Right after Halloween, Hollywood tends to get serious: awards season kicks into overdrive, and streamers have to convince their subscribers to keep giving them money.
This explains why netflixNovember’s November slate is full of big-budget features that could win next year’s Oscars.
Leading the pack is Guillermo del Torothe exuberant narration of Frankensteinwith Oscar Isaac like the crazy titular doc i Jacob Elordi as the menacing and strangely alluring monster.
I’m also super excited about streaming Richard Linklaterthe ode to French cinema, new wavei Dream Traina lyrical Valentine to America’s frontier past.
‘Frankenstein’ (2025) — November 7
It is not surprising that Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro adapted Frankenstein for the big screen; it’s surprising it took this long. But good things come to those who wait, and I was eagerly awaiting Del Toro’s adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic novel about a man who plays God and pays dearly for it.
Oscar Isaac he plays Victor Frankenstein, a scientist who never recovered from his mother’s untimely death when he was a child. Determined to find a cure for death, Victor collects body parts from criminals and assembles his creature (Jacob Elordi)which comes to life thanks to a little luck and a lot of electricity. Victor’s success soon turns to failure when the Creature rebels and escapes, threatening his reputation and the life of his younger brother’s fiancée, Elizabeth (Mia Goth).
Mostly faithful to Shelley’s original text, Del Toro’s Frankenstein it possesses the director’s signature gothic flourishes and sympathy for strange strangers. Isaac is a great scientist who is more guilty than mad, but it is Elordi who impresses the most. Almost unrecognizable under pounds of makeup and prosthetics, her creature is worthy of your pain and pity.
‘New Wave’ (2025) — November 14
Movies about the making of a movie run the risk of being self-indulgent, though new wave it largely avoids this because of its sheer audacity: how dare an American film director make a film about one of France’s most famous films? Richard Linklater is the filmmaker who dared, and the result is a film with the vertigo of making a film and starting a cinematic revolution.
new wave chronicles of the then film critic Jean-Luc Godard‘s (Guillaume Marbeck) tries to make his first film, out of breathin 1959 France, a time and a place that was already reinventing what movies could show and do. Helping him is American actress Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutsch), which also seeks to reinvent itself, and Godard’s Cahiers du Cinema critical friends, who are curious to see if he can pull off this wild game. new wave it’s blatantly for movie nerds, if you don’t know who Jean-Paul Belmondo is, then you probably won’t enjoy it. But yes, and I thoroughly enjoyed Linklater’s black-and-white Valentine with the power and craziness of making a movie.
‘Train Dreams’ (2025) — November 21
I’m a big fan of it Terrence Malickwho directed classics like days of heaven with Richard Gere i The thin red line with Sean Pennso it’s only natural that it has Malick’s drama Dream Train on my November watchlist. The critically acclaimed film stars Joel Edgerton as Robert Granier, a mostly stoic man who helps build railroads in the Pacific Northwest in the early 1800s. While leaving clues, he witnesses the murder of a Chinese immigrant, which haunts him even as he meets and marries his true love, Gladys (Felicity Jones).
2025 may be coming to an end, but major streamers are premiering powerful movies and TV shows in November. Unsurprisingly, Netflix claimed two of the spots on our list with a movie worthy of a hit and the conclusion of a long-running series. Hulu got to play with an animated legal drama, while HBO Max premieres (…)
Full of poetic imagery, haunting spectacle and understated narration by the character actor Will Patton, Dream Train is a hypnotic meditation on one man’s place in a changing world. It’s one of those movies that doesn’t have much of a plot, but doesn’t need one: the beautiful cinematography and evocative score tell you everything you need to know about Robert. Dream Train is Netflix’s arthouse film bent, and proves that the streamer can venture beyond its safe algorithm and stream original films that will stick with you longer than the latest true-crime doc.