New to Netflix UK: September 2022
From Andrew Dominik's Marilyn Monroe biopic Blonde starring Ana de Armas to David Lean's desert epic Lawrence of Arabia with Peter O'Toole, Netflix in September plays between glamour and truth
Xavier Samuel, Ana de Armas, and Evan Williams in Blonde, Netflix (Photo: Netflix)
Blonde
UK Netflix release date: Wednesday 28 September
Blonde could be the most controversial film of the year. Based on the thick, 740-page tome by Joyce Carol Oates, the story is a fictionalised account of renowned actor and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe. It spans Monroe’s fraught childhood as Norma Jeane, getting married at 16, and then breaking into movies before her death aged 36. No Time to Die actor Ana de Armas portrays her.
Filmmaker Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford) has pre-empted the potential backlash for the film by claiming there’s ‘something in it to offend everyone’. But let's face it: that only makes the project more intriguing.
Read more
Do Revenge
UK Netflix release date: Friday 16 September
Every generation needs its own culty, teen girl comedy. The 80s had Heathers, the 90s had Clueless, and the noughties had Mean Girls. Do Revenge creates darker vibes for Generation Z, with a Hitchcockian plot wrapped in the psychopathic world of high-school politics.
Drea (Camila Mendes) is a popular alpha girl, her status cemented when she goes out with the equally popular Max (Austin Abrams). But when a sex tape of Drea is leaked, apparently by Max, she wants vengeance. At a tennis club, she bumps into Eleanor (Maya Hawke), an awkward girl with her own problems. The latter is now attending school with a former bully, who started a nasty rumour when she was 13. Drea and Eleanor decide to unite, Strangers on a Train-style, and ‘do revenge’ on each other’s tormentors.
Love in the Villa
UK Netflix release date: Thursday 1 September
If you watched The Umbrella Academy, you won’t have missed the towering figure of Tom Hopper. Despite an outward impression of alpha masculinity, his character is the most romantic and sensitive of the lot. It makes Hopper ideal casting for a soppy, ridiculous romcom like Love in the Villa.
He stars alongside The Vampire Diaries’ Kat Graham, who plays the teacher and Shakespeare fanatic Julie. She plans a dream holiday to Verona, booking a lovely villa. But as she enters, she realises the place is double-booked with the cynical British guy Charlie (Hopper). Reluctantly, they’re obliged to stay there together, but soon they grow to enjoy the experience.
Cobra Kai, season 5
UK Netflix release date: Friday 9 September
Streaming has changed the landscape, to the extent that you can’t distinguish between regular TV and a web series. Is there a distinction, aside from differing platforms? In the case of Cobra Kai, a sequel to the classic Karate Kid movies, the series started on YouTube before being cancelled and then re-commissioned by Netflix. Now, it’s a popular title: season four spent four weeks in the Global Top 10.
Season five picks up after the surprising results of the All Valley Tournament, with Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) expanding Cobra Kai's empire. Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) abandons karate to mend old wounds, John Kreese (Martin Kove) is behind bars, and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) meets an old friend for help.
Lawrence of Arabia
UK Netflix release date: Thursday 1 September
David Lean is one of the great British directors in film history, a maestro of epic cinema, with projects built for the biggest screens possible. Sandwiched between The Bridge Over the River Kwai and Doctor Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia is one of the grandest films ever made: a four-hour odyssey across the vast Arabian desert in the early 20th century.
Lean and screenwriters Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson capture a nuanced portrait of TE Lawrence (portrayed by Peter O’Toole), a British soldier who joined the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Stars include Alec Guinness and Omar Sharif.
The full Netflix in September slate:
Thursday 1 September
Aeon Flux
Fenced In
Lawrence of Arabia
Love in the Villa
Michael Jackson’s This Is It
Napolean Dynamite
Off the Hook
Shameless (US), season 11
Son of Rambo
The Sting
Travel Man
Friday 2 September
Devil in Ohio
The Festival of Troubadours
Ivy + Bean
Ivy + Bean: Doomed to Dance
Ivy + Bean: The Ghost That Had to Go
You’re Nothing Special
Tuesday 6 September
Bee and PuppyCat
Get Smart With Money
Untold: The Race of the Century
Wednesday 7 September
Chef’s Table: Pizza
Thursday 8 September
The Anthrax Attacks
Friday 9 September
Cobra Kai, season 5
End of the Road
Kajillionaire
Narco-Saints
No Limit
Tuesday 13 September
Jo Koy: Live from the Los Angeles Forum
Wednesday 14 September
Broad Peak
Heartbreak High
The Lørenskog Disappearance
Sins of Our Mother
Thursday 15 September
The Next Karate Kid
Terim
Friday 16 September
Do Revenge
Drifting Home
I Used to be Famous
Love is Blind: After the Altar, season 2
Skandal! Bringing Down Wirecard
Saturday 17 September
A Bigger Splash
Bloomfield
The Courier
Cryptopia: Bitcoin, Blockchains, and the Future of the Internet
Diana: The Woman Inside
Glastonbury Fayre
Tuesday 20 September
Patton Oswalt: We All Scream
Wednesday 21 September
Designing Miami
Fortune Teller: A TV Scam
Iron Chef: Mexico
Only For Love
Thursday 22 September
Snabba Cash, season 2
Friday 23 September
Athena
The Girls At the Back
A Jazzman’s Blues
Lou
Saturday 24 September
Rolling Stone: Life and Death of Brian Jones
Wednesday 28 September
Blonde
Too Hot to Handle: Brazil, season 2
Thursday 29 September
The Empress
Friday 30 September
Entergalactic
Rainbow
UK Netflix release date: Wednesday 28 September
Blonde could be the most controversial film of the year. Based on the thick, 740-page tome by Joyce Carol Oates, the story is a fictionalised account of renowned actor and sex symbol Marilyn Monroe. It spans Monroe’s fraught childhood as Norma Jeane, getting married at 16, and then breaking into movies before her death aged 36. No Time to Die actor Ana de Armas portrays her.
Filmmaker Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford) has pre-empted the potential backlash for the film by claiming there’s ‘something in it to offend everyone’. But let's face it: that only makes the project more intriguing.
Read more
Do Revenge
UK Netflix release date: Friday 16 September
Every generation needs its own culty, teen girl comedy. The 80s had Heathers, the 90s had Clueless, and the noughties had Mean Girls. Do Revenge creates darker vibes for Generation Z, with a Hitchcockian plot wrapped in the psychopathic world of high-school politics.
Drea (Camila Mendes) is a popular alpha girl, her status cemented when she goes out with the equally popular Max (Austin Abrams). But when a sex tape of Drea is leaked, apparently by Max, she wants vengeance. At a tennis club, she bumps into Eleanor (Maya Hawke), an awkward girl with her own problems. The latter is now attending school with a former bully, who started a nasty rumour when she was 13. Drea and Eleanor decide to unite, Strangers on a Train-style, and ‘do revenge’ on each other’s tormentors.
Love in the Villa
UK Netflix release date: Thursday 1 September
If you watched The Umbrella Academy, you won’t have missed the towering figure of Tom Hopper. Despite an outward impression of alpha masculinity, his character is the most romantic and sensitive of the lot. It makes Hopper ideal casting for a soppy, ridiculous romcom like Love in the Villa.
He stars alongside The Vampire Diaries’ Kat Graham, who plays the teacher and Shakespeare fanatic Julie. She plans a dream holiday to Verona, booking a lovely villa. But as she enters, she realises the place is double-booked with the cynical British guy Charlie (Hopper). Reluctantly, they’re obliged to stay there together, but soon they grow to enjoy the experience.
Cobra Kai, season 5
UK Netflix release date: Friday 9 September
Streaming has changed the landscape, to the extent that you can’t distinguish between regular TV and a web series. Is there a distinction, aside from differing platforms? In the case of Cobra Kai, a sequel to the classic Karate Kid movies, the series started on YouTube before being cancelled and then re-commissioned by Netflix. Now, it’s a popular title: season four spent four weeks in the Global Top 10.
Season five picks up after the surprising results of the All Valley Tournament, with Terry Silver (Thomas Ian Griffith) expanding Cobra Kai's empire. Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) abandons karate to mend old wounds, John Kreese (Martin Kove) is behind bars, and Daniel LaRusso (Ralph Macchio) meets an old friend for help.
Lawrence of Arabia
UK Netflix release date: Thursday 1 September
David Lean is one of the great British directors in film history, a maestro of epic cinema, with projects built for the biggest screens possible. Sandwiched between The Bridge Over the River Kwai and Doctor Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia is one of the grandest films ever made: a four-hour odyssey across the vast Arabian desert in the early 20th century.
Lean and screenwriters Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson capture a nuanced portrait of TE Lawrence (portrayed by Peter O’Toole), a British soldier who joined the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Stars include Alec Guinness and Omar Sharif.
The full Netflix in September slate:
Thursday 1 September
Aeon Flux
Fenced In
Lawrence of Arabia
Love in the Villa
Michael Jackson’s This Is It
Napolean Dynamite
Off the Hook
Shameless (US), season 11
Son of Rambo
The Sting
Travel Man
Friday 2 September
Devil in Ohio
The Festival of Troubadours
Ivy + Bean
Ivy + Bean: Doomed to Dance
Ivy + Bean: The Ghost That Had to Go
You’re Nothing Special
Tuesday 6 September
Bee and PuppyCat
Get Smart With Money
Untold: The Race of the Century
Wednesday 7 September
Chef’s Table: Pizza
Thursday 8 September
The Anthrax Attacks
Friday 9 September
Cobra Kai, season 5
End of the Road
Kajillionaire
Narco-Saints
No Limit
Tuesday 13 September
Jo Koy: Live from the Los Angeles Forum
Wednesday 14 September
Broad Peak
Heartbreak High
The Lørenskog Disappearance
Sins of Our Mother
Thursday 15 September
The Next Karate Kid
Terim
Friday 16 September
Do Revenge
Drifting Home
I Used to be Famous
Love is Blind: After the Altar, season 2
Skandal! Bringing Down Wirecard
Saturday 17 September
A Bigger Splash
Bloomfield
The Courier
Cryptopia: Bitcoin, Blockchains, and the Future of the Internet
Diana: The Woman Inside
Glastonbury Fayre
Tuesday 20 September
Patton Oswalt: We All Scream
Wednesday 21 September
Designing Miami
Fortune Teller: A TV Scam
Iron Chef: Mexico
Only For Love
Thursday 22 September
Snabba Cash, season 2
Friday 23 September
Athena
The Girls At the Back
A Jazzman’s Blues
Lou
Saturday 24 September
Rolling Stone: Life and Death of Brian Jones
Wednesday 28 September
Blonde
Too Hot to Handle: Brazil, season 2
Thursday 29 September
The Empress
Friday 30 September
Entergalactic
Rainbow
TRY CULTURE WHISPER
Receive free tickets & insider tips to unlock the best of London — direct to your inbox