It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas over at Netflix, which makes a lot of sense – it is December, you know. But while the streamer has a few explicitly yuletide-themed offerings on its release calendar – including an animated heartwarmer from Love Actually director Richard Curtis, a wintry spy thriller starring Keira Knightley and a Sabrina Carpenter holiday special – its most notable new titles feature nary a snowman. Maria, a biopic of opera singer Maria Callas, features a career-best performance from Angelina Jolie. And then there’s the second season of Squid Game, the Korean thriller that came out of nowhere three years ago to become the most-watched series in Netflix history. What other streaming gifts are we looking forward to unwrapping this month? Check out our 10 picks below, along with a complete December release schedule.
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That Christmas
It makes perfect sense that Mr Love Actually himself, Richard Curtis, would write a series of Christmas-themed children’s books, and that they’d eventually get turned into an animated feature. Like the director’s holiday guilty pleasure, the movie intertwines several stories within the snowbound town of Wellington-on-Sea. A host of English acting talent lend their voices, highlighted by Brian Cox as Santa Claus. Well, ho, ho, ho. Now bleep off!
Premieres Dec 4
Black Doves season 1
Keira Knightley is a London-based spy whose secret life comes undone after the guy she’s been sleeping with turns up dead in this Christmas-set series from The Lazarus Project creator Joe Barton. The trailer promises bloody shootouts and close-quarters combat – as well as quippy banter between Knightley and Ben Whishaw as the cocky assassin sent to protect her.
Premieres Dec 5
A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter
America’s horny pop sweetheart is an ideal choice to host the now-traditional ironic holiday variety show: she’s got the sass, the songs, the Disney-trained acting chops and endless prewritten sex puns at her disposal. Chappell Roan and Shania Twain are on the guestlist, and you can bet on lots of yuletide-themed innuendo involving candy canes and references to ‘poles’.
Premieres Dec 6
The Six Triple Eight
Tyler Perry directing a historical World War II drama? Is that something that can work? The results remain to be seen, but it unearths an important fact-based story about an all-Black female army battalion, and the cast is impressive, with Kerry Washington as Charity Adams, the first African-American woman to serve in the Women’s Army Corps, and Sam Waterston, Susan Sarandon and Oprah Winfrey in supporting roles.
Premieres Dec 6
Maria
For the first time in forever, Angelina Jolie has a role worthy of her presence. The Oscar buzz is getting loud for her portrayal of drug-addicted opera singer Maria Callas in this biopic from Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín. It’s the third in the director’s trilogy of films about complex 21st century women, after 2016’s Jackie and 2021’s Spencer, and given his past work, he should do right by both subject and star here.
Premieres Dec 11
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Nearly 60 years after publication, Gabriel García Márquez’s literary masterwork is receiving its first screen adaptation. It’s not hard to understand why it took so long: spanning multiple generations, with elements of magical realism, bringing the book to life is an epic lift. With 16 episodes broken into two parts, directors Alex García López and Laura Mora are at least allowing the story the proper time – and with help from Márquez’s family, it will hopefully honour the author’s vision as well.
Part 1 premieres Dec 11
No Good Deed season 1
In LA, real estate is a battlefield. Linda Cardellini, of the underrated Netflix series Dead to Me, reunites with that show’s creator, Liz Feldman, for this dark comedy about three families competing to buy the same dream house. The stacked cast also includes Lisa Kudrow, Ray Romano, Luke Wilson, Denis Leary and Abbi Jacobson.
Premieres Dec 12
Carry-On
A TSA agent is blackmailed into allowing a possibly dangerous package aboard a flight in this thriller from director Jaume Collet-Serra, purveyor of such entertaining trash as Orphan and The Shallows. What contraband does said carry-on contain? Drugs? A bomb? A bottle of mouthwash larger than 3.4 ounces? Let’s get drunk on a do-nothing Friday night and find out!
Premieres Dec 13
NFL Christmas Gameday
Is Netflix ready for some football? Server issues during last month’s Mike Tyson fight suggest possibly not. Bigger question: is the streamer ready for Beyoncé, who’ll perform at halftime of the Texans-Ravens game? Because if you think Eagles and Raiders fans are ornery, they ain’t got nothing on the Beyhive.
Airs Dec 25
Squid Game season 2
The first season of this bloody Korean satire broke all kinds of Netflix viewership records, and it’s not a stretch to say this is the streamer’s most anticipated premiere of the year. Emmy-winner Lee Jung-jae slips back into the white-and-green tracksuit as Seong Gi-hun, the winner of the deadly competition of the title, as he returns to the game with a plan to expose the sadistic forces behind it.
Premieres Dec 26
Everything coming to Netflix in December 2024
Arriving December 1
“A Different World” Season 1-6
“Faster”
“Run All Night”
“Transformers”
“The Dark Tower”
“Top Five”
Arriving December 2
“30 for 30” Collection
Arriving December 3
“Sleeping Princess”
“Fortune Feimster: Crushing It”
Arriving December 4
“Churchill at War”
“That Christmas”
“The Children’s Train”
“The Only Girl in the Orchestra”
“Tomorrow and I” Season 1
Arriving December 5
“Black Doves”
“Heartbreak Motel”
“Jentry Chau vs. the Underworld” Season 1
“Subservience”
Arriving December 6
“A Nonsense Christmas with Sabrina Carpenter”
“Camp Crasher”
“Echos of the Past”
“Mary”
Arriving December 7
“Shiva Baby”
Arriving December 9
“Great British Baking Show: Holidays” Season 7
“Rubble & Crew” Season 1
Arriving December 10
“Jamie Foxx: What Had Happened Was…”
“Polo”
Arriving December 11
“Makayla’s Voice: A Letter to the World”
“Maria”
“One Hundred Years of Solitude” Season 1
“Queer Eye” Season 9
Arriving December 12
“No Good Deed”
Arriving December 13
“1992”
“Carry-On”
“Disaster Holiday”
Arriving December 17
“Aaron Rodgers: Enigma”
“Ronny Chieng: Love to Hate It”
Arriving December 18
“Julia’s Stepping Stones”
Arriving December 19
“The Dragon Prince” Season 7
“Virgin River” Season 6
Arriving December 20
“Ferry 2”
“The Six Triple Eight”
Arriving December 24
“Your Friend, Nate Bargatze”
Arriving December 25
“Christmas Gameday: Chiefs vs Steelers”
“Christmas Gameday: Ravens vs Texans” (with Beyonce halftime show!)
Arriving December 26
“Squid Game” Season 2
Arriving December 31
“Avicci – My Last Show”
“Michelle Buteau: A Buteau-Ful Mind at Radio City”