Premieres Wednesday:
The Children’s Train — Straight from the Rome Film Festival comes the story of a poor boy from the south of Italy who’s sent to live with an affluent northern host family in the year 1946. For those of you who have never left Central Florida, this is what relocating to Valdosta would be like. (Netflix)
Churchill at War — The docuseries format affords an in-depth look at the man who kept England together during World War II while coining such timeless aphorisms as “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” (Oddly enough, that’s also the city motto of Valdosta!) (Netflix)
Light Shop — Six Korean trauma sufferers are beckoned to a lighting store that secretly serves as a nexus point between the living and the dead. And if you think that’s something, wait’ll you hear what the Druids were up to when they built Rooms to Go. (Hulu)
That Christmas — Richard Curtis of Love, Actually fame teams up with animator Simon Otto (the How to Train Your Dragon trilogy) to take us to a seaside English village that’s thrown into chaos by a record-breaking snowstorm. Then again, your average English village could be thrown into chaos by a vicar in spats. (Netflix)
Tomorrow and I — In the Thailand of the future, conservative-minded citizens find their cherished cultural traditions threatened by the adoption of state-of-the-art technology. Well, with that kind of attitude, they’ll never get to procreate wantonly on Mars like the rest of us. (Netflix)
The Ultimatum: Marry or Move On — Age differences and career considerations are among the reasons for the delay in matrimony that’s being experienced by the six new couples we’ll meet in Season 3. So far, nobody’s citing “a deep aversion to making further commitments to this hellscape of an existence on any level whatsoever,” but give it another season. (Netflix)
Premieres Thursday:
Black Doves — “Holiday togetherness” takes on a whole new meaning for a British spy (Keira Knightley) and the former assassin (Ben Whishaw) who’s assigned to protect her after her lover is killed. In retrospect, being stalked by the best man from your wedding doesn’t seem like the worst way to spend a Christmas, does it? (Netflix)
Creature Commandos — James Gunn’s DC Universe begins in earnest with the animated adventures of some dysfunctional monsters who get saddled with jobs that are beneath even the Suicide Squad. But there’s one assignment even they wouldn’t take: restoring the Snyderverse. (Max)
Jentry Chau vs. the Underworld — The onrush of maturity unlocks the literal flame-throwing superpowers of a Chinese-American teen (voice of Ali Wong). I’m not saying there’s some sort of coming-of-age metaphor going on here, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that she and the chick from Turning Red are having their periods in sync. (Netflix)
Premieres Friday:
Biggest Heist Ever — Married Bitcoin thieves Ilya “Dutch” Lichtenstein and Heather “Razzlekhan” Morgan are the subjects of a documentary that couldn’t be timelier, given that they were both sent to prison just this month. Duly noted: You can only do time for stealing something that isn’t real, not for selling it. (Netflix)
Camp Crasher — An Argentinean single mom sees a chance to become a hero in her son’s eyes by volunteering to drive the bus for his class camping trip. Nice try, but I think they’re still going to prefer the gym teacher who hooks them all up with Adderall. (Netflix)
Echoes of the Past — Freed from prison after 15 years, a grief-stricken Egyptian who was falsely accused of killing his sister sets out to find the true culprit. Good luck, Yehia; O.J. went to his grave still not knowing. (Netflix)
Mary — Pro-Palestinian activists are boycotting this Joel Osteen-produced biblical biopic, which they’re calling historically inaccurate because an Israeli actress (Noa Cohen) was cast as the Mother of God. But that’s what happens when you waste your vote for SAG president on Jill Stein. (Netflix)
A Nonsense Christmas With Sabrina Carpenter — Taking a break from her ongoing campaign to dry-hump anything that’ll fit on a concert stage, the Disney Channel alum offers her own take on the holiday variety specials of yore. You know, like the one where Joey Heatherton pretended to peg Dean Martin. (Netflix)
Paris Has Fallen — France is targeted by terrorists in a series successor to the popular movies about Things That Have Fallen (e.g., Olympus, London, Mickey Rourke’s Face Any Minute Now). (Hulu)
The Sticky — Playing fast and loose with Canadian history yields wacky crime comedy, with Margo Martindale as an simple farmer who organizes a daring robbery of her country’s vast maple-syrup reserves. (SPOILER: She’s only caught when she and her crew go after a massive silo of flapjacks.) (Prime Video)
Premieres Monday:
The Great British Baking Show: Holidays — Favorite faces from previous seasons return to beguile the judges with their most mouth-watering Christmas confections. The streaming audience is a bit more blasé, having been conditioned to turn up its nose at cake that actually looks like cake. (Netflix)
Premieres Tuesday:
Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was … — Returning to the stand-up stage after two decades, Foxx finally reveals what was behind the 2023 hospitalization that left him with no memory of 20 entire days of his life. He’s had almost two years to come up with something good, so let’s all agree we’re not going to settle for “really bad sleep apnea.” (Netflix)
Polo — Harry and Meghan executive-produced this documentary profile of the English upper crust’s most venerated sport. No, not “being hounded by the paparazzi unto death”; the other one. (Netflix)
Rugged Rugby: Conquer or Die — Seven top teams kick and claw their way through the bitterly competitive field of Korean rugby, where the ultimate reward is a prize purse of 300 million won. (Nobody wants to be saddled with the far less desirable second prize, 150 million lost.) (Netflix)
Secret Level — Explore the mythology behind the pixels in an animated anthology series that expands on the lore of classic video games like Pac-Man and Warhammer 30,000. In one of the most affecting vignettes, Donkey Kong declares himself a victim of neurodivergence. (Prime Video)
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This article appears in Dec 4-10, 2024.