The early days of a new year are the perfect time to catch up on all the great movies and television that you may have missed in 2023. Or, you can turn your attention to what the coming months will bring—and when it comes to new TV, the bounty of series scheduled for early 2024 suggests that a post-SAG-and-writers’-strike TV slowdown is not yet upon us. So much to watch!
Here’s a list of new shows (and a few returning favourites) that we’re most looking forward to in the year ahead.
Monsieur Spade on AMC+ (January)
Some of us are prepared to travel wherever Clive Owen takes us, which in the case of the AMC+ crime series Monsieur Spade happens to be the south of France. These six episodes come to us from the writer-director-producer Scott Frank (The Queen’s Gambit) and tell the story of the iconic hardboiled detective Sam Spade (of Dashiell Hammett’s 1930 novel The Maltese Falcon) in retirement in Bozouls, where, bien sur, a group of nuns are murdered. Owen is dashing with a cigarette and suit and, judging from the teaser at least, this looks like handsome, grown-up entertainment. —Taylor Antrim
Criminal Record on Apple TV+ (January)
If you’re a soft target for British crime procedurals and have fond memories of the Scottish actor Peter Capaldi dominating Armando Ianucci’s classic political series The Thick of It, Apple TV+’s Criminal Record looks like just the thing. In this eight-episode London-based series, Capaldi goes toe to toe with Cush Jumbo as warring detectives—veteran and rookie—re-litigating a high-profile murder case. —TA
True Detective on Max (January)
Set during the eternally dark and snowy days of late December in a remote Alaska town where Indigenous locals and a mining company coexist uneasily, the newest iteration of True Detective bears the closest resemblance to the thrilling first season 10 years ago. This time around, though, with Mexican writer and director Issa López at the helm, women are the heavies: Jodie Foster brandishes the badge for the first time since Silence of the Lambs 32 years ago, while real-life pro boxing champ Kali Reis more than holds her own as her tough-as-hell partner. Both are haunted by ghosts from their traumatic pasts as they attempt to solve a grisly massacre at a scientific outpost. It’s the perfect wintertime binge, not to mention scary as hell, and both True Detective diehards and those who have never heard of “time is a flat circle” are sure to enjoy the eerie, supernatural, supremely satisfying ride. —Lisa Wong Macabasco
Woman in the Wall on Showtime (January)
Ruth Wilson can be an incendiary performer—who could forget her turn as a manipulative psychopath in Luther?—and she’s at full boil here in this BBC mystery (airing in the US on Showtime and streaming on Paramount+). We’re in a small village in Ireland where Wilson’s troubled character Lorna Brady suffers from extreme bouts of sleepwalking—and wakes up one day to find a corpse in her home. This crime connects to the trauma in her past; as a teenager she was sent to one of Ireland’s notorious Magdalene Laundries to conceal a pregnancy. Bereaved and borderline insane, Brady may be a killer, or whoever murdered one of the village’s priests in Dublin may be responsible. The appealing and mordantly witty Daryl McCormack (last seen in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande) is the detective trying to untangle it all. —TA
Expats on Prime Video (January)
Lulu Wang follows up her heartfelt 2019 film The Farewell with this rich and layered limited series. Like The Farewell, which told the story of a young Chinese American woman returning to China to spend time with her dying grandmother, Expats is (unsurprisingly) concerned with the experience of living between cultures. Here, the subjects again are Americans living abroad in Asia, a trio of women whose lives are intertwined with each other and with a random-seeming tragedy. The show resists easy categorization; in some ways, with its lush attention to the frenetic urban landscapes of modern-day Hong Kong, it bears the imprint of Wang’s previous creations, feeling like a vision-driven independent film. There’s a mystery associated with the tragedy, but this is hardly a whodunnit. Instead, it’s an examination of how people build a home in a foreign place, and how fragile those constructions can be. Nicole Kidman gives a harrowing performance as one of the trio of women, but it is Ji-young Yoo, playing a disaffected and aimless young Korean-American college graduate, who steals the show. —Chloe Schama
Feud: Capote vs. The Swans on FX/Hulu (January)
2024 will get off to a roaring start with the second season of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series Feud, this time focusing on the publication of—and fallout from—Truman Capote’s thinly veiled roman à clef about the high society women, or “swans,” that formed his tight-knit group of friends. Boasting a star-studded cast (Tom Hollander plays Capote, while Naomi Watts, Chloë Sevigny, Diane Lane, Demi Moore, and Calista Flockhart are all in show-stopping form as his majestic milieu) and an impressive team behind the lens, including Gus Van Sant on directing duty, Feud: Capote vs. The Swans is a dark and deliciously campy winter treat. —Liam Hess
Masters of the Air on Apple TV+ (January)
Based on historian Donald L. Miller’s bestseller, Masters of the Air follows the American bomber boys of the 100th Bomb Group (dubbed the Bloody Hundredth) as they engage in treacherous raids over Nazi Germany. Executive produced by Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, the show has a traditional feel, foregrounding the psychological and emotional toll paid by these young men. But there’s plenty of visual splendour to luxuriate in, with directors like Cary Joji Fukunaga and Dee Rees behind the camera and in front of it the impossibly coiffed crème of handsome young Hollywood (Barry Keoghan, Austin Butler, Callum Turner) and Colleen Atwood’s costumes (indulgent thick leather bombers with shearling collars). —LWM
Sexy Beast on Paramount+ (February)
Count this one as an example of recycled IP that we are actually excited about. James McCardle and Emun Elliott star in the Paramount+ eight-episode prequel to Jonathan Glazer’s 2000 crime thriller Sexy Beast. The series explores the origins of the relationship between the two gangsters at the center of the original—Gal Dove (McArdle) and Don Logan (Elliott)—as they’re sucked into the criminal underworld of London in the ‘90s. It’s hard to imagine a more iconic thug than Ben Kingsley’s Don, but we’re excited to see McCardle’s take. —CS
Mr. and Mrs. Smith on Prime Video (February)
Dare I say that Prime Video’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith, based on the Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie-fronted film from 2005, looks blazingly good? The new series stars Donald Glover and Pen15’s Maya Erskine as two Manhattan-based spies who, as the log line reads, must “navigate a high-risk mission every week while also facing a new relationship milestone”—that being their arranged marriage as Mr. and Mrs. John and Jane Smith. A teaser trailer released in December promised pulse-quickening action, gorgeous locations, and good chemistry between the endearing leads. Plus, it boasts a murderers’ row of supporting actors, among them Alexander Skarsgård, Eiza González, Sarah Paulson, Sharon Horgan, Paul Dano, Michaela Coel, and Parker Posey. —Marley Marius
Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix (February)
Forgive me—a grown man with respectable taste in television—but I am 100% stoked for Netflix’s long-awaited live-action reimagining of Nickelodeon’s cult animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender. The original ran from 2005 to 2008 and continues to win converts with its crisp action set pieces, appealing characters, and imaginative world building. Avatar tells the story of Aang, a young boy who can “bend” or manipulate the air, freed from deep ice-bound sleep (along with his flying sky bison, Appa) to hone his skills controlling water, earth, and fire, all in an attempt to save the world from a marauding, fascistic army. This is cut-above fantasy, and Netflix’s version may annoy or delight fans with what is sure to be a big-budget, special-effects-laden spectacle. —TA
Constellation on Apple TV+ (February)
Apple’s streaming service continues to take big swings with sci-fi; check out Foundation, Invasion, or Silo…or don’t! For all of their ambition, none of Apple’s splashy sci-fi series have so far become essential viewing. But hope springs eternal with Constellation, a space-drama meets conspiracy thriller starring the always-good Noomi Rapace and Jonathan Banks (who we loved in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul). The UK writer Peter Harness is behind the eight-episode series, and his track record (McMafia, Wallander, Dr. Who) sets expectations high. —TA
The New Look on Apple TV+ (February)
Can fashion history make for compelling drama? The New Look, a series from Apple TV+ that begins in Paris under Nazi occupation and charts the rise of Christian Dior after WWII, brings star power and a veteran TV creator to the task. Here is Ben Mendelsohn as an exquisitely dignified Dior, working in obscurity for the couturier Lucien Lelong (and reluctant to design dresses for Nazi wives), and Juliette Binoche as his high-profile rival Coco Chanel, comporting with members of the Third Reich and living at the Ritz. The creator is the genre specialist Todd Kessler, known for pulpy entertainments like Damages and Bloodline, though with The New Look he’s aiming for something more high-minded and polite (think The Crown, but with fashion designers instead of royals). The series has escapist sweep and is packed with familiar faces: Emily Mortimer as socialite Elsa Lombardi, John Malkovich as Lelong, Maisie Williams as Dior’s sister Catherine (arrested and imprisoned at a concentration camp), and Claes Bang as Chanel’s aristocratic Nazi boyfriend, Baron Hans Gunther von Dincklage. Mendelsohn is the moral and creative hero, but the striving, anything-to-survive Binoche gives the series a ruthless spark. —TA
Shōgun on FX/Hulu (February)
Anyone who grew up in the 1980s had a paperback copy of James Clavell’s best-selling, 1,000+ page historical epic Shōgun lying around somewhere in their home. Published in 1975, the best-selling samurai novel has already spawned a miniseries (which aired in 1980), and now a lavish series for FX/Hulu from the husband wife team of Justin Marks and Rachel Kondo. The cast is largely Japanese (apart from the Englishman hero at the center of Clavell’s story); 10 episodes are planned and judging from the trailer, a little of everything (war, romance, political maneuvering) awaits. —TA
Palm Royale on Apple TV+ (March)
Call it the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel effect: a certain type of TV show that presents a super-saturated, candy-coated vision of the past. Palm Royale, which stars Kristin Wiig as a beauty pageant queen who marries up, sets its sights on Palm Beach society. Like a Lilly Pulitzer fever dream, the show is awash in tangerine and flamingo pink, a confectionary visual delight. The plot is nominally an outsider narrative, with Wiig’s character attempting to infiltrate the upper echelons of that milieu, but it’s really the fashion and the slightly camp but still enjoyable performances from the cast (Allison Janney, Laura Dern, Kaia Gerber, Ricky Martin—does the man ever age?) that keep the show afloat. —CS
3 Body Problem on Netflix (March)
In the quest for the next culture-dominating Game of Thrones-esque series, consider Netflix’s big bet: 3 Body Problem, an adaptation of Chinese novelist Liu Cixin’s 2008 science fiction novel (the tote-around paperback for the haute-nerd set). There is scant information about the series so far, but the production team suggests ambition on hyperdrive: among the clutch of big name producers, none other than David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (of Thrones) serve as writer/producers, along with Alexander Woo, who was responsible for the excellent The Terror: Infamy. —TA
The Regime on Max (March)
Nearly three years (!) after Mare of Easttown reminded us all, for about the thousandth time, that Kate Winslet is one of the very best we have, she returns to HBO in The Regime, a political satire set in a fictional Central European autocracy wherein the fearsome chancellor (Winslet) is beginning to lose her grip. (The first teasers feel a little Veep meets The Favourite, with some Succession-flavored jockeying thrown the mix.) The talent behind the camera is mighty—Winslet, Will Tracy, Frank Rich, Tracey Seaward, Stephen Frears, and Jessica Hobbs are all executive producers (with Tracy serving as showrunner), while the writing team includes playwright Sarah DeLappe, novelist Gary Shteyngart, and Juli Weiner, an Emmy winner for her work on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver—but the show’s cast isn’t bad either. Besides Winslet there’s also the likes of Matthias Schoenaerts, Andrea Riseborough, Martha Plimpton, and Hugh Grant. —MM
Manhunt on Apple TV+ (March)
The reason to put Manhunt on your to-watch list is its 49-year-old star, Tobias Menzies, recently of The Crown and Outlander and You Hurt My Feelings and a clutch of TV shows before that (This Way Up, Catastrophe, The Terror)—each one of them worth watching precisely because of Menzies, who brings his steady, slightly raffish sophistication to any project he’s in. Manhunt is an adaptation of a nonfiction bestseller about the hunt for President Lincoln’s killer in 1865 and Menzies plays Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s Secretary of War and the lead detective—of a kind—in the search for the man who pulled the trigger, John Wilkes Booth. Call it true crime meets historical fiction. —TA
Fallout on Prime Video (April)
Video-game TV adaptations are usually a case of hype cycles run amok—even though HBO’s The Last of Us was a genuine prestige-TV hit in 2023 (and has been renewed for a second season). Prime Video’s adaptation of the post-apocalyptic role-playing game Fallout has gold plated executive producers, Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy of Westworld, and the first teaser trailer is… kind of irreverent and fun? Looks to be an interesting stew of cowboy action, robot mayhem, and kooky world-building. I’m in. —TA
House of the Dragon, Season 2 on Max (Summer)
While HBO’s prequel to Game of Thrones may have started off a little slow, by the end of its first season it was firing on all cylinders—not least thanks to the fiery performances by its two leads, Olivia Cooke and Emma D’Arcy. And the latter’s expression of grief and fury in the season’s final shot alone proves there will be plenty of carnage to come in the show’s follow-up, which is reportedly slated to arrive in late 2024. Expect more dragons, more gruesome deaths, and plenty more twists and turns up the (medieval trumpet) sleeves of the show’s creators, Ryan Condal and George R. R. Martin. —LH
The Sympathizer on Max (release date TBA)
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer follows a half-French, half-Vietnamese communist spy (Hoa Xuande) exiled in the United States at the end of the Vietnam War. Co-showrun and executive produced by Don McKellar and Park Chan-wook—of Oldboy, Stoker, The Handmaiden, and Decision to Leave fame—it’s sure to be a scorcher. Sandra Oh and a chameleonic Robert Downey Jr. feature in the supporting cast. —MM
Ripley on Netflix (release date TBA)
Another recycled story that holds its own appeal. This time the beloved Andrew Scott stars as Tom Ripley in an adaptation of the gripping Patricia Highsmith novel. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to describe this Netflix version as an update to the 1999 Anthony Minghella classic that featured Matt Damon as the titular grifter alongside a sparkling Gwyneth Paltrow and Jude Law. This time Scott is joined by Dakota Fanning and Johnny Flynn, and the sun-soaked palette is replaced by an austere black-and-white scheme. Given that the show is written and directed by Steven Zaillian, creator of the gripping and dark HBO procedural The Night Of, you can expect this Ripley to have a distinctly noir feel. But with a plot that involves extensive gallivanting on the Italian Riviera, the show will certainly have its sunny, glittering moments too. —CS
This article was originally published on Vogue.com.
