The Handmaid's Tale is streaming on SBS On Demand from 6 July. (SBS)

The Handmaid's Tale is streaming on SBS On Demand from 6 July. (SBS) Source: SBS

The highly anticipated adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s award-winning novel The Handmaid’s Tale makes its Australian premiere exclusively on SBS On Demand, with the full series available to stream from Thursday, 6 July.

Few shows launch with as much unanimous praise by critics and viewers alike as The Handmaid's Tale. Already, critics are talking about the series as one of the best of 2017, preparing to put it on their end of year best lists. The good news is that EVERY EPISODE of the shows first season is coming to Australia from Thursday 6 July, streaming exclusively on SBS On Demand where it joins the SBS library of premium world-class drama.

Watch the first episode of The Handmaid's Tale here:



The premise

Starring Elisabeth Moss (Mad Men, The West Wing), The Handmaid's Tale is a 10-part series set in a totalitarian society in what was formerly part of the United States. Facing environmental disasters and a plunging birth-rate, Gilead is ruled by a twisted fundamentalist regime that treats women as property of the state.

Moss stars as Offred, one of the few remaining fertile women, a woman forced into sexual servitude as a last desperate attempt to repopulate a devastated world. In this terrifying society where one wrong word could end her life, Offred navigates between Commanders, their cruel Wives, domestic Marthas, and her fellow Handmaids - where anyone could be a spy for Gilead - with one goal: to survive and find the daughter that was taken from her.

The cast

The Handmaid’s Tale features an all-star cast, including Moss (Mad Men, Top of the Lake), Joseph Fiennes (American Horror Story: Asylum, Shakespeare in Love), Samira Wiley (Orange is the New Black), Max Minghella (The Mindy Project), Yvonne Strahovski (Chuck, Dexter), O-T Fagbenle (The Five), Alexis Bledel (Gilmore Girls), and Ann Dowd (Compliance, The Leftovers).

How to watch it

The show will stream exclusively in Australia on SBS On Demand from Thursday 6 July, perfect for a weekend binge-watch. SBS On Demand is accessible across several devices, with the newly-added Chromecast functionality now available on Android.

“The Handmaid’s Tale has garnered worldwide attention and critical-acclaim, sparking conversation that has led to a high demand for the series. With a commitment to quality and handpicked content, unquestionably, there is no better home for the series in Australia than SBS On Demand,” said Chris Ottinger, MGM President Worldwide Television Distribution and Acquisitions.

The Handmaid’s Tale is available to stream at SBS On Demand.

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