5 Titles to Stream While Riding Out the Coronavirus

When you’re done watching Contagion (it’s only the third most rented movie on the U.S. iTunes chart right now) and looking for yet another form of escapism or sheer entertainment — from zombie thrillers to tales of vengeance and ambition — these recently released series and short films will keep you hooked:

1. ‘Kingdom’ (Season 2)

A still from ‘Kingdom’

Take it from someone who has watched every zombie show on earth — The Walking Dead, Fear The Walking Dead, iZombie, Z Nation, Santa Clarita Diet… the list goes on — it’s really hard to stand out in the genre of the undead. But Kingdom does all that and more. The South Korean political zombie drama set in the early 1600s follows Crown Prince Lee Chang (Ju Ji-Hoon) in his quest to find the truth about his father’s illness while stopping a plague that threatens to ravage the entire kingdom. Needless to say, things go south soon but the series manages to reinvent a genre so done to death through its fusion of mythology, history, science and politics, that even in its second season Kingdom emerges as an absolutely binge-worthy winner, thrilling way past just the action.   

Stream it on Netflix

2. ‘Pushpavalli’ (Season 2)

A still from ‘Pushpavalli’

Sumukhi Suresh is back as the titular character in the comedy drama series that’s wildly entertaining from the get-go. While Pushpavalli moved to Bengaluru to stalk a guy in season one, she moves back to exact revenge in season two. The surprisingly feel-good series brilliantly balances the light and the dark of a character so hell-bent and conditioned to view herself as inferior, that she’s blind to her own toxicity. But where Pushpavalli really succeeds is in how it unceasingly humors — the series is a laugh riot — while also holding up a mirror to what we’ll readily normalize as society. This series is for anyone that’s feeling the blues.

Stream it on Amazon Prime Video

3. ‘Asur’

A still from ‘Asur’

It’s hard to find a series that melds science, crime and Hindu mythology in a way that doesn’t make you cringe and Asur is one of those rare finds. The crime thriller follows a forensic CBI unit that tracks a trail of unorganized murders all over the country with a unique barbarity that points to a single killer. What’s exciting is how the evidence gets murkier by the minute, implicating even the team’s own members as they confront their past and present to unlock the killer’s moral code of operations. While the first episode is a slow-burner, the series soon picks up and crafts an intricate nexi over timelines that’ll have you grabbing the popcorn. 

Stream it on Voot Select

4. ‘Hunters’

A still from ‘Hunters’

Controversial, brilliant, shameless, exploitative — Hunters has been called every word under the sun since its release. While the jury’s out on which adjective is the most fitting, it’s still one of the most immersive shows to come out in 2020. Following a rag-tag vigilante unit of Nazi hunters in 1977 New York city, the series is centered on their quest to deliver justice to rehabilitated Nazis living in America. Whether you agree with their methods or don’t, Hunters weaves a powerful narrative of consequence and capitalism in the cold war era. It imagines the many ways in which minorities might take power in their own hands and how the tipping scale of justice isn’t a leveled one. With an average episode clocking in at an hour, the series is quite the commitment but much like a book series one might take the weekend to devour, Hunters will keep you flipping till the very last page.

Stream it on Amazon Prime Video

5. ‘Sitara: Let Girls Dream’

A still from ‘Sitara: Let Girls Dream’

In the absence of dialogue, Sitara: Let Girls Dream is a vibrant montage of sound and expression. Set in Lahore, the short film explores the issue of child marriage through the lives of 14-year-old Pari and her six-year-old sister Mehr. Pari dreams of becoming a pilot and the sisters play with paper planes, unaware of the path that awaits the women in their family. Every single frame tells a story in Sitara: Let Girls Dream and the short film is a brilliantly sensitive enactment of a reality that still persists in the world. 

Stream it on Netflix