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It’s the last month of the year, and we’re wrapping up 2023 with one last festive bow before saying goodbye and moving on to 2024. Do you have any resolutions, bucket-list items, or life goals you were hoping to achieve this year? Well, forget about them, kick back, and simply enjoy some good TV—you’ve deserved it. Plus, you’ve got to keep up with Netflix’s seasonal content, family classics, and brand-new shows and movies, and that takes time! Read on to find out what we’re watching among the new arrivals this month.
The second half of The Crown’s final season is making its way to impatient and exhilarated fans this month. With the sixth instalment of the show relating to more recent events, we leave the inevitable and daunting run up to Diana’s untimely death behind and get ready to witness Queen Elizabeth II’s golden jubilee, Charles and Camilla’s wedding, and William and Kate’s budding relationship on screen. Available 14 December.
Directed and helmed by Bradley Cooper who shares the screen with Carey Mulligan is Maestro, a biographical movie about the prodigious American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, and his marriage to Felicia Montealegre. Maestro spans the protagonists’ entire lives and relationship—non-chronologically—from youth to older years. With impressive orchestra and performance scenes and black-and-white flashbacks, Maestro looks like it could upstage Cooper’s directorial debut A Star is Born. Available 20 December.
Just in time for Christmas, the sequel to the animated Oscar winner Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse was released in theatres earlier this year and is now coming to Netflix. Winning over audiences once again, this second journey into the Spider-Man multiverse accomplished wonders in terms of animation, visual design, and screenwriting. Not only is Across the Spider-Verse a family-friendly movie ideal for the holidays, but it is also a genuinely good film, whether you’re a Marvel fan or not.
The end of the year brings crowd-pleasing (and often cringey) comedies to our screens. It is unlikely we’d watch them if it were any other time of the year, but our standards work in different ways during the holiday season, and Christmas movies are suddenly considered comedy gold for four festive weeks. Netflix has released its fair share over the years, but this year, we’re looking forward to catching Family Switch. In this comedy, kids switch bodies with their parents (played by Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms) in a nod to the classic Freaky Friday hit movie. Expect a lot of awkward moments and laughs.
Rebel Moon, directed by Zack Snyder and making its debut on Netflix at the end of the month, is a promising space odyssey that we’re beyond excited for. The plot has many tropes we already know and love: a corrupted government, a tyrannical army, a rebel warrior seeking redemption—need we go on? The female lead tackles fighting, battles, and newfound leadership in a cosmic world we can’t wait to travel to. Available 22 December.
This new South Korean series is set in 1945 Seoul, a dark time for the country as it was under Japanese rule. In what looks to be a semi-historical, semi-supernatural thriller, a young man and woman try to solve the mystery of the obscure creature mentioned in the title. The colours, the sets, and the period costumes are striking, and we will power through the suspense and horror in order to appreciate the detailed visuals. Available 22 December.
A stacked cast of Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Kevin Bacon, and Mahershala Ali lead Leave the World Behind, and based on what we know from the trailer, it’s going to be an intense experience. A seemingly idyllic family holiday is interrupted by secretive strangers and a slew of global cyberattacks that plunge the world into chaos. Knowing that this movie is written and directed by Sam Esmail, the creator of Mr Robot, we are expecting mind-boggling twists and thrilling moments that will keep us on the edge of our seats.
A new Chicken Run film is the best Christmas gift we could ask for! A whole 23 years after the release of the stop-motion comedy that entertained a generation, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is the sequel we didn’t know we needed. After escaping from the Tweedy egg farm in the last film, Ginger and Rocky now live happily on an island with their daughter Molly, but disaster soon strikes, and they must now return to the mainland to save the entire chicken population from an evil and even more ingenious Mrs Tweedy! We can’t to meet up with the gang once again. Available 15 December
Long before Money Heist, the beloved yet arguably unhinged character Berlin was already thieving across all of Europe. Fans of the action-packed TV show were so enticed by Berlin’s cruel plays and heartbroken by (spoiler alert) his death in the original show that Netflix decided to gift us a prequel entirely dedicated to him. This first season follows him and his gang as they plot a big robbery in Paris. Available 29 December.
We had to include something for the kids—it is their holiday, too, after all—but we won’t judge if you decide to hog the remote for most of December as you’ve worked hard this year! But when you do feel like sharing screen time with the little ones, put on Strawberry Shortcake’s new holiday special, Perfect Holiday. The 1980s cartoon character has now been relaunched and revamped many times, and this modern version sees Strawberry Shortcake and her “berry buddies” save the winter holidays from a menacing cookie thief.
Carol & The End of The World is an animated science-fiction series about a woman, Carol, who searches for the meaning of life as the apocalypse looms. As the people around her live their last days to the fullest before the world comes to an end, Carol struggles with finding her place among them. Although the plot seems to exude doom and gloom, the show is in fact categorised as a comedy. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see! Available 15 December.
Born and raised in the French countryside, Lily arrived in Hong Kong looking for an adventure. Passionate about books, she spent some time in Parisian publishing houses and is the author of an illustrated book about hair. Life in Hong Kong for her entails looking for seaside places to eat and a lot of hiking.
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