Guide

November streaming highlights

1.11.2025

Translation: Eva Francis

New month, new streaming recommendations. From Netflix to Prime Video, Disney+, Sky Show and Apple TV+, these are our series and film picks on streaming services this November.

Did you hear about the restaurant on the moon? It has great food, but no atmosphere. With that, let’s skip straight to my film and series highlights for November.

Netflix

The Witcher, season 4 (series)

I know, I know, strictly speaking, this isn’t a November highlight, but a delayed October highlight. Shame on me. But what can I say – I blame the algorithm. It must have refused to mention The Witcher 4 when I researched the October highlights.

Or maybe the algorithm was trying to avoid the many controversies surrounding season 4 of The Witcher. It’s not an ordinary season. It’s a new beginning – or, depending on who you ask, the beginning of the end. Why? Because Liam Hemsworth’s taken over the leading role from Henry Cavill. He left because Netflix is steering the franchise in a direction that doesn’t do the source material justice. Fans couldn’t agree more.

In any case, season 4 picks up right where the chaos of season 3 left off: Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri are separated, while the ongoing war is tearing the continent apart. Geralt sets off to find Ciri, supported by a new troupe of fighters, poets and vagabonds. Ciri’s joined a gang of young outlaws. Meanwhile, Yennefer has teamed up with sorceresses against new powers. Will that turn out well?

Release date: 30 October

Squid Game: The Challenge, season 2 (reality show)

Let’s face it, I’m weak. Two years ago, when Netflix turned Squid Game into a reality show, I was outraged at the idea of turning a satire about capitalism into a real game about real money. And then, well, I went ahead and watched every single episode. In one go. And I’d do it again.

I know, I’m a hypocrite. In Squid Game: The Challenge, 456 contestants compete for 4.56 million dollars, supposedly the highest prize money in reality TV history. Whoever loses is eliminated – symbolically «shot» with paintballs instead of bullets. What initially seems like rubbish TV gradually turns out to be a real social experiment. For example, when a phone suddenly rings in the dormitory and the participants argue about if and who should answer.

So what’s new in season 2? New participants, new games – same moral dilemma. Perhaps that’s the real highlight of this show: it forces us to look in the mirror and face the fact that we’re no better than the producers who invented the whole thing. Or maybe Netflix is just riding the hype wave to rake in more cash. Both could be true.

Release date episodes 1–4: 4 November
Release date episodes 5–8: 11 November
Release date final episode: 18 November

Death by Lightning (miniseries)

The great Michael Shannon as US President James A. Garfield, Succession star Matthew Macfadyen as his assassin Charles Guiteau and Parks and Recreation legend Nick Offerman – wow! This cast is destined to win awards.

Death by Lightning tells the true story of the 20th US president and his murderer. Guiteau was a megalomaniac admirer who believed he owed the president something, but deserved even more in return. What began as a grotesque misunderstanding turned into a tragedy. An absurd story that made the headlines back when it happened. Just like an actual death by lightning would.

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the creators of Game of Thrones, are the executive producers of this series. The two impressively restored their reputation after the controversial GoT end with The 3 Body Problem. Based on Candice Millard’s book Destiny of the Republic, Death by Lightning promises to be a dark, absurd and at the same time deeply human portrait of power, vanity and chance.

Release date: 6 November

Frankenstein (movie)

The brilliant but obsessed Dr Victor Frankenstein wants to achieve the impossible: create life where there should be none. He steals the parts that make up humans – limbs, hearts, memories – and uses them to assemble a creature that is half human, half monster. But when this creature begins to breathe, Frankenstein loses control of his experiment and ultimately of himself.

Guillermo del Toro spent 25 years working on his adaptation of Mary Shelley’s classic and calls it the culmination of a lifelong journey. Handmade effects instead of CGI, emotions instead of spectacle, feelings instead of screams. Oh, I can’t wait. If anyone can find beauty in horror – as Pan’s Labyrinth showed impressively – it’s him.

Release date: 7 November

Last Samurai Standing (series)

Samurai and battle royale – two genres that sound like a match made in heaven. And yet it took until 2025 for someone to actually bring them together. Last Samurai Standing takes the merciless survival game to 19th-century Japan. More precisely to the Meiji era, where the glory of the samurai is fading and the age of modernity beginning.

292 warriors are competing for a reward of 100 billion yen. There’s one rule: kill or die. Only those who reach Tokyo alive with the wooden tags they’ve stolen from others will win. Sounds like a mixture of Shōgun and Squid Game – and looks like one too. It’s raw, poetic and comes with lots of choreographed brutality.

The key figure’s Shujiro Saga (Jun’ichi Okada), who’s also the co-writer and in charge of the sword-fighting choreography. The trailer gives you an idea of how much passion and precision has gone into this series. I must say, I’m hyped. If the series delivers what the trailer promises, we’re in for a bloody treat.

Release date: 13 November

Stranger Things, Season 5 (series)

Oof, what can I say? An era is coming to an end. When the first season of Stranger Things premiered on Netflix, I was doing my last bit of military service. Today I’m approaching 40. Time flies. Eight years, five seasons, countless Dungeons & Dragons references, synth beats and monsters from the underworld later, the finale is now approaching.

Season 5 will be released in three parts: part 1 on 26 November, part 2 on Christmas Day and the grand finale on New Year’s Eve. The intention behind this is as subtle as a Demogorgon on roller skates: if you’re only interested in Stranger Things, you still need to subscribe for three months – not just two. Bravo. Very smart indeed.

In any case, the Duffer brothers promise the finale will be «bigger, darker and more emotional» than anything we’ve ever seen before. A fitting farewell for the series that made Netflix big – and shaped an entire decade for many of us.

Release date part 1: 26 November 2025
Release date part 2: 26 December 2025
Release date part 3: 1 January 2026

Amazon Prime Video

Playdate (movie)

Two fathers, a pizzeria and a contract killer. What sounds like the beginning of a bad joke is actually the movie Playdate, a buddy action comedy that could be described as something between Reacher and Kindergarten Cop. Kevin James plays the overburdened regular kind of dad; Alan Ritchson the guy who isn’t quite who everyone thinks he is. When an assassin storms the birthday party at Buckee Cheese, things get bloody and loud.

And hopefully funny, too.

Release date: 12 November

The Mighty Nein (series)

If you liked The Legend of Vox Machina, you’ll be happy to hear about this next series. The Mighty Nein is the second major animated series from the universe of Critical Role, the legendary D&D round in which dubbing actors and actresses have been acting out their adventures for years on YouTube and even live in front of hundreds of people. With lots of chaos and improv.

While Vox Machina were heroes who happened to be idiots, the Mighty Nein are exactly the opposite: idiots who happen to become heroes. A group of outsiders, outlaws and dreamers who need to preserve an artefact that threatens reality itself. It’s absurd, touching and wonderfully silly – exactly the mix that makes Dungeons & Dragons campaigns so unique.

Release date: 19 November

Disney+:

Fire And Water: Making The Avatar Films (documentary)

James Cameron finally lets us take a look behind the scenes of Pandora. Fire and Water accompanies the director and his team during the making of The Way of Water and provides a first insight into the upcoming film Avatar: Fire and Ash. The two-part documentary’s packed with interviews, new scenes and an almost insane dedication to detail.

Making-ofs rarely sound sexy – but when Cameron speaks, you just want to listen. And this documentary is proof that behind all the technology, there are people who breathe, dive, freeze and dream. That’s what makes cinema so magical for me – seeling real hands build a world.

Release date: 7 November

Sky Show

The Chair Company (series)

It all starts with a chair. More precisely, with a man whose chair collapses during an important presentation, leaving him convinced he’s on to a major chair conspiracy. So he pursues the chair manufacturer. Between hotline queuing, quirky supporting characters and paranoid delusions, a bitterly funny journey into the absurd unfolds. It’s something between Kafka and cringe.

And it looks like that’s what people love: it’s HBO’s most successful comedy launch in five years. Unsurprisingly so, as Tim «You sure about that»» Robinson is a comedy legend. No question: I just have to see this.

Release date: 21 November

Apple TV+

Pluribus (series)

Vince Gilligan returns to Albuquerque – to the place where Breaking Bad once began. Only this time, there’s no meth involved, but something much more disturbing: happiness. Pluribus is about a mysterious virus that makes everyone happy. Well, everyone except one person. Rhea Seehorn (Better Call Saul) plays Carol Sturka, an author who’s the only one left untouched while the world around her is caught in a permanent grin.

Apple TV+ (pardon, Apple TV) calls it a science fiction drama, Gilligan himself speaks of a moral conundrum. I love it. The first season has nine episodes – and Apple’s committed to two seasons already. Gilligan’s the writer, producer and director. 30 years after his X-Files days, he’s finally returning to his science fiction roots.

Release date: 7 November