August 2025 on SBS on Demand – highlights include The Shift, Marcella, Leonardo da Vinci, La Unidad, Little Fires Everywhere, Safe Harbor and Fatal Crossing.
Hospital Drama
The Shift S2
Australian Premiere Box Set Drop
Thursday 7 August 2025 on SBS On Demand (Eight episodes)
The Shift is a drama series about life in different hospital departments, at a fictional Danish Hospital in the Greater Copenhagen area. The first season was set in a maternity ward and the second season takes place two years later in a paediatric ward.
The two main characters are the chief physician. Linda (Ann Eleonora Jørgensen ) and the psychologist Lasse (Anders W. Berthelsen). The plot unfolds among the staff, their daily work in the paediatric ward, as well as their relationships with each other and their personal challenges. In each episode, there are also self-contained stories originating from the patients who are admitted to the ward.
As the season opens Linda is running her busy ward with a steady hand. But when her own son is suddenly hospitalised in critical condition, Linda feels powerless. Can she be there for her son, her staff and the hospitalized children?
The Shift S1 stars Sofie Gråbøl and is already available on SBS On Demand.
The Shift S2 will be available to stream free on SBS On Demand in Danish with English subtitles.
British Noir Drama
Marcella S1-3
Stream Free Box Set Drop
Saturday 9 August 2025 on SBS On Demand (24 episodes)
Marcella is a multi-stranded crime drama from international screenwriter and novelist Hans Rosenfeldt (The Bridge), co-created by Nicola Lardner (The Tunnel) and starring Anna Friel.
Set in contemporary London, Marcella centres on the psychological struggles of a Metropolitan police officer at crisis point in her personal life, driven by rejection and intuition.
Produced by Buccaneer Media and co-created by Nicola Larder (The Tunnel), the series is Rosenfeldt’s first drama created for an English-speaking audience.
Returning to the Met’s Murder Squad after a 12-year career break, Marcella (Friel) is a detective in her late 30’s who gave up her fast -tracked role to marry and devote her life to starting a family. With the abrupt end to her marriage to the love of her life and isolated from her children at boarding school, Marcella returns to work – her sense of self shattered.
She is immediately assigned to one of her old cases that she first worked on in 2003.
A spate of recent killings has occurred, all carrying the same hallmarks as those unsolved murders committed over a decade ago. Has the killer re-appeared or is this a copycat murderer? How will Marcella cope with returning to duty when her own temperament is so fragile and vulnerable? Will throwing herself into her work provide the answers she’s seeking or lead her dangerously into territory she must avoid at all costs?
Marcella’s first season also stars Downton Abbey’s Laura Carmichael, Nicholas Pinnock (Fortitude, Captain America), Ian Puleston-Davies (Coronation Street, Being Human), Nina Sosanya (W1A, Last Tango in Halifax), Ray Panthaki (The Wrong Mans, Convenience), Jamie Bamber (Law & Order: UK, Battlestar Galactica), Sinead Cusack (Jekyll & Hyde, Eastern Promises), Patrick Baladi (The Office, Mistresses), and Harry Lloyd (Game of Thrones , The Theory of Everything). Australian actress Maeve Dermody also has a guest role in early episodes of the series.
Marcella S1-3 will be available to stream free on SBS On Demand on 9 August.
The first season will air from 9 August, Saturdays at 10.30pm on Viceland.
Biographical Documentary
Leonardo da Vinci
Australian Premiere Box Set Drop
Saturday 9 August 2025 on SBS On Demand (Four episodes)
Co-directed and written by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon.
A fifteenth-century Italian polymath of soaring imagination and profound intellect, Leonardo da Vinci left behind artistic works of staggering beauty as well as detailed anatomical sketches, studies of geology, gravity and water, and designs for machines of war and flying contraptions that today are marvelled at for their ingenuity and foresight.
From his birth out of wedlock to a notary and a peasant woman and apprenticeship to a distinguished Florentine craftsman, to his days as a military architect, cartographer, painter and muralist for hire, Leonardo da Vinci tells the story of one of humankind’s most curious and innovative minds, a singular visionary whose Mona Lisa, The Last Supper and Vitruvian Man are among the most celebrated works of all time.
Counter-Terrorist Police Thriller
La Unidad S2-3
Australian Premiere Box Set Drop
Thursday 14 August 2025 on SBS On Demand (12 episodes)
Carla (Nathalie Pozas) is the chief inspector of a police brigade that is always fighting Islamic terrorism.
As the second season begins an operation to catch one of the most sought -after Jihadist leaders ends up with the accidental death of the first-born son of Omar Al Hassan, a Syrian businessman living in Spain with contacts in the Saudi secret services, the Spanish National Intelligence Centre (CNI)… and Jihadist terrorists.
Broken by grief, Al Hassan activates a cell against Carla and Sanabria (Fele Martinez) which ends up with Sergio’s death. Carla survives, but Al Hassan (Kaabil Sekali) will not stop until he has killed her and orders a hit against Marcos (Michel Noher) to try to get her to come out of hiding. Suddenly, the members of the Unit have to deal with the fear of having become a target themselves, and the possibility that there is a mole among them. But they can’t let all this get in the way of their search against time for the mystery person or people responsible for the attacks, who are even now preparing a much more personal one against Carla.
La Unidad S1 will return to SBS On Demand from 1 August.
La Unidad S2-3 will be available from 14 August to stream free on SBS On Demand in Spanish with English subtitles.
Psychological Drama
Little Fires Everywhere
Stream Free Box Set Drop
Saturday 16 August 2025 on SBS On Demand (Eight episodes)
Based on Celeste Ng’s 2017 bestseller, Little Fires Everywhere follows the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and the enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives.
The story explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, the ferocious pull of motherhood
– and the danger in believing that following the rules can avert disaster. The cast includes Reese Witherspoon (Elena Richardson), Kerry Washington (Mia Warren), Joshua Jackson (Bill Richardson), Rosemarie DeWitt (Linda McCullough), Jade Pettyjohn (Lexie Richardson), Jordan Elsass (Trip Richardson), Gavin Lewis (Moody Richardson), Megan Stott (Izzy Richardson), Lexi Underwood (Pearl Warren), and Huang Lu (Bebe).
The series is produced by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine, Kerry Washington’s Simpson Street and ABC Signature Studios, a part of Disney Television Studios. Liz Tigelaar serves as creator, showrunner and executive producer.
The series is also executive produced by Reese Witherspoon, Kerry Washington, Lauren Neustadter, Pilar Savone and Lynn Shelton. Author Celeste Ng serves as producer.
Little Fires Everywhere will be available to stream free as a box set from 16 August on SBS On Demand and episodes will air weekly on Saturdays at 8.30pm on Viceland.
Episodes will be available to stream free on SBS On Demand in English, with subtitles available in Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Arabic, Korean and Vietnamese.
Crime thriller
Safe Harbor
Australian Premiere Box Set Drop**
Thursday 21 August 2025 on SBS On Demand (Eight episodes)
From Mark Williams, the co-creator of Ozark, and inspired by true events, Safe Harbor is a violent and propulsive crime thriller with a distinct brand of heart and humour starring Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones, Rogue Heroes), Colm Meaney (Gangs of London , Hell on Wheels), Charlie Murphy (Happy Valley, Obsession, Halo), Jack Gleeson (Game of Thrones) and Martijn Lakemeier (Marie Antoinette, Maxima).
Misfits Marco (Lakemeier) and Tobias (Allen) live and breathe the tech world, but are still far from cracking into the billionaire boys club. Their lives are upended when they offer up their services to hack into the computer system of Rotterdam harbor – Europe’s largest port – in order to control the deliveries of drug shipments in cargo containers for the Irish Mob’s ramshackle European outpost.
If Marco is ambition, then Tobias is brains. Inseparable since college, the two have been scraping together a living and desperately trying to break into the tech billionaires club since.
When Marco crosses paths with Sloane, the sharp -as-nails heiress of the Irish mob in Rotterdam, he encounters her wild, violent brother Farrell. Terrified, and to save his own skin when things quickly turn south, he offers his services to get them inside the port of Rotterdam. The trouble is, Marco can’t do it without Tobias. And what they don’t know is that they are about to join a brutal turf war between the Irish and the bloodthirsty European Cartel.
All while attempting to maintain their romantic relationships and above all, their friendship. Very soon, our tech heroes will find themselves stuck in the middle of these two warring factions. Their only chance of survival is to use their technological know-how to outsmart, outmanoeuvre and outplay nasty people with large weapons and bad attitudes.
• This series does not have any connection with the multi-award-winning SBS-commissioned drama Safe Harbour which premiered in 2018.
• The series does have a connection with Game of Thrones as it reunites co-stars Alfie Allen and Jack Gleeson; Allen played Theon Greyjoy and Gleeson played Joffrey Baratheon.
Nordic Noir Drama
Fatal Crossing
Australian Premiere Box Set Drop
Thursday 28 August 2025 on SBS On Demand (Eight episodes)
Journalist Nora Sand (Marie Sandǿ Jondal) works as a foreign correspondent for a Danish newspaper and lives in London. When she’s given an anonymous tip and an old missing persons case it immediately sparks her interest. In the ‘80s, two young girls disappeared from the ferry travelling from Denmark to England and have not been seen since.
Nora investigates the case, which turns out to have an unexpected connection to a serial killer who is serving a life sentence in England. As the case unravels, Nora begins to fear for her own life, as she suspects another killer is following her every move.
The series is based on the bestselling novel by Danish author Lone Theils.
Fatal Crossing will be available to stream free on SBS On Demand in Danish with English subtitles.
August 2025 on SBS on Demand
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August 2025 on SBS on Demand
