New movies & shows coming in November 2026: Our top picks

🎬 November 2026: What we’re actually going to watch

This is not an everything-hitting-streaming-this-month list. There are plenty of those, and most of them bury the handful of things you would clear an evening for under a hundred you would not. This is our shortlist across the eight platforms: what is worth your time, why, and where it lands.

November splits cleanly in two. At the top, Prime Video owns the month: The Rings of Power comes back on the 11th and Blade Runner 2099 drops every episode on the 25th, the day before Thanksgiving. Underneath, the first of the month brings one of the strongest catalogue drops of the year, and it happens to be a month for disaster films. Four of them, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, Twister and Hard Rain, land on three different platforms, and we have reviewed all four. The family end is just as well stocked, from The Secret Life of Pets to Smallfoot. And the Christmas films start on November 1 on almost every service. We keep those short here; our best Christmas movies collection is the list we actually come back to every December.

🎬 In theaters

November is a strong month to get out of the house, and three of our top picks are cinema releases.

Godzilla Minus Zero (November 6) is the first of them. Takashi Yamazaki follows up Godzilla Minus One, the Japanese film that won the Oscar for visual effects, and this time North America gets it three days after Japan rather than weeks later. I Play Rocky (November 6) opens the same day in select theaters, with a wider release later in the month: Peter Farrelly tells how Sylvester Stallone refused to sell his Rocky script unless he could play the lead himself, with Anthony Ippolito as the young Stallone. That makes it a natural double bill with Cliffhanger on Netflix and Tulsa King on Paramount+.

For the family, Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat (November 6) is Warner Bros.’ new animated version, with Bill Hader voicing the Cat. The Holiday Hitman (November 3) is the outlier: a small Christmas action comedy with Nick Sagar, Ricky Norwood and Alexa Adeosun. So far only one listing dates it, and whether it opens in cinemas or goes straight to digital is not confirmed yet. Either way it is one we would rather watch at home over the holidays, so we will come back to it once it reaches streaming.

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping (November 20) is the one cinema trip of the month we would plan around. It goes back to the 50th Hunger Games, the Second Quarter Quell, and follows a young Haymitch Abernathy, the mentor Katniss would meet 24 years later, with Joseph Zada in the role and Ralph Fiennes as President Snow. Francis Lawrence directs again, as he did for every film since Catching Fire, and the source is Suzanne Collins’ own prequel novel. If the teenagers in the house need a refresher first, all five earlier films join Peacock six days before; more on that below.

The Thanksgiving week brings two more. The Further Mis-Adventures of Cliff Booth (November 25) reunites Brad Pitt with the stuntman role that won him an Oscar, now directed by David Fincher from a Quentin Tarantino script and set eight years after Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It plays in IMAX for two weeks only before it reaches Netflix on December 23, so this is the one to see on the big screen while you can. Hexed (November 25) is the family pick for the holiday weekend, Walt Disney Animation’s witch adventure with Hailee Steinfeld and Rashida Jones as a daughter and mother pulled into a hidden magical realm.

📦 Prime Video

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 3 (November 11) is the biggest return of the month. The first four episodes arrive on the Wednesday, two more follow on the 18th and the final two on the 25th, so the whole season is done in a fortnight rather than dragged across the winter. We gave both earlier seasons a 4 out of 5 (season 1, season 2), and the series guide is the quickest way to catch up on where Sauron and the rings were left. The season 3 teaser brief and the Middle-earth hub cover everything around it.

Blade Runner 2099 (November 25) is the other event, and the one we are most curious about. All eight episodes land at once, set fifty years after Blade Runner 2049, with Hunter Schafer and Michelle Yeoh leading. That release date puts the whole season in front of the Thanksgiving weekend, which is exactly when a binge like this belongs. It is a show for after the kids are in bed, not for the family sofa.

Good Will Hunting is the catalogue pick, on Prime Video from November 1. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck wrote it, Robin Williams won the Oscar for it, and the bench scene still does more in five minutes than most dramas manage in two hours. The rest of the 1st is a big holiday drop: Elf, Bad Santa, Jingle All the Way, Last Holiday and Surviving Christmas, plus Twins and all three Pink Panther films for a lighter night. Stream all of it with Prime Video.

🦚 Peacock

Peacock’s November 1 drop is the deepest of any platform this month, and five of our picks come from it.

2012 is the top pick for the grown-ups. Roland Emmerich ends the world with John Cusack outrunning a collapsing California in a limousine, and our review gives it a full 5 out of 5 for exactly that kind of excess. The Secret Life of Pets is the top pick for the family: the premise is what your dog does when you leave the apartment, and it is the easiest yes on this whole list when the youngest gets to choose. Despicable Me sits right next to it, the film that introduced Gru and the Minions and still the best of the series.

For the evening after bedtime, The Hitman’s Bodyguard puts Ryan Reynolds in charge of keeping Samuel L. Jackson alive, and the two of them insult each other for two hours. Notting Hill is the other way to spend that evening: Julia Roberts walks into Hugh Grant’s travel bookshop, and it remains one of the best romantic comedies of its decade.

The Hunger Games films arrive together on November 14: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, both Mockingjay films and The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes. The timing is no accident: Sunrise on the Reaping opens in theaters on November 20, so this is the week for a full rewatch with the teenagers in the house.

The rest of the 1st is a family catalogue in its own right: Kung Fu Panda, both Madagascar films, The Princess Bride, the three Spy Kids films, Trolls and three Dr. Seuss adaptations, alongside the first five Fast & Furious films and the Christmas staples The Family Man and Jingle All the Way.

🟣 HBO Max

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is HBO Max’s top pick, available from November 1. A volcano, a stampede, a dinosaur auction in a mansion: we rate it 4 out of 5, and the Jurassic Park hub has the rest of the series in order. If there is a younger dinosaur fan in the house, our Jurassic Park age guide answers how scary these films really get before you press play.

Jerry Maguire lands the same day. Tom Cruise at his most charming, Cuba Gooding Jr. at his loudest, and “show me the money” is still the line half the house will quote back. Smallfoot follows on the 4th as the family pick: a yeti discovers that humans are real, a simple premise that works for the kids and the parents alike.

The End of Oak Street is the one with a question mark. The Warner Bros. sci-fi thriller played in theaters in August, and HBO Max is the expected streaming home, but HBO Max has not put a date on it yet. It is on our list because it is one we want to see; check the app towards the end of the month.

The 1st also brings Dune (1984), Scream, The Wolverine and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, and the four Planet of the Apes reboot films follow on the 2nd. The Christmas shelf fills up immediately too, with Elf, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, The Polar Express and Four Christmases all on HBO Max from November 1.

🎞️ Netflix

Netflix front-loads its best catalogue titles onto November 1, and four of them are picks.

The Day After Tomorrow is the one to start with. Emmerich freezes New York, Dennis Quaid walks through the snow from Washington to New York to reach his son, and our review gives it a rare 5 out of 5. It is also a very good first disaster film for older kids. Cliffhanger is the 90s action pick: Sylvester Stallone on a mountain against John Lithgow and a stolen fortune, with an opening sequence that still makes palms sweat. Whiplash is the opposite kind of tension, Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons in a drumming duel without a wasted beat. The Croods covers the younger end, a DreamWorks Stone Age road trip that works for the whole sofa.

Air Force One, Stand by Me, Fury, Looper and The Mummy arrive the same day if the house wants more, and Netflix adds a new holiday TV movie almost every few days from the 3rd onwards.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (November 30) is the top pick for the end of the month. We have followed it since the first trailer, and if a Mario night is coming, the LEGO Super Mario hub has the sets to go with it. One caveat: so far only one schedule lists it for Netflix on that date, so check again when the month turns.

🎥 Paramount+

Paramount+ completes the disaster run, and its November 1 drop is three picks deep.

Twister is the one most households will reach for first. The flying cow, the drive-in, Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt chasing storms across Oklahoma: we rate it 4 out of 5. Hard Rain is the underrated one, with Christian Slater and Morgan Freeman in a flooded town and an armored truck full of cash, and it earned a 4 out of 5 from us as a disaster film that turns into a heist. Together with The Day After Tomorrow on Netflix and 2012 on Peacock, that is four of the films from our disaster movie collection streaming in the same month.

The Hunt for Red October is the third pick: Sean Connery’s submarine captain and Alec Baldwin’s Jack Ryan. We rate the film 4 out of 5, Tom Clancy’s novel gets a 5, and the Tom Clancy hub is the way in if the books have only ever been a vague memory.

Tulsa King season 4 stays our top pick on the platform for as long as it runs: new episodes every Friday through November, towards a December finale. Sylvester Stallone’s Dwight Manfredi is still the reason to watch, and our rating of the show holds at 4 out of 5. It is also the second Stallone pick of the month, after Cliffhanger on Netflix. For the family, the 1st also brings Hook, Rango and Horton Hears a Who!, and White Christmas leads a Christmas shelf that gets fifteen more holiday films on the 18th.

📡 Hulu

Hulu’s picks all land on November 1, and they share a mood: easy, funny films that work for a mixed audience.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle puts Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Karen Gillan inside a video game, and it is the one Jumanji sequel the whole family tends to agree on. Knight and Day is Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in a light, fast spy romp that asks nothing of you. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is the quiet one: Ben Stiller’s daydreamer finally sets off, with Iceland doing most of the talking and a soundtrack worth keeping.

Hulu also adds seasons 1 and 2 of Percy Jackson on the 1st, ahead of the new season, and Paddington in Peru on the 15th.

The 20th is where the Christmas season can fairly start in your house, and two of our picks arrive together. The Polar Express is the one for the kids, Robert Zemeckis’ train ride to the North Pole, which we rate 4 out of 5. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is the one for the parents: Clark Griswold, 25,000 lights and a squirrel in the tree, also a 4 out of 5 from us and on HBO Max since the 1st as well. A Christmas Story, Four Christmases and Fred Claus join the same day.

Mickey 17 follows on the 23rd and is the pick for an adults-only evening: Bong Joon-ho’s R-rated sci-fi comedy, with Robert Pattinson as an expendable worker who keeps getting reprinted after every death. Our review gave it 3.5 out of 5; go in expecting something ambitious and uneven rather than a safe crowd-pleaser, and not with the kids in the room.

🏰 Disney+

VisionQuest is our top pick still running from October, and it finishes on November 11. The last episodes arrive on the 4th and the 11th, closing the trilogy that began with WandaVision and continued through Agatha All Along. Our trailer brief covers what Marvel promised, and the MCU hub is the place to start if you are coming to it cold.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians season 3 (November 20) is the family pick, and it adapts The Titan’s Curse, the third book in Rick Riordan’s series. Two episodes land on the Friday, eight in total, on Disney+ and Hulu both. If a younger reader in the house has been asking, the season 3 trailer brief has the setup in a few minutes.

🍎 Apple TV

Stick season 2 (November 4) is the slow-burn comedy for after the kids are down. Owen Wilson returns as Pryce Cahill, with Rhea Seehorn joining as a new coach, two episodes on the first night and a new one every Wednesday until December 30.

Snoopy Presents: 12 Days of Snoopy (November 13) is the new Peanuts holiday special and an easy family pick once the cold arrives. Being Heumann follows the same day, Siân Heder’s film about disability-rights activist Judy Heumann. Way of the Warrior Kid (November 25) is the family action film with Chris Pratt. Apple has named both November 20 and November 25 for it, so check the app that week.

❓ FAQ

When does The Rings of Power season 3 come out?

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power season 3 premieres on Prime Video on Wednesday, November 11, 2026, with its first four episodes. Episodes 5 and 6 follow on November 18 and the final two on November 25.

Is Blade Runner 2099 released weekly or all at once?

All eight episodes of Blade Runner 2099 arrive together on Prime Video on Wednesday, November 25, 2026, so there is no weekly wait.

When do the Hunger Games movies come to Peacock?

All five films, The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay Part 1 and Part 2 and The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, join Peacock on November 14, 2026, six days before Sunrise on the Reaping opens in theaters on November 20.

Is The Day After Tomorrow on Netflix in November 2026?

Yes. The Day After Tomorrow joins Netflix in the US on November 1, 2026, together with Cliffhanger, Whiplash, The Croods, Air Force One and Stand by Me.

When does The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping come out?

The Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping opens in US theaters on Friday, November 20, 2026. It is a cinema release, not a streaming one; the five earlier Hunger Games films join Peacock on November 14.

When does Percy Jackson and the Olympians season 3 start?

Season 3, The Titan’s Curse, premieres on Disney+ and Hulu on Friday, November 20, 2026, with two episodes. Seasons 1 and 2 are on Hulu from November 1.