AMC+ December highlights include the gripping revenge thriller, The Beast Must Die.
Firebite – AMC+ Original
New series premieres December 16
Created, directed and written by Australia’s most celebrated Indigenous auteur voice, Warwick Thornton (Samson and Delilah, Sweet Country), alongside Brendan Fletcher (Mad Bastards), with Tony Krawitz (The Tall Man, Dead Europe) joining as director.
Firebite is set in a remote desert mining town, a hive for the last vampire stronghold shipped from Britain to Australia in 1788 by the colonial superpower to eradicate the Indigenous populations. Sheltering from the sun in the underground mines and tunnels that surround the town until the present day, the colony’s numbers and hunger are growing. War is coming. Tyson and Shanika stand vanguard to the war. But what hope do an expertly reckless man full of bravado and a 17-year-old orphan possibly have to defeat these vicious blood-thirsty parasites, when legions of warriors before them have failed?
Stars Yael Stone (Orange is the New Black), Rob Collins (Cleverman, Extraction), Callan Mulvey (Avengers: End Game) and Shantae Barnes-Cowan (Total Control, Operation Buffalo).
The Beast Must Die – AMC+ Original
New episodes premiere each Thursday
“Impossible to stop watching”
– Indiewire
A gripping revenge thriller starring BAFTA Award-winning actor Jared Harris (Chernobyl, Mad Men) and Cush Jumbo OBE (The Good Wife, The Good Fight).
After learning the police investigation into the fatal hit and run of her young son, Martie, has been dropped, Frances Cairnes (Jumbo) takes matters into her own hands. Posing as a novelist researching a new murder-mystery, Frances ingratiates herself with the family of George Rattery (Harris), the man she suspects is responsible, and sets a plan in action to kill him.
She’s tracked by detective Nigel Strangeways (Billy Howle, The Serpent, MotherFatherSon), who has reason to believe his department covered up George’s involvement in the incident. Suffering from PTSD following the recent death of his partner, Strangeways throws himself into pursuing justice for Martie. But when he discovers an “undercover” Frances living with George and his family, Strangeways finds himself working to both prove George’s guilt and head off Frances’s plans for revenge.
Based on the novel by Nicholas Blake (pseudonym of Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis CBE), additional cast includes Geraldine James (Downton Abbey, Back to Life), Nathaniel Parker (The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, The Outcast), Maeve Dermody (Marcella, Carnival Row), Douggie McMeekin (Chernobyl, Harlots), Mia Tomlinson (The Lost Pirate Kingdom) and Barney Sayburn.
Anna – AMC+ Original
New episodes premiere each Thursday
“A shocking and visionary series” – Wired
Anna tells the dystopian story of a world ravaged by a virus which kills adults but spares children, written and directed by Niccolò Ammaniti (who authored the critically acclaimed and best-selling novel of the same name).
Set on the island of Sicily, the crumbling hulks of shopping malls and abandoned cities pierce deserted wide-open spaces in a world reclaimed by nature and run by savage communities of survivors, most of whom are children. Anna (played by newcomer Giulia Dragotto) only has one guide: a book left by her mother with instructions on how to survive. But with each passing day she discovers that the old rules no longer apply and instead Anna must devise new ones as she goes along.
Ultra City Smiths – AMC+ Original
New episodes premiere each Thursday
“Guaranteed to find a cult following… A series that doesn’t feel like anything else on TV”
– The Hollywood Reporter
“The level of artistry and detail is stunning, as is the emotional depth of the story and characters”
– Entertainment Weekly
A story told with stop-motion animated baby dolls repurposed as a grown-up cast of characters, from AMC Studios and created by Steve Conrad (Patriot, Perpetual Grace) and Stoopid Buddy Stoodios (Robot Chicken). The series hinges on an investigation into the mysterious disappearance of fictional metropolis Ultra City’s most famous magnate, Carpenter K. Smith (Kurtwood Smith, That 70’s Show). Two intrepid detectives, David Mills (Jimmi Simpson, Westworld) and Gail Johnson (Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Dolemite Is My Name) follow the case, rallying to fight against their city’s dangerous corruption, at a high cost to themselves and their families and in pursuit of a gentler place to call home.
The series features an all-star cast including Kristen Bell (The Good Place), Dax Shepard (Parenthood), John Reilly (Moonbase 8), Alia Shawkat (Search Party), Tim Meadows (Schooled), Luis Guzmán (Shameless), Melissa Villaseñor (Saturday Night Live), Terry O’Quinn (Lost), Debra Winger (Terms of Endearment), Bebe Neuwirth (Chicago) and Jason Mantzoukas (Big Mouth).
