What’s new on Netflix this week

Not all Netflix weeks are created equal. Case in point: this week, the biggest release is A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmaggedon (Feb. 14). The film saw a theatrical release in the U.K., where Shaun the Sheep is a much bigger deal, but drops on Netflix everywhere else in the world on Valentine’s Day (presumably to occupy the kids, or who knows, really).

In case you don’t have children or a burning desire for very British claymation jams, you might find what you need in the form of Spectros, a Brazilian supernatural thriller series from showrunner Doug Petrie (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Daredevil). The show follows five teenagers bound together by supernatural powers that connect them to the past; the undead also seem to be involved. This week also sees the release of the final season of Spanish show Cable Girls, the German rom-com Isi & Ossi and season three of the History Channel’s Vikings, starring Alexander Ludwig and Travis Fimmel.

New on Crave

Crave subscribers can catch the shitty, ass-backwards Shaft reboot, or Joanna Hogg’s acclaimed The Souvenir, which our critic Justine Smith loved. New seasons of Tosh.0 (Feb. 14) and Last Week Tonight (weekly starting Feb. 17) are also available. Starting Feb. 17, you can catch California Typewriter, a documentary about typewriter buffs (!) that includes interview footage with noted typewriter head Tom Hanks (!!). Feb. 20 sees the release of Kent Jones’s Hitchcock/Truffaut documentary, which puts images to the famous book featuring an interview between the two filmmakers.

New on Prime  

The aforementioned Travis Fimmel also stars in Danger Close: The Battle of Long Tan, an Australian war movie that drops on Amazon Prime on Feb. 17. It’s one of only two new releases to hit the streaming service this week; the other is All Creatures Here Below, a crime drama starring Ant-Man scene stealer David Dastmalchian (who also wrote the screenplay) and Karen Gillan.

New on Criterion

Criterion’s big release this month is a veritable wealth of silent and short films titled Pioneers of African American Cinema. It showcases little-seen films from groundbreaking filmmakers like Oscar Micheaux, James and Eloyce Gist, Zora Neale Hurston and Spencer Williams. Retrospectives of indie filmmaker Alison Anders and British actress Wendy Hiller (Separate Tables, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne) hit the streaming service on Feb. 19 and 20. Catalogue titles hitting the service this month are pretty much limited to 1967’s The Graduate. ■

See our latest movie reviews and other film and TV coverage here.

See what’s new on Netflix Canada here.