Netflix
The Piano Lesson
Film, US, 2024 – out 22 November
August Wilson’s Pulitzer prize-winning play is about a black family living in Pittsburgh in the 1930s and the fate of their eponymous heirloom, which is of huge symbolic significance as it is etched with the faces of their ancestors. Willie Charles (John David Washington) wants to sell the piano, potentially to buy part of a Mississippi plantation and help them turn over a new leaf – but his sister Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) is dead-set against it, the siblings split between moving forward and holding on to the past. The film generated strong reviews after premiering at the Telluride film festival in August, and has Oscar potential written all over it.
A Man on the Inside
TV, US, 2024 – release date TBC
Ted Danson’s new comedy series, from The Good Place creator Michael Schur, is a fictionalised adaptation of the 2020 documentary The Mole Agent, about an elderly man hired by a private detective to go undercover in a nursing home. Danson plays the titular mole, who poses as a resident of a retirement residence in San Francisco in order to solve a mystery involving the theft of a valuable necklace. The trailer shows the protagonist having a great time in his new digs, carving it up during happy hour (which begins at 3pm) and mingling with chatty old folk, who deliver lines like, “Everything tastes like pennies, and none of us can feel our arms.”
Honourable mentions: Warm Bodies (film, 1 November), Alita: Battle Angel (film, 8 November), Return of the King: The Fall and Rise of Elvis Presley (film, 13 November), Cobra Kai season 6 part 2 (TV, 15 November), The Merry Gentlemen (film, 20 November), Joy (film, 22 November), Spellbound (film, 22 November), John Wick: Chapter 3 (film, 22 November), The Helicopter Heist (TV, 22 November), Cold Case: Who Killed JonBenét Ramsey (TV, 25 November), Our Little Secret (film, 27 November), Senna (film, 29 November), Dune: Part Two (film, 29 November).
Stan
Nugget is Dead: A Christmas Story
Film, Australia, 2024 – out 21 November
For a long time Australia had very few Christmas movies, but in recent years the list has grown considerably partly thanks to Stan, who’ve made new Aussie yuletide films an annual tradition. This year’s is an authentic depiction of family in that it’s full of bickering, squabbling and strange dynamics. Steph Stool (Vic Zerbst) intends to skip her usual return to her coastal hometown and spend the festive season with her boyfriend’s more cultivated clan instead. Plans change when the Stool family’s beloved pooch Nugget falls ill, the adorable lil canine being one thing – other than blood – that unites them.
First-time feature director Imogen McCluskey’s film has an air of restrained chaos, rather than the fully bonkers Christmas experience à la 1998’s Crackers, which not only kills a dog but blows it up in a barbecue accident. Tonally, Nugget is Dead is a bit bumpy and the ending fizzles, but the more time you spend with the characters the more endearing they become.
Bribe, Inc
Film, Australia, 2024 – out 3 November
This dense documentary investigating oil industry bribes, presented by journalist Nick McKenzie and anti-corruption activist Alexandra Wrage, is filled with the kind of cloak-and-dagger developments one associates with potboilers and airport novels – clandestine meetings, coded emails and secret-filled hard drives.
With a particular focus on the Ahsani family, owners of Monaco-based consultancy company Unaoil, the film is a little scattered structurally but does a decent job unpacking a complex and knotty tale.
Honourable mentions: The Illusionist (film, 3 November), La Chimera (film, 4 November), The Mountain (film, 9 November), Rain Man (film, 16 November), Parasite (film, 16 November), Sleepless in Seattle (film, 17 November), Inception (film, 23 November), A Fish Called Wanda (film, 24 November), Army of Darkness (film, 25 November), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (film, 27 November), Hell or High Water (film, 28 November), The Departed (film, 30 November).
SBS on Demand
The Jury: Death on the Staircase
TV, Australia, 2024 – out 6 November
Adapting a format from the UK, this reality TV-ish production enlists ordinary people to form the jury on a manslaughter case that’s sort of real and sort of not. Everybody in the courtroom other than the jury are actors, performing, word for word, an actual Sydney court case, transcripts forming the script – similar to the concept underpinning the whistleblower drama Reality. The big question is whether the quasi jury will arrive at the same conclusion as the real one.
The Zelensky Story
TV, UK, 2024 – out 5 November
This BBC-produced documentary series about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been generating good buzz, pegged as “an astonishing story” by the Guardian’s Lucy Mangan and “extremely gripping” by the Independent’s Sean O’Grady. Divided into three hour-long instalments, The Zelensky Story charts the extraordinary journey of the former comedian and actor, who became leader of Ukraine during a crucial moment in its history, rising to the challenge with great courage and fortitude.
Barbarella
Film, France/Italy, 1968 – out 9 November
Sexist smut or absurdist satire? Barbarella will continue to be debated; what we know for sure is that Roger Vadim’s high-camp classic has clung to the zeitgeist like a prophylactic. Jane Fonda plays an eager-to-please space adventurer on a mission to rid the world of a new superweapon, in a future where war and conflict are things of the past. Double entendres, zany production design and famously skimpy costumes abound.
Honourable mentions: Triangle of Sadness (film, 1 November), Suffragette (film, 1 November), Homeland seasons 1-8 (TV, 1 November), Tokyo Vice season 2 (TV, 3 November), Bad Behaviour (film, 29 November).
ABC iView
The Tracker
Film, Australia, 2002 – out 30 November
Set in rugged outback Australia during the early 1920s, the lingering image of Rolf de Heer’s meat pie western is of David Gulpilil with a chain around his neck. The great Yolŋu actor plays the titular character, who leads a trio of white men (Gary Sweet, Damon Gameau and Grant Page) across the country, pursuing an Indigenous man accused of murder. The film is marked with violent incidents – some depicted using paintings – but it’s staged reflectively, prominently deploying Archie Roach’s elegant but haunting score.
Honourable mentions: The Space Shuttle That Fell to Earth (TV, 11 November), Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line (film, 12 November), Countdown – 50 Years On (TV, 16 November), Headliners (TV, 19 November).
Amazon Prime Video
Civil War
Film, US, 2024 – out 29 November
Depicting a not-too-distant future America ravaged by bloody civil war, Alex Garland’s one-of-a-kind disaster movie felt eerily ominous when it arrived in cinemas earlier this year, evoking memories of the US Capitol attack. God knows how it’s going to feel when it lands on Prime a couple of weeks after the US election.
Kirsten Dunst’s protagonist is a war photographer who no longer has to travel overseas to cover violent conflict, embarking on a dangerous trek to Washington with a small posse including a Reuters journalist (Wagner Moura) intent on interviewing the US president (Nick Offerman). The air in this film is choked and toxic, and the drama tinkers on a knife’s edge.
Borderlands
Film, US, 2024 – out 1 November
I wish I could say Cate Blanchett single-handedly saves Eli Roth’s adaptation of the popular video game franchise, but alas, while the film is colourfully and gaudily designed, the writing is chaotic and the action scenes meekly staged. Blanchett, sporting bubblegum red hair, plays a bounty hunter who returns to her home planet of Pandora (not the one from Avatar) to retrieve the missing daughter of a mega-powerful CEO. The film’s many annoying embellishments include a wisecracking droid (voiced by Jack Black); damn you, C-3PO, for entrenching this role in popular culture.
My Old Ass
Film, US, 2024 – out 7 November
I found this romantic drama with a time travel-ish twist pleasant for a while but ultimately schmaltzy – still, it’s got many appreciators. After tripping on shrooms, teen protagonist Elliott (Maisy Stella) is visited by an older version of herself (Aubrey Plaza) who returns even after the drugs wear off. Her advice is clear: stay away from a boy named Chad. So, of course, Elliott meets a boy named Chad (Percy Hynes White) and falls for him hard. In writer/director Megan Park’s view, a more interesting question than “What advice would you give to your younger self?” is “Would your younger self listen?”
Honourable mentions: Ford v Ferrari (film, 1 November), Shrek (film, 5 November), Grimsby (film, 5 November), Citadel: Honey Bunny (TV, 7 November), In Cold Water: The Shelter Bay Mystery (TV, 12 November), Cross (TV, 14 November), Prey (film, 15 November), Cruel Intentions (TV, 21 November), Pimpinero: Blood and Oil (film, 22 November).
Binge
The Day of the Jackal
TV, UK, 2024 – out 7 November
Frederick Forsyth’s novel about a hitman commissioned to kill the president of France has already been brought to the screen a few times, most notably in the 1973 film of the same name. Its first TV adaptation stars Eddie Redmayne as old mate Jackal, the assassin in question, in a story the official synopsis promises will be “set amidst the turbulent geopolitical landscape of our time”. Lashana Lynch co-stars as the MI5 agent out to capture him.
Abigail
Film, US, 2024 – out 10 November
The eponymous villain in this blood-soaked horror romp is a devoted vampire and a devoted ballerina; hobbies include dancing with headless corpses.
A bunch of extremely dull criminals kidnap Abigail (Matilda the Musical star Alisha Weir), not realising she’s a ferocious bloodsucker keen to bear her fangs; they experience grisly deaths while trapped in a creaky old mansion. The film has significant pacing issues: it takes way too long to reveal Abigail as a vampire (which everybody knows going in) and then, in the last act, never seems to end. But it cranks up the carnage and certainly does what it says on the tin.
Honourable mentions: Golda (film, 1 November), Repo Man (film, 1 November), Hoop Dreams (film, 6 November), Get Millie Black (TV, 7 November), The Convert (film, 7 November), Dune: Prophecy (TV, 18 November), Surveilled (film, 21 November), Brilliant Minds (TV, 25 November), Man on Wire (film, 25 November), Touching the Void (film, 25 November), Stop Making Sense (film, 25 November), The Fall Guy (film, 30 November).
Disney+
Interior Chinatown
TV, US, 2024 – out 19 November
The trailer for this Taika Waititi-produced and co-directed series is jam-packed with plot developments, action scenes and gags; I’m a tad overwhelmed but my interest is piqued. The story follows Jimmy O Yang’s Willis, a part-time waiter and actor who plays a small role in a TV drama. When he “inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime”, according to the official synopsis, “he begins to unravel a criminal web in Chinatown, while discovering his own family’s buried history”. Co-stars include the very funny Ronny Chieng.
Beatles ‘64
Film, US, 2024 – out 29 November
Beatlemaniacs have had an amazing run recently, with a new song released last year, a restored version of the 1970 documentary Let It Be, and the announcement of not one but four upcoming Sam Mendes-directed biopics. The big hitters keep a-comin’ with this Martin Scorsese-produced doco exploring the band’s first trip to America. They were famously greeted/mobbed by hysterical fans at JFK airport, where they held their first US press conference. Ringo Star later recalled that “on the airplane, I felt New York, it was like an octopus grabbing the plane”. Not sure if he said this before or after he started taking acid.
Honourable mentions: Music by John Williams (film, 1 November), FX’s Say Nothing (TV, 14 November), Out of My Mind (film, 22 November).
Apple TV+
Silo season 2
TV, US, 2024 – out 15 November
I was a big fan of the original season of Silo, a dystopian sci-fi set in a massive underground edifice where 10,000 people live; none of them know who constructed it, why they’re there or what happened to the outside world. The setting continues a rich history of vertical spaces being used to represent social disparities and class structures, from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis to Netflix’s recent The Platform movies. The first season, in which Rebecca Ferguson’s Juliette led the charge to discover the truth about the silo and the wider universe, ended with a great, twist-revealing final shot that functioned as a great big narrative ellipsis, virtually guaranteeing a second run.
Honourable mentions: Blitz (film, 22 November), Bread & Roses (film, 22 November).
