his previous works, Sheridan’s hard-hitting spy series is carried by women. First and foremost by Zoe Saldaña (Avatar) as CIA agent Joe, who’s back leading undercover operations in Season 3. This time, however, foreign agents, betrayal and secret networks come dangerously close to her own life and family. And yes, Nicole Kidman and Morgan Freeman are back too.

Differences aside, Lioness is textbook Sheridan: power, loyalty, patriotism, violence – and people who are slowly being consumed by their work. Subtle? Not always. Exciting? Hell yeah.

When: 2 August

Luca Fontana

Senior Editor

Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.ch

I write about technology as if it were cinema, and about films as if they were real life. Between bits and blockbusters, I’m after stories that move people, not just generate clicks. And yes – sometimes I listen to film scores louder than I probably should.

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