Go inside the lives of young Kiwi dads, a boyband’s darkest days and, yes, your next favourite comedy has arrived. These are the best new shows and movies available to stream this weekend.
It’s Father’s Day on Sunday (get thee to a box of Roses chocolates and pair of socks if you haven’t already got your pressies sorted). But being a parent isn’t always cards and World’s Best Dad mugs. In this new local doco series, we follow a handful of teenage fathers – some at the very beginning of their journey to parenthood, some a few years in, all sharing the raw and emotional toll it takes. We often focus on teenage mums, but this is a surprising and captivating series that will have you laughing, crying and feeling all the emotions.
You’ll know her as one of the stars of Law & Order: SVU, but Mariska Hargitay had her own personal mystery to solve from a young age. In this documentary, Hargitay examines the life of her mother, the actor Jayne Mansfield, who died in a car accident when she was 34 years old. Hargitay was just 3 at the time, and has said this project was a chance to get to know the mother she never really did, from her home life to her professional work. It’s deeply personal, and deeply impactful.
I watched one episode of this doco series on a plane earlier this year. I would have swallowed it all up in one go if it wasn’t one of those annoying situations where they only have a single episode of a series and you get really invested, only to be scrambling for something else to watch 30 mins later. Anyway what I’m trying to say is, if you were a teenager at a certain time, or love boybands, or can’t help but sing along to Ronan Keating’s Life is a Rollercoaster, then you will get something out of this series that follows the (surprisingly) dark days of the Irish boyband from their weird beginnings to the death of one of their key members.
She’s our favourite goth, and Wednesday Addams is back for the second part of season two (I don’t know why Netflix makes it that hard either). Just like season one, there are still supernatural mysteries to solve and in this part, some more soon-to-go-viral dance routines as well (IYKYK). With Tim Burton at the helm, and the likes of Joanna Lumley joining Jenna Ortega and Catherine Zeta-Jones in the cast, this is fun and scary and silly and brilliant.
It’s official. Your next favourite comedy is set in a newsroom. Does this feel awfully close to the bone? Yes, yes it does. Is it laugh-out-loud funny because of that? Also a big yes. But you don’t need to feel like this is a personal attack to find The Paper a fun watch. It is from the same team who brought us The (American) Office and in some ways, it is exactly the same – same mockumentary format, same awkwardness, same humour. But that is what makes it comforting for fans. Domhnall Gleeson (About Time) stars as a new editor joining a failing community newspaper that operates out of the same office as a toilet paper company. What a gag! He discovers his new masthead is staffed by a rag-tag group of journalists (and let’s use that term loosely and not as a reflection of the industry at large, thank you very much) and there’s a documentary crew following him as he tries to steady the ship. It’s a spin-off, with a difference.
Denzel Washington and director Spike Lee make one heck of a team. This drama is the pair’s fifth collaboration (including Malcolm X and Inside Man) and this time around, Washington plays a music boss with the “best ears in the biz”. There’s a ransom plot, some moral dilemmas, a great soundtrack and by all accounts, one of the actor’s best performances in years in this film based on a Kurosawa classic. So grab some popcorn and watch a movie this weekend, why don’t you?
Honestly, TVNZ+ is on a roll this week. And at the top of it all (or bottom, in this case) is the launch of a new, 24/7 channel dedicated to one of the greatest comedies ever. Maybe you are an OG fan of Jerry and the gang, or maybe you weren’t even born when they were sitting around talking about nothing. No matter where on the Seinfeld continuum you find yourself, you’ll have plenty to unpack with 180 episodes of the classic show to watch over and over and over again.
Bridget Jones joined the New Zealand Herald in 2025. She has been a lifestyle and entertainment journalist and editor for more than 15 years.