The 5 best new movies on Netflix in December 2024

24 December 2024 at 11 a.m

Need something new to watch on Netflix? With the holidays upon us, people are no doubt doing something well deserved outside of work and settling in for hours of streaming. Netflix has a surprising lack of new movies this month, with fewer than 10 archival films announced to arrive on the first (when the bulk of new titles are usually added) and a smaller-than-usual handful of originals. Don’t worry, we were still able to handpick five must-watch titles from the bunch, so here’s this month’s curated list of the best new movies on Netflix right now.

‘That Christmas’

Co-written and produced by “Love Actually” filmmaker Richard Curtis and based on Curtis’ trilogy of popular children’s books, the animated holiday film “That Christmas” stages a series of intertwined Christmas tales in a way that will be familiar to any “Love.” Actually” damn. With music by “How to Train Your Dragon” composer John Powell and a cast that includes Bill Nighy, Fiona Shaw, Jodi Whittaker and Brian Cox as Santa Claus, the film is set on a blizzard-swept Christmas where nothing goes according to plan – not once for Santa himself.

‘Carry On’

A thoroughly satisfying “Die Hard” riff set in an airport, “Carry-On” stars the ever-versatile “Kingsman” and “Rocket Man” star Taron Egerton as a TSA agent who gets bribed by a no-nonsense traveler to let a dangerous package through security and onto a plane. Added to Egerton’s resume: a great action movie. Directed by “The Shallows” and “Orphan” filmmaker Jaume Collet-Serra, who really knows his way around an audience-friendly thriller, “Carry-On” has the advantage of being shot in a real airport and looking all the better after that. It also has a surprisingly robust cast, from Danielle Deadwyler to Dean Norris.

‘Mary’

Angelina Jolie commands the screen as operatic legend Maria Callas in “Jackie” and “Spencer” filmmaker Pablo Larrain’s latest cinematic portrait of a high-profile woman fraying under society’s microscope. Although there is some debate from the experts about how accurate the film is, Larrain seems almost completely disinterested in the bio part of his biopic, creating a lush, structural Paris from which his La Callas, a mythical figure poisoned by the creativity, that nourishes her, emerges. Jolie isn’t entirely convincing as an opera singer, but that matters little when she’s so utterly absorbing as the shaky-voiced diva.

‘The dead don’t die’

Definitely not for everyone, Jim Jarmusch’s zombie comedy The Dead Don’t Die was far from a critical success when it debuted in 2019, but there’s plenty to love if you’re a fan zanier, dryer , more allegorical filmmaking spectrum. The all-star cast includes Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Chloë Sevigny, Tilda Swinton, Danny Glover, Selena Gomez, Austin Butler and doesn’t stop there.

‘Mad Max: Fury Road’

You can ring in the new year with one of the best movies of the decade, because Netflix will have “Mad Max: Fury Road” available to stream starting December 30. Directed by the great George Miller, the action spectacle is an absolute cinematic marvel with an endless display of the best action sequences ever captured on screen. Seam Steven Soderbergh said it, “I don’t understand two things: I don’t understand how they’re not still shooting that movie, and I don’t understand how hundreds of people aren’t dead.” Tom Hardy takes on the title role alongside Charlize Theron as the instantly iconic Furiosa, who forms an unlikely alliance with one of cinema’s great lone wolves to save the wives of a desolate warlord. If you want to catch the next, not-quite-perfect-but-still-great sequel, stream “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” on Max.