Netflix leading the way as streaming services rocket in popularity
Netflix continues to lead from the front with shows that offer viewing inspiration.
Among the best options for August are Selling Sunset, with series three available from earlier this month.
It focuses on the employees of a high-end real estate firm and characters flog houses with golf courses on their roofs and discuss what kind of breast implants they have over dinner.
Stateless is another recommendation. The Australian programme tackles immigration through the real-life story of Cornelia Rau.
A permanent resident of the country who was unlawfully detained by the Australian government’s mandatory detention programme in 2004, Rau’s fictionalised character, Sofie, is just one of four people in Stateless, all of whom are considered refugees by the government.
Fear City, meanwhile, pitches New York versus the Mafia. Told from the FBI’s perspective, there is plenty of intelligence on the families that made up the mafia’s core.
The lesser-known story of how law enforcement adapted to bring them down is also told. The programme features archive footage and interviews with people who were there, providing great true crime content.
Amazon Prime Video has fast become another must-have streaming service and boasts Mad Men among its catalogue and focuses on the intense world of advertising in the 1960s in the ad agency Sterling Cooper on Madison Avenue, New York.
Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the creative director of Sterling Cooper, is fighting to retain clients and also control himself.
Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) joins the agency as Draper's secretary but has big ambitions. She sets about rising through the ranks at the firm. Although, things aren't as easy she initially hoped.
Among the best films on Amazon Prime UK is The Hunger Games. The trilogy follows Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) as she rallies against an authoritarian, dystopian state.
Everdeen volunteers to be thrown into the life and death combat arena of the Hunger Games, where only one person can survive, to save her sister's life. But this is just the beginning.
Across the trilogy, Everdeen goes from potential self-sacrifice to unwitting heroine.
The Wolf Of Wall Street is also available. Martin Scorsese's celebration of excess is probably the most watchable three-hour movie ever made.
Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill shine in this black comedy based on the life of notorious Wall Street fraudster Jordan Belfort, which also features one of the most iconic cameos in recent memory from Matthew McConaughey.
BBC’s iPlayer offers a wide range of dramas, comedies and factual content. From classic dramas like Heroes, Line of Duty and Doctor Foster, to newer nail-biters like The Secrets She Keeps and The Salisbury Poisonings.
The streamer is equally filled with side-splitting comedies – like the new series of The Young Offenders or the lockdown satire Staged.
There’s even international imports, such as Katy Keene, The Secrets She Keeps and Canada’s Drag Race to make you feel as if you’ve travelled half-way across the world, while British break-outs like I May Destroy You and Ghosts will renew your faith in excellent home-grown content.
