Looking for something new to watch on Netflix? Here is a list of all the best new shows and movies released on Netflix the week of Dec. 6-12.
Your weekly Friday routine of parking your keister on the couch and watching new Netflix shows and movies for 72 hours straight is about to get blown up, so you better cash in this week while you can. Next Friday (Dec. 13) marks the first Friday in memory that Netflix will release just one title — Ryan Reynolds’ action movie 6 Underground — meaning it’s time to gobble up this Friday’s seven options like your life depends on it. The following Friday? Only two things! But on Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas, it’s like Christmas, as Netflix opens the skies and carpet bombs bingeable presents while you have time off. We’re all just prisoners to Netflix’s bizarre release schedule.
All titles are out Friday, Dec. 6 unless otherwise noted.
If you’re looking for even more hand-picked recommendations, click over to our Watch This Now! page.
The Biggest Releases
Marriage Story
You want to hear something crazy? Netflix might win an Oscar for Best Picture before it wins an Emmy for Best Drama, Comedy, or Miniseries. Roma gave it a shot early this year, but next year, it’s got two legitimate horses in the race: Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, which came out last week to rave reviews, and Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, out Friday and wiping critics’ slobber off its brow. Despite its cheery title, Marriage Story is about what happens to half of marriages as Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson’s character go through a brutal divorce and fight for custody of their son. It does a great job of telling both sides and pushing and pulling the viewer to take one side or the other, while simultaneously crushing your heart into little pieces over this sad fact of life. Plus, Laura Dern is in it as a divorce lawyer, and Dern totally rules.
Astronomy Club: The Sketch Show, Season 1
A quick Google search for “Astronomy Club” will yield millions of results, 99 percent of them collections of nerds looking at the sky through long tubes. That goes to show how underappreciated the sketch comedy group Astronomy Club — a collection of eight black comedians — has been since forming in New York in 2014. They finally get their own TV show with this six-episode Kenya Barris-produced series that looks at typically silly sketch comedy through their eyes, including a Robin Hood who steals from the rich but encounters problems when he tries to take from a black couple who have worked their way up to the middle class, and a music festival that reunites sexified ’90s R&B bands who must perform modified for today’s culturally sensitive climate. It’s daring and insightful, but most importantly, it’s funny. (Trailer)
Everything Else
Fuller House, Season 5 Part A
Lori Loughlin will NOT be in the final season of the show, as she’s busy doing other things (like time). However, Kirk Cameron WILL be in an episode as a guest star. This season is so big and epic, Netflix split it up into two parts.
The Chosen One, Season 2
In this Brazilian drama, a commune under the spell of a healer is cut off from the rest of the world, and when doctors from the outside try to intervene, things don’t go so great. (Trailer)
The Confession Killer
A slight twist on the typical true crime series, The Confession Killer — which does not follow a guy who kills confessions — profiles Henry Lee Lucas, a serial killer from the early 1980s who confessed to hundreds of murders. The catch? It’s entirely possible he didn’t kill all those people and was just having a laugh at the cops’ and victims’ expense. (Trailer)
Glow Up, Season 1
Here’s a dumb idea: Be a streaming media company, create an award-winning series called GLOW, then create a make-up competition show called Glow Up so that it get buried beneath all the search results for GLOW. All you need to know is this is Face/Off without the fun. (Trailer)
Spirit Riding Free: The Spirit of Christmas
Can you horse girls, horse boys, and horse horses believe this is the first Spirit Riding Free special episode? Neigh! Hay, you canter get enough of this mane attraction. For the whinny! (Trailer)
Three Days of Christmas
The Netflix algorithm machine has figured out that we love Christmas movies, so it’s taking the next step: a Christmas television show about four sisters whose lives are tracked across time. Oh yeah, and it’s foreign! If this was also an anime that starred Vanessa Hudgens and Will Arnett, it would check all the boxes. (Trailer)
Triad Princess, Season 1
What happens when the daughter of a kingpin fangirls over a shy TV star and they start dating? PROBLEMS! See if it all works out in this quirky Taiwanese romantic comedy. (Trailer)
Virgin River
A big city nurse runs away from her past by moving to a small town where she falls for a handsome bartender, but all you’ll be thinking about is why this is called Virgin River. (Trailer)
Family Reunion: A Family Reunion Christmas
Netflix’s multi-camera family comedy does Christmas. (Trailer / Monday, Dec. 9)
Michelle Wolf: Joke Show
Comedian Michelle Wolf returns to Netflix for the first time since her show The Break with Michelle Wolf was canceled, so I guess no hard feelings. Her stand-up special covers massages, cancel culture, and periods (or as she calls it “bloody tissue falling out of a hole”) with her typical brand of disgusting humor. It’s funny. She’s funny. (Trailer / Tuesday, Dec. 10)
Jack Whitehall: Christmas with My Father
Comedian Jack Whitehall continues to mine his dad for jokes, this time on stage as part of a special. It also features a pre-taped drop-in from the Queer Eye fellers, who help Jack and Mr. Whitehall bond over shoving soggy bread inside a bird’s butt. (Trailer / Thursday, Dec. 12)
The Last Hangover
This Brazilian farce mixes The Hangover with The Last Supper for a special that follows disciples looking for Jesus after a rather rowdy dinner party. The religious right isn’t going to like it, but you might. (Trailer / Thursday, Dec. 12)
Stop searching, start watching! TV Guide’s Watch This Now! page has even more TV recommendations.
The 52 Netflix Originals You Should Be Watching
Jonathan Groff, Mindhunter