Ella Beatty as Lizzie Borden, her face spattered with blood, in an official still from Netflix's Monster

Entertainment 22 August 2026

This season of Monster picks a subject the court actually acquitted

Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story lands on Netflix on 17 September, all eight episodes at once. Ella Beatty takes the title role, with Charlie Hunnam, Rebecca Hall and Vicky Krieps around her.

Netflix put out the trailer for the fourth season of Monster on 20 August, and with it the date and the full cast. Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story arrives on 17 September, with all eight episodes dropping on day one.

There is a structural difference between this season and the three before it, and it is not a matter of style.

Jeffrey Dahmer, the Menendez brothers and Ed Gein had one thing in common: all of them were convicted. Lizzie Borden was not. In August 1892 her father and stepmother were found hacked to death in Fall River, Massachusetts. She was charged, she stood trial, and she was acquitted — and the doubt left behind is exactly what turned the case into one of the most rewritten in American criminal history, complete with a skipping rhyme, a long shelf of stage adaptations and a house museum that still takes bookings.

The cast

Ella Beatty, daughter of Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, plays Lizzie and is the first woman to carry the title role in the anthology. Charlie Hunnam returns for a second consecutive year, this time as her father Andrew, having played Ed Gein last season. Rebecca Hall is stepmother Abby, and Vicky Krieps takes the part of Bridget Sullivan, the family’s maid. Billie Lourd, Jessica Barden, Joey Pollari and Ryan Murphy regular Sarah Paulson fill out the ensemble.

Murphy created the season with Ian Brennan, as he has every instalment since the first.

What the tone is likely to be

The official logline describes a house built on humiliation and cruelty, and two women — the repressed daughter of a wealthy New England family and a rebellious maid — retreating into a fantasy of power and revenge. That is an openly authored reading of an unsolved case rather than a courtroom reconstruction, which in practice means anyone after documentary rigour will go unserved, and anyone who likes the Murphy register will recognise the ground immediately.

September is filling up with releases of roughly this shape. Netflix also brings its first Brazilian legal drama on 23 September, and a week before that Apple TV puts Slough House on the run in the sixth season of Slow Horses.

By Lucy Bennett

Image: Netflix

The cast of Habeas Corpus in a law lecture hall: Nicolas Lee, Felipe Ricca, Any Gabrielly, Marjorie Estiano, Pedro Roza and Luiza Gabus

Entertainment 21 August 2026

Netflix's first Brazilian legal drama drops on 23 September. All eight episodes at once

Habeas Corpus follows a criminal review group trying to overturn a wrongful conviction, with Marjorie Estiano and Any Gabrielly leading and the Innocence Project Brasil behind the premise.

There is an organisation in Brazil that does something distinctly untelevisual: it rereads old case files looking for convictions that should never have happened. It is called the Innocence Project Brasil, and it is where Netflix's new series begins. Habeas Corpus arrives on 23 September with all eight episodes released at once. It is the first scripted legal drama Netflix has made in Brazil, which explains a fair share of the attention. The country has a…

Wile E. Coyote studying an ACME blueprint on a rooftop with the ACME tower behind him, from the film Coyote vs. Acme

Entertainment 21 August 2026

Wile E. Coyote finally sues ACME (and John Cena is the company's lawyer)

Coyote vs. Acme opens in Portuguese cinemas on 27 August through NOS Audiovisuais, with Will Forte acting for the plaintiff and Dave Green directing.

The joke has run since 1949 and the setup never changes. The Coyote orders something from ACME, the something detonates in his face, the Road Runner vanishes down the highway. Nobody ever asked whose fault that was. Somebody has now. Coyote vs. Acme opens in Portuguese cinemas on 27 August, distributed by NOS Audiovisuais. It blends live action with animation around a premise anyone who watched the cartoons as a child will grasp in a second: after decades…

Entertainment 20 August 2026

The 26-year-old car salesman who is now a prince of Belgium

Clément Vandenkerckhove was legally recognised in February by Prince Laurent, younger brother of King Philippe, at a civil registry office. The story only surfaced this week. The title arrives without the allowance or a place in the succession.

Belgium acquired a prince this week. He is 26, his name is Clément Vandenkerckhove, and until recently he was selling cars. The recognition happened back in February, at a civil registry office, between Clément and Prince Laurent, younger brother of King Philippe. It sat there quietly for months. Only on 19 August did the story become public, and it travelled across Europe within hours. Clément was born in August 2000, the son of Laurent and Iris…

Entertainment 19 August 2026

The only Portuguese name in Venice's restoration line-up is not a film-maker

Cinemateca Portuguesa restored Flora Gomes's 1992 Guinea-Bissau feature Udju Azul di Yonta. It gets its world premiere in the Venice Classics strand in September.

Look for Portugal at Venice and the instinct is to scan the competition list for a director. This year the Portuguese entry sits further down the credits, on the line that names who restored the film. Cinemateca Portuguesa – Museu do Cinema carried out the restoration of Udju Azul di Yonta, Flora Gomes's second feature, shot in 1992 as a co-production between Guinea-Bissau, Portugal, France and the UK. It is one of 19 titles picked for the Venice Classics…

Big Brother Verão 2026 contestants in the house living room, in a frame from TVI's broadcast

Entertainment 19 August 2026

Big Brother Verão today — who's out, who leads and what's happening in the house

Rolling coverage of TVI's Big Brother Verão 2026: evictions, leaders, galas and the stories everyone's talking about, updated through the season.

This is our rolling coverage of Big Brother Verão 2026 — who's been evicted, who runs the house and what everyone's talking about, updated through the season. Instead of hunting down the day's recap, the essentials live here, with full episodes and live feeds always available on TVI's official site. Portugal's summer edition kicked off on 28 June with 18 anonymous contestants — nine men and nine women — locked into the country's most-watched house, with…

Entertainment 18 August 2026

Madonna's 11 nominations top the 2026 VMAs, two clear of Taylor Swift

MTV has published the full list. One project — Confessions II - The Film — carries eight of Madonna's eleven nods, and the ceremony airs live from Los Angeles on 27 September.

The tally runs like this: 11 nominations for Madonna, nine for Taylor Swift, seven each for Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter. Bruno Mars, PinkPantheress and Zara Larsson take five apiece. What lifts Madonna's number is a single piece of work. Confessions II - The Film is up for video of the year, best dance, best direction, best art direction, best cinematography, best editing, best visual effects and best choreography — most of the craft categories in…

Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb, sitting in an armchair in low light with glasses and a loosened tie, in an official first-look image from season six of Slow Horses

Entertainment 15 August 2026

Slow Horses returns on 16 September with Slough House on the run

Season six of the Gary Oldman spy drama premieres on Apple TV on 16 September, one episode a week through to 21 October. It adapts two Mick Herron novels, and this time the trouble starts inside MI5.

Some series curdle once they get big. This one has not, and it is back on 16 September. Season six of Slow Horses premieres that day on Apple TV, one episode at a time, weekly, through to 21 October. Six weeks of calendar, the format the show has always used, with no binge on day one.

Entertainment 15 August 2026

The first Harry Potter is back in Portuguese cinemas, and this time it runs longer

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone returns to the big screen in Portugal from 27 to 30 August, a limited run for the saga's 25th anniversary, with behind-the-scenes footage that was not in the original.

Some of the people who saw this in a cinema in 2001 aged ten will now be taking a ten-year-old of their own. That is the audience Warner Bros. is counting on, and the sums look about right: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone returns to Portuguese screens in a limited run from 27 to 30 August, part of the saga's 25th anniversary. Four days. This is not a rerelease with a commercial run behind it, it is a short window, which is the bit worth knowing…

Entertainment 13 August 2026

The country that wins Eurovision 2027 might not be allowed to host it

The EBU has approved three rule changes for the 2027 contest in Bulgaria: winners in conflict-affected regions can be barred from hosting, the minimum age for artists rises from 16 to 18, and the live-vocal rules have been spelled out.

Winning Eurovision has always come with a prize and a bill: the trophy, and the job of staging the whole thing twelve months later. The European Broadcasting Union has just made the second part conditional. Three rule changes were approved for the 2027 contest in Bulgaria. This is the one that matters. From 2027, a winning broadcaster is automatically ineligible to host the following contest where an armed conflict, a sensitive geopolitical situation or…

Entertainment 12 August 2026

Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez married in Cascais (and told the world with a photo of two rings)

The civil ceremony took place on Tuesday 11 August, private and heavily guarded, with the couple's children present. Nine years after they met in Madrid, the announcement ran to three characters.

Cascais, in the end. After a month of dates that never firmed up and venues that were denied almost as fast as they were reported, Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez were married on Tuesday 11 August in a private civil ceremony, their children present, security tight enough that nothing leaked until the couple wanted it to. There was no statement. There was a photograph of two hands, two bands, posted to Cristiano Ronaldo's Instagram account with a…

Kevin, Joe and Nick Jonas in a scene from Camp Rock 3, standing by a lake

Entertainment 11 August 2026

Camp Rock is back for a third film, and the Jonas Brothers are running it this time

Camp Rock 3 premieres 13 August on Disney Channel and 14 August on Disney+. Joe, Nick and Kevin Jonas return as Connect 3, while Demi Lovato stays off screen as an executive producer.

Sixteen years after the second film, camp reopens. Camp Rock 3 premieres on Disney Channel this Thursday, 13 August, and arrives on Disney+ the following day. The setup does its job: Connect 3 lose the opening act for a major reunion tour and head back to Camp Rock to find a replacement. The campers compete for the slot, and it turns into unlikely alliances, revelations and romances — the old machinery, with a new intake.

A scene from Lanterns: two men talking in a dimly lit bar, shot in dark tones

Entertainment 11 August 2026

The DC series that plays like a crime drama arrives on HBO Max on 17 August

Lanterns runs eight episodes from Monday 17 August, with Aaron Pierre, Kyle Chandler, Kelly Macdonald and Laura Linney, and a premise that swaps intergalactic spectacle for a case to solve.

There is an odd decision at the heart of Lanterns, and it is the reason to give the thing a chance. DC Studios took the Green Lantern Corps — an intergalactic police force whose rings can conjure anything the wearer can imagine — and shot a slow-burning investigation drama in the American middle of nowhere. Season one runs eight episodes and premieres on Monday 17 August on HBO Max. The trailer announcement came from the HBO Max Portugal press room, which…

Four members of a family pressed against a house window, looking out at the rain, in a scene from The Last House

Entertainment 8 August 2026

This is The Last House, the Netflix thriller that seals a family inside

Wagner Moura and Greta Lee play the parents of a Seattle family who, mid-storm, find every door and window sealed shut. Louis Leterrier directs, it landed on Friday, and the reviews split down the middle.

The premise fits in one line, and it is the kind that gets you to press play: a family is shut inside their own house and nobody explains why. It is called The Last House, it arrived on Netflix on Friday, and it is the closest thing to a chamber science fiction picture the service has put out this year. The Delgados are four. Jason, the father, is an out-of-work engineer carrying the guilt of the family's money troubles. That is Wagner Moura, in the…

A still from the film Playback showing a period musical performance filmed indoors

Entertainment 7 August 2026

The man who wrote Portugal's Eurovision entry about lip-syncing finally has a film

Playback, directed by Sérgio Graciano, opened on 6 August in more than fifty cinemas. Newcomer Rafael Ferreira plays composer Carlos Paião across a decade running from medical school to the Festival da Canção.

Playback reached Portuguese cinemas on 6 August, opening in more than fifty screens. Directed by Sérgio Graciano and written by Mário Cenicante, it is a drama about Carlos Paião rather than a documentary, and that distinction was clearly a deliberate choice. The film covers roughly ten years of the composer's life. The medical degree, which he finished. His marriage to Zaida Cardoso. The Festival da Canção appearances that made him a face the whole…