I've pored over Netflix's release schedule to bring you the best movies and TV shows premiering on the service this month. In true November fashion, this month is heavy on Christmas—Netflix is leaning into the holiday hard with a slate of festive films featuring stars like Lacey Chabert and Lindsay Lohan, as well as overstuffed stocking full of Hallmark Christmas movies.
If you do not partake in Christmas hype, there's also Oscar-bait Emilia Pérez, the excellent Rob Peace, and the live Paul vs. Tyson fight, if you want to see a boxing match but don't actually like boxing.
Emilia Pérez
Emilia Pérez is a genre-defying movie that blends comedy, drama, musical numbers, and action into a potion Netflix describes as "an opera that’s not an opera." It stars Karla Sofía Gascón, Zoe Saldaña, and Selena Gomez, and tells the story of high-powered attorney Rita (Saldaña) assigned to help a Mexican cartel leader (Gascón) fake their death and undergo gender reassignment. Look for this one on Oscar night.
Starts streaming November 13.
Rob Peace (2024)
Directed, adapted by, and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 years a Slave), Rob Peace dramatizes the true story of Robert Deshaun Peace, a brilliant young man from a poor background in Newark, New Jersey whose attendance at Yale is cut tragically short. Jay Will plays the title character, Mary J. Blige plays his devoted mother, and Ejiofor plays Peace's imprisoned father.
Starts streaming November 9
Hot Frosty
Lacey Chabert stars in a lighthearted holiday confection in which a snowman turns into a regular man—but he's totally hot. Chabert and the former snowman—an abomination if you think about too much—fall in love, despite the differences in their backgrounds. This is really all there is to say about Hot Frosty. You're either in or you're out with a movie like this.
Starts streaming November 13.
Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson (Live)
Circus matches are nothing new to boxing—Muhammad Ali fought a Japanese professional wrestler at the height of his career—and Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson might be the greatest novelty boxing match ever staged. It will give us a chance to see Iron Mike step into the ring one more time, with the added bonus that he might punch Jake Paul's head clean off, although I'd put my money on a tepid exhibition match with a subtext of "just give me my check."
Starts streaming November 15.
Hallmark Christmas movie collection
Attention should be paid to Hallmark's Christmas movies. The greeting-card-company-turned-cable-network-for-some-reason churns out Christmas-themed romantic comedies with the ruthless efficiency of a German industrial plant. They're usually not bad either, if you're into that sort of thing. I haven't seen any of the movies Netflix is streaming in November, but I assume all are perfectly serviceable background movies for wrapping presents and putting lights on the tree. Here's the list.
A Biltmore Christmas (2023)
A Merry Scottish Christmas (2023)
A Heidelberg Holiday (2023)
Christmas Island (2023)
Christmas on Cherry Lane (2023)
Christmas with a Kiss (2023)
Miracle in Bethlehem, PA (2023)
Christmas in Notting Hill (2023)
Haul Out the Holly (2023)
Haul Out the Holly: Lit Up (2023)
Starts streaming November 1.
Meet Me Next Christmas
Christina Milian stars in a holiday movie about Layla, who is desperately trying to get her hands on tickets to the sold-out Pentatonix Christmas Eve Concert. A bright-and-cheery romantic comedy powered by the a cappella musical stylings of Pentatonix is both a can't-miss holiday movie concept and literally my worst nightmare. Meet Me Next Christmas also stars Kofi Siriboe as James, who, unlike me, is handsome and charming and presumably likes listening Pentatonix.
Starts streaming November 6.
Pedro Páramo
Based on Juan Rulfo’s seminal work of magical realism, Pedro Páramo stars Manuel García-Rulfo from The Lincoln Lawyer as the title character, who finds himself in the ghost town of Comala, where the past and present coexist. Described by Netflix as a "mesmerizing story of desire, corruption, and inheritance," Pedro Páramo is the directorial debut of frequent Scorsese cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, so we know for sure it's going to look amazing.
Starts streaming November 6.
Arcane (Season 2)
You wouldn't think a cartoon series based on the online game League of Legends would be a critical favorite, but the first season of Arcane earned a perfect 100% fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes. Season 2 picks up where 1 left off, with League of Legends champions Vi and Jinx on different paths in the looming showdown between Piltover and Zaun. This is the final chapter of Arcane, and it will be arriving in three acts, on Nov. 9, 16, and 23.
Starts streaming November 9.
Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley
No matter how many Elvis documentaries, feature films, and TV miniseries are made, there's always room for one more. Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley takes us behind the scenes of Elvis' greatest moment, the '68 Comeback Special, where, for a single hour, Presley shook off more than a decade of terrible movies, cynical cash-grab albums, and bad career decisions (courtesy of overbearing manager Col. Tom Parker) to remind the world why they called him the King in the first place.
Starts streaming November 13.
The Lost Children
On May 1, 2023 a Cessna carrying four Indigenous children and their parents crashed in the Colombia wilderness. With the all the adults dead, the children, ages 13, 9, 4 years, and 11 months, were forced to survive 40 days in a harrowing jungle. Featuring archival footage and interviews with the survivors and the people who risked everything to find them in the trackless wastes, The Lost Children is an unbelievable story of survival.
Starts streaming November 13.
Cobra Kai (Season 6 – Part 2)
They say this season of Cobra Kai will conclude the series, but I wouldn't bet on it. I would bet on the scrappy teens of the Miyagi Do karate school at the Sekai Taikai international hi-YAH competition, where they'll face off against the greatest teen martial artists on the planet. I have a good feeling about their chances. Even though the Americans are underdogs and their karate school is rife with internal conflict, I think they'll rise to the occasion in a surprisingly uplifting way, and take home the trophy or the black belt or whatever the prize in a karate tournament is.
Starts streaming November 15.
Adam Ray Presents: Dr. Phil UNPLUGGED
Comedian Adam Ray does a lot of impressions, but his portrayal of blowhard TV doctor Dr. Phil as a foul-mouthed, oversexed reprobate is the standout by a mile. It's not just that he looks and sounds like Dr. Phil, Ray is so in touch with Dr. Phil's Dr. Phill-ness, it's like he's channeling the man's id, saying everything you know Dr. Phil would say if he could. That impression takes center stage in Adam Ray Presents: Dr. Phil UNPLUGGED
Starts streaming November 19.
A Man on the Inside
Ted Danson headlines a comedy series about aging. Danson plays Charles, a retired professor at loose ends who takes a job as an undercover detective at a nursing home. Charles soon finds that the geriatrics are fun-loving rapscallions who love partying (and crime, apparently). Season one of A Man on the Inside is based on a true story and sees Charles searching for a stolen necklace, but I'm hoping future season will see Danson tackle the mystery of who keeps moving my pills, determine the identity of the lady who keeps saying she's my daughter, and figure out who keeps shitting my pants.
Starts streaming November 20.
I don't want to alarm you, but according to Netflix documentary Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy, retailers often use questionable tactics to get people to buy things—often things they don't even need! Through interviews with whistleblowers and industry insiders, this documentary shines a light on the covert psychological manipulation that capitalists use to make you spend money, with an eye on the true price of out-of-control consumption.
Starts streaming November 20.
The Merry Gentlemen
With Hot Frosty and The Merry Gentlemen, Netflix is leaning into the combination of hunky guys and Christmas this year. The titular gentlemen are strippers, employed by Ashley (Britt Robertson) in an effort to save her parents' small-town performing arts venue. Expect a lot of abs, a lot of laughs, and lot of old fashioned Christmas romance in this mildly horny holiday flick.
Starts streaming November 20.
Spellbound
Netflix is gunning for animation superiority: The streaming service has employed heavy hitters like director Vicky Jenson (Shrek), songwriter Alan Menken (Beauty and the Beast) and voice actors including Rachel Zegler, Nicole Kidman, and Javier Bardem to bring Spellbound to life. This family-friendly fantasy tells the tale of Ellian (Zegler), the princess of Lumbria, who embarks on daring quest to save her family and kingdom after a spell transforms her parents into monsters.
Starts streaming November 21.
The Piano Lesson
Adapted from the stage play by August Wilson and starring Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, and Danielle Deadwyler, The Piano Lesson follows the lives of the Charles family, whose family legacy is expressed on a piano decorated with carvings by their enslaved ancestors. One brother (John David Washington) hopes to sell it, while his sister (Danielle Deadwyler), refuses to give it up.
Starts streaming November 22.
Our Little Secret
Our Little Secret is a holiday-scented romantic comedy that stars Lindsay Lohan, the queen of Christmas, along with Kristin Chenoweth, Ian Harding, and Tim Meadows. Lohan plays Avery, whose holiday visit with her boyfriend's family gets really weird. See, she used to date his brother, so, to keep the peace and survive the holiday, the pair agree to keep their past a secret. Hilarity and romance ensue.
Starts streaming November 27
The Madness
Netflix is closing out November with the premier of The Madness, an action series blissfully free of Christmas cheer. Colman Domingo stars as Muncie Daniels, a media pundit who witnesses a murder deep in the Pennsylvania woods. The killing leads to a deep, dark conspiracy, forcing Daniels to fight for his very life and comes to grips with the fact that what he thinks he knows of the world is not true.
Starts streaming November 28.
Last month's picks
Lonely Planet
Laura Dern and Liam Hemsworth star in a thoughtful-but-steamy movie with a May/December romance at its center. Dern plays Katherine, a novelist who travels to Morocco to get over her writers' block. Love is the last thing she's looking for, but when she's thrown together with Owen (Hemsworth) on a roadtrip across North Africa, it finds her anyway. Lonely Planet is the perfect movie if you want to squeeze just a little more heat out of summer before we plunge into Autumn.
Starts streaming October 11.
Detroiters
Criminally under-appreciated when it originally aired on Comedy Central in 2017 and 2018, Detroiters is too funny to die. This is legit one of the best comedies that has ever been on TV, and if you haven't seen it, I feel bad for you. Tim Robinson, auteur of wildly popular sketch show I Think You Should Leave, created Detroiters and stars as a dope who inherits a Detroit advertising company then hires his best friend, another dope played by Sam Richardson, to make commercials. Seriously: If you do nothing else in October, watch this show.
Starts streaming October 15.
The Platform was pure cinematic madness and this sequel looks like more of the same. Like the original, The Platform 2 is a horror/sci fi movie set in a tower prison where the people who live on the top floor get an opulent spread of food every day. The inmates on the floor below get what's left over, and the inmates below them get the left-over left-overs, and so on, down to the starving wretches hundreds of levels deep who are killing each other over table scraps. It's not the kind of story that begs for a sequel, but I'm still curious where it's going.
Starts streaming October 4.
Don’t Move
Don't Move aims at suspense stripped of everything but its most basic elements. Kelsey Asbille plays Iris, a young woman (the hero) hiking in an isolated forest (the closed arena). A stranger, played by Finn Wittrock (the villain) injects her with a paralytic drug, and explains how, in 20 minutes, she'll be completely unable to move (the ticking clock). If you're into nail-biting suspense, give this movie a shot.
Starts streaming October 25.
See for Me
This is a good month for taut, high-concept thrillers on Netflix. See for Me is a home invasion movie where Skyler Davenport plays Sophie Scott, a blind woman cat sitting at an isolated home. When murderous thieves break in, Sophie's only hope comes via an app designed to help sight-impaired people by letting strangers see through their camera phones. Sophie's survival depends on letting a stranger from across the continent be her eyes.
Starts streaming October 6.
It’s What’s Inside
Freaky Friday, 17 Again, Rob Schneider's The Hot Chick; I'll watch literally any movie where people switch bodies, so I'm totally jazzed for It's What's Inside. The high concept in this sci-fi/horror/comedy is a group of friends at a pre-wedding party all switch bodies. There's some machine or something; doesn't matter. Body-switching movies are often critically maligned, but this one is even getting decent reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
Starts streaming October 4.
Jurassic World: Chaos Theory, Season 2
The first season of this animated series set in the Jurassic World universe earned 100% positive reviews according to Rotten Tomatoes, so it would be literally impossible to not like it. In Chaos Theory, the dinosaurs have taken over the world. "The Nublar Six," six teenagers with dinosaur experience, embark on a mission to unravel a conspiracy that threatens everything on Earth, humans and dinos alike. This is a perfect series to share with your kids: It's gentle enough for anyone over seven, but adult enough that parents won't want to claw their eyes out.
Starts streaming October 17.
Heartstopper, Season 3
Like Jurassic World: Chaos Theory, Heartstopper's first season has a perfect rating on Rotten Tomatoes and season 2 is sitting at 96%. This British coming-of-age tale tells the story of teens Charlie and Nick whose unlikely friendship blossoms into love. Heartstoppers examines controversial issues with a rare-for-TV level of honesty, intelligence, and sensitivity. Introduce it to the teenager in your life.
Starts streaming October 3.
Hasan Minhaj: Off With His Head
A lot of standup comedy isn't about anything beyond surface-level observations about the minutia of modern life, but Off With His Head promises something deeper. Comedian Hasan Minhaj's promising career—he says he was tapped to host The Daily Show—was derailed when a New Yorker journalist fact-checked some of the details in his comedy routines last year. So the guy has an interesting story to tell. Plus, he's really funny. So if you're looking for something more thoughtful than "what is the DEAL with hats?" check this one out.
Starts streaming October 22.
Unsolved Mysteries, Volume 5
We're on the fifth mini-season of Netflix's revamped version of this series about real-life conundrums, and the mysteries show no signs of stopping. This set of four episodes leans heavier on UFOs and the paranormal than previous volumes of Unsolved Mysteries—there's a Roswell episode, a cattle mutilation episode, and a psychic episode—so if you're into mysteries that are crimes instead of mysteries that are bullshit, this might not be the season for you.
Starts streaming October 2.
The Lincoln Lawyer, Season 3
Lawyers with weekly legal imbroglios have been fodder for compelling television since Perry Mason made objections in the 1950s. The Lincoln Lawyer is a particularly solid example of the genre. Now on its third season, the show's main character, Mickey Haller, (played by Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) earned the name by solving cases in his Continental convertible. Like the car, the show is a throwback; it's one of those episodic TV dramas that you don't have to watch in order—exciting enough, but not meant to be taken too seriously.
Starts streaming October 17.
Beauty in Black
Tyler Perry's new series shows what happens whens worlds collide. In Beauty in Black, Taylor Polidore Williams plays Kimmie, a struggling exotic dancer at Atlanta's Magic City strip club. Mallory, played Crystle Stewart, is the head of a hair care dynasty and matriarch of a very wealthy family. When these two cross paths, their fates become entangled and things get sexy and dangerous.
Starts streaming October 24.
The Diplomat, season 2
If you're thinking "Oh, great, a television drama about global politics and diplomacy, sounds fascinating," you're not getting what people liked about the first season of The Diplomat. Yes, Keri Russel plays the U.S. ambassador to the UK, but the show is a pot-boiler packed with snappy dialogue that uses geopolitics to raise the stakes on over-the-top situations. In other words, it's fun, I swear.
Starts streaming October 31.
