November 2024’s Best Streaming Titles: “Silo,” “Aliens,” “Dune: Prophecy,” “Arcane,” “Knives Out”
Dystopian sci-fi, facehuggers, the Bene Gesserit, Jinx and Vi, Benoit Blanc, and more.
As Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, et al. add more content, it can be difficult to know what to look for amidst all of the new titles. I’ve compiled a list of particularly noteworthy and interesting movies and TV shows to add to your streaming queues in the coming month.
Amazon Prime Video
Airplane! (Nov 1)
What remains to be said about this, one of the greatest comedies of all time? Its near-endless supply of sight gags, absurdities, cameos, and slapstick humor is something for the ages. From Robert Stack’s battle with a bunch of Hare Krishnas to Lloyd Bridges’ glue-sniffing, from the epic disco battle to the jive translation, Airplane! has everything you could possibly want in a movie, and then some.
Children of Men (Nov 1)
Alfonso Cuarón’s gripping dystopic movie (adapted from the P. D. James novel) is set in a world where humanity is on the brink of extinction because of global infertility. It boasts some solid performances, particularly from Clive Owen as a former activist tasked with escorting a young refugee who may hold the key to saving humanity. It also boasts some bravura filmmaking in the form of some brilliant single-shot sequences, including a thrilling car chase.
Gone Baby Gone (Nov 1)
In this harrowing neo-noir, the city of Boston is galvanized when a young girl is abducted. At the center of it is small-time private investigator Patrick Kenzie, whose quest to find the girl takes him from the city’s seediest neighborhoods to its loftiest halls of power. With its taut pacing, ominous atmosphere, and solid performances from Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Ed Harris, and Amy Ryan (who received an Oscar nomination for her performance as the young girl’s unstable mom), you’d never tell that Gone Baby Gone was Ben Affleck’s directorial debut.
Johnny Mnemonic (Nov 1)
Make no mistake, Johnny Mnemonic is not a good movie. Adapted from the William Gibson short story, it stars a pre-Matrix Keanu Reeves as an information courier who carries secret information in his brain and must escape the clutches of a villainous mega-corporation. Confession: I’m a sucker for ’90s-era cyberpunk and computer movies. They’re totally ridiculous, and yet, at the same time, there’s something charming about how dystopic they thought the future would be. (Surprise twist: It could be argued that today is far more dystopic than any imagined cyberpunk future.)
Run Lola Run (Nov 1)
When her boyfriend screws up a delivery for a local gangster, Lola has just 20 minutes to find the 100,000 Deutschmarks necessary to save his life. But as the film progresses, it shows the various ways that Lola’s Quixotic quest might unfold, for better or worse. With its kinetic non-linear plot, pulsing soundtrack, and striking lead performance from Franka Potente — who would later star in the Bourne movies — Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run was one of 1998’s most celebrated films.
Cross, Season One (Nov 14)
I’ve never read any of the James Patterson novels that serve as the source material for Amazon Prime’s latest original series. However, I’ve been a fan of Aldis Hodge ever since Leverage. Hodge stars as Washington, D.C. detective Alex Cross, who is trying to track down a serial killer — only for the killer to turn the tables and start tracking him. Cross was produced by Ben Watkins, who also produced longtime Opus favorite Burn Notice.
Coraline (Nov 24)
Neil Gaiman’s darkly fantastical storytelling and Henry Selick’s stop-motion animation are a match made in movie heaven. Coraline’s titular heroine dreams of a nicer, more magical home — which is exactly what she gets when she discovers a portal to another world. Of course, given that this is Neil Gaiman we’re talking about, things soon get dark and weird, and Selick’s clever visuals are a perfect tool for conveying that (read my review).