Amazon Prime Video is one of the biggest streaming platforms you could hope to subscribe to right now, but that doesn’t automatically mean it’s the best – one huge key to success in the streaming market is how regularly you can add new material for viewers, after all.
So, it’s lucky that Amazon has its pipeline well and truly established at this point, and knows how to cram as much as it can into a month (even if it’s still way behind Netflix on that front). If you’re wondering what new stuff is coming this October, I’ve done the legwork to check out all the additions and shrink the list down to just the highlights that need your attention.
Play Dirty
- Streaming from: 1 October
Opening up the month with a bang is this new movie from Shane Black, who wrote and directed the cult classic The Nice Guys. This time around he’s recruited Mark Wahlberg as his lead, with LaKeith Stanfield in what looks like a riotously fun supporting role.
Wahlberg’s playing a career criminal with a particular penchant for thievery who finds himself on the wrong end of a robbery when a girl he’s seeing rinses him for what he has. That leaves him in a hole, financially speaking, so it’s only right that he tries to track her down to dig his way back out. It looks like a really fun time, and a great way to start October.
Maintenance Required
- Streaming from: 8 October
If you’re in the mood for a new movie but you’re more hankering for a romantic one than a heisty caper, then Maintenance Required could be perfect – so long as you’re not the world’s biggest You’ve Got Mail fan. That classic Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks movie appears to be the extremely direct inspiration for Prime Video’s new movie, almost shamelessly so.
This time its anonymous lovers exchanging messages without ever meeting are on the wrong side of a dispute between a local mechanics’ shop and the consortium pushing to take over their patch, rather than booksellers, but in every other way it seems like the same basic plot. Still, it could well be good fun!
Lazarus
- Streaming from: 22 October
It’s not just movies in October, though, and Prime Video also has a really fascinating-looking new series starting, in the form of Lazarus. It’ll star Sam Claflin as a troubled psychologist grieving his father but also starting to have visions of dead people talking to him – including that very same father.
His dad’s played by none other than the legendary Bill Nighy, and if you’re wondering what all of that actually leads to, it seems to be that Claflin’s character will start getting himself involved with cold cases, now that he can potentially uncover secrets that might lead to their solutions. It’s trippy stuff, and looks really fun.
Hedda
- Streaming from: 29 October
This is one for those who fancy themselves a little more intellectual – an interesting approach to adapting some classic theatre from Ibsen, in a manner that seems relatively obviously influenced by the huge success of Saltburn a couple of years ago. Hedda, played by Tessa Thompson (who you might know from the MCU) is throwing a big party, but doesn’t realise that some figures from her past are attending.
She’s confronted by old loves and new ones, and it all gets more than a little overwhelming, with the drama only piling on as things unfold further. This looks really sumptuous in terms of sets and costumes, so fans of period dramas should probably pay attention.
Hazbin Hotel Season 2
- Streaming from: 29 October
You may or may not have noticed that in the last few years there’s been a sort of cold war going on in the long-term battle for streaming supremacy – animated shows for adults are more popular than ever, and getting good ones on your books is key for every platform. One of Amazon’s secret jewels in the crown, then, has been Hazbin Hotel, which it acquired and always planned a second season for.
Now that new run of episodes is finally nearly here, and while we’ve only had a single short teaser to check out at the time of writing, it promises to get fans of the show very, very excited about its story of hellish politics and, well, silliness. It isn’t for everyone, that’s for sure, but this is big news for some.
