The thing about SBS is that there’s just so much stuff! Hours upon hours of entertainment, hundreds of series from around the globe – and some of them aren’t even Scandinavian crime dramas! Comedy, history, romance, sci-fi, the odd dash of horror – where do you even begin?
Look, it’s a pretty good problem to have, really, but it does mean that the occasional absolute banger can slip through to the wicket keeper when it should be knocking you for six. So, as the holiday season approaches and we’re all in the market for some downtime viewing, here are some of the past year’s offerings that may have escaped your notice but are definitely worth your attention, all part of SBS On Demand’s .
This Town
Set in early ‘80s Birmingham and Coventry, this six-part British series from creator Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders) explores the British music scene of the time – specifically two-tone and ska – against a backdrop of rioting and social unrest. Levi Brown, Ben Rose and Eve Austin are our working-class heroes struggling to form a band, but one has a brother serving in the British army in Belfast, the other’s father is an IRA lifer, and all have families riven by alcoholism and strife. It all adds up to an arresting portrait of a time and a place, with a banging soundtrack that includes the Specials, Blondie, the Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and the Selecter.
This Town is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
This Town
series • drama
MA15+
series • drama
MA15+
The Red King
This six-part British crime drama feels somewhat like a Welsh riff on folk horror classic The Wicker Man. Anjli Mohindra is detective sergeant Grace Narayan, posted to the remote island of St Jory after informing on fellow officers. The tiny Welsh settlement was once home to a pagan cult called the True Way, now all but extinct and essentially a tourist draw. But when the body of a missing boy is turned up, it seems the cult is not as extinct as she’s been told. A masterful work of creeping dread and paranoia, this is a darker slice of rural noir than usual.
The Red King is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
The Red King
series • mystery
MA15+
series • mystery
MA15+
Better Things
Comedy legend Pamela Adlon multitasks as creator and star in this semi-autobiographical sitcom that sees her as a single mother, Sam Fox, struggling to balance her ambitions as an actor with raising three kids as a single mother in modern day Los Angeles – including one played by a pre-breakthrough Mikey Madison (Anora). Sharp, self-aware comedy counterpoints the thoroughly relatable domestic drama in this unmissable series.
Better Things is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Better Things
series • Comedy drama
MA15+
series • Comedy drama
MA15+
Bones Of Crows
Expanding on the 2022 feature film of the same name by writer and director Marie Clements, this historical saga tells the tale of Aline Spears (Grace Dove), a First Nations woman who survives a childhood in a notorious Indian residential school, going on to become a Cree code talker for the Canadian Air Force in World War II. Across five episodes, the series is a multigenerational family saga tracing the history of Canadian Indigenous women in the 20th century as Aline, supported by her daughter Taylor (Gail Maurice) a lawyer, and granddaughter Percy (Cara Gee), reckons with her experiences and the struggles of First Nations people in contemporary Canada.
Bones Of Crows is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Bones of Crows
series • drama • Cree
MA15+
series • drama • Cree
MA15+
Das Boot
Based on the novel by Lothar-Günther Buchheim, previously adapted as a film to great acclaim by Wolfgang Petersen in 1981, this German-language series follows the story of the World War II-era German submarine U-612 during the Battle of the Atlantic, when Nazi “wolf packs” of subs preyed on Allied shipping, and their crews suffered the worst survival rate of the whole war. As a mutiny brews against inexperienced Captain Klaus Hoffmann (Rick Okon), back in La Rochelle in Occupied France, translator Simone Strasser (Vicki Krieps) is drawn into working for the Resistance. Expanding the scope of the original but retaining the tension, this is a thoroughly gripping thriller.
Das Boot is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Das Boot
series • drama • German
MA15+
series • drama • German
MA15+
The Doll Factory
Based on the 2019 novel of the same name by Elizabeth Macneal, this six-part British series is a lush gothic drama set in the Victorian period, where artist Iris Whittle (Esmé Creed-Miles) works painting the likenesses of dead children onto porcelain dolls for their grieving parents – as you do. She yearns to be an artist in her own right, and opportunity knocks when she attracts the attention of two very different men – brooding taxidermist Silas Reed (Éanna Hardwicke) and lusty pre-Raphaelite painter Louis Frost (George Webster). It’s Dickensian romance with a dark twist.
The Doll Factory is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
The Doll Factory
series • drama
MA15+
series • drama
MA15+
Bloodlands
The Irish crime boom continues – can we call it Noirish? – with this Belfast-set police procedural that kicks off when world-weary DCI Tom Brannick (James Nesbitt) investigates the disappearance of a local businessman who was once a high-ranking member of the IRA. The Troubles cast a long shadow over the series, as it soon becomes apparent that a feared assassin from back in the day may be plying his trade again, settling old scores and potentially igniting new conflict. Fans of Kin and Love/Hate will find familiar thrills here, albeit viewed from the opposite angle than usual.
Bloodlands is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
Bloodlands
series • crime
MA15+
series • crime
MA15+
The Fortress
This seven-part Norwegian sci-fi drama is reminiscent of the recent Australian ecological drama The Commons, set as it is in a near future wracked by ecological collapse. Everything’s fine in Norway, though – the country having walled itself off from the rest of the world and becoming a self-sustaining quasi-utopia. But as Edgar Allen Poe knew, you can’t bolt the door on death, and as a deadly pandemic begins to sweep through Norway’s closed society, we follow an array of characters, including Selome Emnetu’s scientist, Eili Harboe’s political fixer, and Russell Tovey’s British refugee, as they try to either save the day, survive it, or turn the disaster to their advantage.
The Fortress is streaming at SBS On Demand.
Stream free On Demand
The Fortress
series • drama • Norwegian Bokmål
MA15+
series • drama • Norwegian Bokmål
MA15+
Find more great shows you might have missed in the at SBS on Demand. You can also discover the year's most popular films, TV shows and documentaries and in the .
