It is Tuesday, tea is done, and you have already lost twenty minutes to the home screen. Here is what is new to streaming in September 2026: six releases worth planning the month around, with the NZ service and date for each. The clocks go forward on Sunday 27 September and the lounge stops being the only warm room in the flat. By week two you will still end up back on Shortland Street. We know. Consider this the twenty minutes back.
Two things carry over from August. Lanterns is still weekly on HBO Max, a Monday at a time, through to the New Zealand finale on 5 October, and Ted Lasso runs on Apple TV to 7 October. The pattern is that most of the new stuff arrives in one week, the 16th and the 17th, then the month goes quiet. The oddity is the NFL playing Melbourne live on Netflix at 12:35pm on Friday 11 September, a strange thing to have Netflix open for at work.
Six new to streaming in September, sorted
The rule has not changed: only the releases your household will genuinely argue over, and never more than two off any one app. Two Disney+ films, two drops that land whole, one weekly spy show, and a comedy for the honourable mention. Dates below are the NZ arrivals as announced. Anything that moves, we will say so on the weekly page.
The Mandalorian and Grogu
Disney+ has it here from Wednesday 2 September. Din Djarin and the small green one, in cinemas three months ago and on the TV now without the ticket price. Jon Favreau directing, 132 minutes, and the one film this month the whole whānau will sit down for.
Slow Horses
Season six starts on Apple TV on 16 September, six episodes weekly through to 21 October. Jackson Lamb, still the worst colleague in London, still right about everything. A standing appointment into late spring, and the rare show nobody in the house objects to.
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story
Netflix puts all eight episodes up on 17 September, so this is the one that eats a weekend. Ryan Murphy's fourth Monster, with Ella Beatty as Borden and Charlie Hunnam as her father. Grim, handsome, and impossible to stop at one episode.
Neagley
Prime Video drops all eight episodes on 16 September. Maria Sten takes Frances Neagley out of Reacher and into her own case in Chicago, a smaller and more suspicious proposition than a very large man walking into a diner. If August's Reacher went down well, this is the follow-up.
Toy Story 5
The billion-dollar one. Woody, Buzz and the gang against a tablet, 23 September everywhere Disney has announced it, though Disney+ NZ has not listed a local date yet. Three weeks after the Mandalorian, which makes September a big month for the app the kids can already open.
Mayday
Honourable mention
Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh in a buddy action comedy, on Apple TV from Friday 4 September. Honourable mention because six was the limit and something had to give, not because it is the weak one. Good Friday-night material when the prestige stuff feels like homework.
The six, in depth
The Mandalorian and Grogu, Disney+, 2 September
Jon Favreau directs, Pedro Pascal is under the helmet, and it runs 132 minutes. It took 345.7 million US dollars worldwide, per The Numbers, and lands on Disney+ here on Wednesday 2 September: Flicks NZ lists it arriving 2 September, and the Disney+ New Zealand page agrees. The reservation is in the numbers too. Critics gave it 60 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences gave it 87, and that gap usually means a film that knows exactly who it is for. In a lounge with kids in it, that is a feature.
The catch-up is real but manageable. The Mandalorian runs three seasons on Disney+, eight episodes each, twenty-four in total, so call it a fortnight of evenings at two a night. Season three is where the film picks up, so if the household will not sit through the lot, watch that one. The Book of Boba Fett sits alongside it on Disney+, seven episodes with Temuera Morrison in the lead, which is reason enough on its own here. Optional, though. Season three is the only real homework.
Slow Horses season six, Apple TV, 16 September
Six episodes from 16 September, weekly through to 21 October, with Gary Oldman still playing Jackson Lamb as a man who has given up on hygiene but not on being right. The change worth knowing is behind the camera. Will Smith, who wrote the adaptation, left after season five, and this is the first series without him. Gaby Chiappe takes over as head writer for six, and Ben Vanstone is already lined up for seven. The August trailer also brings back Olivia Cooke's Sid Baker, which nobody was counting on.
Seasons one to five are all on Apple TV here, six episodes apiece, thirty in total, so call it twenty-odd hours from cold. Essential, and in order: the running jokes, the office politics and the body count all carry forward, and season six will not stop to explain any of it. Season one is a self-contained way to find out whether the household can take Lamb at all. If you are up to date, season five finished on 29 October last year, so one refresher would not hurt.
Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, Netflix, 17 September
All eight episodes on Netflix on 17 September, created by Ian Brennan, the fourth Ryan Murphy Monster. Ella Beatty plays Borden, Charlie Hunnam her father Andrew, Rebecca Hall her stepmother, Vicky Krieps the maid Bridget Sullivan. The detail the trailers leave out is that Borden was tried and acquitted of the 1892 axe murders, a harder story than a confession. Sarah Paulson also turns up as Aileen Wuornos, a killer from another century. The reservation: the Menendez season got 47 percent from critics. This anthology generates arguments more reliably than reviews.
There is no catch-up, and that is the point of an anthology. Nothing carries over but the format and the taste for a long, handsome, uncomfortable close-up. If you want to calibrate, Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story is on Netflix here, nine episodes from 2024, and one of them will tell you whether this is a house you fancy spending a weekend in. Optional, genuinely. It drops on a Thursday, so the weekend is right there. Start cold on the 17th and you will have missed nothing.
Neagley, Prime Video, 16 September
All eight episodes land on Prime Video on 16 September, created by Nick Santora and Nicholas Wootton. Maria Sten reprises Frances Neagley from Reacher, with Greyston Holt, Adeline Rudolph, Matthew Del Negro and Damon Herriman around her. She is a private investigator in Chicago and a friend from her past turns up dead. Prime Video put out the date and the first-look images at the end of June. The bet is that it is built on the quiet part of Reacher, not the part where a very large man walks into a diner.
Catch-up is optional and generous. Reacher runs four seasons on Prime Video here, eight episodes each, thirty-two in total, and every one holds up on a weeknight. Season four is the freshest, it was on this list in August, and it is the shortest route to knowing who Neagley is and why the show reckons she can carry eight hours alone. Skip it if you are pressed. This is a new case, not a fifth Reacher in a different hat.
Toy Story 5, Disney+, 23 September
Andrew Stanton and McKenna Harris direct, 102 minutes, picking up two years after the fourth film. Bonnie gets a frog-shaped tablet called Lilypad, voiced by Greta Lee. It took 1.129 billion US dollars worldwide and gave Pixar its biggest opening weekend on record. The film-makers told Variety that Lilypad is not the villain, which is a more interesting film than the trailers sold. On the date: 23 September is what Disney has announced, Disney+ NZ has not listed it locally, and Flicks still has it in 31 cinemas here.
All four earlier films are on Disney+ here, which makes this the easiest catch-up on the list: 81, 92, 108 and 100 minutes, so about six and a half hours over four school nights. Only the fourth is properly essential, because Bonnie is the kid the new one is about. The first three are optional and better than you remember. Start with the fourth if there is only one night going. If the spring holidays turn wet, running all four in order is a legitimate way to fill the afternoons.
Mayday, Apple TV, 4 September
Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh in a buddy action comedy, 110 minutes, from Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who made Dungeons and Dragons: Honour Among Thieves and got more out of it than expected. It goes up on Apple TV on Friday 4 September, going by Apple's own New Zealand storefront. Flicks lists the 5th, so if it is not there on Friday night it will be on Saturday. Reynolds is doing what Reynolds does. Branagh playing it straight opposite him is the reason to bother.
No catch-up at all, and that is most of the appeal. It is a stand-alone film on a service the flat is probably already paying for because of Ted Lasso, it runs under two hours, and nobody needs briefing before it starts. If the honourable mention slot has a job, this is it: the thing you put on when the prestige stuff feels like homework and nobody in the lounge can face a first episode. That is the whole pitch, and this month it is enough.
The rest of the month, briefly
Outside the six, The Gentlemen is back on Netflix on 3 September, all eight episodes at once. Sharon Horgan's new HBO comedy Youth premieres in the US on Sunday 20 September, and HBO Max here runs a day behind, so expect Monday 21 September, though it is not listed for New Zealand yet. And Toy Story 5 is still in cinemas, which puts it on this list and on 31 screens at once.
What is weekly and what lands in one go
Worth knowing before you commit. Slow Horses is the only weekly one here, so that is a standing appointment through to 21 October. Monster and Neagley both land whole on the 16th and the 17th, two binge weekends back to back if nobody has plans. Put the Mandalorian on early while everyone is keen, hold Toy Story 5 for the school holidays, and pace the one weekly. September more or less schedules itself after that.
That is everything new to streaming in September worth planning around. Six titles across four apps, which is four places to lose twenty minutes before anyone commits, so add the ones you are keen on and let the match sort the rest. What to watch this week stays current while the month runs, and the getting started guide is where you tick off the apps you actually pay for. MatchWatch is free, on the App Store, Google Play and the web. Available in New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and the United States.