SBS continues as the destination for compelling and provocative storytelling with two new Australian commissions, brand new international drama series, and all of your returning favourites.
Highlights of the year ahead include:
NEW LOCAL DRAMA
Hungry Ghosts
Hungry Ghosts is a new four part Australian drama series that explores elements of the ‘supernatural thriller’ genre - Japanese and Korean ghost films. But its also authentically embedded in the lives of three generations of Vietnamese Australian families dealing with the aftermath of war. Set in contemporary Melbourne during the month of the Hungry Ghost festival when the Vietnamese community venerate their dead, Hungry Ghosts will be a suspenseful, character driven ghost story with heart, humour, and scares.
The Family Law (Season 3) - Returns in January
The Family Law is back for one final spin! Based on Benjamin Law’s hit memoir of the same name, the third and final season dives deep into the heart-bruising vulnerability required to put yourself on the line, own up to your needs, and go after the people you want to love, whether you’re in your teen years or in the middle of your life. It’s about the cost of denial and secrets, and the soul-corroding effects of keeping everything inside.
The Hunt
The Hunt delves into one of the biggest issues of the social media era - cyberbullying. The new drama series intimately imagines the lives of four teenagers, their friends, their families, their teachers, their communities during the lead up, revelation, and aftermath of a nude photo sharing scandal. Produced with funding from Screen Australia, and using teenagers and non-actors to tell the story, it is the kind of provocative local drama that only SBS would make.
Source: SBS
NEW INTERNATIONAL DRAMA
Butterfly - Debuts in January
International Emmy® Award-winning Anna Friel stars in a heartfelt story from BAFTA award-winning writer Tony Marchant. Butterfly is about the relationship between separated parents, Vicky and Stephen, and their division in opinion over how to support their gender variant child, Max. From a young age, their now 11-year-old son has identified as a girl and presented signs of gender dysphoria. What unfolds for all the family members involved is the greatest challenge and test of love and understanding imaginable.
Source: SBS
McMafia - Debuts in February
Inspired by the insider interviews in Misha Glenny’s bestselling book, James Norton and David Strathairn star in a drama that exposes the global network of organised crime. McMafia unravels a complex web of connections that joins up money launderers in Dubai, cyber criminals in India, Russian oligarchs in London, and Bedouin smugglers in the Negev desert.
The New Pope
Oscar winners Sharon Stone, John Malkovich, and Jude Law team up in this sequel to Paolo Sorrentino's The Young Pope.
Chimerica
Alessandra Nivola, F. Murray Abraham, and Sophie Okonedo star in the timely story of a photojournalist who travels to China with the hopes of finding out the identity of the mysterious man was who was photographed standing defiantly in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square twenty years ago.
The Name of the Rose
Based on Umberto Eco’s bestselling novel which also inspired a BAFTA winning film adaptation, The Name of the Rose is set in a gloomy medieval monastery where a friar must investigate a series of grisly murders. An international cast including John Tuturro, Rupert Everett, and James Cosmo will star in this latest adaptation of a timeless story.
RETURNING INTERNATIONAL DRAMAS
The Good Fight - Returns in April
Michael Sheen joins Christine Baranski, Audra Macdonald, Rose Leslie and Cush Jumbo in Season 3 of this high stakes legal drama. Always topical, Season 3 of The Good Fight will tackle several on-the-pulse issues like immigration policy and racial tensions under the Trump Administration, #MeToo, Fake News, and the potential impending impeachment of the President.
Source: SBS
The Handmaid’s Tale
Based of Margaret Atwood’s award winning novel, the third season of US dystopian drama The Handmaid’s Tale will be fast-tracked to SBS and SBS On Demand. Last season’s heart racing finale saw Offred (Elisabeth Moss) part ways with her newborn child in an act of unimaginable sacrifice.
Counterpart
With season 2, J.K. Simmons continues as U.N. bureaucrat Howard Silk, a man who discovers he has a doppelgänger in a parallel dimension who opens up a world of spies and double-crosses. Silk has no one he can trust - even those most close to him.
Vikings
Following the completion of Season 5 Part 2, Vikings will be back in 2019 for a whole new Season 6 as the fate of Kattegat and Ragnar’s sons continues to hang in the balance.
The Son
This sweeping family saga continues into its second season with Pierce Brosnan as Texas rancher Eli McCullough, who survived a frontier Comanche attack in 1849, leading his family's empire in difficult times throughout the 20th century.
Knightfall
Star Wars’ Mark Hamill joins the cast as Talus, a Knights Templar veteran of the Crusades who is set to train new recruits to the Order.
