I know what you’re thinking: “Hey dude, it’s still late October. My mind is on Halloween, not whatever month comes next.” Yeah, well guess what? While you’re playing checkers, Netflix is playing chess, thinking several moves ahead to what you’re going to want in your entertainment life come November. And they’re taking a big bet: You’re going to want NEW television, and NEW movies.
So Netflix delivers. Come November, they’re bringing the heat with great new offerings, including the best political documentary of 2015, the best historical documentary of 2014, a dark comedy from Austria, and a surprisingly great modern remake of a Tolstoy classic. Check out our featured recommendations, and read on for the full list of this month’s new offerings.
Best of Enemies
Year: 2015
Director: Morgan Neville, Robert Gordon
Available: Nov. 28
Here we are, up to our elbows in polemic B.S., wondering when America came to the saturation of Trumps and Huckabees braying cultural calumnies. If you need a convenient scapegoat, just blame ABC, who had the bright idea to pit William F. Buckley against Gore Vidal in televised debates more than 40 years ago. Buckley, he of the great Republican ideal that might makes right, and Vidal, the polished, barbed-tongued author who never quite knew when to leave well enough alone, hated each other—they were the respective champions of the country’s intellectual right and left.—Andy Crump
Anna Karenina
Year: 2012
Director: Joe Wright
Available: Nov. 12
Keira Knightley is characteristically exquisite—physically, yes, but also emotionally—subtly conveying a rising heat that can’t be expressed. As Anna, her unraveling is moving in its hysteria. The movement among production designer Sarah Greenwood’s sets—Moscow and St. Petersburg, the city and country—is kinetic and fluid, and Wright’s concept is visually and intellectually stimulating…an esoteric exercise that explores the intersection of literature, theater and cinema—at once challenging and rapturous.—Annlee Ellingson
Last Day in Vietnam
Year: 2014
Director: Rory Kennedy
Available: Nov. 1
Rory Kennedy’s pointed documentary, Last Days in Vietnam, doesn’t deal with much of that political turmoil that steamrolled the country, or the notion of right and wrong or Red versus Red, White and Blue; instead, it chronicles a very narrow slice of the war—the time after the Paris Peace Accords when the U.S. had officially exited the war and the ensuing dilemma that faced U.S. forces remaining in Vietnam—what to do about the allied South Vietnamese who faced certain peril at the hands of the oncoming North. The effort sheds new light and understanding on a dark chapter in American history.—Tom Meek
Amour Fou
Year: 2015
Director: Jessica Hausner
Available: Nov. 5
The mysteries of love rarely get more enigmatic than in this fascinatingly freeze-dried dark comedy from Austrian writer-director Jessica Hausner. A reimagining of the events that led to the suicide pact between 19th century German poet Heinrich von Kleist and his lover Henriette Vogel, it’s a stubbornly beautiful curio. We watch with curiosity, wondering exactly how these two people will dispatch themselves. Despite the tightly constructed reserve, Hausner has a trick up her sleeve: As unknowable as these characters are, you may be surprised how much you miss them. —Tim Grierson
Available Nov. 1
Beethoven’s Christmas Adventure
Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce: Season 1
Idris Elba: Mandela, My Dad, and Me
Last Days in Vietnam
Pasion de Gavilanes
Robot Overlords
Seven Deadly Sins: Season 1
Smithsonian Channel: The Day Kennedy Died
The Last Time You Had Fun
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie
Thomas & Friends: The Christmas Engines
Twinsters
Worst Year of My Life, Again: Season 1
Available Nov. 2
Last Tango in Halfiax: Season 3
Available Nov. 3
Do I Sound Gay?
Julius Jr.: Season 2
The Midnight Swim
Available Nov. 5
Amapola
Amour Fou
The Runner
Available Nov. 6
Care Bears & Cousins: Season 1
Master of None: Season 1
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