New on Paramount+ UK in April 2023: The best movies and TV from Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies to Smile

Grease is the word (is the word, is the word) on Paramount+ UK this April as prequel series Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies debuts exclusively on the platform. Promising familiar and new characters, big musical numbers, original songs, and some intense 50s high school drama shot through with 21st century awareness, the weekly drop show is most assuredly the one that you want.

Elsewhere on the TV front, the world’s most fierce drag queens are back and battling for global domination in season two of Graham Norton hosted competition show Queen of the Universe, which is also primed for appointment viewing with a weekly rollout.

Read more: New on Prime Video in April

Read more: New on Disney+ in April

Read more: New on Sky Cinema/NOW in April

Read more: New on Netflix in April

And, for all of your boxset binge-viewing needs, there’s a trifecta of top notch telly to enjoy this month. For true crime lovers there’s Freed To Kill, an eye-opening documentary about infamous serial killer Kenneth Allen McDuff.

Then there’s the second half of timey-wimey sinkhole sci-fi drama La Brea’s second season to look forward to, as well as the arrival of all 30 (!) episodes of Star Trek: Picard too.

Read more: Everything leaving Netflix in April

Headlining the release slate film-wise, blockbuster 2022 Blumhouse horror Smile makes its streaming premiere on the platform this month. And if having the holy bejesus scared out of you isn’t your idea of a good time, then the arrival of juicy feature-length doc The Conservation Game has got you covered.

Here’s what we know is headed for Paramount+ UK this month…

New movies coming to Paramount+ UK in April 2023

Smile | 14 April

Just when you might have thought you’d managed to get that chilling grin out of your mind, Blumhouse’s 2022 horror hit Smile is ready to make its streaming debut and funk with your dreams once again.

Watch a trailer for Smile

Sosie Bacon stars as psychiatrist Dr Rose Cotter, who finds her grip on reality starting to slip after a series of chilling encounters with people whose demented smiles seem to be the key to a murderous curse. Filled with creepy imagery and psychological twisty turniness, Smile is a very ironic title for a film that'll leave you doing anything but that.

The Conservation Game | 18 April

Following Louis Theroux’s documentaries about celebrity conservationist Joe Exotic and Netflix’s sensational Tiger King series, the captivity of big cats in America has become a huge cultural conversation.

In feature documentary The Conservation Game, Ohioan cop Tim Harrison finds himself drawn into a web of secrecy, lies, and cover-ups after a shocking undercover discovery at an exotic animal auction leads him to suspect the world of TV celebrity conservationism may not be all that it seems.

New TV shows coming to Paramount+ UK in April 2023

Queen of the Universe S2 | Episode 1 drops on 1 April, then weekly

A Pop Diva Panel including RuPaul’s Drag Race judge Michelle Visage, multi-Emmy and Grammy nominee Vanessa Williams, American drag superstar Trixie Mattel, and Scary Spice herself Mel B will be picking their ‘Queen of the Universe’ in the second series of this international drag competition. Graham Norton returns on hosting duty, while Coventry Queen Viola will be representing the UK here.

Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies S1 | Episodes 1 and 2 drop on 7 April, then weekly

Set four years before John Travolta and Olivia Newton John found themselves Hopelessly Devoted to each other in the original Grease, all-new prequel series Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies is set to lift the lid on the student revolution that rocked and rolled Rydell High in the first place.

The series follows four outcasts, tired of the status quo, who decide it’s time to have their fun as they navigate puberty, peer pressure, and coming-of-age as young women in mid-century America. Boasting big song-and-dance numbers courtesy of Grammy-nominated songwriter Justin Tranter and choreographer Jamal Sims, as well as plenty of winks and nods to the original movie, there are worse things you could do than give this a try.

Freed To Kill | Boxset drops on 11 April

In 1966, Kenneth Allen McDuff brutally murdered three teenagers in Fort Worth, Texas, receiving a death sentence for his crimes. In 1989, after having had the sentence commuted to life imprisonment and then impressing parole officers with a dossier of evidence pinning the blame on his accomplice Roy Green, McDuff was released from prison. He went on to claim at least another six victims, although the actual figure is presumed higher. This documentary series tries to piece together how the justice system could catch a killer, only to release them and allow them to kill again… and again… and again.

Star Trek: Picard S1-3 | Boxset drops on 21 April

Sir Patrick Stewart reprises his role as the legendary Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: Picard, which finds the former captain of the USS Enterprise, 14 years into his retirement from Starfleet, tending to his vineyard at the end of the 24th century.

Before long however, he is thrust back into sci-fi shenanigans that set him on a collision course with the past, present, and future, with new foes, old friends, and fresh adventures to boldly go on never in short supply. If you haven’t watched this yet, then take it from the captain himself - “Engage!”