10 things to watch on Netflix in March 2019

Ah, Netflix. Our constant, reliable companion — thrilling us, indulging our guilty pleasures and goading us into night-long binge spirals we spent the next day regretting.

But we wouldn’t have it any other way. From You to The Umbrella Academy, we’ve enjoyed some hits of late — and that looks set to continue through March. So, from classic films to new series, this is what to add to your list this month…

Michael Mann, the director of this gripping Tom Cruise/Jamie Foxx double-hander, hasn’t had a good track record of late. His television series, Luck, was plagued by on set problems. His limp hacker thriller Blackhat failed to make an impression. But Collateral, released back in 2004, tears onto Netflix this month as a reminder of Mann’s talent.

A neo-noir action thriller, the film sees Jamie Foxx’s Max, a mild-mannered taxi driver, coerced into becoming an unwilling driver for a night to Tom Cruise’s mysterious assassin Vincent. Also look out for Javier Bardem as a drug lord — in a role that has shades of Bond villain about it.

With The Office, Extras and Derek already to his name — not to mention the thoroughly unmentionable Life’s Too Short — Ricky Gervais has good form when it comes to television. So this latest addition to his oeuvre comes to Netflix this month with great expectations.

Gervais plays the main character of Tony, a small-town journalist who becomes suicidal when his wife suddenly dies. However, before he can go through with the act, he changes his mind — and decides to punish the world instead. Gervais is no stranger to blending wit, barbs and tricky emotions, so we’re hoping for great things.

An exclusive behind-the-scenes look at last year’s 2018 Formula One World Championship, this ten-part docu-series is an exclusive collaboration between the two huge organisations — and hopefully yet another gripping entry in the streaming giant’s stellar line-up of documentary content.

Pitched as a gripping, high-octane 10 part series, with Formula 1 opening its doors for the first time ever to give unprecedented access to the top drivers, team principles and owners, the series explores how — after a change of ownership — an entire sport is rebranding for a new wave of gripping competition and challenges.

Since the disappointing return of Luther in January, we’ve been hoping for the redemption of Idris Elba. And, although it likely won’t come in this year’s Fast & Furious spin-off, Hobbs and Shaw, this quietly-charming Netflix series could very well deliver the goods.

Starring Elba as a ‘struggling DJ and eternal bachelor’, the series sees the titular Charlie become a manny to his famous best friend’s problem child when the coffers run dry. The premise sounds promising — not least because we’ll get to see some of Elba’s real-life DJ-ing skills.

Netflix really are stepping up their game when it comes to original films. For a platform that started with made-for-TV style schlock and cookie-cutter Christmas movies, they’re now starting to turn the tables on Hollywood. We all saw Bird Box, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Roma. And we’re all looking forward to The Irishman — Scorsese’s first dip in the Netflix pond and the service’s best hope for their first Best Picture Oscar win.

This month, however, our big-budget-on-the-small-screen offering is Triple Frontier, an action thriller that unites Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Pedro Pascal and Charlie Hunnam as military veterans who reunite to rob a South American drug lord.

When The OA launched back in 2016, it was overshadowed and marred by unfair comparisons to sleeper hit Stranger Things. But this is a worthy watch in its own right — and you’ve still got time to binge the first season before the second hits at the end of the month.,

Switch it on now and you’ll see Brit Marling in an impressive performance as a blind young woman who resurfaces after being missing for seven years. Now calling herself The OA, she has the ability to see — and spends the first series recounting her tale to a group of fellow townspeople. In the second, the action moves to a different dimension.

Everyone loved Bohemian Rhapsody. We’re all on tenterhooks for Rocketman, the story of Elton John. And, if you want another fix of musical biopic goodness in the meantime, then Netflix have you covered. Later this month, the story of Mötley Crüe comes to your screens.

The band that gave us songs from ‘Girls, Girls, Girls’ and ‘Wild Side’ to ‘Smokin’ in the Boys Room’ and ‘Home Sweet Home’ has a worthy story itself, and this film will show just how Nikki Sixx, Mick Mars and Tommy Lee came together to make the music happen. We’re most looking forward to seeing how Douglas Booth transforms into the grunge-glam bassist Sixx.

If you’ve never seen the Back to the Future trilogy, get into your DeLorean right away, rev it up to 88mph and take a trip to March 26, when the modern classics hit Netflix. Once there, binge away — and thank us later.

The series tells the story of high schooler Marty McFly, whose eccentric mentor Doc Brown builds a time machine out of a sports car and sends him back to the 1950s to meet his parents. The second film takes us into the far-flung, flying-car future and the final instalment back to the wild west. It’s as crazy a ride as it sounds.

Who wouldn’t want to see a film starring Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson as two grizzled Texas Rangers, tasked with taking down violent robbers Bonnie and Clyde? We know we’d pay to see it. So thank Netflix, for that very story is coming to the streaming service before the month is out.

“The lawmen were out of the Rangers by the time Bonnie & Clyde started their robbery reign,” say Netflix, “but were commissioned as special investigators, coaxed by a consortium of banks to assemble a posse and end the robbery spree.”

Remember that episode of Black Mirror set almost exclusively in the algorithm of a dating app? Well this new French series takes that concept and stretches it across an entire season.

Set in near-future Paris, the drama sees a new dating app called ‘Osmosis’ developed that can decode true love and dig deep into its users’ brain data to find a perfect match. Soon, however, using technology that can access the innermost recesses of your mind and your best-kept secrets goes awry — who’d have thought it?

Want some more entertainment news? We spoke to Patrick Schwarzenegger about living up to expectations…

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