Carnival of Soul

Every month, Netflix Australia adds a new batch of movies and TV shows to its library. Here are our picks for September, broken down by release date.

‘The Spy’
Starts streaming: September 6

The British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen has taken on the occasional dramatic role throughout his career, but he’s never starred in any project quite like “The Spy,” a six-part cloak-and-dagger thriller co-written and directed by Gideon Raff, the creator of the influential Israeli series “Prisoners of War.” Cohen plays Eli Cohen, the real-life Mossad agent who in the early 1960s gathered actionable intelligence in Syria, helping his country prevail in the 1967 Six-Day War. A character-driven piece, “The Spy” is partly about the modern history of the Middle East, but even more about the personal toll of undercover missions.

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‘Unbelievable’
Starts streaming: September 13

Based on a true story, the mini-series “Unbelievable” features two intertwining narratives: one about a teenage girl (played by Kaitlyn Dever) who can’t get the local authorities to believe she was sexually assaulted by a home invader; and one about two detectives (played by Toni Collette and Merritt Wever) investigating the scattered crimes of a possible serial rapist. Created by the Oscar-nominated “Erin Brockovich” screenwriter Susannah Grant — with input from the best-selling authors and spouses Ayelet Waldman and Michael Chabon — “Unbelievable” is a procedural drama that doubles as a critique of how some American police departments investigate rape.

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‘The Last Kids on Earth’
Starts streaming: September 17

Since 2015, the author Max Brallier and the illustrator Douglas Holgate have hit the best-seller list regularly with a series of young adult novels about a group of misfit teens who fight off zombies and other monsters in a post-apocalyptic world. The new animated version of “The Last Kids on Earth” aims to retain the lighthearted tone and retro pulp inventiveness of the books. An all-star voice cast of fantasy fan favorites includes Mark Hamill, Bruce Campbell, Keith David and Rosario Dawson.

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‘Criminal’
Starts streaming: September 20

Often, the best part of any police drama is the moment when the police and their suspect are in an interrogation room, matching wits and wills. The series “Criminal” wastes no time in getting straight to the goods. Its 12 episodes are set in four different countries — France, Germany, Spain and the UK — and feature a cast that includes David Tennant, Hayley Atwell, Nathalie Baye, Jérémie Renier and Nina Hoss. The show’s main selling point is its format: Each episode is set in a single room, where long, tense Q&As wind their way toward the truth.

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‘Disenchantment’ Part 2
Starts streaming: September 20

Last year, the first 10 episodes of “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening’s new animated series “Disenchantment” introduced Princess Bean (voiced by Abbi Jacobson), a fantasy heroine who prefers debauched partying to handsome princes. Partly a parody of sword-and-sorcery clichés, and partly an embrace of what makes the likes of “Game of Thrones” and “The Lord of the Rings” great, “Disenchantment” differs from the other Groening shows in that it tells one long story, broken up into shorter adventures. The next 10 chapters — ostensibly the second half of season one — debut this month, with 20 more already set to appear on Netflix in 2020 and 2021.

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‘Bard of Blood’
Starts streaming: September 27

Bilal Siddiqi was still a teenager when he started writing his debut novel “The Bard of Blood,” a spy thriller inspired initially by his enthusiasm for the genre, and then fleshed out with research and historical detail. The book was published in 2015, when Siddiqi was a 20-year-old college student. Now, four years later, it’s been adapted into an expensive Indian TV mini-series, with Bollywood star Emraan Hashmi playing a disgraced secret agent (and Shakespeare expert), who gets a shot at redemption when he’s called back to lead a near-impossible rescue mission.

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‘The Good Place’ Season 4
Starts streaming: September 27

The third season of the funny, philosophical sitcom “The Good Place” ended more or less back where the show began: with four deeply flawed, recently deceased humans stuck in an experimental, often frustrating version of the afterlife. In the fourth season — which will be the series’ last — the heroes Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason will get one last chance to prove that they’re worthy to spend eternity in an actual paradise, rather than a clunky facsimile. (Note: “The Good Place” two-part season premiere will be available on September 27, and then Netflix will post new episodes weekly, following the U.S. broadcast schedule.)

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‘The Politician’
Starts streaming: September 27

The “Glee” producers Ian Brennan, Brad Falchuk and Ryan Murphy satirize hyper-ambitious young people in “The Politician,” a new series starring the Tony-winning Broadway actor Ben Platt as a teenager trying to become student body president in one of the most competitive high schools in Santa Barbara. The impressive supporting cast includes Jessica Lange and Gwyneth Paltrow. Netflix executives are so committed to this creative team and this premise that they greenlit a minimum of two seasons of “The Politician” before season one even went into production.

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Also of Interest

“Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” Season 1 (September 1), “Moving Art” Season 3 (September 1), “The Deep” Season 2 (September 3), “Archibald’s Next Big Thing” (September 6), “Elite” Season 2 (September 6), “Hip-Hop Evolution” Season 3 (September 6), “Jack Whitehall: Travels with My Father” Season 3 (September 6), “Modest Heroes – Ponoc Short Films Theatre” (September 6), “Terrace House: Tokyo 2019-2020” (September 10), “The I-Land” (September 12), “The Mind, Explained” (September 12), “Black Lagoon” Seasons 1 & 2 (September 13), “The Chef Show” Volume 2 (September 13), “Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress: The Battle of Unato” (September 13), “The Ranch” Part 7 (September 13), “Fastest Car” Season 2 (September 20), “Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates” (September 20), “Las del hockey” (September 20), “Team Kaylie” (September 23), “Abstract: The Art of Design” Season 2 (September 25), “Explained” Season 2 (September 26), “Dragons: Rescue Riders” (September 27), “Skylines” (September 27), “Vis a vis” Season 4 (September 27) and “Tiny House Nation” Volume 2 (September 29)

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‘Aquaman’
Starts streaming: September 5

For a long time, the idea of an Aquaman movie was treated as a joke in popular culture: the ultimate example of Hollywood’s superhero addiction. But when the actual “Aquaman” hit theaters last year, it shocked even comics fans by becoming a blockbuster hit — the highest-grossing DC Universe movie of all time, in fact — and by winning critical acclaim for its eye-popping visual design and energetic approach to the genre. Give credit to director James Wan for making “Aquaman” more of a rousing adventure than a grim-and-gritty action film; and to Jason Momoa for his cheery, charismatic portrayal of the half-human, half-Atlantean strongman.

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‘Our Godfather’
Starts streaming: September 10

When former Mafia boss Tommaso Buscetta was arrested in Brazil and extradited to Italy in 1983, he decided he’d had enough of the Cosa Nostra’s “code of silence.” He started telling prosecutors everything he knew about global organized crime and its ties to business and government establishments. Mark Franchetti and Andrew Meier’s documentary “Our Godfather” tells Buscetta’s gripping story, while also describing how his family continues to live in anonymity and exile, long after his death.

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‘Los Tigres del Norte at Folsom Prison’
Starts streaming: September 15

Fifty years after Johnny Cash recorded a classic live album at California’s Folsom State Prison, the Mexican norteño band Los Tigres del Norte performed their own show at the facility, which now houses women as well as men — and which is now heavily populated with Latino and Latina prisoners. The documentary “Los Tigres del Norte at Folsom Prison” covers the concert, which features Spanish-language reinterpretations of Cash’s songs. The film also takes a look at what has and hasn’t changed in the American prison system since 1968.

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‘Between Two Ferns: The Movie’
Starts streaming: September 20

In Zach Galifianakis’ delightfully absurdist talk show spoof “Between Two Ferns,” the comedian pretends to be an awkward public access TV host, asking big-time celebrities rude questions. The viral web series has now become a feature-length mockumentary, in which Galifianakis plays the same character, annoyed to discover that the world has been laughing at his show. He and his crew hit the road to prove that they can do proper interviews … at which they will undoubtedly fail, since that’s what makes “Between Two Ferns” so funny.

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‘In the Shadow of the Moon’
Starts streaming: September 27

Director Jim Mickle has established himself as a master of smart, twisty genre stories, with the likes of the TV series “Hap and Leonard” and the movies “Cold in July” and “Stake Land.” His latest film “In the Shadow of the Moon” — written by Gregory Weidman and Geoff Tock — is a decades-spanning serial killer thriller with a supernatural twist. Boyd Holbrook stars as a Philadelphia cop who’s on the trail of a murderer, and trying to figure out whether the odd, eerie pattern to the crimes has any rational explanation.

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‘Sturgill Simpson Presents Sound & Fury’
Starts streaming: September 27

The Grammy-winning country music artist Sturgill Simpson has won acclaim for records that combine traditional American roots music with progressive psychedelic rock. In that same restless, experimental spirit, Simpson has commissioned a kind of “video album” for his fourth LP “Sound & Fury,” asking Japanese animators to come up with their own interpretations of some of his heaviest songs. The result is another imaginative hybrid: part roots-rock blowout, part dystopian science-fiction cartoon.

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Also of Interest

“Dirty Dancing” (September 1), “Ghost Town” (September 1), “Jack Reacher” (September 1), “Tyler Perry’s The Single Moms Club” (September 1), “World War Z” (September 1), “Hotel Transylvania 2” (September 3), “The World We Make” (September 4), “The Nut Job” (September 7), “Olympus Has Fallen” (September 7), “Evelyn” (September 10), “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” (September 13), “Head Count” (September 13), “T2: Trainspotting” (September 13), “Tall Girl” (September 13), “The Mask” (September 15), “Storks” (September 15), “Trouble with the Curve” (September 15), “War Dogs” (September 15), “War of the Worlds” (September 15), “Under the Eiffel Tower” (September 23), “Birders” (September 25), “Ingrid Goes West” (September 28), “Smurfs: The Lost Village” (September 28) and “A Champion Heart” (September 30)

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‘Hello, Privilege, It’s Me, Chelsea’
Starts streaming: September 13

The comedian Chelsea Handler tries something different for her latest Netflix special. Since ending her talk show, she’s been working on a project intended to be an honest accounting of the advantages she gets every day, simply by virtue of being white, wealthy, attractive and famous. For the documentary “Hello, Privilege, It’s Me, Chelsea,” Handler will be combining her usual raunchy, self-deprecating humor with moments of real insight into the personal assets and biases that people don’t always recognize.

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Also of Interest

“Bill Burr: Paper Tiger” (September 10), “Jeff Dunham: Beside Himself” (September 24) and “Mo Gilligan: Momentum” (September 30)