Ten great things to watch this long weekend
We recommend the best TV, movies and other things to watch this King's Birthday weekend.
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Hear ye, hear ye, the most regal of the public holidays is upon us. As we celebrate the King's birthday this weekend, it's time to do exactly what the King would want us to do, which is blob out on the couch and watch a bit of telly. We've scoured the streamers and scrolled through our watchlists to come up with 10 things to watch that we know you'll enjoy. From the outrageous hijinks of The Rehearsal to the tension of the national Scrabble championships, we've got your long weekend viewing covered.
The Rehearsal S2 (Neon)
The greatest trick the devil (Nathan Fielder) ever pulled is making such staggering, genre-bending, ambitious, artful and jaw-dropping television that it is nearly impossible to summarise in a tidy little set of paragraphs. The Canadian comedian rose to fame with Nathan For You, in which he saves small businesses in outlandish and novel ways (Dumb Starbucks, viral goat rescue videos, poo-flavoured yoghurt). But even more resonant than his joke solutions was what he revealed in the participants: a culture desperate to be on television at any cost.
In The Rehearsal, this interest in fame, performance and television itself gets dialled up to 11. Season one saw Fielder obsessing over rehearsing moments of social life and domesticity, eventually simulating a home on an HBO sound stage for himself with a fake wife and child. Although season two begins with a more narrow focus – the number of plane crashes caused by miscommunication between pilots – it soon swings the emergency exit wide open and leaves you tumbling through all the horror, beauty, hilarity, tragedy and poetry that comes with being a person. If you thought The Curse finale was whacko, buckle up for this one. / Alex Casey
Nomad (Whakaata Māori and Māori+ from June 2)
This new show follows Kahurangi, a young Māori drifter carving out an off-grid life in Te Waipounamu, guided by the footsteps of his tūpuna. Equal parts rugged travelogue and lifestyle docuseries, it's a visually rich exploration of what it means to live off the land today. As he journeys from Kaikōura to the depths of the Haast bush, meeting cousins, friends, and fellow modern-day hunter-gatherers, Kahurangi taps into ancestral wisdom and reimagines it for the now – offering a fresh, distinctly Māori lens on sustainability, survival, and tino rangatiratanga. / Liam Rātana
The 2025 NZ Scrabble Nationals (YouTube)
I will be spending the entire long weekend playing Scrabble in a school hall in Hamilton, but if for some reason I wasn't doing that I'd probably be watching it live on the internet. The Nationals is the biggest event on the NZ Scrabble calendar – 69 players, six grades, 24 games over three days. This year's edition is the first time it's being streamed, and the first time you'll get to watch lower grade players like me and the 12-year-old boy who keeps beating me play alongside the experts. For a taste of the livestreamed Scrabble experience, check out this classic game from the Masters earlier this year between Howard Warner and Dylan Early. / Calum Henderson
Dept. Q (Netflix)
If you love a gritty, bingeable crime drama, then Netflix's new series Department Q should keep you going through the royal weekend. Based on the Danish book series by Jussi Adler-Olsen and created by the team behind The Queen's Gambit, Department Q follows brooding-but-brilliant detective Carl Morck as he joins a new cold-case unit in Edinburgh that's set up to fail. Matthew Goode (Discovery of Witches, Downton Abbey) stars as the troubled Morck, while the cast includes Shirley Henderson, Kelly Macdonald and Mark Bonner. This will tick all the usual crime drama boxes, but the dark humour and solid performances lift it beyond your standard police procedural. / Tara Ward
Final Destination: Bloodlines (In cinemas)
Sometimes you just really need to put your phone on flight mode, order a big popcorn and a choc top, and watch a bloody fun horror movie about a group of youngsters trying once again to cheat death's design. Final Destination was one of the defining horror properties of the early 2000s, and this 2020s requel breathes new life (and many, many new slapstick deaths) into the ghoulish franchise. Where some of the later sequels got too bogged down trying to be serious and spooky, Bloodlines leans hard into splatter, satire and absurdity. When a young lass in the swinging 60s has a premonition about a brand new tower collapsing, she saves the lives of every groovy soul meant to perish that day. As Devon Sawa will attest, death doesn't like that, and soon makes a beeline not only for the survivors, but their children. And then their children's children. A perfectly corny and self-aware thrill ride. / AC
Don't (TVNZ+)
Beloved New Zealand comedian Bubbah is back on the telly, and this time, she's asking some tricky questions about life's big events. Assisted by fellow comedians Courtney Dawson, Bailey Poching and Rhiannon McCall, Bubbah investigates what having children, getting married and buying a house means to young people today. Does this generation want the same things as their parents, and what options are there if they don't? This three part docuseries sees big issues tackled with humour, and it's a great option to kickstart discussions if you're stuck inside with the whānau this wet long weekend. / TW
Gossip Girl (Neon)
At this time of year the weather is getting colder, days look darker and our resilience feels smaller, so now is the perfect time to disappear into the faux first world problems of the rich teens in Gossip Girl (the OG one, do NOT bother with the remake). There's about 121 episodes and six seasons of this thing, and if you commit to complete bed rotting over the long weekend, you'll be able to start season one by Friday and get a quarter of the way through season three by the time you go to bed on Monday night.
And when you emerge from your Gossip Girl-induced hibernation, you will re-enter the world with a renewed respect for 2000s club-pop and indie rock (why did Dan lose his virginity to Serena while Elliott Smith was playing? Why not!), a keen interest in expensive Y2K fashion that kinda looks fugly now but in a cute vintage way, extensive knowledge of the rich lives of those on New York's Upper East side and a voice inside your head constantly repeating, 'you know you love me'. / Lyric Waiwiri-Smith
Sirens (Netflix)
This new five-part Netflix dark comedy is a perfect long-weekend binge, with standout performances from Meghann Fahy (The White Lotus season two) and Milly Alcock (House of the Dragon) as a pair of estranged sisters who are lured into the orbit of an intense and creepy rich lady played by the incomparable Julianne Moore. With its meditations on class, money, sex and family dynamics, plus some damn-I-wish-I-was-rich coastal scenery and a (spoiler alert) 'everyone loses' ending, it should at least partly fill The White Lotus-shaped hole in your viewing life. / Alice Neville
Overcompensating (Amazon Prime)
I've been a longtime Benito Skinner fan – from his early days doing Jonathan Van Ness as Jesus skits to his accurate star sign personality videos. I'm a dedicated Ride podcast listener, so I was especially excited when he announced his new comedy-drama series. Overcompensating draws from Benito's personal journey with identity and sexuality. He plays Benny, a closeted former football player trying to figure out where he fits in at college. The show is a hilarious time capsule of 2010s nostalgia, packed with emotional moments that sneak up on you. Who knew hearing Like a G6 today would still hit me exactly the way it did back then? It feels like a sharper version of the teen dramas we grew up on, like The OC and Gossip Girl. And if you're having Brat withdrawals, the Charli XCX-heavy soundtrack and a cameo from the Brat Queen herself will hit the spot. This show did not disappoint and I watched all eight episodes in one day while sick. / Jin Fellet
The Crown (Netflix)
Look, it feels a bit rude to be celebrating someone's birthday without giving him the gift of time, so this King's Birthday weekend, I'll be rewatching the first few seasons of The Crown. It's the award-winning family drama about a rich woman and her angsty offspring, as they struggle to balance their huge generational wealth, the demands of running an empire and their mum not letting them marry the people they want. If the rumours are true, this is exactly how King Charles himself will be spending the long weekend: remote in one hand, a slice of birthday cake in the other, and a big old smile on his dial. Plot twist: The King's birthday's actually in November! You got us good, Charlie. / TW
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