FILM & TV REVIEW

YOUR GUIDE TO THE SHOWS AND FILMS THAT ENTERTAINMENT CULTURE IS SURE TO BE BUZZING ABOUT IN THE NEAR FUTURE.

December 1st – THE POWER OF THE DOG (Netflix)

Benedict Cumberbatch plays a viciously sadistic rancher out to destroy Kirsten Dunst in this gripping Western.

Jane Campion helms this Western based on a novel of the same name. In it, Benedict Cumberbatch and Jesse Plemmons play brothers and business partners running a ranch in Montana. When George (Plemmons) marries a young widow (Kirsten Dunst), the siblings’ carefully-constructed familial facade crumbles, prompting Phil (Cumberbatch) to relentlessly bully and harass his new sister-in-law in the hopes of destroying her.

December 3rd – MONEY HEIST (Netflix)

The final season of this popular Spanish crime drama promises a bloody fight to escape a bank-heist-gone-wrong.

The second half of this Netflix crime drama’s fifth and final season drops in December and promises a climactic ending to one of the more inventive heist stories on TV right now. The crew is stuck inside the bank, mourning the recent loss of certain members as the army closes in. Forget making it out with the money in tow, their new goal is to simply make it out alive.

December 1Oth – WEST SIDE STORY (In Theaters)

Steven Spielberg updates this beloved Broadway musical with a young cast and a beautifully imagined world.

Steve Spielberg channels the spirit of the original Broadway musical for this film adaptation that introduces the doomed love story of two teenagers from rival gangs in 1950s New York City to a new audience. Rachel Zagler plays Maria, a young immigrant new to the city who strikes up a romance with Tony (Ansel Elgort). The problem? Their families belong to the city’s brawling factions, the Jets and the Sharks and their forbidden love might bring both groups to the brink of war.

December 17th – THE WITCHER (Netflix)

Henry Cavill’s white wolf returns home with a princess in tow as war breaks out on the Continent in season two.

Henry Cavill’s Geralt of Rivia returns to his roots this season as the war between kings, elves, humans, and demons begins to reshape the Continent. Believing Yennifer lost in the Battle of Sodden, Geralt takes Princess Cirilla to Kaer Morhen, where he and his fellow Witchers train her in combat. Meanwhile Yennifer, now a prisoner of the Nilfgaardian army, must find a way to escape her captors and reunite with Geralt and Ciri before Cahir can enact his endgame.

December 17th – SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME (In Theaters)

When his masked heroics as Spider-Man are ousted, Peter Parker goes to Dr. Strange for some magical help with multiverse-changing repercussions.

After Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) revealed his identity to the world in Spider-Man: Far From Home, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is forced to reevaluate his crime-fighting ways. With his reputation ruined and life turned upside down, he goes to Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) for help restoring his old life — one where nobody knew he was behind the mask — but that kind of magic has dangerous repercussions.

December 22nd – THE MATRIX: RESURRECTIONS (HBO MAX & In Theaters)

Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss return for this sequel set 30 years after the original trilogy.

Keanu Reeves returns as Neo in this sequel to the original trilogy. Set 30 years after The Matrix Revolutions, Reeves is living as Thomas Anderson in San Francisco. Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) is also there, though the two don’t recognize each other, and Neo’s therapist prescribes him blue pills to help with his strange dreams. It isn’t until a younger Morpheus (Yahya Abdul Mateen II) shows up, offering Neo a red pill, that his mind is reopened to the Matrix.

December 24th – THE KINGS MAN (In Theaters)

Ralph Fiennes stars in this prequel that charts the formation of Matthew Vaughn’s secret spy organization.

Ralph Fiennes becomes a bonafide action star in this prequel to Matthew Vaughn’s spy series. Fiennes plays one of the first Kingsmen as the film reconstructs the secret organization’s origins, inducting new members and taking on the worst tyrants in history.

December 24th – LICORICE PIZZA (In Theaters)

Paul Thomas Anderson assembles an all-star cast for an American love story set in 70s California.

Paul Thomas Anderson writes and directs this American drama set in 1970s California. Cooper Hoffman plays Gary Valentine, a teenage actor with dreams of stardom who falls in love with Alana Kane (singer Alana Haim) as they navigate growing up in the era of peace, love, and rock and roll.

December 24th – DON’T LOOK UP (Netflix)

Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio play a pair of astronomers trying to warn humanity about an impending Armageddon.

Adam McKay recruits nearly every Hollywood A-lister he knows for this Netflix comedy that imagines a fairly bleak end-of-world scenario. Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio play two astronomers who, after discovering an approaching comet will soon destroy Earth, must go on a giant media tour to warn the public. Along the way, they’re thwarted by politicians and conspiracy theorists hoping to keep this Armageddon under wraps. Jonah Hill, Meryl Streep, Timothee Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Cate Blanchett — literally everyone is in this thing.

December 31st – THE LOST DAUGHTER (Netflix)

Maggie Gyllenhaal’s directorial debut follows a woman’s (Olivia Colman) obsession with a young family on vacation.

Maggie Gyllenhaal directs this psychological drama starring Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, Jessie Buckley, and Paul Mescal. Colman plays Leda, a woman on vacation at a seaside resort who becomes obsessed with the relationship between a young mother and her daughter. As Leda observes the pair — and their unnerving extended family — she revisits her own experience of early motherhood and all of the choices she wished she’d made differently.