It’s about time. One of the most talked-about films out of festival season, Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things, premieres in theaters this weekend. No matter your feelings on it, it’s hard to deny that Emma Stone is doing some of her best work in this fantastical odyssey. But of course, that’s not all that’s out this holiday weekend. There’s the return of Hayao Miyazaki with another gorgeously animated movie to be excited about. Plus, see the end of Netflix’s corny reality show, a new Anne Hathaway film, and the third Doctor Who holiday special. —Savannah Salazar
Featured Presentations
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Poor Things
Yorgos Lanthimos and Emma Stone team up again after the indelible dark comedy The Favourite. In Poor Things, another richly made dark comedy, Stone stars as Bella Baxter, a woman reanimated by a scientist (Willem Dafoe) with no recollection of her former life. As Bella starts to rapidly grow in knowledge, she sets off on a journey across the world with lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo) — and things go a little haywire, a little freaky, and a little fun and freewheeling from there. —S.S.
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The Boy and the Heron
Hayao Miyazaki’s 12th film is the most visually stunning movie he’s ever made, and maybe the most visually stunning movie that I’ve ever seen, period. An ambitious encapsulation of almost all of the themes the animator has explored throughout his career, The Boy and the Heron is a scary, funny, and beautiful masterpiece. If this is the last movie the 82-year-old Miyazaki ever makes, it will be a fitting capstone —James Grebey
➽ We endorse Miyazaki’s art, life, weird little guys, and poop.
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Eileen
Now opening wide after a limited release last week, Eileen stars Thomasin McKenzie and Anne Hathaway as a junior juvie guard and an older counselor, respectively, who develop a troubling connection. We might be in the middle of an Anne Hathaway renaissance (Hathaissance?), so Eileen is definitely worth checking out. —J.G.
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Leave the World Behind
What would you do if your Airbnb weekend getaway was rudely interrupted by the world ending and, oh yeah, the homeowners showing up at the door? That’s the premise of both Rumaan Alam’s novel Leave the World Behind and its star-studded film adaptation by Sam Esmail. If I’m being honest, the movie doesn’t really keep up with the more sharply scribed suspense of the novel, but if you want to watch Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, and Myha’la Herrold collectively lose their minds in close quarters, it’s worth a watch. —Eric Vilas-Boas
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Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie
He’s back, baby! Tony Shalhoub returns to fill Adrian Monk’s very clean shoes in Mr. Monk’s Last Case, and the actor hasn’t skipped a beat. The new Peacock movie checks back in on our favorite Obsessive Compulsive Detective in the midst of COVID, with a story that truly feels like creator Andy Breckman had an idea for new Monk that wasn’t just, “What if I made some money by rebooting this show?” —Emily Palmer Heller
➽ More movies should adopt this naming convention. This way there’s absolutely no confusion that this is, indeed, a movie about Mr. Monk.
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Origin
Ava DuVernay’s film is wildly ambitious: a fictionalized dramatization of Isabel Wilkerson’s nonfiction book Caste, framed like an anthropological mystery. Not to be missed. —Bilge Ebiri
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A Grammy Salute to 50 Years of Hip-Hop
This concert special, filmed in L.A. in early November, features performances from legends and new artists across the rap and hip-hop spectrum, including De La Soul, Latto, LL Cool J, Queen Latifah, 2 Chainz, and Cypress Hill. —Jen Chaney
Genre Fare
Doctor Who: The Giggle
The third of Doctor Who’s three 60th-anniversary specials pits David Tennant (the Tenth Doctor but he’s really the Fourteenth Doctor) against the Toymaker, an evil villain played by Neil Patrick Harris. Ncuti Gatwa, the actor who will eventually, actually play the Fourteenth Doctor, might make his proper debut as well. —J.G.
Animation Station
Hilda season three
Netflix’s acclaimed childhood fantasy is back for one last season, and its trailer teases several inventively designed magic creatures — from powerful forest giants to oblong, floating … dogs? This season, Bella Ramsey’s plucky lead character Hilda will reconnect with her family after she travels into a mystical realm. This final season clocks in at eight episodes, with a 70-minute finale. —E.V.B.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Christmas Cabin Fever
’Tis the season for animated holiday specials, and the latest Disney+ offering traps young Greg Heffley (the titular wimpy kid of the book series) inside the house with his family because of a snow storm. Sounds like a nightmare, personally. —J.G.
By Popular (On) Demand
Killers of the Flower Moon
Martin Scorsese’s three-and-a-half-hour epic about the rot at the heart of America is now available to rent or buy for home viewing. If you missed it in theaters — or if you wanted to wait until you had a chance to pause for bathroom breaks while watching this masterpiece — now’s your chance. Eventually, Killers of the Flower Moon will come to Apple TV+, but why wait that long? Shell out the rental money for Marty’s sake (and your own). —J.G.
Grand Finales
Squid Game: The Challenge
Maybe you got through this weird competition series or maybe you just want to see how it all plays out, but this week sees the finale of Netflix’s corny reality series. The games were fun to see! Even if a lot of the contestants turned up the melodrama to a hundred. —S.S.
➽ The Frasier revival ends, too. No confirmation of another season yet, so who knows if tossed salad and scrambled eggs will ever be callin’ again.
Want more? Read our recommendations from the weekend of December 1.
