Courtesy of Netflix
The final weeks of the year are often a fruitful period for new releases, across the big and small screens. (Let’s be honest, how else do you stay sane after all that extended family time?) But, the 2025 roster is going above and beyond, from a behind-the-scenes look at the biggest tour in musical history and the return of our favourite hapless American in Paris, to the latest Knives Out, another madcap Timothée Chalamet Oscar bid and the explosive conclusion to one of the best TV shows of all time. These are the six crowdpleasers you can’t miss.
The Final Show and The End of an Era (on Disney+ from 12 December)
Taylor Swift’s post-Life of a Showgirl world domination continues with this double-header: The Final Show, a new Disney+ concert film, which, unlike the previously released Eras Tour movie, will include The Tortured Poets Department set in its entirety, as well as The End of an Era, a six-part, behind-the-scenes docuseries about how exactly The Eras Tour came to be. The former, along with the first two episodes of the latter will stream from 12 December, with two additional episodes of the show then dropping each week until Boxing Day. The result will be a very Swiftian Christmas featuring never-before-seen footage and revelations, countless Easter eggs, a gaggle of famous friends, many backstage shenanigans from Travis Kelce, cuddly cats, Ms Swift herself entering the arena in a cleaning cart (naturally) and a truly mind-boggling level of productivity. What could be more festive?
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (on Netflix 12 December)
It’s not Christmas without one of Rian Johnson’s Knives Out movies to watch with your family. Back in 2019, we got a then-unknown Ana de Armas alongside Chris Evans in that covetable viral Aran knit in the franchise opener, followed by Janelle Monáe and co joining Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc in Glass Onion in 2022. Another three years on, here’s the third instalment, led by the charismatic Josh O’Connor as a dashing reverend accused of a brutal killing. The usual murders’ row of screen legends this time includes – deep breath – Glenn Close, Andrew Scott, Kerry Washington, Daryl McCormack, Mila Kunis, Jeffrey Wright, Cailee Spaeny, Jeremy Renner, Thomas Haden Church and Josh Brolin, as the priest who’s been unceremoniously knocked off. Prepare for jaw-dropping twists and see if you (and your relatives) can solve the mystery before they do. It’s perfect Boxing Day afternoon viewing before a round of Cluedo.
Emily in Paris: Season 5 (on Netflix 18 December)
For me, personally, there’s no better Christmas present than a fresh chapter of Emily Cooper’s ill-advised adventures in the dual worlds of modern marketing and dating, courtesy of Darren Star. Lily Collins’s still-bumbling expat, has now, of course, traded her beloved Paris for Rome, meaning there will be plenty more vespa rides, much la dolce vita-ing in picturesque squares, musical numbers from Ashley Park’s Mindy, a glamorous trip to Venice and Oscar nominee Minnie Driver dancing up a storm as a princess and friend of Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu’s Sylvie. Yes, the fashion will be mad, the plot lines borderline incomprehensible and the love triangles endless and exhausting, and we’ll eat up every single morsel. The ideal solo Christmas Eve binge while wrapping gifts.
Stranger Things: Season 5, Part 2 (on Netflix 26 December)
After the first four episodes of Stranger Things’ blockbuster final season land on 27 November, the next three will arrive on Boxing Day, with the pulse-racing finale to follow on New Year’s Day. The Duffer brothers’ sci-fi behemoth has taken almost a decade to get here and every effort has, it seems, been made to ensure it lives up to the extraordinarily high expectations of fans. Will Hawkins survive the wrath of Vecna? Will Sadie Sink’s Max wake up from that coma? Can Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven save them all? With dazzling visual effects, intricate storytelling and an old-school, almost Spielbergian epicness, this is TV at its profoundly cinematic, culture-shifting best. You can count on it to be a topic of frenzied speculation throughout the festive period, all the way up until that barnstorming two-hour-long final episode.
Sentimental Value (in cinemas 26 December)
Seeing Joachim Trier’s knotty portrait of a family tearing at the seams might just be the catharsis you need after the internalised stress of coordinating Christmas dinner duties with your own parents, siblings and distant relatives. In it, Stellan Skarsgård gives an Oscar-tipped performance as a prolific filmmaker in the twilight of his career, who is determined to mount a comeback by casting his estranged daughter (the luminous Renate Reinsve, of The Worst Person in the World fame), a talented stage actor, as the lead of his next project. Cue a Bergmanesque game of chess, in which she declines, and he instead hires an angelic Hollywood star (a brilliant Elle Fanning) to fill in. Add to this a captivating supporting turn from newcomer Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, as our lead’s watchful little sister, plus a poetic script and immaculate Nordic production design, and you have a formidable awards contender which is still the best film I’ve seen this year.
Marty Supreme (in cinemas 26 December)
And counter-programming comes in the form of Josh Safdie’s a-mile-a-minute romp, which finds a mustachioed, monobrow-sporting Timothée Chalamet going ham as a ’50s ping pong champion. Having just missed out on a Best Actor Oscar last year, for his transformation into Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown, this should get him closer than ever – his fast-talking, delusionally confident hustler sucks up all the oxygen, though there are scene-stealers, too, in the form of Gwyneth Paltrow as a ’30s movie star, Odessa A’zion as our hero’s long-suffering girlfriend, Tyler the Creator as a fellow player, Kevin O’Leary as a slimy benefactor and Fran Drescher as Marty’s frosty mother. It’s Uncut Gems in sharp period tailoring – you’ll be out buying a full table tennis set before you know it.
This article was originally published on British Vogue.
