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What to Watch on TV and at the Movies This Week
The Anthony Bourdain biopic ‘Tony’ is finally here, hit series ‘Reacher’ returns and seven ‘Real Housewives’ legends hit the road
Antonio Banderas mentors Dominic Sessa as a young Anthony Bourdain in "Tony," opening this weekend.
Seacia Pavao/A24
What’s on this week? Whether it’s what’s on cable, streaming on Prime Video or Netflix, or opening at your local movie theater, we’ve got your must-watch list. Start with TV and scroll down for movies. It’s all right here. (And speaking of TV, don’t miss our summer 2026 TV preview!)
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Monsters of God (HBO, HBO Max)
Director and conservationist Eric Goode, 68, who brought the house-bound masses Tiger King in March 2020, returns with a new five-part docuseries on the creepy-crawly world of exotic reptile smugglers, the nasty business they get into and the federal agents determined to take them down.
Watch it: Monsters of God, Aug. 6 on HBO, HBO Max
Anna Pigeon, Season 1 (USA Network)
If you’re a fan of Nevada Barr’s 19 best-selling mysteries set in America’s national parks, you already know and love Anna Pigeon, Barr’s crime-solving park ranger. If not, let this series get you hooked. Tracy Spiridakos (Chicago P.D.) stars as Anna, a former city slicker trying to outrun her demons by donning the broad-brimmed hat and chasing bad guys in the wilderness. Star Trek: Discovery’s Ronnie Rowe Jr. costars as park-focused FBI agent Frederick Stanton.
Watch it: Anna Pigeon, Aug. 7 on USA, USA Network
The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip: Roaring 20th (Bravo, Peacock)
It’s been 20 years since a gang of Orange County “housewives” whipped up a fresh brand of unscripted drama and launched a pop culture phenomenon that’s informed everything from consumer products to congressional hearings. Bravo celebrates its juggernaut franchise’s anniversary as only Bravo would: by sending seven iconic stars from over the years on a six-city, cross-country road trip where they revisit old beefs and kick off new ones. The charmingly unflappable (and at this point equally iconic) Andy Cohen, 58, hosts.
Watch it: The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip, Aug. 9 on Bravo, Peacock
Women in Blue, Season 2 (Apple TV)
A little bit Narcos, a little bit Mad Men and a lot of fun, this Spanish-language crime drama is based on a true story: In 1970s ultraconservative Mexico City, the first women’s police force was created as a publicity stunt to distract from the male force’s inability to catch a serial killer. Guess who cracked the case (and put a crack in the glass ceiling)? In the second season, actors Bárbara Mori, Natalia Téllez, Amorita Rasgado and Ximena Sariñana are back, on the trail of a new murder that points to police corruption and political secrets.
Watch it: Women in Blue, Aug. 12 on Apple TV
Your Netflix Watch of the Week is here!
The Last House (2026, PG-13)
You may not leap for the remote to relive the panic and isolation of the COVID pandemic, but this eerie sci-fi thriller about a family trapped in their house after some sort of apocalyptic event is worth the watch. Brazilian Oscar nominee Wagner Moura, 50, and Past Lives star Greta Lee play a couple forced to figure out a way to survive with their kids for years without stepping beyond the front door.
Watch it: The Last House, Aug. 7 on Netflix
Don't miss this: The Best Things Coming to Netflix This Month
Your Prime Video Watch of the Week is here!
Reacher, Season 4
Alan Ritchson returns as Army-cop-turned-vigilante Jack Reacher in Prime Video’s hit action series. In the new season, based on Lee Child’s 2009 novel Gone Tomorrow, Reacher witnesses a suicide on an NYC subway. The situation quickly escalates into a multifaceted conspiracy involving local cops, the FBI and a lethal terrorist group.
Watch it: Reacher, Aug. 12 on Prime Video
Don’t miss this: The Best Things Coming to Prime Video this Month
New at the movies this week
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ One Night Only, R
The key to romantic comedy is the chemistry between the lovers. Allie (Monica Barbaro, who rocked the role of Joan Baez in A Complete Unknown) and Owen (elephant-eared hunk Callum Turner) score with sizzle and spark. The plot, a cross between After Hours and An Affair to Remember, has a wacky premise. In a not-so-distant future, the government bans premarital sex — except for one day a year. It’s a permission slip for unmarried citizens to scramble for sexual healing in a frenzy of awkward encounters. This includes Owen’s wise mother, Linda (brat packer Molly Ringwald, 58), and her boyfriend (LeVar Burton, 69), who get kinky with bubble wrap. Who knew? Of course, Allie and Owen careen around New York, experiencing a barrage of complications that keep bringing them together and splitting them apart. Smart and silly, with yummy stars, One Night Only is this summer’s most charming rom-com. —Thelma M. Adams
Watch it: One Night Only, Aug. 7 in theaters
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, R
This knowing tribute to 1980s slasher franchises like Friday the 13th stars Hacks’ Hannah Einbinder as Kris, a neurotic, gay indie filmmaker who seizes the opportunity to go Hollywood by reviving a cult horror franchise. She embarks on a winter pilgrimage to remote Camp Tivoli, where the “original” Camp Miasma film was shot, to find and possibly cast its reclusive star, Billy (Gillian Anderson, 57). What follows is sexy, subversive, hilarious and horrifying. This Camp Miasma clocks the slasher movie conventions: the jump scares, the adolescent desire rewarded with violence, the creepy stories told around the campfire that later materialize in “flesh and fluid.” But as the laughs and violence pile up, the film pivots to gutting the genre: exposing the transphobic, misogynist and traumatic aspects that touched and triggered a generation of millennials. What results is a daring new film that’s wildly original. —Thelma M. Adams
Watch it: Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, Aug. 7 in theaters
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Tony, R
The world knew him as Anthony Bourdain, the globe-trotting chef with the voracious appetite and endless curiosity. This slim but juicy biopic turns back the pages to the mid-1970s, when a 19-year-old Vassar student with aspirations to be a writer was just a kid named Tony (Dominic Sessa). Turned down for a prestigious fellowship, the fast-talking, sticky-fingered young man finds his groove instead at the bottom in the kitchen of a seafood joint in Provincetown, Massachusetts, with a gruffly endearing Antonio Banderas, 65, as his mentor and a scene-stealing Leo Woodall as his wild wingman. Based on early chapters of Bourdain’s 2000 memoir, Kitchen Confidential, the film (in which marvelous Provincetown is a character of its own) celebrates the warmth, companionship and chaos of kitchen labor. I’m unsure if Sessa, best known from The Holdovers, captures Bourdain’s abundant sex appeal, but he does drive this late-summer movie, which brims with heart and slows down to illuminate — and allow us to enjoy — the moment a singular star was born. —Thelma M. Adams
Watch it: Tony, Aug. 7 in theaters
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⭐⭐⭐☆ ☆ I Want Your Sex, R
The title is the first clue that there’s little subtlety in the latest outrageous, even perverse, comedy from indie darling Gregg Araki, 66. Olivia Wilde, hot off her directing-starring spot in the couple-swapping hit comedy The Invite, here plays a contemporary artist of shock imagery and gallery boss for whom cancel culture is just another flavor of culture. Flouting boundaries is her schtick. She habitually seduces her young assistants, and the plot follows her initiation of one recent college grad (goofy Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour) into a realm of domination and kink, turning sexual harassment into pop art. While Wilde seems less wild than usual, given her history of getting naked on camera, she does find the sweet spot of transgressive comedy — and Hoffman gets a sexual coming of age that’s unusual even in the indie film scene. It’s shocking. It’s funny. It’s not for everybody, which is likely director Araki’s intent. —Thelma M. Adams
Watch it: I Want Your Sex, in theaters
⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ The Samurai and the Prisoner, R
An epic sweep and a beautiful sense of balance define this brutal, brainy, war-and-intrigue thriller set in the 16th century. While a fictional murder mystery ratchets suspense, the movie is largely based on historical events during feudal Japan’s Warring States period. It charts the harrowing siege of Arioka Castle and the political machinations both inside and outside its fortified walls. (Any echoes of Troy are purely coincidental.) Engrossing, crisply shot and adeptly acted, The Samurai and the Prisoner refers to the relationship between the castle’s embattled leader, Lord Araki Murashige (Masahiro Motoki, 60), and his political hostage, the strategist Kuroda Kanbei (Masaki Suda). With the ruthless warlord Oda Nobunaga (Bando Shingo), a.k.a. the Demon King, gnawing at the gates, and intrigue within the fort, factions splinter and alliances shift. In desperation, the castle’s lord comes to rely on the wisdom of his harshly treated uninvited guest. Whether the wise man wasting away in the dungeon can be trusted becomes the movie’s most elusive mystery. —Thelma M. Adams
Watch it: The Samurai and the Prisoner, in theaters
⭐⭐⭐☆ ☆ Spider-Man: Brand New Day, PG-13
Credit to Tom Holland (fresh off The Odyssey), who displays new depths as the famed Marvel web-slinger, flashing genuine yearning in his scenes with Zendaya’s MJ (also fresh off Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster), who has no memory of Peter Parker thanks to a spell cast at the end of the last Spidey film. Holland also shows great rapport with familiar faces like Mark Ruffalo’s David Banner/Hulk and (also fresh off The Odyssey) Jon Bernthal’s Frank Castle/Punisher. And the adventure is nicely grounded in a New York City where the fate of the entire universe isn’t at stake. That said, this first of a planned trilogy strays from the stand-alone charms of its predecessors. Like too many of the post-Endgame Marvel movies, the plot is needlessly convoluted, overstuffed with characters from little-seen films and TV shows as well as labored setups to upcoming MCU installments. —Thom Geier
Watch it: Spider-Man: Brand New Day, in theaters
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