Best new movies and TV series on Disney+ New Zealand: March 2023

Each month, new films and TV shows are added to Disney+’s New Zealand library. Here’s Eliza Janssen’s recommendations for the titles most worth watching. Scroll down for the full list of everything arriving on the platform.

Top picks

History of the World Part II (March 6)

It’s been four decades since Mel Brooks gave us his take on everything that’s ever happened to humanity, from Rome to Revolutions to a look ahead at “Jews in Space” (which turned out to be its own great, spoofy thing).

Miraculously, Brooks is still goofin’ around at age 96, employing a cast of fresh comedy talent (Wanda Sykes! Seth Rogen! Nick Kroll! Ike Barinholtz!) to tackle such historical sketches as: “Shakespeare’s Writers Room. Invention of Fire. The REAL Kama Sutra”, etc etc. Early critics have said it’s as hilarious (and hit and miss) and Brooks’ usual work, often acting more as an homage to his legacy than a History of the World Part I sequel.

The Banshees of Inisherin (March 8)

If you haven’t enjoyed it already, now’s a good time to check out Martin McDonagh’s new black comedy before it gets its chance at Oscars greatness (it’ll probably nab Best Original Screenplay, methinks). The yarn follows two mismatched mates falling out of ‘like’ for the simple reason that one (Brendan Gleeson) now finds the other (Colin Farrell) dull, holding him back from a greater life purpose (fiddlin’).

The whole thing feels like an assembly of good, hearty ol’ Irish jokes and ballads…until the breakup starts to warp both of them, driving a brow-tastic Farrell to change his entire personality and Gleeson to, uh, take a drastic course of self-mutilation.

Boston Strangler (March 17)

It’s been said that Keira Knightley only really looks right in period costume: she definitely has an ‘of-another-time’ quality that won’t be too tested in this 1960s true crime series. She and Carrie Coon play the first reporters who connected a string of grisly murders together to characterise a serial killer, despite their humble efforts being played down and patronised by male-dominated authorities. This film comes from producer Ridley Scott, and was shot last year all around Massachusetts, perhaps capturing some of the unsettled ghosts forever tied to the Strangler case.