Kicking off everything new on Netflix in August 2025 is My Oxford Year, which, luckily for us, is already available to stream. Based on the book of the same name by Julia Whelan, the new movie tells the story of Anna (Sofia Carson), an American student who travels to Oxford, England to fulfill her dreams. While there, she meets a local called Jamie (Corey Mylchreest) and a picture-perfect romance begins. Think dramatic kisses in the rain, beautiful scenery and everything else we’ve been missing since the Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill days.
This is all excellent news if you’ve been watching The Summer I Turned Pretty season 3 over the last few weeks. The love triangle between Belly (Lola Tung), Jeremiah (Gavin Casalegno) and Conrad (Christropher Briney) has reached ridiculous new heights, with Belly and Jeremiah set to get married, despite Jeremiah’s rancid behavior. Conrad has returned home to find this all out at his mom’s memorial ceremony, sticking by Belly while Jeremiah once again leaves her in the lurch.
While The Summer I Turned Pretty is exasperating to watch, I’m completely for switching over to My Oxford Year this month. Sure, it’s a movie rather than a TV series, but Netflix is hitting the nail on the romantic head where Prime Video is turning love into the most bizarre soap opera of the year.
Netflix’s My Oxford Year gives us the blistering romance that The Summer I Turned Pretty is missing
Listen, we know Conrad’s blind persistence and undying love for Belly is going to pay off by the end of season 3, and episode 5’s plan to shift to his perspective will likely be the turning point we’re waiting for. But boy, is it all a long and arduous slog to get there. Sometimes, we just want a romance with no hidden agenda, keeping things simple with two people meeting, falling in love and being torn apart before fate thrusts them back together again. And that’s where My Oxford Year comes in.
If you want romance, the new Netflix movie is just that in every single sense of the word. That doesn’t only extend to Anna and Jamie’s blossoming relationship – which has incredibly convincing chemistry, I must add – but also life itself. We’re looking out at the world with rose-tinted glasses, and there’s beauty everywhere we look. Subscribers can get wrapped up in all the intricate storylines and years-worth of lore that they like, but sometimes, we just need reminding of the basics.
Frankly, I’m all too happy to have a break from The Summer I Turned Pretty, even if it lasts until the final season is through. It’s summer (for those of us in the northern hemisphere at least), the nights are still light and I wanted to be whisked away in a whirlwind love affair that definitely won’t happen to me in real life. On that (and many other things), My Oxford Year wins out, and I just know my fellow Conrad-lovers will agree.
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