For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails Sign up to our free breaking news emails
Another month has arrived and with it comes another bunch of titles to add to your Netflix watchlist.
The streaming service will unveil more original films and TV shows through September, ranging from the second season of Matt Groening’s Disenchantment , the long-awaited third series of Top Boy Ryan Murphy’s all-star show The Politician .
Call Me By Your Name Timothée Chalamet film, The King
Below is a full list of everything coming to Netflix in September.
Show all 20 1 /20Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Money Heist (TV series, one season, 2017–) Known as La Casa de Papel (House of Paper) in its native Spanish, Money Heist is Netflix’s most streamed non-English language show. The bank heist is a tired dramatic trope these days, but don’t let that, or the show’s bland English-language title, put you off – creator Álex Pina has made something special. The heist here, led by a mysterious man known only as The Professor, involves breaking into the Royal Mint of Spain and printing off €2.4 billion. There are even more twists in the show’s 15 episodes than there are hostages.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed American Vandal (TV series, two seasons, 2017–2018) Part satire of true crime documentaries such as Making a Murderer, part carefully observed portrayal of teenage life, American Vandal was criminally underappreciated during its two season run. It’s been cancelled now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t catch up with it, and then write Netflix a strongly worded email.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed One Day at a Time (TV series, two seasons, 2017–) In stark contrast to the off-beat, low-key comedy that currently rules TV – the kind that provokes a wry smirk rather than a hearty laugh – One Day at a Time is a big, bright sitcom filmed in front of an interminably enthusiastic studio audience. You wouldn’t have thought that the story of a Cuban-American army veteran / nurse / single mother – who suffers from PTSD and depression – would fit into this format, but it does so beautifully, tackling issues of sexuality, racism and sexism in the process.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Private Life (Film, 2018) Based on writer / director Tamara Jenkins’s own fertility struggles, Private Life stars Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti (both giving brilliant performances) as a spiky, loving middle-aged couple desperate to have a baby. They even rope their enthusiastic but irresponsible niece Sadie (Kayli Carter) into the mix, much to the horror of Sadie’s mother (Molly Shannon, turning a potentially repellent character into one worthy of empathy). It’s subtle, restrained and beautifully realised.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Big Mouth (TV series, two seasons, 2017–) Crude, rude, and rife with surprise emissions and bodily functions, animated sitcom Big Mouth is also a sensitive, nuanced deep dive into the various horrors of teenagehood. When 12-year-old Andrew Glouberman (John Mulaney) is visited by the hormone monster (Nick Kroll, who voices many of the show’s best characters), he finds his life irreversibly – and seemingly disastrously – changed. Unlike many other puberty-centred comedies, Big Mouth makes as much time for its confused female protagonists as its male ones; Maya Rudolph is a delight as the female hormone monster, and look out for Kristen Wiig’s wonderful turn as a talking vagina.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Easy (TV series, two seasons, 2016–) Joe Swanberg’s style of defiantly undramatic mumblecore isn’t for everyone, but if you enjoyed his earlier films, Drinking Buddies and Happy Christmas, you’ll find plenty to admire in this anthology comedy-drama series. Big-name stars such as Orlando Bloom and Aubrey Plaza crop up, but Jane Adams – who you might remember from Todd Solondz’s chronically depressing 1998 film Happiness – is the show’s heart, and Marc Maron is its jaded soul.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Love (TV series, three seasons, 2016–2018) Community’s Gillian Jacobs is brilliant as the prickly, magnetic recovering addict Mickey, who forms an unlikely – and arguably deeply unwise – relationship with her nerdy neighbour Gus (Paul Rust). Despite Gus’s pathological need to be the nice guy, we’re never quite sure who or what we’re rooting for – which is what makes Love such complex, compelling viewing.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Patton Oswalt: Annihilation (stand-up special, 2017) In 2016, comedian Patton Oswalt’s wife, the true crime writer Michelle McNamara, died suddenly in her sleep. That subject matter doesn’t exactly scream “stand-up special”, but out of his devastating loss, Oswalt managed to craft something funny and profound. Over the course of an hour, he processes his grief onstage, managing to find humour in the struggle to raise his grieving six-year-old daughter alone.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Santa Clarita Diet (TV series, two seasons, 2017–) Granted, this horror-comedy – which stars Drew Barrymore as a neurotic real estate agent who suddenly develops a taste for human flesh – is really silly, and really, really disgusting. But it’s also strangely charming, and funny. Timothy Olyphant is excellent as Sheila’s frazzled husband Joel, and the pair’s idiosyncratic but respectful relationship with their smart teenage daughter Abby (Liv Hewson) isn’t quite like anything else on TV right now.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Dark Tourist (TV series, one season, 2018–) New Zealand journalist David Farrier is an unlikely TV presenter in the same way that Louis Theroux is – in just about every scenario in which he finds himself, he’s a little bit awkward. But as with Theroux, Farrier’s weakness is actually his strength, allowing him to endear himself to the many unusual people he meets on his journey through the world’s most questionable tourist destinations. Farrier’s stops include the site of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, the road where JFK was assassinated, and the Milwaukee suburbs where serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer murdered his victims.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Sacred Games (TV series, one season, 2018–) Based on Vikram Chandra’s epic 2006 novel, Netflix’s first Indian original series is a slowly unfolding gem. The first season of Sacred Games – which follows a troubled police officer (Saif Ali Khan) who has 25 days to save his city thanks to a tip-off from a presumed dead gangster – only covered one quarter of Chandra’s 1,000-page novel. As the show itself declared when it announced the forthcoming second season, “the worst is yet to come”.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Dumplin’ (Film, 2018) When the trailer for Dumplin’ first landed, it seemed all the ingredients were in place for a film that was at worst tone-deaf, and at best vaguely patronising. Thank heavens, then, that the trailer did Dumplin’ such a disservice. Starring Danielle Macdonald (who broke out in the excellent 2017 film Patti Cake$) as Willowdean, a self-described “fat girl” who enters a local pageant to annoy her former beauty queen mother (Jennifer Aniston), Dumplin’ is as funny, warm and sensitive as its protagonist – and with a killer Dolly Parton-laden soundtrack to boot.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Dark (TV series, one season, 2017–) This sci-fi thriller – which features disappearing children, a mysterious local power plant, and scenes set in the Eighties – has, for obvious reasons, drawn comparisons to Stranger Things. But Dark is even more beguiling and (true to its name) less family-friendly than Stranger Things.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed The Death and Life of Marsha P Johnson (Film, 2017) Though it’s been somewhat tarnished by claims that director David France appropriated the work and research of trans film-maker Reina Gossett, this documentary is nonetheless a loving, respectful tribute to gay rights activist Marsha P Johnson. One of the key figures in the Stonewall uprising (though her involvement was almost entirely eradicated in 2015’s critically hated Stonewall), Johnson modelled for Andy Warhol, performed onstage with drag group Hot Peaches, helped found the Gay Liberation Front, and then died under suspicious circumstances in 1992.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed On My Block (TV series, one season, 2018–) This coming-of-age series might not have found as many eyeballs as it deserved last year, but those it did find were glued to the screen. In fact, it was the most-binged show of 2018 – meaning that it had the highest watch-time-per-viewing session of any Netflix original. Created by Awkward’s Lauren Iungerich, On My Block follows a group of Los Angeles teens as they navigate both the drama of high school and the danger of inner-city life.
John O Flexor/Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Set It Up (Film, 2018) Two beleaguered assistants (Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell) conspire to get their over-demanding bosses (Taye Diggs and Lucy Liu) together in order to get their lives back in this winning romantic comedy. Set It Up is responsible not only for coining the term “over-dicking” (it’s much more innocent than it sounds), but for rejuvenating a tired genre.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Cargo (Film, 2017) Martin Freeman stars as the father struggling to protect his young daughter from a zombie epidemic spreading across Australia. So far, so overdone. But this drama thriller, directed by Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke and based on their 2013 short of the same name, throws a handful of unpredictable spanners in the works.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed 3% (TV series, two season, 2016–) Like a cross between The Hunger Games and CW series The 100, this Brazilian dystopian thriller, set in an unspecified future, revolves largely around an impoverished community known as the Inland. Every year, each 20-year-old takes part in a series of tests; the highest scoring 3% will be chosen to live in paradise in the Offshore. It is an intriguing and addictive commentary on class and privilege.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Godless (TV series, one season, 2017–) With shades of John Ford's The Searchers, this languorous western was critically acclaimed but swiftly forgotten after it landed on Netflix in 2016. Set in 1884, it's about Frank Griffin (Jeff Daniels) and his notoriously ruthless gang of outlaws’ pursuit of their injured former ally Roy Goode (Jack O’Connell), who is hiding out in a small town populated solely by women after a mining accident killed off all its men. A gun-toting Michelle Dockery, clearly relishing the change of scenery after years of Downton Abbey, and a taciturn Jack O’Connell, are on brilliant form.
Netflix
Hidden gems: The best Netflix originals you might have missed Atypical (TV series, two seasons, 2017–) This coming-of-age series about a teenage boy with autism was sweet and well-intentioned from the start, but its first season was criticised for a handful of inaccuracies, and for its lack of autistic actors. Rather than drowning in a sea of defensiveness – as too many shows tend to do – it listened, and brought in autistic actors and writers for its excellent second season.
Netflix
Original Content
TV shows 1 September
Vagabond season 1
6 September
The Spy season 1
Elite season 2
12 September
The I-Land
13 September
Marianne season 1
Top Boy series 3
Unbelievable season 1
20 September
Criminal
Disenchantment season 2
Show all 20 1 /20The 20 best bad police officers on TV The 20 best bad police officers on TV 20. Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) in Life on Mars/Ashes to Ashes The 2006 time-travelling cop show, in which John Simm’s enlightened modern policeman woke (“woke” being the operative word) from a car accident in the thuggish policing era of 1973, spawned an accidental anti-hero in Philip Glenister’s swaggering bully-boy DCI Gene Hunt. He was a character so popular that he spawned a spin-off set in the early 1980s, Ashes to Ashes, in which Keeley Hawes was on the receiving end of his jocular chauvinism. Harvey (Bad Lieutenant) Keitel played Hunt in the US version of Life on Mars.
BBC
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 19. Martin Rohde (Kim Bodnia) in The Bridge Rohde was the Danish partner (and polar opposite) of The Bridge’s Swedish cop Saga Noren, an empathetic foil to Noren’s Aspergers-ish detachment. Warm and very human he might have been, Rohde was also an unfaithful husband and morally flawed detective, finally shipped to her superiors after Noren suspected that he had poisoned (in prison) the killer of his 18-year-old son. He had.
BBC
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 18. Gilles “Gilou” Escoffier (Thierry Godard) in Spiral His borderline policing methods and former drug habit always made Parisian lieutenant Gilles “Gilou” Escoffier a diamond in the rough, but he crossed the line by stealing gold ingots from a crime gang – enough for his long-term friend and partner Tintin Fromentin to quit the unit in disgust. The question for the upcoming new series is whether it’s also too much for boss and now lover Laure Berthaud?
BBC
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 17. Jack Regan (John Thaw) in The Sweeney It’s hard to overestimate the impact in 1975 of this hard-hitting (literally) drama about the Flying Squad, shaking up the cosy world of TV police dramas, with “You’re nicked” and “Shut it!” replacing Dixon of Dock Green’s avuncular “Evening all”. Jack Regan might have been honest, but his tendency to punch first and ask questions later became a byword for 1970s-style policing. It’s hard to believe that Thaw grew up to be Inspector Morse.
ITV
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 16. Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) in NYPD Blue Described by one critic as “a drunken, racist goon with a heart of gold”, the label homophobic could also be added to Franz’s character (first essayed in Hill Street Blues), although Sipowicz did make sporadic attempts to dry out and become more liberal in outlook. Invariably taking the “bad cop” role during police interrogations, it was always unwise to leave this bundle of anger in a comb-over and moustache alone with a suspect.
ABC
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 15. John Wadsworth (Kevin Doyle) in Happy Valley Sarah Lancashire may have been the star of the show, but Downton Abbey’s Kevin Doyle gave a quietly brilliant performance as cop-turned-murderer John Wadsworth in the second series of Sally Wainwright’s Yorkshire-set drama – 50 shades of horrified guilt and denial crossing his face as he investigated his own crime and witnessed an innocent suspect nearly go down for it.
BBC/Red Productions/Ben Blackall
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 14. DS Bill Otley (Tom Bell) in Prime Suspect With his stare as adamantine as an Easter Island statue, and his mocking smirk, Otley was the intractable foe of Helen Mirren’s DCI Jane Tennison and the sexist ringmaster of the station’s sneering male clique. He wasn’t all bad, however, and when, in the last-ever episode, the alcoholic Tennison ran into Otley at an AA meeting, he tried to make amends and help her sober up.
ITV
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 13. DS Stella Gibson (Gillian Anderson) in The Fall Stella Gibson may be dedicated to her job, but her strange fascination with Jamie Dornan’s Northern Irish serial killer Paul Spector always teasingly bordered on the psychosexual. And when it came to the actual sexual, Gibson wasn’t above bedding her police subordinates – although as Detective Sergeant Tom Anderson pointed out to her after a night between the sheets, he does bear a strong physical resemblance to Spector. Kinky.
BBC
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 12. Gunvald Larsson (Mikael Persbrandt) in Beck The Stockholm police department’s human battering ram, Martin Beck’s right-hand man-mountain was never one to play by the rules. A former member of the merchant marine, Gunvald was a bully and a misogynist but fans came to love his short-circuiting of official procedure. That said, the character’s funeral after being shot dead was sparsely attended.
C More
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 11. DCI Fred Thursday (Roger Allam) in Endeavour It wasn’t looking good in the most recent series of the Inspector Morse prequel as Morse’s formerly avuncular mentor at Oxford City Police CID, Fred Thursday, seemed to be going the way of a forged 10-bob note. With a bent new boss, DCI Ronnie Box, Thursday was taking a more muscular approach to nicking suspects and pocketing envelopes stuffed with cash before seeing the light and returning to the side of the angels.
ITV
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 10. Eddy Caplan (Jean-Hugues Anglade) in Braquo This relentlessly downbeat and violent Gallic take on The Shield (see below), created by ex-cop Olivier Marchal, followed a four-person squad of rules-disregarding officers we first meet gauging a suspect’s eyeball with a pen. It’s all increasingly brutal from there as Eddy Caplan and colleagues combat Parisian criminals with implacable force. What is the French for ‘an eye for an eye’?
Canal+
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 9. William A Rawls (John Dorman) in The Wire If Dominic West's Jimmy McNulty is the nearest that the Baltimore police depicted in David Simon’s peerless drama have to a hero, then Rawls is the closest to a villain. A ruthless career cop whose rise and rise was facilitated by keeping inconvenient statistics – especially relating to murdered black men – off the books, he was also a bullying hypocrite, a married man cruising the city's dingier gay bars.
Canal+
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 8. Frank Agnew (Mark Strong) in Low Winter Sun The downbeat Wire-wannabe Low Winter Sun started life on Channel 4 before being remade – Mark Strong included – by AMC and set in Detroit. Strong played homicide detective Frank Agnew who murders a corrupt fellow cop and stages it to look like a suicide after mistakenly thinking the victim had killed his girlfriend. As in the British original, Lennie James plays Agnew's co-conspirator Joe Geddes.
AMC
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 7. Dexter Morgan (Michael C Hall) in Dexter Not a policeman as such but the adopted son of a Miami cop who grew up to become a forensics specialist for a fictional Miami police department, Dexter had the perfect cover for his secret double life as a vigilante serial killer. And knowing what his fellow CSI officers would be looking for at a crime scene meant he was extra careful in his methods.
Showtime
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 6. Chief Superintendent Lorraine Craddock (Pippa Haywood) in Bodyguard As Head of Protection Command, the politician-shielding unit of the Met, Craddock was the commanding officer of Bodyguard's main character, Sergeant David Budd (Richard Madden) and responsible for assigning him to protect Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawes). She was also [spoiler alert] the police insider in the conspiracy to kill Montague and make Budd the fall guy.
BBC
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 5. Chief Superintendent John Deakin (Tony Doyle) in Between the Lines Long before Line of Duty there was Between the Lines, the BBC's 1992 drama series starring Neil Pearson as a new recruit to the police's internal Complaints Information Bureau – a task hampered because his boss, John Deakin, a tough former RUC officer played with edgy menace by Tony Doyle, was more corrupt than most of the people he was investigating.
BBC
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 4. John Luther (Idris Elba) in Luther When we first meet John Luther he has chased a villain to the top of a staircase and has his foot on the miscreant's hand as he dangles several storeys up. Will he tread on his fingers and make him fall to his possible death? You bet. Idris Elba brings a brooding intensity to a policeman who will fall in love with the sociopathic murderer, Alice Morgan, he is investigating. They understand each other. Ahhh.
BBC
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 3. Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) in The Shield Vic Mackey and his fellow Strike Team of corrupt LAPD officers used criminal means – including murder, torture and planting evidence – to take out the criminals in a TV show that made Dirty Harry look like Mary Poppins. Mackey started by shooting an innocent cop in the face in the show’s pilot episode, a taste of things to come, but he was made somehow sympathetic by an incredible performance from Michael Chiklis.
FX
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 2. DI Fred Pyall (Derek Martin) in Law and Order Derek Martin, who went on to find soap fame as Charlie Slater in EastEnders, gave the performance of a lifetime as the blank-faced, hooded-eyed copper Fred Pyall, fitting up innocent suspects, putting the squeeze on snouts and nonchalantly taking back-handers from criminals. GF Newman's BBC drama was deemed so shocking in 1978 that it was locked away, never to see the light of day for another 30 years.
BBC
The 20 best bad police officers on TV 1. DI Matthew ‘Dot’ Cottan (Craig Parkinson) in Line of Duty Jed Mercurio’s BBC police drama is a positive barrel of bad apples – a rogue’s gallery where nobody, with the possible exceptions of detectives Kate Fleming and Steve Arnott – is above suspicion. Craig Parkinson gave a wonderfully slippery performance as DI Cottan, the AC-12 regular with a double life as a crime-syndicate insider known as the Caddy. Any redeeming features? He did die by throwing himself between an assassin’s bullets and Fleming at the end of series three.
BBC
23 September
Team Kaylie
27 September
Skylines season 1
The Politician season 1
TBA
The Good Place season 4
Films 13 September
Tall Girl
20 September
Between Two Ferns: The Movie
Call Me By Your Name - Trailer Call Me By Your Name – Trailer
Comedy Specials 10 September
Bill Burr: Paper Tiger
24 September
Jeff Dunham: Beside Himself
30 September
Mo Gilligan: Momentum
Documentaries 20 September
Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates
Show all 27 1 /2727 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title 27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Annie Hall (1977) Original title: Anhedonia
Annie Hall began life as Anhedonia, which is the scientific term for the inability to experience pleasure. But the title Annie Hall was eventually settled on, inspired by actress Diane Keaton's real name, Diane Hall, and her nickname, Annie.
United Artists
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Dynasty (1981-89) Original title: Oil
The hit series, which revolves around the family of an oil magnate, was originally supposed to be titled… wait for it… Oil. But it was then changed to Dynasty to compete with rival soap Dallas.
CBS Television Distribution
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Back to the Future (1985) Original title: Spaceman from Pluto
Steven Spielberg genuinely thought the title Spaceman from Pluto was a joke suggestion, so it didn’t last long, and was soon replaced by the now iconic name Back to the Future. He contacted the Universal Studios head Sid Sheinberg who had suggested the Pluto title, with a message thanking him for sending his wonderful "joke" name, saying the office "got a kick out of it". Ouch.
Universal Pictures
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title The Breakfast Club (1985) Original title: The Lunch Bunch
The original script for this classic high-school movie went by the very naff name The Lunch Bunch, but thanks to the son of one of director John Hughes's friends, who had a school detention class called The Breakfast Club, the title was changed.
Universal Pictures
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Fatal Attraction (1987) Original title: Affairs of the Heart
The much friendlier sounding Affairs of the Heart wasn’t a great match for the psychological thriller that brought us the bunny boiler, and after it received a poor reception from audiences, the film’s title was changed to Fatal Attraction.
Paramount Pictures
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Licence to Kill (1989) Original title: Licence Revoked
This Bond film was, at one time, called Licence Revoked, but test audiences associated the title too much with driving, so thankfully it was changed to something far punchier.
United Artists
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Saved by the Bell (1989-93) Original title: Good Morning, Miss Bliss
NBC’s Good Morning Miss Bliss centred on Hayley Mills as the eponymous teacher but, after the comedy briefly moved to the Disney Channel and then back to NBC, it was re-tooled to focus on the teenage students instead, therefore taking on a new name: Saved By The Bell.
CBS Studios International
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Goodfellas (1990) Original title: Wiseguy
The Scorsese classic is an adaptation of a mobster novel called Wiseguy, which was originally also the title of the film, but the name had to be changed because it had already been taken for an 80s TV series.
Warner Bros
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Pretty Woman (1990) Original title: 3000
Originally a dark drama about class and sex work, Pretty Woman’s first title was 3,000 – the amount of money that Richard Gere's character Edward spends on a week of Vivian's (Julia Roberts) time. Disney changed the name as it came across as “too science-fictiony”, as well as the tone of the movie which was turned into a rom-com fairytale.
Buena Vista Pictures
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Friends (1994-2004) Original title: Six of One
The beloved sitcom went through many different name changes, with all the following titles considered: Friends Like Us, Six of One, Across the Hall, Once Upon a Time in the West Village, and Insomnia Cafe. It’s now hard to imagine the show becoming such a monumental hit with any of those names.
Warner Bros Television Distribution
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Pulp Fiction (1994) Original title: Black Mask
Pulp Fiction was initially inspired by the detective crime stories in the seminal magazine Black Mask, hence its first name. The publication was a pulp magazine, which goes some way to explaining the new title.
Miramax Films
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Titanic (1997) Original title: The Ship of Dreams
In a line from the classic 1997 film, the older version of Rose says: "Titanic was called the ship of dreams, and it was, it really was." It was also the original title of the film, before the simpler name of Titanic was chosen.
20th Century Fox
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title That '70s Show (1998-2006) Original title: Teenage Wasteland
Early ideas for the 70s sitcom’s name included Teenage Wasteland and The Kids Are Alright, but because the creators couldn’t get song title rights from The Who, they were forced to change the name of the show.
Carsey-Werner Distribution
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title American Pie (1999) Original title: Teenage Sex Comedy That Can Be Made For Under $10 Million That Your Reader Will Love But the Executive Will Hate
It was a bold move from screenwriter Adam Herz when he submitted his spec script to studios under the title Teenage Sex Comedy That Can Be Made For Under $10 Million That Your Reader Will Love But The Executive Will Hate. But the risk paid off, with the film, eventually named American Pie, grossing nearly a quarter of a billion dollars worldwide.
Universal Pictures
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) Original title: Dairy Queens
The black comedy was originally supposed to be called Dairy Queens. However, the company that owns fast food chain Dairy Queen apparently didn't love the idea of being associated with the movie, so they filed a lawsuit and, lo and behold, Drop Dead Gorgeous was born.
New Line Cinema
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title 8 Simple Rules (2002-03) Original title: 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter
This family sitcom originally had a longer name, but when star John Ritter – who played the concerned father in the show – suddenly died after filming the third episode of the second series, the show changed its format and name to 8 Simple Rules and Ritter’s death was written into the plot.
Buena Vista International Television
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Cars (2006) Original title: Route 66
The animated hit was initially called Route 66 after the iconic road in America, but the title was changed to Cars to avoid confusion with a 60s TV show of the same name.
Buena Vista Pictures
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Hannah Montana (2006-11) Original title: Alexis Texas
Miley Cyrus’s Disney comedy was originally called Alexis Texas but, because a porn actor shares the same name, it had to be changed in case children looked up the show’s title and accidentally found pornography.
Disney-ABC Domestic Television
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title The Big Bang Theory (2007-19) Original title: Lenny, Penny and Kenny
The Big Bang Theory’s original rhyming title was forced to change after the character Kenny’s name switched to Sheldon, who was then brought to life by Jim Parsons.
Warner Bros Television Distribution
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Samantha Who? (2007-09) Original title: Sam I Am
Clearance issues with the estate of Dr Seuss led ABC to change the name of its Christina Applegate-led show, as the original title, Sam I Am, drew on the first lines of Dr Seuss’s classic Green Eggs and Ham.
Disney – ABC Domestic Television
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title The Good Wife (2009-16) Original title: Leave the Bastard
The Good Wife’s creators got a call from CBS pushing them to change the title just as it went into production. The network did actually consider Leave the Bastard, but ultimately decided to play it safe with The Good Wife.
CBS Television Distribution
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Shutter Island (2010) Original title: Ashecliffe
Ashecliffe, the name of the hospital in Martin Scorcese’s thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was originally going to be the film’s title before it was changed to Shutter Island.
Paramount Pictures
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title New Girl (2011-18) Original title: Chicks and Dicks
New Girl was initially pitched as "a young ensemble comedy about the sexual politics of men and women”, hence its original, provocative title: Chicks and Dicks. Not only did this name attract the wrong kind of attention, but New Girl better reflected the content of the sitcom, which ended up revolving around Zooey Deschanel’s Jess.
20th Television
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Edge of Tomorrow (2014) Original title: All You Need Is Kill
The Tom Cruise action movie was originally known as All You Need Is Kill, the title of the book on which the movie is based, but filmmakers changed the title because they felt the word "kill" was too problematic. "I think the word 'kill' in a title is very tricky in today's world…" producer Edwin Stoff said. “We see it enough in real newspaper headlines, and I don't think we need to see it when we're looking at a movie." After a lucklustre box office opening, the film's name was changed once again, in marketing and for home release, to Live, Die, Repeat.
Warner Bros Pictures
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Lovesick (2014-18) Original title: Scrotal Recall
The relationship comedy drama starring Johnny Flynn was renamed after one series because, perhaps unsurprisingly, it was suffering from a lack of word of mouth, with people reluctant to say the word “scrotal”.
Clerkenwell Films
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Stranger Things (2016-) Original title: Montauk
The original title of the Netflix hit was Montauk, as the plan had been for it to be set in a village of the same name in New York. However, when creators the Duffer brothers later relocated the show’s action to the fictional town of Hawkins in Indiana, the name changed to Stranger Things. Intriguingly, Montauk also happens to be the title of a short film which the Duffer brothers were accused of plagiarising.
Netflix
27 films and TV shows that were forced to change their title Arrival (2017) Original title: Story of Your Life
The sci-fi film starring Amy Adams originally went by the title of the novella it was based on, Story of Your Life, but because producer Shawn Levy thought it "sounds a bit like a One Direction song” and "multiword titles can be really problematic”, the movie changed its name to Arrival.
Paramount Pictures
Licensed Content American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Call Me by Your Name
Call the Midwife series 7
David Brent: Life on the Road
Dirty Dancing
Surviving R Kelly survivors receive a standing ovation at Variety's Power Of Women event John Wick: Chapter Two
The Lego Batman Movie
Shameless US season 8
South Park
Surviving R Kelly
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies