Best New Shows and Movies on Netflix This Week: GLOW, Rocko’s Modern Life, The Family

Looking for something new to watch on Netflix? Here is a list of all the best new shows and movies released on Netflix the week of August 9-August 15.

This week, Netflix is all about nostalgia. GLOW is back for Season 3, and its dedication to recreating the mid-80s is as detailed and tongue-in-cheek as ever. That show is very good at threading the needle between period piece and modern-day look back. Cable Girls throws it back to early ’30s Spain, when life was difficult and uncertain, but the outfits were fabulous. And Rocko’s Modern Life: Static Cling dissects the very idea of nostalgia with its revival movie, which is a self-aware satire of the late 2010s’ longing for the simpler times of the 1990s. These are all times Netflix didn’t exist.

(All titles are out Friday, Aug. 9, unless otherwise specified.)

If you’re looking for even more hand-picked recommendations, click over to our Watch This Now! page.

The Biggest Releases

GLOW, Season 3
All you really need to know about Season 3 of the wrestling dramedy is that it opens with a joke that’s so dark, so tasteless, and so funny that you’ll have a hard time breathing while you watch it. It’s maybe the best comedy bit of the year. I won’t spoil it for you, but as a hint I’ll say that the scene takes place in January 1986. Beyond that, the show continues to be one of Netflix’s best, fueled by a love of pro wrestling, ’80s kitsch, and fantastic performances by Alison Brie and Betty Gilpin. Geena Davis joins the show in Season 3 as the intimidating entertainment director of the Las Vegas hotel where the Gorgeous Ladies are wrestlers-in-residence.

Rocko’s Modern Life: Static Cling
Rocko’s Modern Life was a surrealist Nickelodeon animated series appreciated by kids and adults that ran from 1993 to 1996. It bridged the gap between the darkness of Ren & Stimpy and the silliness of SpongeBob SquarePants. And since everything that dies someday comes back, the show now has a Netflix movie. Static Cling is a clever revival, though, where Rocko the wallaby-man and his friends return to Earth after being gone since the ’90s, and find a world they no longer recognize where everyone is addicted to technology. In a life-imitates-art twist, this won’t even air on Nickelodeon, and has gone straight to Netflix. (Trailer)

Everything Else

The Family
A shadowy, secretive conservative Christian political influence group gets exposed in this searing five-episode docuseries. The group, officially known as the Fellowship Foundation, sponsors just one public event, the National Prayer Breakfast, which every sitting president since Ronald Reagan has attended. They have connections to governments all over the world, and is doing what they can to knock down the wall between church and state. Disturbing stuff.

Cable Girls, Season 4
Netflix returns to 1931 Madrid for Season 4 of this period drama. People really want to know if Francisco survived his harrowing journey in the Season 3 finale, so if you’re a fan, you better binge it on Friday night to find out so you don’t get spoiled on social media. (Trailer)

The InBESTigators, Season 1
This kids’ series is basically Encyclopedia Brown if Encyclopedia Brown were four Australian children. They solve small mysteries like “someone stole my science fair experiment” while speaking in delightful little accents. (Trailer)

Sintonia, Season 1
You’ll get definite City of God vibes from this gritty Brazilian series about three teenagers living in a São Paulo favela, where music, religion, and the drug trade intersect. They have dreams of getting out, but in order to get out, they have to do some dirt first. “If you point the banger, you gotta make it bang,” you know? (Trailer)

Spirit Riding Free: Pony Tales
This is a collection of shorts and music videos featuring Spirit the horse and his girl Lucky from the popular Netflix animated series Spirit Riding Free. If your kids want to watch this, don’t say “neigh.” (Trailer)

Tiffany Haddish Presents: They Ready
The ubiquitous Tiffany Haddish hosts and produces this collection of half-hour stand-up specials from six of her friends: Chaunté Wayans, April Macie, Tracey Ashley, Aida Rodriguez, Flame Monroe, and Marlo Williams. Get to know them now. (Trailer / Tuesday, Aug. 13)

Cannon Busters, Season 1
Western-influenced anime that mixes ultraviolence with a wacky tone. Anime is the pop cultural common denominator for right- and left-wing online extremists. That’s my horseshoe theory. I’m not saying anime radicalizes alienated young men, but I am saying that a high percentage of the most noxious accounts on Twitter have anime avatars. (Trailer / Thursday, Aug. 15)

Stop searching, start watching! TV Guide’s Watch This Now! page has even more TV recommendations.

The 52 Netflix Originals You Should Be Watching

Betty Gilpin and Alison Brie, GLOWPhoto: Ali Goldstein/Netflix