From an intimate look at screen idol Faye Dunaway to an epic saga set in ancient Rome, we round up our top 10 shows to watch this week
1. Faye – Saturday, July 6, HBO Canada

In the first-ever documentary about her life and movies, screen icon Faye Dunaway candidly discusses the triumphs and challenges of her illustrious career, from her breakthrough roles in Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown, through to her Oscar-winning performance in Network and the camp classic Mommie Dearest, which she has come to see as a critical career misstep. Through those reflections, Dunaway explores personal discoveries, including her struggles with mental health issues and bipolar disorder, her family history growing up in a small town in Florida, and how the intensity of the characters she’s played still impacts who she is today.
2. The Fortress – Tuesday, July 16, Viaplay | Series Premiere

Set in 2037, this dark seven-part drama series presents a harsh look at a dystopian future, described in its press release as “a chic isolationist parable thriller.” In this not-too-distant future, Norway has chosen to sever all ties with the rest of the world, surrounding itself with an enormous wall to keep everyone else out. With the isolationist nation having become entirely self-sufficient, its fortunate inhabitants enjoy safe and sheltered lives in a prosperous Nordic paradise — until a deadly pandemic breaks out, and they quickly realize the wall that’s supposed to protect them is now holding them prisoner. Russell Tovey (American Horror Story, Feud) portrays Charlie Oldman, a refugee from the U.K. attempting to migrate to Norway with his wife and baby. When he and his child are allowed in but his wife isn’t, she tries to enter the country through any means necessary, while Charlie is forced to comply with a long and arduous government program in order to gain permanent residency.
3. Simone Biles Rising – Wednesday, July 17, Netflix | Series Premiere

Gymnast Simone Biles has become one of the world’s best-known athletes after her phenomenal performance at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, winning seven medals — four of them gold. Anticipation was high for the 2020 games — until Biles shocked the world by withdrawing from several events due to her private mental-health struggles.
Her decision was a difficult one, made even more so when she was hit with backlash and vitriol by those who felt she’d let down Team USA. Since then, Biles has been putting in the difficult work, confronting some particularly tough traumas from her past and learning how to manage her mental health. As she continued to learn how to embrace that journey, she also started to shift her focus back to gymnastics, rebuilding her athletic skills from the ground up in the process. With unfinished business at hand, Biles is looking ahead to this summer’s Olympics in Paris, with plans to once again do what she’s always done — be the best that she can be. This four-part docuseries offers an intimate look at all of it, with Biles candidly sharing her story. “I knew it would be a long journey, but to me it wasn’t done,” she says at one point in the series, insistent that whatever ends up happening, she’ll have done it her way. “I get to write my own ending,” she added.
4. Big Brother – Wednesday, July 17, Global & CBS | Season Premiere

Season 26 opens with a two-night premiere. Host Julie Chen Moonves invites another gaggle of schemers and showmancers to shack up for a game show experience that’s equal parts brutal honesty and sheer absurdity. As ever, no one is to be trusted . . . especially the producers.
5. My Spy: The Eternal City – Thursday, July 18, Prime Video

Sporting a rare blend of gravitas, wit and G.I. Joe physique, former WWE wrestler Dave Bautista has in recent years distinguished himself as one of Hollywood’s most exciting action stars, with turns in flicks like Guardians of the Galaxy, Dune, Blade Runner 2049 and Glass Onion. In 2020, he even showed off his wholesome, family-friendly side with a Prime original movie about J.J., a disgraced CIA agent who, while trying to unravel an international conspiracy, reluctantly took on a pint-sized apprentice named Sophie (Chloe Coleman) — the nine-year-old girl who blackmailed him into teaching her the ins and outs of the spy game. Now, the unlikely duo returns for a second mission, as J.J., who is now Sophie’s stepfather, gets dragged along on the girl’s school trip to Italy — only to find himself in the middle of a terrorist plot.
6. Cobra Kai – Thursday, July 18, Netflix | Season Premiere

It’s the beginning of the end for Johnny, Daniel and the rest of the dojo, as this sleeper-hit reincarnation of the Karate Kid franchise unveils its sixth and final season. That said, it’s going to be a loooooonnnnngggggg goodbye, as Netflix is breaking the swan song up into three, five-episode instalments; the first arrives this Thursday, the second on Sunday, November 24, and the third sometime in 2025 (exact date still TBA).
As fans will recall, season five ended on a high note, as Daniel managed to Crane Kick his way to a victory over old nemesis Terry Silver. That said, the Cobra Kai dojo and its pupils have also been evicted from the Valley’s martial arts scene — which means our underdog heroes will need to get creative if they hope to compete in the global Sekai Taikai tourney.
Worse yet, despite having dispatched Mr. Silver, there’s another Big Bad blast from the past on his way to town, given that dastardly Cobra Kai founder John Kreese faked his own death and escaped from prison.
As co-creator Hayden Schlossberg told Tudum at the end of season five regarding the reappearance of Kreese: “A big battle just happened in our karate war. It may just be peace in the Valley. But there’s this one hanging [thread] that’s left there, which is the King Cobra who just escaped jail and has reason to have revenge on everybody.”
Meanwhile, on the decision to wrap the show with season six, Schlossberg told Screen Rant: “The point was in season five to have the [rival groups of] kids come together so that they can join as one giant team in this Sekai Taikai against the next-level fighters that they’re about to face . . . We knew in season five that we were in end-game times by doing that, [but] it wasn’t until after we shot season five that we kind of worked out exactly, ‘OK, this is going to be the end afterwards.’ ”
7. Find Me Falling – Friday, July 19, Netflix

Coincidentally, one of Roland Emmerich’s old Independence Day stars is also back with a new film this Friday, as Harry Connick, Jr. shows off both his musical and acting chops. Here, he plays John Allman, a burnt-out rock star who looks to rediscover his creative spark with a little getaway to the idyllic Mediterranean isle of Cyprus. But as this brooding artist fumbles to sort out his issues, an old flame unexpectedly comes back into his life, forcing John to rethink his priorities.
As writer-director Stelana Kliris told Netflix’s Tudum: “This is a love story about many kinds of love: romantic, family, lifelong dreams, and what you’re willing to sacrifice for the people or the things you love. John essentially has to decide whether the love of his life is his music or the woman he left behind.” In addition to starring, Connick wrote two original songs for the movie.
8. Lady in the Lake – Friday, July 19, Apple TV+ | Series Premiere

Another top-tier movie star comes to television this week, as Oscar-winner Natalie Portman heads up a limited series that Apple describes as both “a feverish noir thriller and an unexpected tale of the price women pay for their dreams.”
She plays Maddie Schwartz, a Jewish housewife in 1960s Baltimore who seeks to reinvent herself as an investigative journalist, just as the city is rocked by the disappearance of a young girl. At the same time, we follow the ill-fated saga of Cleo Sherwood (Obi-Wan Kenobi standout Moses Ingram), an activist looking to both make a difference for “Black Baltimore” and keep her family afloat. When Cleo winds up dead under mystifying circumstances, Maddie becomes obsessed with getting to the truth — which could lead to dire consequences for the people she and Cleo hold dear.
Based on Laura Lippman’s bestselling novel, the seven-part drama was written and directed by Alma Har’el, whose film Honey Boy was the cinematic toast of 2019.
Fleshing out the Cleo role beyond what appeared in the novel, Har’el told Variety that the show really is a “two-hander,” exploring the harsh realities faced by both Black and Jewish communities in Charm City at the time. “It’s a very humanizing look at all of this,” the director explained. “I think that in everything I do — and I wish the whole world was capable of this — the goal is to humanize every experience, and not just find out who’s right and who’s wrong.”
That said, Lady in the Lake is also a potboiling thriller with one doozy of a twist ending. “I think people just have to buckle up and go on the ride,” Har’el teased, “because, from episode five onwards, you have to experience it. Nothing I can say can prepare you for it, but I definitely would say that the twist of the book has only been expanded on.
9. Those About to Die – Friday, July 19, Prime Video | Series Premiere

Director of such films as Independence Day and 2012, Roland Emmerich takes a break from obliterating cityscapes to craft a 10-part historical thriller set in and around the gladitorial arenas of Ancient Rome. Based on Daniel P. Mannix’s nonfiction book, Those About to Die explores the bloody collision of “sports, politics and dynasties.” Struggling to contain it all is aging Roman emperor Vespasian, played by Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins. Meanwhile, Iwan Rheon, best known as Game of Thrones’ twisted “bastard” Ramsay Bolton, plays an ambitious young crime boss. Teasing the show in a statement, Emmerich said: “I have always been fascinated by the history of the Roman Empire. So much still seems relevant for our society today — from the entanglement of politics and sports to the disciplines of the competitions, which haven’t changed much either over the last 2,000 years. The most electrifying spectacles for the masses still involve two men in an arena, beating each other up, and the chariots of today are called race cars whose drivers still crash and often pay with their lives.”
10. Skywalkers: A Love Story – Friday, July 19, Netflix

Meet Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus, a pair of Moscow daredevils who’ve made a career out of scaling some of the world’s tallest buildings, in this documentary that looks at some of their most dangerous climbs while also delving into their unorthodox romance.