Our critics pick the best titles coming to Canadian streaming platform Crave in March 2021, including Tina, Framing Britney Spears, Possessor, First Cow, and the four-hour restoration of Zack Snyder’s Justice League.

Framing Britney Spears

The New York Times-produced documentary inspired by the #FreeBritney movement is a last-minute addition to Crave, arriving weeks after its U.S. premiere renewed interest in pop star Britney Spears’s financial predicament. It also motivated Justin Timberlake to issue an apology for his own behaviour towards both her and Janet Jackson. For those who have yet to pirate the documentary, Framing Britney Spears looks back at the Toxic singer’s working-class upbringing, volatile relationship with the paparazzi and struggle with mental health. That all led to Spears’s father Jamie holding a conservatorship over the pop star’s business decisions, which she is still fighting to have him removed from. February 26

Tina

You’ve read I, Tina and you’ve seen What’s Love Got To Do With It. And now get ready for Tina, a new documentary about the queen of rock 'n' roll, which arrives on Crave fresh from its world premiere at the Berlin film festival. Tina Turner sits for an interview in this film, which is sure to make a compelling case for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame voters. In addition to never-before-seen footage, audio tapes and personal photos, the talking heads list includes Oprah Winfrey, Angela Bassett and Turner’s husband Erwin Bach. March 27

Derek DelGaudio’s In and Of Itself

For the past month, ever since DelGaudio’s 90-minute show featuring magic and storytelling debuted on Hulu, I’ve been hearing about how jaw-droppingly amazing it is—both from regular people and from celebrities like Hugh Jackman (“never seen anything like it”) and Neil Patrick Harris, who is himself a trained magician. Now DelGaudio’s show, directed by Frank Oz and produced by Steven Colbert, hits Crave, and I’m going to watch it, my face glued to my TV to see how he does what he does. March 1

COVID Diaries NYC

The latest of HBO’s pandemic projects is an anthology of short documentaries from five filmmakers between the ages of 17 and 21. Aracelie Colón, Camille Dianand, Shane Fleming, Arlet Guallpa, and Marcial Pilataxi all experienced 2020 with their families in New York City as the five boroughs weathered an unprecedented health-care crisis; now, a year after the coronavirus first exploded throughout New York, we can see how these very real people weathered the storm. March 9

Underplayed

Stacey Lee’s documentary looks at gender disparity in the EDM scene, touring the 2019 summer festivals and asking why it’s so difficult for female DJs to break out on the scale of their male counterparts. Alison Wonderland, REZZ, Nervo, Tygapaw, and Sherelle are among the emerging talents Lee profiles, and the buzz was strong when the doc played Tribeca and TIFF last year. You should check it out; it’ll be in Crave’s International Women’s Day collection. March 8

Genera+ion

Euphoria meets We Are Who We Are in HBO’s latest soap opera about Gen Zers exploring their sexualities in the face of conservative societal forces and ubiquitous technology. It’s not immediately apparent from the trailer what this one will offer thematically compared with those highly stylized dramas, but Genera+ion is written by married couple Daniel Barnz and Ben Barnz and their 18-year-old daughter Zelda Barnz. Perhaps the Gen Xers will get more screen time? March 11

Zack Snyder’s Justice League

As you may have heard, the DC superhero movie Justice League was not the film director Zack Snyder intended audiences to see. The film released to theatres in the fall of 2017 was completed by Joss Whedon when Snyder and his wife and producing partner Deborah left the project after a family tragedy. That version isn’t very good, and fans of Snyder’s Man Of Steel and Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice almost immediately began a social-media campaign to get Snyder’s original version released. There was just one problem: it didn’t exist. Snyder’s vision lived on a hard drive as a four-hour assembly cut, lacking final visual effects, sound mix and score, and it’d cost millions to finish. But the launch of HBO Max created a need for high-visibility exclusive content, and so Warner Bros. provided those millions, allowing Snyder to finish his movie the way he always wanted to. Which, it turns out, is “twice as long as the 2017 version” and “in a completely different aspect ratio”. Super. March 18

Step Up: High Water

We’re big lovers of the Step Up franchise. Hell, we’re even quoted on the blu-ray cover of the fifth and final movie from the original series, Step Up: All In, calling it “visually graceful, invigorating and altogether stunning”. The gravity-defying moves gravitated over to YouTube’s original series Step Up: High Water, featuring Ne-Yo as a performing arts school founder. The show was cancelled after two seasons on YouTube. But Starz is renewing High Water for a third season and bringing the first two to Crave so we can warm up for more Step Up. March 5

Possessor

Brandon Cronenberg’s body-horror thriller isn’t too far removed from his debut feature Antiviral, playing with ideas of personal autonomy and cynical corporate overreach. But it’s also stronger and simpler, with Andrea Riseborough as an assassin who inhabits other people’s bodies to carry out her corporate hits, and Christopher Abbott as the patsy who fights back, locking her in with him. Surrealistic and weirdly credible for all of its sci-fi affectations, it’ll be slithering around in your head for days after you watch it. Also, it’s got the best use of Toronto as a near-future dystopia since Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy. March 26

First Cow

There’s a lot of awards buzz and critical hype around Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland, a poetic movie about American labour shot beautifully against the spare western landscape. But most of the buzz should be directed at Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow, instead. If anything, Nomadland is Reichardt-inspired and Reichardt-lite. From Old Joy and Wendy And Lucy to Certain Women and First Cow, Reichardt has deconstructed American myths and homed in on the type of labour and human relationships that built, shaped and plagued the country. Her latest stars John Magaro and Orion Lee as two men in the mid-19^th century who steal milk from the region’s only cow to produce artisanal oily cakes. Like all Reichardt films, First Cow goes searching for the soul of America, and finds it somewhere between economics and gastronomy. March 5

The Broken Hearts Gallery

Veteran television writer Natalie Krinsky (Gossip Girl, Grey’s Anatomy) makes her directorial debut with this charmer starring Geraldine Viswanathan as a young woman who compulsively collects mementoes of her past relationships—and winds up inviting others to display their own artifacts alongside them in a pop-up gallery. Krinsky surrounds the gifted Viswanathan with a charming supporting cast—including Hamilton’s Phillipa Soo, Broad City’s Arturo Castro, and current SNL breakout Ego Nwodim—and throws in Dacre Montgomery as an aspiring hotelier who definitely wouldn’t break her heart if she’d just give him a chance. And though it’s set in New York City, you’ll have fun spotting all the Toronto locations and day players, like The Beaverton’s Emma Hunter and Pretty Hard Cases’ Tricia Black. March 12

The full list of new titles available on Crave in March 2021 by date is below. The + symbol indicates a TV show or movie that is only available on Crave+ . The * symbol indicates a TV show or movie that is only available with the Starz add-on.

TV shows

March 1

Beartown (season 1, episode 2)+

The Investigation (season 1, episode 5)+

March 2

The Bold And The Beautiful (season 34, episodes 101-105)

March 4

Desus & Mero (season 3, episode 10)

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK (season 2, episode 8)

March 5

Gangster Gold

How Far Is Tattoo Far (seasons 1-2)

Real Time With Bill Maher (season 19, episode 8)+

RuPaul’s Drag Race (season 13, episode 9)

Step Up: High Water (season 1, episode 1)*

Swedish Dicks (seasons 1-2)*

W5 (season 55, episode 17)

March 7

Allen V. Farrow (season 1, episode 3)+

Axios (season 4, episode 6)+

Desus & Mero (season 3, episode 11)

Little Birds (season 1, episode 4)*

Shameless (season 11, episode 7)+

Vice (season 2, episode 1)

March 8

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (season 8, episode 4)+

Beartown (season 1, episode 3)+

The Investigation (season 1, episode 6)+

March 9

The Bold And The Beautiful (season 34, episodes 106-110)

March 11

Desus & Mero (season 3, episode 12)

Genera+tion (season 1, episodes 1- 2)+

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK (season 2, episode 9)

March 12

Ghosted: Love Gone Missing (season 2B)  

Holmes Family Effect (season 1)

Real Time With Bill Maher (season 19, episode 8)+

RuPaul’s Drag Race (season 13, episode 10)

Step Up: High Water (season 1, episode 2)*

March 14

Allen V. Farrow (season 1, episode 4)+

Desus & Mero (season 3, episode 13)

Little Birds (season 1, episode 5)*

Shameless (season 11, episode 8)+

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (season 8, episode 5)+

Vice (season 2, episode 2)

March 15

Beartown (season 1, episode 4)+

March 16

The Bold And The Beautiful (season 34, episodes 111-115)

March 18

Desus & Mero (season 3, episode 14)

Genera+tion (season 1, episodes 3-4)+

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK (season 2, episode 10)

March 19

Ex On The Beach UK  (seasons 1-3, 5-7, and 9)

Real Time With Bill Maher (season 19, episode 9)+

Step Up: High Water (season 1, episode 32)*

March 20

RuPaul’s Drag Race (season 13, episode 10)

March 21

Desus & Mero (season 3, episode 15)

The Gloaming (season 1, episode 1)*

Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (season 8, episode 6)+

Little Birds (season 1, episode 6)*

Shameless (season 11, episode 9)+

Vice (season 2, episode 3)

March 22

Beartown (season 1, episode 5)+

March 25

Genera+tion (season 1, episodes 5-6)+

March 26

Most Ridiculous (season 3)

Teen Mom OG (seasons 6-8))

Real Time With Bill Maher (season 19, episode 10)+

RuPaul’s Drag Race (season 13, episode 12)

Step Up: High Water (season 1, episode 4)*

March 28

City On A Hill (season 2, episode 1)

The Gloaming (season 1, episode 2)*

Shameless (season 11, episode 10)+

Vice (season 2, episode 4)

Movies

March 1

Derek Delgaudio’s In & Of Itself+

The Doorman*

March 3

Across The Line*

Intrigo: Death Of An Author+

March 5

Can You Ever Forgive Me?*

Crash (1996)*

First Cow+

Happythankyoumoreplease*

The Last Full Measure+

Leonard Cohen: I’m Your Man*

Made*

Raw*

March 8

Underplayed+

March 9

COVID Diaries NYC+

March 10

Blindness*

Intrigo: Dear Agnes+

March 12

2 Guns*

American Pie Presents: Girls’ Rules+

Beasts Of The Southern Wild*

Broken Hearts Gallery+

The Cobbler*

Ice Age+

Ice Age: Continental Drift+

Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs+

Les Miserables 25^th Anniversary*

Safehouse*

Unaccompanied Minors*

Viena And The Fantomes+

March 15

Ottolenghi & The Cakes Of Versailles+

March 17

Intrigo: Samaria+

March 18

Batman+

Batman & Robin+

Batman Begins+

Batman Forever+

Batman Returns+

Superman+

Superman Returns*

Zack Snyder’s Justice League+

March 19

Being Julia*

Burnt Orange Heresy+

The Cabin In The Woods*

Lowriders*

McLaren*

Spiral+

Tales From The Hood 3+

The Time Traveler’s Wife*

The Wolfman*

March 24

Born To Be Blue*

The Day Sports Stood Still+

The Quarry+

March 26

Bourne Identity*

Bourne Legacy*

Bourne Supremacy*

Bourne Ultimatum*

Deep Blue Sea 3+

Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights*

Penelope*

Possessor+

The Queen*

Tremors: Shrieker Island+

The U.S. Vs. John Lennon*

Welcome To Sudden Death+

March 27

Tina+

March 30

The Last Cruise+

March 31

Lucky Grandma+

Last Chance

These movies and TV shows are leaving Crave in March 2021.

March 1

A Man Apart  

Ladies In Black

March 6

60 Minutes Sports (season 5, episode 3

Giant Little Ones

The Wedding Guest

March 10

The Hummingbird Project

The Royals (season 1-4)

March 13

The Curse Of La Llorona

March 15

After The Ball  

The Sisterhood  

March 18

The Pee Wee Herman Show On Broadway

March 22

Pokemon: Detective Pikachu

March 24

Doctor Who: Farewell To Peter Capaldi

March 25

The Royals (season 1-4)

March 13

The Curse Of La Llorona

March 15

After The Ball  

The Sisterhood  

March 18

The Pee Wee Herman Show On Broadway

March 22

Pokemon: Detective Pikachu

March 24

Doctor Who: Farewell To Peter Capaldi

March 25

Every Brilliant Thing

March 26

The Secret Life Of Pets 2

March 30

The Circus (seasons 5-6)

March 31

50 To 1

Alita: Battle Angel

Always At The Carlyle

Asher

Astronaut

Away From Her

Beeba Boys

The Best Man (’99)

The Best Man Holiday

Beyond The Black Rainbow

Brace For Impact

Breakthrough

A Colony

Deadly Influencer

Don’t Talk To Irene

Equals

Firecrackers

For Nonna Anna

The Green Hornet

The Interview

Irrational Man

Jerry Maguire

The King

Magic In The Moonlight

Marion Bridge

My Life As A Zucchini

Ocean’s Thirteen

The Other Half

Picture Day

The Pursuit Of Happyness

Red Dog

Richard Pryor: Here And Now

Rio

Rio 2

The Skeleton Twins

Sollers Point

Sorry For Your Loss

Tolkien

Unless

Weeds (seasons 1-8)

Weirdsville

Wet Bum