Netflix November highlights

The best of the streaming for next month….

On November 5th the first new offering of the month arrives in the form of The Unlikely Murderer.

This series is a fictional interpretation of how Stig Engström, the graphic designer who was named as the probable murderer of Sweden’s prime minister Olof Palme, managed to elude justice right up to his death through a combination of audacity, luck and a perplexed police force. What do we know about Stig Engström? How could the police let him get away, despite being on his track? The murder was not planned well, Engström did everything wrong from the beginning and almost no one believed his lies about what he actually did during that fateful night 1986 in Stockholm, Sweden.

Also on November 5th, Netflix brings UK streamers the third series of Narcos: Mexico. Set in the 90s, when the globalization of the drug business ignites,  this third offering of the drama examines the war that breaks out after Felix’s arrest. As newly independent cartels struggle to survive political upheaval and escalating violence, a new generation of Mexican kingpins emerge. But in this war, truth is the first casualty – and every arrest, murder and take-done only pushes real victory further away…

German stand-up comedian Oliver Polak spends a day with each of his famous guests and then roasts them in this fresh twist on the celebrity profile from November 9th in the three-part series Your Life Is A Joke. The following day, from November 10th, Gentefied is a half-hour dramatic comedy adapted from the 2017 Sundance digital darling of the same name. In this badass bilingual series about family, community, brown love, and the displacement that disrupts it all, three Mexican-American cousins struggle to chase the American Dream, even while that same dream threatens the things they hold most dear: their neighborhood, their immigrant grandfather, and the family taco shop.

Set in a rapidly changing Los Angeles, the Spanglish dramedy will navigate important themes like identity, class, and balancing insta-fame with translating memes for their parents. But most importantly, Gentefied will settle once and for all how to pronounce Latinx.

Gentefied, Chris Santos (as Eric), Felipe Esparza (as Crazy Dave) and J.J. Soria as (Erik). ©Netflix 2021

From November 17th Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness (series two) is the follow-up documentary to 2020’s first series about the life of former zookeeper and convicted criminal Joe Exotic. The series focuses on the small but deeply interconnected society of big cat conservationists such as Carole Baskin, owner of Big Cat Rescue and collectors such as Exotic, whom Baskin accuses of abusing and exploiting wild animals.

Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda makes his feature directorial debut with tick, tick…BOOM!, from November 19th. An adaptation of the autobiographical musical by Jonathan Larson, who revolutionized theatre as the creator of Rent. The film follows Jon (Andrew Garfield), a young theatre composer who’s waiting tables at a New York City diner in 1990 while writing what he hopes will be the next great American musical.

Days before he’s due to showcase his work in a make-or-break performance, Jon is feeling the pressure from everywhere: from his girlfriend Susan, who dreams of an artistic life beyond New York City; from his friend Michael, who has moved on from his dream to a life of financial security; amidst an artistic community being ravaged by the AIDS epidemic. With the clock ticking, Jon is at a crossroads and faces the question everyone must reckon with: What are we meant to do with the time we have? tick, tick…BOOM!

For younger streamers, from November 23rd, there’s the second part of Masters of the Universe: Revelation, as the war for Eternia continues in an innovative and action-packed animated series that picks up where the iconic characters left off. With Skeletor now wielding the Sword of Power, the weary heroes of Eternia must band together to fight back against the forces of evil in a thrilling and epic conclusion to the two-part series.

And finally from our choice picks there’s a breathtaking adaptation of the manga series by renowned manga artist Jirô Taniguchi and writer Baku Yumemakura in The Summit of the Gods, from November 30th. Following a young Japanese photojournalist, Fukamachi, he finds a camera that could change the history of mountaineering. It leads him to the mysterious Habu, an outcast climber believed missing for years. Fukamachi enters a world of obsessive mountaineers hungry for impossible conquests on a journey that leads him, step by step, towards the summit of the gods.