Underground Railroad among May streaming highlights
History is revisited and reimagined in some of the film and TV highlights headed to streaming services in May.
Here’s a look at what to watch for this month:
The Underground Railroad. Oscar-winning Moonlight filmmaker Barry Jenkins directs the unflinching story of a young woman who escapes slavery on a Georgia plantation through the Underground Railroad. But in this series, the railroad is no longer just a metaphor, but a literal track operated as a route to freedom outside the antebellum south. Based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Jenkins’s 10-part limited series is an unblinking portrayal of the atrocities committed against enslaved Black people that’s balanced by the gentle sincerity the director has brought to his acclaimed films. (Amazon Prime Video, May 14)
1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything. Popular music helps define every era of modern history, but rarely so much as it did in 1971, a year when politics, culture and song collided. That’s the perspective of this eight-part docuseries that plunges deeper into a turbulent period in U.S. history than perhaps any other music documentary before it. Using the words of John Lennon, the songs of Joni Mitchell and the iconic vocals of Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye, this time capsule relies on archival footage and interviews to capture a world on the brink of seismic change. (Apple TV Plus, May 21)
In Treatment. Ten years after its third season wrapped, HBO’s therapy drama returns for a fourth go-around against the backdrop of a society in tumult. This time, Uzo Aduba (Orange is the New Black) is Dr. Brooke Taylor, stepping in for Gabriel Byrne, who previously led the series as Dr. Paul Weston. Each episode follows Taylor as she helps patients grapple with personal challenges, the global pandemic and recent social and cultural upheaval that’s left many of them searching for answers. (Crave/HBO, May 23, new episodes Sundays and Mondays)
Halston. Ewan McGregor plays fashion designer Ray Halston Frowick in this fivepart limited series about the man’s life of success and excess. Starting in the 1960s, he raised the bar on how New York’s high society dressed and by the 1970s he was offering looks to some of the biggest names while mingling at Studio 54. Created by Sharr White (The Affair) and executive produced by Ryan Murphy (The Politician, Hollywood), Halston is packed with a mesmerizing dose of energy and style. (Netflix, May 14)
Tenet. Christopher Nolan’s time-inversion thriller probably captured more attention last summer for running in theatres in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic than it did for its perplexing storyline. But what left moviegoers puzzled at the cinemas could prove more enticing at home with the “rewind” button close at hand. John David Washington and Robert Pattinson star in the mindbender that’s packed with explosive action and big twists. (Crave/HBO, May 7)