What’s new on Netflix, DisneyPlus, Amazon Prime, Crave and Criterion

A weekly round-up of the new movies and TV series on Netflix, DisneyPlus, Crave, Amazon Prime Video and Criterion Channel

New on Netflix

The relative proximity of Thanksgiving and Christmas in the States makes basically all of November and December into one hazy, undefined holiday period — which means, of course, lots of Christmas crap to stream. Netflix gets the ball rolling early with Operation Christmas Drop, a military-themed Christmas rom-com starring Kat Graham (The Vampire Diaries) and Alexander Ludwig (Vikings). It drops on Nov. 5 alongside Paranormal, an Egyptian, 1960s-set paranormal drama. On Nov. 4, Netflix drops its Swedish-language original Love & Anarchy (no relation to the Lina Wertmuller film of the same name), a romantic comedy about a man and woman whose flirtations involve a series of dares that challenge societal norms. (What this actually sounds like is the movie Jeux d’enfants starring Marion Cotillard and Guillaume Canet — but Swedish.)

Bronx (Oct. 30)  is the latest film from Olivier Marchal, the French actor and filmmaker whose work betrays his early life as a police officer. Bronx stars Jean Reno and Lannick Gautry as two of a team of cops caught in the middle of a gang war. Netflix’s Halloween-est releases this week are Menendez: The Day of the Lord, a Mexican-Spanish co-production about a priest who is asked to help with a possessed young girl, and His House, a thriller starring Wunmi Mosaku (Luther) and Matt Smith (Dr. Who). 

The beginning of November also means that a ton of catalogue releases are hitting the service. Highlights include Bad Santa (a necessity for the holiday season, it goes without saying), Clueless, Ronin, Gangs of New York, Papillon, Rocky, Mallrats, Unbroken and Aquaman. 

New on Amazon Prime Video

Nick Frost and Simon Pegg co-created and co-star in Truth Seekers, a comedy series about a team of paranormal investigators that drops on Amazon today, Oct. 30. 

New on Crave

For some last-minute Halloween chills, Crave offers the efficient Alien knock-off Underwater, starring Kristen Stewart, and Sophia Takal’s 2019 remake of Black Christmas, which stars Imogen Poots and focuses on the feminist aspects only hinted at in the original. These drop Friday and Saturday, respectively, alongside the first five episodes of the Hulu horror anthology series Monsterland. 

On Nov. 1, prepare your marathon shoes: Crave drops the entirety of the James Bond franchise at once. The move was presumably designed to prepare us for the latest opus in the franchise, which has once again been pushed back to 2021, but it pays to be prepared! On Nov. 4, you can also stream the Canadian drama Ash, starring Tim Guinee.

New on DisneyPlus

Today DisneyPlus launched the much-anticipated second season of The Mandalorian, their first of several planned Star Wars spinoff shows. We already all know and love Baby Yoda; he’s joined, this season, by new cast addition Timothy Olyphant.

New on Criterion Channel

The Channel presents a series on psychiatry in film, which gathers films as disparate as Tarkovsky’s Solaris, the 1960s satire The President’s Analyst starring James Coburn, Brian de Palma’s Dressed to Kill and the 1939 noir film Blind Alley. On Monday you can stream the innovative docudrama A Dream Is What You Wake Up From, a little seen look at the day-to-day lives of three African-American families. Later in the week, you can catch The Elephant Man, Joan Tewksbury’s hard-to-find Old Boyfriends (scripted by Paul and Leonard Schrader!) and the streaming premiere of Atom Egoyan’s Guest of Honour. ■

See what’s new on Netflix Canada here.

Find out what’s new on DisneyPlus here.

For what’s new on Crave, click here.

Find out what’s new on Amazon Prime Video here.

See what’s new on Criterion Channel here.

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For more coverage of new movies and TV series, visit the Film & TV section.

A weekly round-up of the new movies and TV series on Netflix, DisneyPlus, Crave, Amazon Prime Video and Criterion Channel