What to stream this week: Sam Campbell’s wonderfully weird comedy, plus five more picks

With Make That Movie, the Australian comedian – and Guy Montgomery’s Guy Mont Spelling Bee sidekick – has made what is possibly the most absurd show of the year. Plus, a Brisbane-set rom-com, an MMA drama starring Russell Crowe and Mindy Kaling’s new workplace comedy.

Make That Movie ★★★★ (HBO Max)

Have you ever watched a heartwarming surprise renovation show or Queer Eye and thought, “Oh, but if only such a program existed for cinema”? No, of course you haven’t. No one has ever thought anything close to that. Except for Sam Campbell, one of Australia’s biggest oddball exports evidently given carte blanche by UK’s Channel 4 for Make That Movie – his first TV show, featuring his kindred awkward-spirit Aaron Chen.

A strong contender for 2026’s most absurd and inventive comedy, Make That Movie is probably best described in three words: “Let Campbell cook”. (Or, more accurately, Campbell and co-writer and director Joe Pelling, of cult surreal-comedy Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared.)

It’s Backyard Blitz meets Werner Herzog losing his mind in the Amazon rainforest, presented with the hokiness of a local network show, complete with dated opening credits over a pan-flute theme. And the convoluted, fever-dream premise? A lifestyle-reality show following an eccentric Fab 5 of filmmaking who travel the country in matching purple jumpsuits, making feature-lengths in three days, based on ideas pitched by the public.

At the centre is Campbell as himself – albeit in an alternate reality where he’s a fading, insecure Hollywood director running low on ideas, rather than a stand-up with a slightly disconcerting presence. That awkwardness works well, especially as he tries to rule over sets of amateur actors, retirees and Sebastian – a morose punching bag played by Chen, who is only tolerated as he’s bankrolling their movies.

And the films? With one per episode, they range from Snake Swap – a romance where a couple are cursed to be snakes but never at the same time – to an animated children’s film about a war between feet and hands, created for barefoot enthusiasts trapped in a mine.

Maybe it’s beginning to sound a little too quirky. The ever-escalating irreverence isn’t for everyone, naturally. It’s unlikely to win you over if Campbell’s comedy hasn’t already.

And even as a fan of left-field comedy, I don’t always connect with a surreal style outside of sketch shows (see: former Saturday Night Live writer Julio Torres’ admirable-but-alienating HBO show Los Espookys, or Tim Robinson’s too-excruciating cringe-comedy The Chair Company).

But Campbell’s made a career out of continually surprising and confusing audiences, first in Australia before moving to the UK in 2022. There, he’s broken big in part by repeatedly breaking conventions of British quiz and game shows such as Taskmaster, QI and Last One Laughing with surreal PowerPoint presentations and deadpan jokes about mole people.

Make That Movie continually subverts its own formula, and even, shockingly, offers up grounded character developments along the way. Call it movie magic.

Two Years Later ★★★ (Paramount+)

Don’t be put off by the clunky COVID talk in the first scenes of this romantic drama, where Phoebe Tonkin (Boy Swallows Universe) and Brenton Thwaites (We Bury the Dead) are two Brisbane strangers flirting on the bus, trading thoughts on a possible lockdown.

Two Years Later soon settles into 2022. The hokey references to Tiger King and touching elbows fall off, too, as the show focuses on a far more interesting legacy of the lockdowns – whether deeply lonely people can open back up.

Eager to make up for lost time, Ryan (Thwaites) initially proposes to Emily (Tonkin) when they meet again before landing on eight dates – one per episode. But Emily is still sheltering-in-place, stuck after some difficult years.

Putting aside COVID, it’s a shame Two Years Later begins as a much more generic romance than it is, though that’s perhaps by design. As we spend more time with Ryan and Emily and see through their fronts, the actors layer so much weight on their mannerisms, glances and intonations that reveal too much. Tonkin, in particular, lets us learn how to read Emily – how the sardonic jokes are attempts to stay aloof, or the careful casualness in certain questions.

Halfway through, the cliches (mostly) flip, landing like two desperate people trying to force connection. After those two years, who could blame them?

Beast ★★(Stan)

Australia’s been making boxing films for more than a decade, but there’s not a champion among them yet. Beast – co-written by Russell Crowe and starring an ultra-beefed-up Daniel MacPherson as a retired MMA fighter back for vengeance – is a touch too formulaic to take the open title.

But its tropes scratch an itch, as does Crowe as a bristly mentor, singer Amy Shark as coach and Luke Hemsworth as a shady manager. Genre fans will enjoy – especially its final act’s remarkably visceral fights, filmed relentlessly up-close and packed with horrifying squelches and screams.

Not Suitable For Work ★★★ (Disney+)

Repeat hit sitcom creator Mindy Kaling’s latest is a spiritual sequel of sorts to The Sex Lives of College Girls, her underrated and underseen Gen Z comedy. Swapping out the campus for a Manhattan apartment complex home to fresh graduates entering adulthood, Not Suitable For Work smartly doesn’t overplay its Gen Z references – even if it features a nepo baby who keeps overwokensating. But this is a classic work-and-dating sitcom at its core, with a cast of rising stars, including Mean Girls reboot highlight Avantika and Nicholas Duvernay (The White Lotus).

Welcome to Babel ★★★★ (DocPlay)

Filmed over seven years, this moving documentary follows celebrated Chinese-Australian artist Jiawei Shen creating Welcome to Babel – a four-panel, 130-square-metre epic capturing the failures, hopes and bloodshed of 20th-century communism. A major Chinese artist before escaping to Sydney in 1989, Shen was witness to much of the pain he paints.

It makes sense Babel is ugly and completely overwhelms the eye. The documentary, directed by Shen’s long-term friend James Bradley, is decidedly more measured – a portrait that takes in an immense historical landscape but never loses sight of Shen’s jokes, joys and sense of life.

Bring Me the Beauties ★★★ (HBO Max)

In a flood of true-crime slop, Bring Me the Beauties: A Model Cult unearths horrors that even the most hard-boiled amateur detectives likely aren’t across. Prior to this three-part series from Chris Smith (Fyre; The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann), little public info existed about the Eternal Values – a cult predominantly for models and great beauties, founded by 1980s Manhattan socialite and self-professed alien Frederick von Mierers. With great care, Smith spent years developing relationships with former members, most of whom had never spoken publicly. Terrifying true stories told with tenderness.

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