5 of the best films to watch this December
As the year winds down, December offers the perfect excuse to slow down, as it is the perfect time to cosy up with a good movie, whether you’re winding down the year, spending time with loved ones, or escaping the holiday chaos.
From heartwarming tales to gripping adventures, here are five great films that will light up your screen and lift your spirits this festive season.
1. 100 Nights of Hero
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Adapted from a graphic novel by Isabel Greenberg, which was inspired in turn by One Thousand and One Nights, Julia Jackman’s new film is a stylishly camp grown-up fairy tale. Maika Monroe plays Cherry, the frustrated wife of a despicable aristocrat (Amir El-Masry).
A handsome visitor (Nicholas Galitzine) bets Cherry’s husband that he can seduce her within 100 nights – and if the visitor succeeds, she will be executed. Luckily, her suspicious maid (Emma Corrin) is on hand to distract her by telling her stories, including one featuring a woman played by Charli XCX.
“It proves that happy endings need not conform to centuries-old formulas and that love, be it romantic, platonic, queer, or fleeting, can be as complex and wondrous as any of the tales we tell.”
Released on 5 December.
2. Goodbye June
After 30 years of acting in films, Kate Winslet has directed one as well. It was scripted by her own son (with Sam Mendes), Joe Anders, and together the Winslets have attracted a staggering cast.
Helen Mirren stars as a family’s beloved matriarch, who is dying in hospital at Christmastime. It’s time for her squabbling daughters, played by Winslet and Andrea Riseborough, to put aside their differences, and for various other family members, played by Timothy Spall, Johnny Flynn and Toni Collette, to say their goodbyes.
Released on 12 December in the US and the UK and on 24 December on Netflix internationally.
3. Avatar: Fire and Ash
James Cameron’s Avatar (2009) and its long-awaited sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water (2022), are two of the highest-grossing films ever made.
Now it’s time for our third visit to the moon of Pandora, where the blue-skinned Jake (Sam Worthington) and Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña) are fighting against the human invaders led by Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang), not to mention a tribe of villainous Na’vi called the “Ash people”.
Released internationally on 17, 18 and 19 December.
4. Anaconda
Anaconda didn’t get great reviews when it came out in 1997, but it has since become a so-bad-it s-good cult classic: who doesn’t enjoy watching Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube and Owen Wilson being chased down the Amazon by a giant snake?
Now comes a film which is sort of a reboot, sort of a remake and sort of a parody. It’s directed and co-written by Tom Gormican, whose last film, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, was an action comedy in which Nicolas Cage played a caricature of himself.
Released internationally on 24, 25 and 26 December.
5. The New Yorker at 100
The New Yorker is a venerable institution – a magazine that publishes everything from cartoons to short fiction to hard-hitting book-length investigations: Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood ran over four issues in 1965.
And at a time when so many magazines are closing, and so many of us turn to our phones for quick hits of entertainment, The New Yorker is still going strong.
When its editors were preparing its 100th-anniversary issue earlier this year, Oscar-winning documentarian Marshall Curry went behind the scenes to learn its secret. Julianne Moore narrates the resulting film, while Jesse Eisenberg, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Jon Hamm are among the fans interviewed.
Released on 5 December on Netflix internationally.
