November is almost here. Netflix and a slew of others are offering a variety of new and original series, there are plenty of dramatic storylines and exciting finales to sink your teeth into, whether you’re watching new films or returning television shows. Here are the top streaming options for this month.
‘The Legend of Maula Jatt’: theatres across Pakistan
If you haven’t already, get yourself to a nearby theatre to see the newest smash from filmmaker Bilal Lashari, starring Fawad Khan and Hamza Ali Abbasi.
The movie just accomplished a new feat by grossing Rs1 billion worldwide in its first 10 days of release. The size, cinematography, acting, and directing are all praised by critics, who call it a revolutionary work of Pakistani film.
The movie is currently showing at theatres in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, and Multan following a dispute between distributors and theatre owners with regard to screenings in Pakistan.
Beginning today, Nueplex Cinemas will show the blockbuster “The Legend of Maula Jatt”.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
Black Panther actor Chadwick Boseman was so revered as King T’Challa of Wakanda, aka Black Panther, when he passed away from cancer in August 2020, Marvel Studios execs realized they couldn’t recast the role. Instead, the movie’s director, Ryan Coogler, created a sequel that honors Boseman.
The movie centers in part on T’Challa’s Wakandan friends and family against Namor, the Sub-aquatic Mariner’s army (Tenoch Huerta). But it also deals with a country that is mourning the loss of its ruler. Lupita Nyong’o told Devan Coggan at Entertainment Weekly, “I dreaded the start of this production because I could not envision how we would proceed without Chadwick.”
“It was unfathomable to me. But Ryan managed to honor his life and his role in both the film and our lives with his moving, truthful, and clear vision.” he said.
Released internationally on 11 November.
Strange World
The creators of Raya and the Last Dragon, Don Hall and Qui Nguyen, use their most recent Disney animated film to pay homage to the classic science-fiction adventure stories of Jules Verne and HG Wells: the film’s explorer heroes, voiced by Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Gabrielle Union, find a land of strange and wonderful flora and fauna beneath the Earth’s surface. But like previous Disney and Pixar movies, such The Incredibles, Strange World is also about family life.
“We know this is about Don [Hall] and his dad, about his kids, and what he believes is important to the world and what he wants to leave the world as a legacy… it’s our love letter to our dad,” Nguyen told Jamie Jirak at ComicBook.com.
“About his children, and what he thinks is important to the world and what he wants to give to the world as a legacy… it’s our love letter to our kids as both fathers and sons.” Nguyen added.
Released internationally on 23 November.
The Wonder
A skeptical English nurse (Florence Pugh) is dispatched to monitor an 11-year-old girl (Kila Lord Cassidy) who is reported to have survived for months without sustenance in a rural Irish village in 1862. Is she a miracle or a fraud?
Is what the local power brokers (Ciarán Hinds, Toby Jones, Tom Burke) want to know? A genius or a tool in another person’s hands? Sebastián Lelio’s adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s Room, a spooky and strange historical drama, is described by Benjamin Lee in The Guardian as “a compelling and perplexing little miracle rich in atmosphere and charm.” But the real miracle in this “incredibly involving” film is Pugh, who is “never less than utterly, mesmerically convincing. She’s so totally in command here that it almost feels as if she’s directing the film from within”. Don’t be surprised if she picks up several best actress nominations this awards season.
Released on 16 November on Netflix.
The Menu
The Menu, this month’s other satirical film about the super-rich getting their just desserts on a private island (see also: Glass Onion), stars Ralph Fiennes as a diabolical celebrity chef who runs one of the most upscale dining establishments in the world. Two of the foodies who have signed up for the $1250 per person fine-dining experience are portrayed by Nicholas Hoult and Anya Taylor-Joy.
However, they quickly discover that while the chef’s “molecular gastronomy” (which includes a rock covered in seaweed fragments) isn’t exactly mouthwatering, the way he treats his patrons is even worse. According to Wendy Ide at Screen Daily, “the exclusive world of haute cuisine is not exactly a hard target to satirise, but this deliciously vicious comedy from Succession director Mark Mylod makes every bitter bite count. A bracingly spiteful and very funny picture.”
Released internationally on 18 November.
The Fabelmans
There is currently a trend for movies on the formative years of its directors, as seen in Roma, Belfast, and The Hand of God. The Fabelmans, a touching, autobiographical coming-of-age story directed by Steven Spielberg, is the most recent example. It has been predicted that it will win best picture at the Oscars. Its young protagonist is now known as Sammy Fabelman (played by Mateo Zoryon Francis-DeFord, then by Gabriel LaBelle), but his life story is very similar to that of Steven Spielberg: he falls in love with movies, moves from New Jersey to Arizona to Northern California, and sees his mother’s and father’s marital issues (played by Michelle Williams and Paul Dano, respectively).
“This is the movie we’ve been waiting 45 years for him to make,” says David Fear at Rolling Stone. “It’s one man’s thank you to the movies for saving him. And it’s a great American artist utilizing his skill as a great storyteller to finally tell his own… It’s one of the most impressive, enlightening, vital things he’s ever done.”
Released on 23 November in the US, 24 November in Portugal, 25 November in Poland and Turkey, and 27 January 2023 in the UK.
Bones and All
Luca Guadagnino and Timothée Chalamet, the star and director of Call Me by Your Name, reunite for another tender tale of budding romance, adapted from a novel and set in the 1980s. Bones and All, however, differs in one crucial way: the young lovers who inhabit the film can’t stop consuming human flesh. One of them, Maren (Taylor Russell), age 18, believed she was the only one with this unusual dietary requirement, but as she travels through small-town America, she discovers that “eaters” are unexpectedly prevalent. Her new cannibalistic friends include the dashing Lee (Chalamet) and the terrifyingly dangerous Sully (Mark Rylance). “Guadagnino has created an effective and gruesome shocker,” says John Bleasdale at Sight & Sound. “But Bones and All is also the tale of a lost young pair, finding each other and themselves. It is wryly funny, gleefully entertaining and oddly touching. Delicious and nutritious.”
Released internationally on 23 November.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
How frequently does Hollywood produce a follow-up to a movie these days that isn’t a cartoon, a horror film, or an action blockbuster with lots of CGI? The response is: never at all. However, Rian Johnson has written and directed another murder mystery in the same brilliantly complex style since Knives Out was so brilliant and its main character was so fascinating. Benoit Blanc, the clever detective with a flamboyant vocabulary and an even more exaggerated Southern drawl, is played once again by Daniel Craig.
He’s looking for a killer among a bunch of affluent, entitled Americans, just as in Knives Out, but this time the scene is on a private Greek island, and the suspects (played by Ed Norton, Dave Bautista, Kate Hudson, Janelle Monáe, and others) are rich from tech and social media. According to Caryn James of BBC Culture, “this tremendously enjoyable follow-up [is] laden with more hilarious moments than the last movie” and is “full of great cameos.”
Released in UK and US cinemas on 23 November, and on Netflix internationally on 23 December
‘The Crown’ (Season 5): Netflix
The popular (fictional) biopic about Queen Elizabeth II is all set to debut its explosive fifth season.
The late monarch’s platinum jubilee and recent demise have undoubtedly increased interest in her life and reign among viewers; according to a report by The Guardian last month, Netflix had an 800% surge in viewership days after she passed away.
The Royal Family is apparently anxious about the impending season, which is expected to center on the dissolution of Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s marriage among other narrative lines.
In a recent open letter to Netflix, Oscar-winning actress Dame Judy Dench, a close friend of Camilla Parker Bowles, the Queen Consort, called the program “cruelly unjust” and urged the streaming service to include a warning informing viewers that it is a work of fiction based on actual events.
Netflix did just that, a few days ago, and we cannot wait to see what the fuss is all about.
The new season debuts November 9.
Courtesy of Netflix
