Every month, Vanity Fair curates the best and most notable original content and library titles coming to Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Peacock, and Showtime. Here’s what to stream in November. (To see what Netflix has planned for November 2020, head here.)
Amazon
Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen returns with not just one film, but five, in his Small Axe anthology series. Speaking to Vanity Fair before the New York Film Festival debut of this month’s installments, Mangrove and Lovers Rock, McQueen explained that he spent 11 years on this project, giving historically unrepresented talent in the United Kingdom a platform for success in the process.
“There have been two generations of filmmakers, editors, costume designers, cinematographers, actors who have been lost in this country because they were never given the opportunity, or never thought they had the possibility of being involved in the film world,” he said to Vanity Fair. “We have a lost narrative in our trajectory. That’s why I wanted to make five films. In some ways, it’s trying to fill that gap from ’68 to the mid-’80s. That’s why we were ambitious with what we wanted to do, because it was necessary.”
Disney+
Before Jar Jar Binks and The Rise of Skywalker, there was seeming agreement among Star Wars faithful that the franchise’s worst foot forward, by far, was 1978’s Star Wars holiday special. “If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every bootlegged copy of the program and smash it,” director George Lucas said a few years after its ignominious release.
The calamitous event—which premiered during the gap between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back and starred Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher—invented the Wookiee holiday Life Day (a substitute for Christmas) and was pretty much dead on arrival when it aired on November 17, 1978. “The determination was that it was a bit too late then to do much about it,” producer Gary Kurtz told Vanity Fair in 2008 of the special, which he remembered watching with Lucas. “We couldn’t pull the show. And, I guess, there was a determination that, well, it wasn’t really that bad compared to other Christmas specials, so what the hell.”
But now, 42 years later to the day, the notion of a Star Wars holiday special will receive new life. An animated take—set after the events of The Rise of Skywalker and featuring Rey, Finn, Chewbacca, and more fan favorites—will debut on November 17 via Disney+ and join the canon of ancillary Star Wars brand extensions. Happy Life Day, indeed.
HBO Max
WarnerMedia’s fledgling streaming platform hasn’t yet had a breakout water cooler hit. But if that’s going to happen for HBO Max, the service could do a whole lot worse than The Flight Attendant. A sharp satire of modern-day mysteries with a tone that recalls A Simple Favor, the new series—an adaptation of Chris Bohjalian’s 2018 best-seller—focuses on the title service industry worker (Kaley Cuoco), whose one-night-stand (Game of Thrones actor Michiel Huisman) turns up dead.
Hulu
While Netflix and Hallmark fight over holiday programming market supremacy, Hulu has what may be the forthcoming season’s most anticipated feature. Originally set to bow theatrically before the coronavirus pandemic made that an untenable reality, Happiest Season stars Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis as, respectively, Abby and Harper, a longtime couple on the verge of engagement who must unexpectedly deal with Harper’s conservative family during the holidays. Actress Clea Duvall co-wrote and directed the film, which stars a murderer’s row of internet favorites—including Dan Levy, Alison Brie, Victor Garber, and Mary Steenburgen.
Peacock
As streaming services leverage as much intellectual property as possible, here comes a reboot of Saved by the Bell. Now, Zack Morris is a governor, Kelly Kapowski is his First Lady, and A.C. Slater and Jessie Spano still live in Bayside. Some of their kids are involved, too. It’s basically The Force Awakens for Saturday morning television from the 1990s. That doesn’t mean the show will be good, but it’s hard to imagine young members of Generation X and older Millennials won’t have a passing interest in checking it out regardless.
Showtime
Not to be confused with the 2003 Showtime drama starring James Brolin and Judy Davis as former President Ronald Reagan and former First Lady Nancy Reagan, The Reagans is a four-part limited series from director Matt Tyrnauer (Where’s My Roy Cohn?) that explores the Reagan White House. “You’re going to get the palace intrigue, as much as you’re going to get the nuts and bolts of what happened through those years,” Showtime executive Vinnie Malhotra previously said of the project. “And so, it is a very human look at the years of the Reagans and what led up to those years, what took place in behind the walls during those eight years and really told through a lot of the inner circle and the people that I think were a part of all of the highs and lows of that time period in American politics.”
— November Cover Star Gal Gadot Is in a League of Her Own
— A First Look at Diana and Margaret Thatcher in The Crown Season Four
— Celebs Roast Trump in Rhyme for John Lithgow’s Trumpty Dumpty Book
— Brace Yourself for George Clooney’s Apocalyptic Movie The Midnight Sky
— The Best Shows and Movies Streaming This October
— Inside Netflix’s Latest Binge-able Escape, Emily in Paris
— The Crown’s Young Stars on Prince Charles and Princess Di
— From the Archive: How Hollywood Sharks, Mafia Kingpins, and Cinematic Geniuses Shaped The Godfather
— Not a subscriber? Join Vanity Fair to receive full access to VF.com and the complete online archive now.