May streaming highlights

Luca Fontana

1/5/2025

Translation: Megan Cornish

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

My better half once said I was too childish, so I kicked her out of my play fort to enjoy this month’s film and TV highlights all to myself. And here they are!

Having started under the radar before becoming one of Netflix’s most unusual success stories, Blood of Zeus is kicking off its final season. And if you haven’t seen it yet, now’s the perfect time to get started.

What makes Blood of Zeus special isn’t just its powerful story about demigods, revenge and divine intrigue. It’s the way the series reimagines Greek mythology – dark, epic, sometimes brutal, and always with the power of an ancient drama. There’s no glorified Zeus with a thunderbolt; it’s a universe full of discord, lust for power, and bloody conflict. In the middle of it all, there’s Heron – a hero who doesn’t want to be one – and Seraphim, an enemy who maybe never was one.

With imagery reminiscent of Castlevania (it comes from the same animation studio, Powerhouse Animation Studios) and a story that consistently moves towards a finale unafraid to question everything that was previously considered divine, Blood of Zeus has truly earned its place in the anime Olympus.

When: starts 8 May

Love, Death & Robots, Vol. 4 (anthology series)

Love, Death & Robots was never intended for the mainstream. And that’s precisely why it had an impact. It showed Netflix that anthologies can work – because of their fragmentation, not in spite of it. In a time when series are often as indistinguishable as one Marvel film is from the next, Love, Death & Robots is a manifesto for variety. It has the courage to be different.

The premise of an anthology is simple: each episode tells a new story that has nothing to do with the previous one. Sometimes animated, sometimes live-action. Sometimes sci-fi, sometimes horror, sometimes satire. Sometimes ingenious, sometimes grotesque. But always unique. And it’s not necessarily just about love, death or robots. That’s what makes it so revolutionary. It’s a laboratory for visual narratives that mixes, plays, and is freer than almost any other Netflix project. Perhaps also because producer David Fincher and co-creator Tim Miller never wanted to make TV – they wanted to make short films for nerds.

Volume 4 takes the concept further. Digitally animated Red Hot Chili Peppers in Can’t Stop. John Boyega as a cyber samurai in the post-apocalyptic 400 BOYS. A messiah dolphin in Golgotha. And MrBeast narrating gladiator dinosaurs. Sound crazy? It is. But that’s exactly why it works.

When: starts 15 May

Fear Street: Prom Queen (film)

Prom used to be the highlight of the school year. Tulle dresses, embarrassment, first kisses. Now? Now it’s murder.

Fear Street: Prom Queen takes us back to Shadyside, the town that should have long found peace. But as the disco ball slowly spins at the high school, the horror begins all over again: one after the other, potential prom queens are murdered. Who’s behind it? A curse? A serial killer? Or just the normal madness of American teenagers?

Netflix continues Leigh Janiak’s cult Fear Street series. This time as a bloody slasher mosaic somewhere between Carrie, Scream, and a sequined nightmare. Newcomers include Katherine Waterston, Lili Taylor, and Chris Klein – but don’t get your hopes up. In Shadyside, they won’t be around for long.

When: starts 23 May

Star Wars is myth, pathos – and, for some time now, anthology. Tales of the Underworld is the third instalment in this animated series, and arguably the most exciting. This time, the focus isn’t on Jedi or Sith, but on two figures from the shadow realm of the galaxy: Cad Bane and Asajj Ventress.

You probably know both of them from The Clone Wars. Both survived – somehow. And both are now at the centre of a six-episode miniseries that delves deep into the moral grey areas of Star Wars canon.

If you liked Tales of the Jedi, you’ll find even more grit here. If you love Andor and have never seen The Bad Batch, you’ll be surprised at how much subtext animation can convey. And if you missed Asajj Ventress, she’s so back.

When: starts 4 May

Anyone who wants children has to be assessed. Not thoroughly – but according to the rules. At least they do in this dark sci-fi parable by French director Fleur Fortuné (her feature film debut). It’s no longer love that decides whether you become a parent – it’s a civil servant.

And yes, the trailer does look quite disturbing. Especially Alicia Vikander as the «assessor» mixing schoolgirl strictness and subtle malice while Elizabeth Olsen and Himesh Patel’s characters have to watch as their perfect world falls apart piece by piece.

The whole thing looks like a cross between Ex Machina, Squid Game, and a chamber drama that gets under your skin. And what begins as a sober ordeal soon turns into a surreal nightmare. Trust is shattered. Loyalty is tested.

When: starts 8 May

Those presumed dead live longer – and apparently so do spin-offs. While The Walking Dead has finally been buried after eleven seasons, spin-offs continue to creep through the series landscape. And you know what? Surprisingly, Dead City’s one of the better ones.

The focus is on Maggie and Negan. Yes, that Negan. The man with the baseball bat and the bad reputation. They land in post-apocalyptic Manhattan – an abandoned concrete hell where zombies aren’t even the scariest thing anymore. Between the ruins of high-rises, new gangs, and old traumas, a dark, dense story of revenge, guilt, and alliances of convenience unfolds.

Dead City is rawer, more compact, and stylistically fresher than its parent series. With an 80% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and solid viewership on AMC+, the spin-off has held its own. Season 2 takes the power struggle for Manhattan to the next level with new enemies, new alliances, and the question: how much humanity remains when everything else dies?

When: starts 5 May

Some want to change the world. Others just want peace and quiet. Murderbot belongs to the latter category – with a machine gun on his arm.

Apple’s new sci-fi series Murderbot is about a security robot who – after a hack of its own control module – suddenly has the ability to make independent decisions. Instead of calling for rebellion or philosophising about the meaning of life, Murderbot now wants only one thing: to watch TV. Preferably alone. But as is the case with people – they keep doing stupid things. And someone has to save them. So, it’s time for him to launch into action again. Through gritted teeth.

Based on the award-winning novel series by Martha Wells, Murderbot aims to bring darkly humorous science fiction to Apple TV+ – a cross between RoboCop and The Office – with Alexander Skarsgård as the grumpiest android since Marvin, the paranoid android from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

When: starts 16 May

Fountain of Youth (film)

A treasure hunt around the world could be so beautiful. A brother and sister with a story. Guy Ritchie directs the whole thing with style and pace. Fountain of Youth sounds like a film we’d have seen in the cinema back in the day – on a Saturday night, with popcorn in hand and the feeling of being on a two-hour adventure.

But in 2025, this isn’t a film – it’s a streaming title. Another entry in the endless catalogue of streaming services – and thus doomed to failure. Not because the film’s bad, but because no one’ll find it. Without a franchise, brand, or source material, hardly anyone’s interested in new material anymore.

Studios have lost trust. And audiences have learned to scroll past anything that doesn’t sound like Marvel, Mission: Impossible, or another well-known franchise. Fountain of Youth probably has everything, including stars such as John Krasinski, Natalie Portman, and Stanley Tucci. And yet, it’ll slip through our fingers. Not out of lack of interest – but because of oversupply.

When: starts 23 May

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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