TV
The New Yorker Presents: season one (available 16 February)
Like a highbrow sketch show, Amazon’s newest original offering captures the spirit of the magazine to a T. Documentary maker du jour Alex Gibney and former Daily Show producer Kahane Cooperman head up the series, which features everything from a vignette of Alan Cumming playing God to a story about child rodeos and another that looks at the investors pumping cold hard cash into the US prison system. Episodes will be released weekly.
Vikings: season four (available 19 February)
It may be known as a lesser Game of Thrones, but there’s plenty to like in this show about the legendary Norse ruler Ragnar Lodbrok that’s full of pillage and paganism, battles and bloodshed.
Film
Final Destination 5 (available now)
In case you were clamouring for just a few more death-cheating experiences after the tetralogy.
Green Lantern (available now)
Ryan Reynold’s first turn as a superhero leading man. After he discovers a special green ring, he becomes part of an elite intergalactic force that fights evil. A watchably silly film through and through.
Private Benjamin (available on 4 February)
Goldie Hawn! That is all.
Aferim! (available 6 February)
A vulgar, dark and deadpan Romanian film set in Wallachia in the 1830s. Brilliant gallows humour.
Dolphin Tale (available 18 February)
A young boy finds an injured dolphin on the beach and takes him to a sanctuary where he gets given a prosthetic tail. As the beast recovers, the boy – and his veteran cousin, who has recently returned from Iraq – are also revitalised. In summary: Free Willy for the 21st-century child.
Divergent (available 20 February)
A cut-price Hunger Games, but an exhilarating ride nonetheless. In the first instalment of the latest YA dystopian franchise, society has been divided into five categories of people, based on their personalities. Those who fall into more than one category are pariahs, known as Divergent – and the powers-that-be find out that our heroine is one.
Enchanted (available 26 February)
A postmodern Disney film in which animated princess Giselle (the ever-brilliant Amy Adams) is banished from her faraway land and forced to come to 3D life in big bad New York City. After she emerges from a manhole cover, she sets off to find her Prince Charming with help from her new pals – the local cockroaches and pigeons. A feelgood fairytale that sits on the right side of satire.
