The best movies new to streaming in November 2023

Spooky season has come and gone, however good movies are perennial. To paraphrase Gorillaz: November has come, and an entire slew of new movies to stream on Netflix, Hulu, Max, and extra have include it.

This month, we’ve received the Sam Raimi horror thriller Drag Me to Hell and a Michael Bay action-thriller starring John Krasinski on Netflix. Ridley Scott’s medieval motion drama The Final Duel starring Matt Damon and Adam Driver comes to Hulu, whereas Max provides a traditional Ernst Lubitsch-directed rom-com starring James Stewart. If that wasn’t sufficient, our editor’s decide this month is Stomach, Hype Williams’ divisive but transcendent crime drama starring Nas and the late DMX.

Let’s dive in and see what this month has in retailer!

Editor’s decide

Stomach

Style: Crime drama
Director: Hype Williams
Solid: Nas, DMX, Taral Hicks

Hype Williams is likely one of the most prolific music video administrators of all time. With a profession spanning way back to the early ’90s, the graffiti artist turned filmmaker has labored with a few of the most genre-defining acts in hip-hop, from A Tribe Referred to as Quest to Outkast, carving out the prevailing visible language of rap movies by means of his attribute mix of canted wide-angle photographs, stark saturated lighting, and slow-motion transitions. Stomach, his characteristic debut (and solely movie as of this writing), is a synthesis of all these components, ensuing in a film that faucets immediately into the zeitgeist of hip-hop’s mainstream ascendance.

Nas and DMX co-star as Honest and Tommy “Bundy” Brown, two younger avenue criminals who make their residing sticking up rivals and dealing medication in a hallucinatory model of New York. As Bundy climbs approach up by means of the legal underworld, dodging police raids and chopping offers in Jamaica, Honest begins to have a change of coronary heart, selecting as an alternative to pursue one other lifestyle. Escaping the cycle of violence and iniquity is less complicated stated than accomplished, nonetheless, as each males discover themselves confronted with the implications of their previous in the pursuit of a greater future.

The story, co-written by Williams and Nas, is way from the strongest component of the movie. As a substitute, Stomach’s strengths are discovered in its visuals, which play out like a hallucinatory montage of music video vignettes sans music, with darkish, shadowy silhouettes looming throughout spacious exteriors and ethereal interiors. The film was a crucial and business bomb when it premiered in theaters, however in the a long time since has grown right into a cult favourite amongst audiences for its audacious aesthetic and a star-making efficiency from DMX, who on the time was mere weeks away from releasing the second of his first two Billboard 200-topping albums. Stomach is a genuinely fascinating time capsule of late-’90s experimental filmmaking that’s nicely value experiencing. —Toussaint Egan

Stomach is out there to stream on Criterion Channel.

Drag Me to Hell

Picture: Common Photos House Leisure

Style: Supernatural horror
Director: Sam Raimi
Solid: Alison Lohman, Justin Lengthy, Lorna Raver

Sam Raimi, the horror grasp behind the Evil Useless collection, hasn’t actually made a horror film since this underrated 2009 masterpiece, however fortunately it’s now on Netflix for you to uncover.

Drag Me to Hell follows Christine (Alison Lohman), a girl attempting to get a promotion at her financial institution job by denying a girl a mortgage extension on her home. As a substitute of impressing her boss, nonetheless, Christine is attacked and cursed by the lady, inflicting an evil entity to observe her round tormenting her.

Raimi’s film is a deliciously imply little parable about why it’s best to by no means let self-interest get in the best way of serving to folks when it’s in your energy. In typical Raimi vogue, it’s joyfully merciless, with a playfully malevolent and sinister spirit at its heart that makes the entire film a ton of creepy enjoyable. —Austen Goslin

13 Hours: The Secret Troopers of Benghazi

Picture: Paramount House Leisure

Style: Army thriller
Director: Michael Bay
Solid: John Krasinski, James Badge Dale, Max Martini

Pay attention, I get it. When this film got here out in 2016, the very last thing on Earth I wished to do was watch a Michael Bay film about Benghazi. Seems, I simply wasn’t prepared for it.

13 Hours is a tense tactical navy film about troopers defending an American diplomatic compound in Libya. The solid may be very recreation – John Krasinski is okay in the lead position, however character actors James Badge Dale, Max Martini, and Pablo Schreiber all excel in supporting roles — and it’s one of many best shows of Bay’s technical mastery of the medium and style.

The film simply seems so good. It’s Bay’s best digital work, shot by Dion Beebe (Miami Vice) with crystal-clear colours and sharp daylight amid the chaos of the assault. The sounds are intense and immersive, too (deservedly incomes a Sound Mixing Oscar nom). It’s an unimaginable technical show that feels in dialog with the chaos of Sam Peckinpah movies.

On the finish of the day, 13 Hours isn’t for everybody. The supply materials does make the film uncomfortable at occasions, particularly the take away it has in relation to the Libyans who really stay in Benghazi. However there’s a core of unhappiness to the film — Bay’s sympathies lie with people, not with the navy industrial advanced or its goals — for those who’re keen to search for it. —Pete Volk

The Final Duel

Picture: twentieth Century Studios

Style: Historic drama
Director: Ridley Scott
Solid: Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer

Apparently this month I’m simply selecting unfairly maligned movies of the previous decade. Ridley Scott’s medieval Rashomon was my favourite film of 2021, and now that it’s on Hulu, possibly you’ll give it a good shot, too.

The Final Duel unfolds over three views: A pompous buffoon of a knight (Matt Damon), his smarter spouse (Jodie Comer), and the squire accused of raping her (Adam Driver). Every exhibits the occasions that lead to the duel from their perspective, as Ridley Scott and screenwriters Nicole Holofcener, Damon, and Ben Affleck deftly modify main and minor particulars to present how totally different folks understand totally different occasions — with out ever falling into he-said-she-said lure. It’s a fragile steadiness, and one the film handles with aplomb.

The duel is incredible, as is an early battle sequence the place Scott will get to convey out a few of his outdated Gladiator toolkit. There’s additionally Affleck’s delightfully, ridiculously over-the-top efficiency because the rely to whom Damon and Driver’s characters swear allegiance to. It gives some much-needed comedian reduction in what is usually a very darkish film. Should you’re in search of a considerate, impeccably crafted film for grown-ups, you are able to do so much worse than The Final Duel. —PV

The Store Across the Nook

Picture: Warner House Video

Style: Romantic comedy
Director: Ernst Lubitsch
Solid: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan

For lots of people, November means the beginning of the Christmas season. Why not ring it in with one of many best Christmas movies ever made?

From the masterful Ernst Lubitsch, this romantic comedy follows a salesman (James Stewart) and a new worker at his store (Margaret Sullavan), who can’t stand one another. They get in frequent arguments at work, and the one factor that retains them going by means of their distress is a secret love they anonymously write to — one another.

Later made into You’ve Received Mail (and Within the Good Outdated Summertime, a Judy Garland musical), the unique is the best model of this story. It’s endearingly candy, uproariously humorous, and a Christmas traditional for good motive. Should you grew up with the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan remake, do your self a favor this vacation season and watch the James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan version. —PV

Grasp and Commander: The Far Facet of the World

Picture: twentieth Century Studios

Style: Interval struggle drama
Director: Peter Weir
Solid: Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, James D’Arcy

Typically you simply really feel the urge to step away out of your keyboard, placed on an admiral uniform, and set sail on a giant picket ship to shoot cannonballs at pirates and sing sea shanties. Who amongst us has not felt, at one time or one other, enchanted by the siren name of the ocean?

Grasp and Commander: The Far Facet of the World speaks to this craving for high-seas journey, delivering a blockbuster naval interval piece anchored by a pair of terrific lead performances courtesy of Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany. Searching the French privateer vessel Acheron, Captain Jack Aubrey (Crowe) and his crew should climate the risks of their extended voyage in order to seize victory on behalf of king and nation through the peak of the Napoleonic Wars. Should you’re in search of a grown-ass film for grown-ass adults, Peter Weir’s epic nautical struggle drama is the movie for you. —TE