This month in culture: September 2024

Slow Horses, season 4

Apple TV+, September 4

Apple TV+’s adaptations of Mick Herron’s excellent espionage novels, led by Gary Oldman on magnificent form as the belching, flatulent, brilliant Jackson Lamb, have quietly become the streaming service’s MVP, and their strong showing in this year’s Emmy nominations has reinforced the company’s continued faith in the unmissable series. This fourth installment, based on Herron’s novel Spook Street, guest stars the ever-excellent Hugo Weaving as a mysterious interloper with a close personal connection to Jack Lowden’s bratty Bond-in-training River Cartwright. Expect the usual mixture of big laughs, shocking twists and high-octane action scenes.

— Alexander Larman

His Three Daughters

In theaters, September 6 Netflix, September 20

From Azazel Jacobs of French Exit comes a new film on mourning. Focused on the moments before death, His Three Daughters tells the story of three estranged sisters who return to their father’s sickbed in his final days. In the skillful hands of Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen and Natasha Lyonne, the three sisters spark and whirl against each other as they pinball through the exquisite pain of sisterhood and loss. On their own, each of the three actresses possesses an alchemical power that transfixes viewers. Together, they create an effect that is spellbinding and gripping.

— Calla Di Pietro

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

In theaters September 6

Tim Burton may be one Beetlejuice utterance short, but it was still enough to bring Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder and Catherine O’Hara back to the screen in the sequel to 1988’s Beetlejuice. In the present day, Ryder’s Lydia Deetz finds herself in a new living nightmare — parenting a teen through turmoil. Darkly played by Wednesday’s Jenna Ortega, Astrid Deetz picks up on her mother’s mischief and invokes the family home’s spectral super. Willem Dafoe, Monica Bellucci and Justin Theroux join the romp through the afterlife as three generations of Deetz women unite to fight Beetlejuice.

— CDP

Agatha All Along

Disney+, September 18

In case you were worried that the Marvel Cinematic Universe was getting derivative, fresh on the heels of summer blockbuster Deadpool & Wolverine comes Agatha All Along, a spin-off of WandaVision, which in its turn was a spin-off of the Avengers franchise. If you haven’t kept pace with all the other movies and shows, this one is likely not for you. Kathryn Hahn plays centuries-old witch Agatha — and is joined by her Parks and Recreation castmate Aubrey Plaza. The show centers on Agatha escaping her prison with the help of a gay goth teen. Because of course it does.

— Matt McDonald

The Penguin

HBO/Max, September 19

The mining of superhero IP continues with a new show about the Penguin, with Colin Farrell continuing the title role he played in the most recent Batman theatrical release. The series, set one week after the events of The Batman (who was played by Robert Pattinson and may appear in an episode), will serve as a bridge to the next film in the series, set for 2026. The series follows Farrell’s Penguin as he rises through the criminal underworld of Gotham City, battling for supremacy with other underworld figures like crime boss Carmine Falcone’s daughter — a serial killer (Cristin Milioti) who turns into the Hangman. Though we’ve been inundated with dozens of superhero stories the last few decades, needless to say this one is different enough to be excited for.

— Zack Christenson

La Maison

Apple TV+, September 20

Fashion is so haute right now. Building on the swell of soapy fashion TV shows like New Look, Feud: Capote vs. the Swans and Halston, La Maison debuts a fresh take on a tale as old as time. If Emily in Paris is a macaron-sweet send-up, La Maison intends to spin a yarn thick with luxury and intrigue. A Dallas for the modern era, with shoulder pads to match, it’s a ten-hour French-language family drama set in the world of Parisian high fashion. The show gives a glimpse into the ateliers, and the dysfunctional inner workings, of two rival families as they outmaneuver one another for power in the world of fashion. The only thing more sparkling than the plot is the cast, stacked deep with César-winning French actors. You’ll have to keep up with the sous-titres, but there could be no chicer teachers. Pop on your reading glasses and get ready to pick up either a leçon de français or a new fall look.

— CDP

Nobody Wants This

Netflix, September 26

The adage goes “write what you know” — and Erin Foster has proven that her life is a fertile source of laughs. Foster first made waves with her satirical send-up of nepo baby culture in the mid-aughts with Barely Famous. Her new series Nobody Wants This stars Kristen Bell and Adam Brody and is loosely based on Foster’s real-life experience of meeting and dating her husband. A rabbi and an agnostic meet; they fall madly in love and hilarity ensues. Justine Lupe of Succession and Veep’s Timothy Simons costar as the protagonists’ siblings. With Foster’s deft pen and the watchful eyes of Steven Levitan (of Modern Family), this will be a series everyone is talking about.

— CDP

Megalopolis

In theaters September 27

For cineasts of a certain age, Francis Ford Coppola’s big comeback isn’t just the most exciting film of the year, but the most anticipated picture of the decade, perhaps even the century so far. Although reviews coming out of Cannes varied between rapturous-but-bewildered and just plain negative, Coppola’s wildly ambitious film, forty years in the making and set in a futuristic New York that has assumed aspects of Ancient Rome, promises to redefine auteur-led cinema. Whether it’s a massive flop or an unexpected hit, its presence in theaters is something to be cherished in this increasingly homogenous, risk-averse climate. And I’d rather watch it than Deadpool & Wolverine any day.

— AL

Lasso

Lana Del Rey, September TBD

There’s no doubt country is cool again — and everyone wants a piece of the action. Beyoncé released her take on pop country, Cowboy Carter, earlier this year and Post Malone is taking the Morgan Wallen route with the pop and hip hop-influenced F-1 Trillion, which dropped in August. This is surely much to the chagrin of Lana Del Rey, who has been inserting Americana references into her music since her debut and has been spending more time in rural America since dating a man from Tulsa. This September she is expected to release a full-blown country album, Lasso, but a recent interview has fans wondering if she might delay or alter the project. “When I gave Jack Antonoff his award for Best Producer of The Year, I said, ‘Welcome Nashville to Hollywood and Hollywood, welcome to Nashville because the music business has gone, gone country.’And it went silent, 5,000 people, dead silent,” Del Rey said in March. “Then the next week, we had three major artists announce big country albums. So where’s Lasso going? I really have no idea now!”

— Amber Duke

Lee

In theaters September 27

A snapshot of Lee Miller’s life as Vogue model, surrealist muse and female combat photographer embedded with Allied troops in World War Two. Beyond the frame, there was a nuanced woman rich with experiences both beautiful and heinous that honed her masterful eye. Kate Winslet’s long-awaited portrayal of British Vogue’s World War Two correspondent is a thoughtfully made labor of love from Oscar-nominated Ellen Kuras. Like her photographs a mix of beauty and pain, glory and gore, Winslet’s Miller is in the thick of early middle-age when she is struck by the atrocities of the Holocaust. The film explores her unflagging urgency to share what she documents. It’s hard to imagine a time when the horrors of the Holocaust were doubted, and harder still to imagine the dichotomy of her images against a 1940s Vogue.

— CDP

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s September 2024 World edition.