Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

5 shows to stream this week: A young pope, an old samurai, and a true crime

Online streaming is bigger than ever and with so many streaming services adding new shows and movies every week, it can be nearly impossible to sort through the good and the bad. If you need something to watch and don’t want to wade through the digital muck that washes up on the internet’s shores, follow our picks below for the best new shows and movies worth a watch.

The Young Pope Season 1

Image used with permission by copyright holder

Although its title may seem a bit silly, The Young Pope is a remarkably intelligent show, and one of the most bizarre projects on television. The series follows Lenny Belardo (Jude Law), an American bishop chosen as the next Pope. Although the leaders of the Catholic Church expect him to be a friendly face for the pop-culture era, Lenny has other ideas. Deeply conservative, Lenny — adopting the name Pius XIII — seeks to return the Church to its glory days, pushing a message of of spiritual struggle and exclusivity.

Directed by Italian filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino, The Young Pope is a beautiful, polished series. Sorrentino takes a formal approach, carefully composing every detail on screen for maximum effect. Like many of the great television dramas, the show is largely a character study, a meditation on faith and God’s absence through the lens of a man who claims to be closer to God than anyone. Fitting for a story about the divine, the show is appropriately weird. The show employs surreal — sometimes nightmarish — imagery throughout, giving the impression that we are witnessing a world with a touch of the supernatural.

HBO Buy Now

It Follows

Image used with permission by copyright holder

From the opening moments of It Follows, director David Robert Mitchell establishes a tone of creeping dread, as a young woman flees an unseen pursuer, the camera crawling behind her. Like many great horror films, It Follows takes relatable emotions — the creepy feeling of someone watching you from afar, and the anxieties surrounding sex — and expounds on them. After the gruesome opening, the film centers on Jay (Maika Monroe), a high school student in Detroit who sleeps with her boyfriend, Hugh (Jake Weary), for the first time. Teenage lust quickly gives way to fear when Hugh reveals that he was cursed, and has passed his demonic problem on to her; she will be stalked by a shape-shifting creature that is always moving toward her, and the only way to get rid of the curse is to pass it on through sex.

It Follows is an intensely creepy film, not just due to the premise, but also Mitchell’s adept filmmaking. The creature can look like anyone, and Mitchell offers glimpses at figures moving in the background throughout scenes, such that any passerby seem like they could be the creature. Like Jay, the viewer develops a sense of paranoia that never lets up. That feeling is accentuated by a relentless electronica soundtrack, full of pulsing, fuzzy synths and pounding drums.

Netflix Buy Now

The Investigator: A British Crime Story

Image used with permission by copyright holder

The true crime genre has undergone a mighty resurgence lately, with podcasts like Serial and shows like Making a Murderer developing huge followings. True to its name, The Investigator examines a crime that took place in Britain, the disappearance of Carol Packman in 1985. Packman’s husband, Russell Causley, was eventually convicted of her murder. However, her body was ever found, and the series follows former police officer Mark Williams-Thomas as he investigates the circumstances surrounding Packman’s disappearance and tries to bring some closure to her daughter, Samantha Gillingham.

In addition to historical footage and interviews, The Investigator also features reenactments of events, and along with some dramatic music, the presentation occasionally takes on the air of a tabloid story; as Williams-Thomas explains in the opening minutes, this is a case involving murder, sex, and even fraud, a perfect recipe for drama. Williams-Thomas never loses sight of the grief at the heart of the case, though, and comes across as genuinely concerned for Gillingham and the answers that have eluded her. Although not as earth-shattering as something like The Jinx, The Investigator is still a gripping crime story.

Netflix

The Visit

Image used with permission by copyright holder

After a long streak of critical failures, director M. Night Shyamalan had become somewhat of a joke among filmgoers. For those who remember the promise of his early films, The Visit may be a welcome return to form, a tense and mostly restrained thriller. The Visit follows teens Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), who are visiting their grandparents, whom they have never met, for the first time while their mother is on vacation. Their grandparents instruct them to stay in bed after 9:30 p.m., and to never go into the basement, and very soon the children start to notice some strange behavior.

Framed as a documentary filmed by the kids, The Visit falls into the oft-maligned (and rightly so) genre of “found footage” films. Thankfully, Shyamalan plays to the genre’s strengths, keeping the horror off screen or in the shadows to maximize the tension. While the film does involve the perfunctory Shyamalan twist, the plot is much more grounded than his usual works, relying on simple but effective scares rather than surprising, convoluted revelations.

HBO Buy Now

Yojimbo

Image used with permission by copyright holder

A masterless samurai (Toshiro Mifune) strolls into a town overrun with violence; two rival gangs have been fighting for control. A local man offers the samurai — who calls himself Kuwabatake Sanjuro, or “30-year-old mulberry field” — a job as bodyguard. Sanjuro decides to stick around, but not for altruistic reasons; as he muses, “I’ll get paid for killing. And this town is full of people who deserve to die.” That line sums up Yojimbo’s outlook, a film in which there are no heroes, only unscrupulous men hoping to come out on top. Sanjuro’s plan is to offer his services as a swordsman to both sides, playing them off each other and eventually walking away a wealthy man.

The premise for Yojimbo may seem familiar to fans of Westerns; indeed, Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars, one of the most influential Westerns ever made, was virtually a remake of this film. Director Akira Kurosawa was himself influenced by the noir novels of Dashiell Hammett, and that shows in the film’s ethical morass. Mifune is excellent as the vagabond antihero; he prowls through scenes, shoulders raised, head lowered, like a dog waiting to strike. Yojimbo may not be as fast-paced as more modern samurai films, but it maintains a terrifying power even in its quietest moments.

FilmStruck

Will Nicol
Will Nicol is a Senior Writer at Digital Trends. He covers a variety of subjects, particularly emerging technologies, movies…
One of the best TVs ever made is below $2,000, and comes with expert delivery
Panasonic Z95A

When you look through our current list of the best TVs, there are exactly two TVs that should stand out to you, even if you're a casual skimmer. The first is the Sony A95L QD-OLED, simply because it is at the top of the list. The second is the Panasonic Z95A, not because it's the runner-up (which it is) but because it's... Panasonic. It's just not a brand we see making winning TVs, but wow, what a winner the Z95A is. We immediately called it one of the best TVs ever made, something that will be apparent to your eyes if you get it. Now, what's exciting about this TV right now is that it has a low price. You can get the 65-inch version of the TV for $1,998 right now, a savings of over $1,200 off its usual $3,200 price point. You can even get a deluxe delivery and unpack for free if you select the right option on the sales page (accessible by tapping the button below). But, this deal has been around for some time now, since around the start of summer. With Prime Day here and ending soon, it's very likely the time for this deal to end as well. If you want one of the best TVs ever for under $2,000, be sure to tap the button below now.

$1,998 at Amazon

Read more
An amazing TV under $1,000 has a sub $500 Prime Day price (and it’s ending soon)
TCL QM6K

We're now in the final moments of Amazon's summer Prime Day 2025 event, and finding critical last-minute deals. Here's one that almost fundamentally changes how you'll likely think about a product. See, we have a whole list of the best TVs under $1,000, a price point that a ton of people that love TVs just don't feel comfortable crossing. Then, we have a separate list for budget TVs, the best TVs under $500. Even though prices (which move up and down!) are quantitative data points, the differences between a sub $1,000 and a sub $500 TV feel almost categorical in nature, like the difference between water and steam. This deal take the $600 55-inch TCL QM6K (one of the TVs in our 'under $1,000' list) and pushes its price down by $152. This puts it at a price of $448, which is an all time low for it on Amazon, transforms it into an 'under $500' TV. Tap the button below to get the transformative deal while Prime Day is still here or continue reading to see why we liked it so much even when it was over $500.

$448 at Amazon

Read more
Our favorite soundbar is 41% off for Prime Day, but time is running out
Samsung HW-Q990D Dolby Atmos Soundbar.

There are a lot of soundbar deals that are still available as we approach the end of Prime Day, but this is the one that you should target -- the Samsung HW-Q990D with a huge 41% discount from Amazon, slashing its price from $1,998 all the way down to just $1,178. It's still expensive, but if you want to make an investment to dramatically improve your home theater setup's audio, you shouldn't miss this chance at $820 in savings. You have to hurry though, as there are only a few hours left before the shopping event closes.

$1,178 at Amazon

Read more