April streaming highlights

Luca Fontana

1/4/2025

Translation: Elicia Payne

New month, new streaming recommendations. From Netflix to Disney+, Prime Video, Sky Show, Apple TV+ and Paramount+, these are our series and film picks on streaming services this April.

What’s the name of the patron saint of the forgetful? Um ... thingamajig or something. Whatever. It’s time to look at the film and series highlights in April, before I forget them too!

Dante’s back. And so are his coat, sunglasses and double pistols. This is all down to Netflix, which is bringing Capcom’s legendary action series to the screen as an anime – directed by Studio Mir, produced by Adi Shankar (Castlevania) and positioned somewhere between gothic heavy metal and dark pop culture romance.

The series is apparently neither a direct adaptation nor a continuation of the games. Instead, it wants to play with lore in its own way. Here, Dante hunts demons as we know him to do – only this time in a world that looks like a postmodern reminder of the late nineties. His brother Vergil, the mysterious White Rabbit and a whole lot of stylish violence accompany him.

Will the combination work? Probably not entirely. But that’s exactly why it could be brilliant.

Release date: 3 April

Black Mirror, Season 7 (series)

So there you have it. Black Mirror’s finally back with season 7 – and apparently with a tone that’s more in keeping with the series’ dark roots. At least, that’s what series creator, Charlie Brooker, is promising. Six episodes await us, all in the usual techno-paranoia style: sometimes disturbing, sometimes emotional, but always thought-provoking.

The best thing about it? The celebrated USS Callister episode from season four is getting a sequel. Back then, Jesse Plemons played the toxic game designer Robert Daly, who forced his colleagues into a digital Star Trek universe. Daly may now be dead – but for the rest of the crew, the nightmare’s only just beginning.

Bandersnatch is also being revisited. Will Poulter and Asim Chaudhry, in their respective characters, make a return. Nice! Will it feature a new interactive adventure too? It’s unclear. But one thing is for certain: with episodes such as Hotel Reverie, an AI-supported Hollywood homage in black and white, Black Mirror is staying relevant to 2025.

Release date: 10 April

Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight (series)

After cinema films, animated classics and live-action outings, Asterix and Obelix are now coming to Netflix for the first time as an animated series – with an adaptation of the seventh Asterix comic The Battle of the Chieftains from 1964.

This is what it’s about: Rome finally wants to subjugate the last undefeatable Gallic village – but as always, the magic potion gets in the way. But this time there’s a problem: the druid Miraculix is losing his memory. And without a magic potion, our heroes suddenly find themselves without their most important weapon.

If, like me, you grew up with Asterix – or have children who really should – you can look forward to some nostalgic and modern animation fun. If I may say so. The trailer actually looks quite funny.

Release date: 30 April

There are series that are good. There are series that are important. And then there’s Andor – for me the best story in the Star Wars universe. Together with the movie Rogue One, this series is the darkest, most realistic and most political chapter in the galaxy. And that’s mainly due to one name: Tony Gilroy.

Gilroy – director, writer and producer of the series – had a clear vision right from the start: one story in exactly two seasons – no more, no less. Instead of relying on typical Star Wars bombast or fan service, Andor concentrates on sincere, precise storytelling. Season 1 showed a year in the life of Cassian Andor. Season 2 will cover four years. Three episodes make up a year, and each decision will lead us one step closer to the man we met in Rogue One – and to his inevitable fate.

So now the final chapter begins. And anyone who has seen Rogue One knows that there’s no happy ending. Only sacrifice, pain – and the truth about the price you pay for rebellion.

Release date: 22 April\ (three episodes a week

Kevin Bacon, who is back from the dead, plays a country bounty hunter with demon problems. And to be honest, you don’t really need to know any more about The Bondsman to put it on your watch list.

Okay, okay. That’s not enough. The Bondsman is a mix of horror, action and crazy love story. Grainger David is the man behind the project. He’s producing the project together with Blumhouse – the studio behind films such as Get Out, Paranormal Activity, Insidious and The Purge.

In The Bondsman, Hub Halloran (Bacon) returns from the dead – with a second chance at life, love and his almost forgotten music career. Unfortunately, his old bounty hunter business has changed quite a bit since then. Demonically changed. And because it’s Prime Video, you can probably expect plenty of nasty twists. Somehow Amazon is collecting all of this crazy genre gold, such as, The Boys, Invincible, Hunters – and now this too.

Release date: 3 April

On the one hand, I’m looking forward to the second season of The Last of Us. Most definitely. But on the other hand, I’m also scared. I know the games, so I know what’s coming. Am I ready for it? Hell no!

Five years after the events of the first season, Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) live in Jackson – a small, peaceful community in the midst of post-apocalyptic chaos. But the peace is deceptive. Because season 2 follows the plot of The Last of Us Part II. And anyone who knows the game, knows that the story gets more brutal. More emotional. And more painful than anything that has happened before.

The new trailer reveals the first bleak images of Abby (Kaitlyn Dever) plus another major element from the games: spores. Uh-oh. Maybe this season will be more of what some people, not me, missed in the first season – that is uncompromising horror, moral conflict and a story that’ll break us all again. So it’s a good thing that we’ll be doing group therapy together again, in an episode of our podcast Spoiler factory!

Release date: 14 April

Nobody plays filthy rich men in their mid-fifties as well as Jon Hamm. This also seems to be the case in Apple’s new crime drama series, in which the Mad Men star plays washed-up, hedge fund manager Andrew Cooper. And after a divorce, job loss and midlife crisis, he finds his new elixir of life in burglary of all things.

What begins like a chic version of Breaking Bad apparently quickly develops into a psychological cat-and-mouse game – including affluent criminality, moral lows and a hero who not only has to steal, but somehow also... loves it? Haha. It’s also exciting to know that Apple’s already commissioned a second season before releasing this one. If that doesn’t sound promising, then I don’t know what does.

Release date: 11 April

Like every child of the 1990s, I was a huge Backstreet Boys fan. Yeah, go ahead and laugh. Everybody is still one of the best pop songs of all time. And that’s that. Anyway, sometime around the turn of the millennium, this Aaron Carter suddenly appeared – Nick’s little brother. And he was IT. He was also a more age-appropriate crush for the girls in my class Of course, I was jealous – even though I didn’t really understand why.

But these days I know better. Because the true story of the Carters is anything but a fairy tale. More like a nightmare that we fans never really wanted to see. Behind the Carter brothers’ fame and shine lies a story of drug abuse, mental health problems and emotional neglect. The Carters, the documentary, tries to show exactly that, and yet not be a sensationalist tell-all. Much more a profound narrative from the perspective of Angel Conrad, Aaron’s twin sister. She talks about loss and the emotional turmoil that fame brought with it.

The Carter family once consisted of five children. Today, only two of them are still alive – Nick and Angel. This is the price the family has paid for fame and money. Nevertheless, The Carters also want to talk about hope and healing. And about a family that survived despite all the pain. In my opinion, it’s a must-see.

Release date: 15 April

Did I miss a film or series that we should definitely watch this month? Let me know in the comments.

Luca Fontana

Senior Editor

Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.ch

I'm an outdoorsy guy and enjoy sports that push me to the limit – now that’s what I call comfort zone! But I'm also about curling up in an armchair with books about ugly intrigue and sinister kingkillers. Being an avid cinema-goer, I’ve been known to rave about film scores for hours on end. I’ve always wanted to say: «I am Groot.» more

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