By The nights are well and truly drawing in and with that comes a responsibility to bunker down and up your screen time with some of the latest additions to Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
October sees the return of dystopian series the Man in The High Castle, an awards-tipped drama starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and the new series from the creator of Mad Men.
It's your civic duty to enjoy them while they're there.
Netflix
July 22 (10 October)
Paul Greengrass, the director who compellingly retold the story of flight United 93 on September 11th, turns his attention to the 2011 the mass murders by Anders Breivik in Norway. Though July 22 has faced criticism from some for having its actors speaking English not Norwegian, it won high praise after previewing at Venice Film Festival with critics commending the director's sensitive and gripping exploration of a very recent tragedy.
The Kindergarten Teacher (12 October)
Maggie Gyllenhaall plays a teacher who sees promise in one of her young students poetry and becomes obsessed with helping him fulfil his potential. The American remake of an Israeli film has received rave reviews including a five star Guardian write up which called it, "wonderfully observed story of a woman approaching middle age tussling with her vanquished dreams." The film asks difficult questions about the lines teachers tread between carer and educator and what constitutes an appropriate relationship with a child.
Making a Murderer part 2 (19 October)
The Steven Avery case gripped viewers in 2016 not only for the twists and turns in the tale but for the added intrigue that Avery was still serving time for the crime at the centre of the case. The second season won't just be relaying updates in the case but focusing on the toll that global notoriety has had on the Avery family. Catch up on everything that's happened since you the last series here.
Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (26 October)
Good news if you were a fan of Sabrina the Teenage Witch at school (what? No?) as Netflix have remade the show. Told "in the vein of Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist" it has a darker edge for darker times so there's more than just nostalgia on offer. In the series we find Sabrina on her 16th birthday wrestling between the evil witchcraft of her family and her mortal side.
Shirkers (26 October)
Film critic and writer Sandi Tan goes looking for the indie film she shot in 1992 in Singapore with an American man who mysteriously disappeared with the footage. We won't spoil the twist in the story, but suffice to say Tan won a directing prize for it at Sundance earlier this year and this stranger-than-fiction story will have audiences keen to see her next project.
Amazon Prime Video
Man in the High Castle Season 3 (5 October)
This adaptation of a Philip K. Dick book imagines a world where the result of WWII saw the United States divided into the Greater Nazi Reich and Japanese Pacific States. The dystopian series has stood out in a crowded genre thanks to its prescient themes and excellent screenwriting. The third season focuses on the idea of different 'multiverses' which people can time travel between - deep into science fiction territory, but with the same interest in excellent storytelling.
The Romanoffs (12 October)
Matthew Weiner's first series since his award-winning exploration of the New York advertising scene, Mad Men, has been a source of buzz for months. The eight part series features a far-flung group of people who all believe they are descended from the infamous Romanoff Russian family. The cast is hugely impressive and includes Christina Hendricks, John Slattery, Isabelle Huppert, Diane Lane and Amanda Peet to name a few. We'll all be claiming we're Romanoffs soon.
Lore Season 2 (19 October)
We're in a rich vein of form for horror, with films like Hereditary, Suspiria and Get Out storming the box offices. Lore is a similarly intelligent contribution taken from a podcast of the same name, and returns this month for a second season. Each episodes combines documentary footage and cinematic scenes to tell a real life horror stories. Far more fun than that Hallowe'en party you're supposed to be going to.
