November may be coming to an end but the flow of entertainment never stops. A fresh batch of new movies is streaming this week on Netflix, Prime Video, Peacock and other major streaming services.
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The week's new arrivals include the Disney Plus debut of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and the Peacock debut of The Exorcist: Believer, both of which have previously been available on demand. A couple of holiday-themed family comedies premiere on streaming: Candy Cane Lane with Eddie Murphy and Family Switch with Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms.
Some titles are newly available via digital release, so you can purchase them for a premium price, but for others, all you need is the right streaming subscription. Here are the top new movies streaming this week. Plus, check out the new shows on TV and streamers this week.
Freelance (PVOD)
John Cena’s film credits continue to expand at an exponential rate. In this action comedy, he stars as an ex-special forces operative stuck in a dead-end desk job. Then, one day, Mason reluctantly agrees to take a freelance gig providing private security for washed-up journalist Claire Wellington (Alison Brie) as she interviews the ruthless dictator Juan Venegas (Juan Pablo Raba). When a military coup breaks out just as she’s about to get the scoop of a lifetime, the unlikely trio must figure out how to survive the jungle and each other.
Buy on Amazon or Apple starting Nov. 28
The Holdovers (PVOD)
Nearly 20 years after Sideways, director Alexander Payne reunites with Paul Giamatti for a dramedy set in 1970 at a New England boarding school. Paul Hunham is the curmudgeonly classics teacher who is disliked by both students and the headmaster. He’s forced to stay on campus during Christmas break to supervise the handful of boys with nowhere to go. As the days pass, he forms unlikely bonds with the smart but troubled Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa) and the school’s grieving head cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph). This is one holiday that Paul will never forget.
Buy on Amazon or Apple starting Nov. 28
What Happens Later (PVOD)
Meg Ryan returns to the familiar romantic comedy stomping grounds she left behind years ago. She’s moved into directing, and she helms and stars in this sweet confection about two exes who run into each other at a regional airport and end up getting snowed in for the night.
Willa (Ryan) is a magical thinker, while Bill (David Duchovny) is a catastrophic one. They’re just as annoyed by and attracted to each other as they were decades earlier. But as they talk about the past and the dreams they once shared, they start to wonder if their reunion is more than a coincidence.
Buy on Amazon or Apple starting Nov. 28
Family Switch (Netflix)
Think Freaky Friday, but double the trouble! This romp features Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms as Jess and Bill Walker, parents who are doing their best to try to stay connected to increasingly independent and distant teens CC (Emma Myers) and Wyatt (Brady Noon). If only the parents could really understand the kids’ issues … and vice versa.
Then, a chance encounter with an astrological reader causes the family to wake up to a full body switch on a critically important day in each of their lives. They’ll have to work together to ace a promotion, college interview, record deal and soccer tryout.
Stream on Netflix starting Nov. 30
Candy Cane Lane (Prime Video)
It’s quite surprising that Eddie Murphy hasn’t made a holiday comedy until now. He plays Chris, a man on a mission to win his neighborhood’s annual Christmas home decoration contest. To better his chances of winning, he makes a deal with mischievous elf Pepper (Jillian Bell) — without knowing the zaniness that will follow.
Pepper then casts a magic spell that brings the 12 Days of Christmas to life, wreaking havoc on the entire town. At risk of ruining the holidays for everyone, Chris, his wife Carol (Tracee Ellis Ross) and their three kids must race against the clock to break Pepper’s spell.
Stream on Prime Video starting Dec. 1
The Exorcist: Believer (Peacock)
After rebooting the Halloween franchise, director David Gordon Green turns his attention to The Exorcist movies. Though Believer is the sixth installment, it serves a a direct sequel to the original 1973 film and is intended to be the first in a new trilogy.
Leslie Odom, Jr. stars as Victor Fielding, a photographer who is caught in a massive earthquake in Haiti with his pregnant wife. He’s forced to choose to save their unborn child over his wife. Thirteen years later, his teen daughter Angela (Lidya Jewett) and her friend (Olivia Marcum) disappear into the woods, only to return three days later with no memory of what happened to them. When evil occurrences begin to happen, Victor seeks out the only person alive who has witnessed anything like it before: Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn).
Stream on Peacock starting Dec. 1
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Disney Plus)
The fifth Indiana Jones movie is the last to star Harrison Ford as the whip-wielding, fedora-wearing archaeologist. If you didn’t catch it in theaters, you’re not alone, since it didn’t really fire up the box office. And according to TG’s Rory Mellon, Indiana Jones 5 is "definitely a movie that can wait” for streaming.
Dial of Destiny is set in two time periods. In 1944, Indy and archaeology colleague Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) recover a Nazi-stolen artifact, a time-traveling device called the Archimedes Dial from scientist Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelson). In 1969, Voller is working for NASA and trying to get his hands on the dial again. Jones teams up with Shaw's daughter, Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) to stop him for good.
Stream on Disney Plus starting Dec. 1
Joy Ride (Starz)
This road trip comedy featuring four Asian-American women is everything I’ve been wanting for years. Adele Lim, the screenwriter behind Crazy Rich Asians and Raya and the Last Dragon, takes the director’s chair for the first time. Her cast is stacked with some of the brightest rising stars in the biz, led by Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu and Ashley Park.
When Audrey (Park) decides to go to China to find her birth mother, she enlists the support of her best friends: irreverent hot mess Lolo (Sherry Cola); Chinese soap star Kat (Hsu); and Lolo’s eccentric cousin Deadeye (Sabrina Wu). Their trip is filled with both hijinks and emotional moments as their American upbringing and their Asian heritage collide.
Stream on Starz starting Dec. 1
May December (Netflix)
Remember Mary Kay Letourneau, the sixth-grade teacher who had sex with her 12-year-old student, was convicted of rape and had his child in prison? Todd Haynes’ latest melodrama is loosely based on that true crime. Twenty years after their notorious romance, Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore) and 23-years-younger husband Joe (Charles Melton) are facing their twins’ high school graduation. Hollywood actress Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) visits to better understand the controversial woman she is portraying in a film. As she gets to know them, the family’s dynamics begin to unravel under an outsider’s gaze.
Stream on Netflix starting Dec. 1
