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 December 20 to 26, 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 ?
messengers of war
- Already available
- Duration: 2h09
What is it about? The story of the one and only battalion composed exclusively of African-American women, deployed abroad during World War II, facing discrimination and sexism, not to mention their grueling working conditions.
Why should you watch it? Directed by actor Tyler Perry, also very prolific behind the camera, Messengers of war seems to be one of those well-made and well-told productions, intended to highlight particularly revealing episodes in History. Here, then, is a battalion of African-American women sent abroad. And without too much surprise, it won't be Club Med for them.
The casting is to match, with Kerry Washington (Django Unchained, The Last King of Scotland), Ebony Obsidian (Huntersand Baele Street could speak), Milauna Jackson (Animal Kingdom), the famous presenter Oprah Winfrey and even Susan Sarandon, always where you least expect her.
Oppenheimer
- Available December 21
- Duration: 3 hours
What is it about? An enigmatic physicist, Robert Oppenheimer, struggles between scientific advancement and the horrors of war as his team embarks on a race to find the first atomic bomb.
Why should you watch it? If Christopher Nolan tests the limits of his cinema with each new film, Oppenheimer is perhaps an apotheosis on this point. His false biopic turns over like a glove all the presuppositions that we could have about it, to the point of offering one of his most mastered works and sublimated by the epic dimension of the IMAX format.
Linking the intimacy of the faces and the introspection of the creator of the atomic bomb to the massive scale of its impact on the world, the film is precisely about the fear of an unstoppable chain reaction. This is exactly the form that Nolan's montage takes, sailing between eras and pithy dialogues to capture the guilt of a man, of whom we can question the validity of his actions.
A great work on History and its perceptionsupported by an insane cast, featuring Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr.
Matrix : resurrections
- Available December 22
- Duration: 2h27
What is it about? Once again trapped in the simulated reality of the Matrix, Neo believes himself to be Thomas Anderson, video game creator. Until another chance to escape presents itself.
Why should you watch it? Say that Matrix 4 divided would be a hell of an understatement, worthy of a “ I wouldn't say it's a failure: it didn't work“. 18 years after the end of the trilogy, Matrix Resurrections marked the unexpected return of the teamat least in part since Lana Wachowski was alone in the production (without her sister Lilly), with the emblematic duo Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss (but without Laurence Fishburne).
By wanting to return to the Matrix to tell a story of personal mourning, following the death of their parents, the filmmaker took the opportunity to orchestrate a kamikaze split: hacking a blockbuster from the insideto attack the Hollywood machinery which exploits the veins until it loses its reason. The scenario is thus peppered with nods to the studio, the artists and the legacy of the first film. Matrixlike in a palace of mirrors where everything seems to be a mirage, or a copy of a copy of a copy. And by putting Neo and Trinity in the spotlight in this chaos, Matrix Resurrections finds the vibrant heart of the first films.
The problem is everything else. Lana Wachowski was clearly not more interested in action scenes. With the addition of the extremely shaky use of several characters (particularly Morpheus and the new big bad), Matrix Resurrections leaves an aftertaste of unfinished film, half-fascinating, half-frustrating.
It remains in all cases such a strange and unique object of its kind that it deserves to be revisited, to better measure its successes and failures. And its stratospheric belly (not even 160 million at the box office for a budget of 190 million) makes it even more fascinating.
Squid Game saison 2
- Available December 26
- Duration :
What is it about? Three years after winning the Squid Game, Gi-hun, Player 456 has given up on going to the United States and returns with a new goal. To achieve it, he dives back into the mysterious survival game where he will face deadly situations with new participants who all dream of winning the prize of 45.6 billion won.
Why should you watch it? Quite simply because Squid Game has become in a very short time a global phenomenon which has already left a mark in popular culture. So it's not too late to catch up with the bandwagon and follow suit straight away, to relax peacefully after Christmas meals. Especially since season 2 promises to be more action-packed and more spectacular, according to the trailer and the first notices from the American press. But also more sadistic if we rely on the mother-son duo who are part of the new gallery of characters.
Squid Game summons some bloody references, between Battle Royale et Hunger Games. And the protagonist played by Lee Jung-jae, who we recently saw in The Acolyte), should indeed transform into Katniss Everdeen (minus the arc), since in addition to throwing herself into the den of the wolf, the winner of the previous edition will try to overthrow the entire system and definitively put an end to the games.
BUT ALSO…
L’innocent, The Bad Camp 2…
