Netflix releases a number of films and series into its catalog every week, without anyone noticing them or the platform officially announcing it. Écran Large looks back at the new features added by Netflix from October 18 to 24, 2024, films and series combined in a non-exhaustive list.
What are the films and series not to be missed this week on the streaming platform?
A WOMAN AT GAME
- Already available
- Duration: 1h35
What is it about? Sheryl is a contestant on the 70s game show, The Dating Game. Through a partition, she asks questions to three men without knowing them to choose her future boyfriend blindly. But one of them is none other than Rodney Alcala, terrible serial killer.
Why should you watch it? This is the first film directed by actress Anna Kendrick, who also plays the role of Sheryl. But it is also and above all the chilling true story by Cheryl (with a “C”) Bradshaw, an American who found herself confronted with the murderer Rodney Alcala without knowing it in a show in 1978. For this first production, Anna Kendrick avoids all voyeurism without giving up suspense.
The film is worth seeing for the show’s set sequences, which skillfully depict a cruel world of televisionand for the scenes that show how the police remained deaf to the testimonies that tried to denounce Alcala at the time. We also salute the perfect moments of tension between a Sheryl who gradually realizes that she is dealing with someone dangerous, and a psychopath who is a little too sure of his move.
GOODBYE CONS
- Available October 22
- Duration: 1h27
What is it about : a computer scientist screws up his suicide attempt, and to avoid being burned, he must help a dying mother find her son.
Why you should watch it : Because it’s a film by Albert Dupontel, aka the punk of French cinema. If we have to go a little further, it is also quite simply a beautiful story filled with touching characters in distress and tender marginalized people. Dupontel obliges, Goodbye idiots is also a funny and absurd story, which gradually takes the form of a treasure hunt coupled with a race against time with a melodramatic outcome (and that’s not pejorative).
On the casting side, Virginie Efira plays one of her finest roles, just like Albert Dupontel who excels in the roles of nice simpletons who are skinned alive. And let’s also say a word abouthas a bunch of great supporting roles : Michel Vuillermoz, Nicolas Marié, Laurent Stocker, Jackie Berroyer or the duo David Marsais and Grégoire Ludig.
Werewolves
- Available October 23
- Duration: 1h34
What is it about : After discovering a mysterious game of cards, a family finds themselves in a village in the Middle Ages and must, every night, face dangerous werewolves.
Why you should watch it : Good news! Netflix produced an adaptation of the famous board game Werewolves of Thiercelieux, which has animated the colonies of France and Navarre for a decade. Bad news! This is a comedy with all the gratin of TF1 prime-timenamely Franck Dubosc, Suzanne Clément and Jean Reno. Suffice it to say that the trailers for this Werewolves are less reminiscent of a hairy body-snatcher than of a subJumanji franchouillard.
Hope remains, however, as the universe developed by the creators of the game over the course of the expansions is enticing, and especially as it imposes a paranoid fantasy medieval setting. Moreover, the platform communicates a lot about the making of wolves. Chances are she hired some very talented artists to bring them to life. And who would refuse a werewolf film with beautiful critters?
TERRITORY
- Available October 24
- 6 episodes
What is it about ? In the Australian Outback, the world’s largest cattle station, owned for generations by the Lawson family, becomes a battleground between miners, landowners, cowboys and gangsters.
Why should you watch it? The producers of Territory have found a simple and effective way to sell their series: this is the Yellowstone Australia. No Kevin Costner, but the same idea of a large family fresco around lands and power games, which this time uses the Australian setting as a backdrop.
Created by Ben Davies and Timothy Lee, Territory (formerly titled Desert King) is also led by the excellent Anna Torvrather a guarantee of good taste on the series side (Fringe, Mindhunter, Profession : Reporterwithout forgetting his small roles in The Last of Us et Nautilus).
