Netflix: 10 of the best new shows to watch in July

TV & Radio

Including I Think You Should Leave, Atypical, Heist, Never Have I Ever and Sexy Beasts

Jennifer Gannon
Thu Jul 1 2021 - 06:00

I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson season 2

I Think You Should Leave

Tuesday, July 6th
Tim Robinson's surrealist masterpiece, which returns with more avant-garde characters and situations, has become the most Gifable and memeable comedy show in Netflix's bulging library. Prepare to be confused, concerned, thrilled and titillated in equal measure.

The Mire ’97

Wednesday, July 7th
The second season of this Polish drama set in the 1980s deals with the cover-ups and conspiracies of the previous series, with the mystery of the murders deepening and the police and political corruption becoming further entrenched.

Cat People

Cat People

Wednesday, July 7th
Thankfully, this is not a remake of Paul Schrader's feline erotic horror but a love letter to those captivated by cats. This docuseries follows a myriad of kitty enthusiasts: those who rescue street cats, those who have turned their cats into Instagram celebrities, those who want to eschew the reductive "crazy cat lady" tag and those who are obsessed with their bewhiskered friends. An attempt to redress the balance with the eternal good PR for our canine companions, Cat People shows the other side of sharing your home with the more autonomous creatures of the pet world.

Atypical season 4

Atypical

Friday, July 9th
Independence looms for Sam (Keir Gilchrist) in the fourth instalment of this popular dramedy. The difficulties and stresses of the real world infect Sam's life. With college ending and Sam moving from his family home into his own apartment, he faces a whole new set of challenges.This season is also about the ways his overprotective mother, Elsa (Jennifer Jason Leigh), deals with this progression and his younger sister, Casey (Brigette Lundy-Paine), attempts to face her fears about her sexuality. Receiving mixed reviews for its depiction of autism and those on the spectrum, Atypical has managed to find its audience as it moves into familiar sitcom territory, dispensing with its need to be an all-encompassing explainer for viewers.

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Heist

Heist

Wednesday, July 14th
From the producers of 2021's Oscar-winning short film Two Distant Strangers comes this documentary series exploring the biggest heists in American history. From the 2013 investigation of Pappygate – the theft of a huge amount of bourbon – to a young woman's Las Vegas casino rampage, it's an adrenaline-fuelled ride through the underworld. As with Operation Varsity Blues, Netflix's college-admissions-scandal documentary, Heist has a filmic sensibility, with episodes featuring flashy reconstructions as well as straightforward interviews and news footage.

Never Have I Ever season 2

Never Have I Ever

Thursday, July 15th
Back for a second season, Mindy Kaling's sweet coming-of-age dramedy picks up where it left off, with Devi (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) delving further into the hormonal stew of teen life. As her overbearing mother still threatens to move the family back to India, Devi attempts to seize the day and juggle her two boyfriends, the teen dream Paxton and the sensitive, intellectual Ben, savouring the final rites of passage of her high-school experience. Things become even more complicated as her USP is threatened by the arrival of another Indian student, the impossibly cool Aneesa. As with its first season, Never Have I Ever eschews nostalgia and is instead stuffed with zeitgeisty references and pop-culture callbacks that make it fresh, fun viewing.

Explained season 3

Friday, July 16th
This documentary series made in association with Vox offers bite-sized summations of an array of topics. The first two seasons featured shows on the allure of cults, the future of meat consumption and a prescient episode in 2019 that spoke to Bill Gates about the history of pandemics. This time around it is concentrating on subjects such as our obsession with plastic surgery, the crafting of public apologies and the survival of the monarchy. Each episode clocks in at a tidy 20 minutes.

Sexy Beasts

Sexy Beasts

Wednesday, July 21st
Netflix's latest dating show is pure nightmare fuel or a furry fantasy come to life, depending on the viewer's own peccadillos. The stakes are getting higher for telly singletons, with shows trying to marry them off at first sight, confront their exes, or have their nether regions judged like a sausage dog at Crufts – the romantic lives of the unattached have become a circus sideshow, so why not go the whole hog, literally? Based on the BBC Three show of the same name, Sexy Beasts buries its enthusiastic singletons under layers of prosthetics to see if personality can really shine through. A sort of sexy Terrahawks, the show matches up various beasts until the big reveal of their human faces – which can only disappoint after weeks of falling in love with an overstuffed beaver.

Masters of the Universe : Revelation

Friday, July 23rd
The indie director Kevin Smith heads to Castle Greyskull with his much-anticipated revamp of the He-Man cartoon. Billed as a radical return to Eternia, Masters of the Universe is a direct follow-up to the hit 1980s cartoon, lest there be any Twitter tears about grown men's childhood memories being dismantled. Not even He-Man's bowl haircut has been updated. The gang are back together to prevent Skeletor and his cronies from executing their usual plans for mass destruction. Featuring the voices of Star Wars' Mark Hamill as Skeletor, Buffy's Sarah Michelle Gellar as Teela, Alicia Silverstone as Queen Marlena and Blank Check's Griffin Newman as Orko, it's a winning formula for those who still believe they have the power.

Myth & Mogul : John DeLorean

John DeLorean and his wife, Cristina Ferrare, with one of his gull-wing cars. Photograph: Tony Korody/Sygma via Getty

Friday, July 30th
John DeLorean has proved a compelling subject for documentary-makers, with several charting the car-company founder's dramatic rise and fall. This three-part series, which includes unseen footage shot by DA Pennebaker, focuses on the creation of his legendary car – the one with the gull-wing doors used in the Back to the Future films – which eventually became a symbol of the greed and excess of the 1980s.