The final weekend of August brings a diverse mix of streaming debuts and video-on-demand releases. Headlining the weekend watchlist is The Whisper Man on Netflix, a crime thriller directed by James Ashcroft. The film pairs Adam Scott as a widowed crime writer whose eight-year-old son is abducted with Robert De Niro as his estranged father and retired detective. According to the outlet’s streaming editor, the central mystery revolves around whether a child-snatching serial killer is operating from prison or if a copycat has emerged.
Star-Studded Crime Thrillers and VOD Premieres Lead the Weekend
Meanwhile, Nicolas Winding Refn returns to feature films with Her Private Hell available on VOD. The Neon-released thriller marks the director’s first feature in a decade following a multi-year focus on television, starring Sophie Thatcher, Havana Rose Liu, Charles Melton, and Diego Calva. Early reviews praise the film’s visuals while pointing to a story that follows a young woman searching for her father through a mysterious mist enveloping a futuristic city.
Romance and Action Fill Out VOD and Prime Video Slates
Amazon MGM Studios brings The Last Sunrise to Prime Video. Based on the Anna Todd novel of the same name, the romantic drama stars Maia Reficco as a young American navigating health issues who moves to Majorca and falls for a local boy played by Fernando Lindez, with Eva Longoria co-starring as an overprotective mother whose hotel empire threatens local property.
For action and animation fans, VOD services offer several notable additions. Batman: Knightfall Part 1 arrives as a new animated trilogy entry directed by Jeff Wamester, featuring Anson Mount, Michael Mando, and Pablo Schreiber. The R-rated feature adapts elements of the Dark Knight’s brutal comic history as Bane breaks out of Arkham Asylum. Concurrently, IFC’s Motor City drops on VOD, casting Alan Ritchson as an ex-con seeking revenge in 1977 Detroit alongside Ben Foster and Shailene Woodley.
Returning Sci-Fi and Political Intrige Anchor Series Lineups
On the episodic side, Apple TV’s Dark Matter returns for a second season of sci-fi thrills
. Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton) and his family attempt to build a normal life in a new universe, though dimensions continue to fracture as Jennifer Connelly, Oakes Fegley, Alice Braga, and Jimmi Simpson navigate the expanding multiverse.
Political and ensemble comedies round out the weekend options. Peacock’s The Undeclared War season 2 places Danny Patrick (Simon Pegg) at the center of a GCHQ mole hunt amid a new malware threat targeting the British government. Meanwhile, FX and Hulu’s Adults season 2 brings back its ensemble cast of Malik Elassal, Lucy Freyer, Jack Innanen, Amita Rao, and Owen Thiele under one roof to tackle workplace woes and romantic complications.
Global Epics and Scale Highlight End-of-Summer Options
Rounding out the weekend’s major feature film debuts, Hulu hosts Desert Warrior, an action feature directed by Rupert Wyatt and starring Anthony Mackie, Aiysha Hart, Sharlto Copley, and Ben Kingsley. Billed as the most expensive movie produced in Saudi Arabia, the 7th-century epic follows a princess and her father fleeing a ruthless emperor into the desert with the help of a legendary bandit.
