Best new movies and TV series on Stan: November 2024

Each month, lots of new films and TV shows are added to Stan‘s library. Eliza Janssen surveys the month’s selections and picks for titles most worth watching. For the full list of everything arriving on the platform, scroll down.

Top Picks: TV

Drag Race Down Under: Season 4 Premiere (November 1)

Rudely considered the ugly stepsister of the vast international family of RuPaul’s Drag Race spin-offs, our Down Under edition hasn’t always made the best choices in adapting an all-American format to the idiosyncratic style of drag seen in New Zealand and Australia.

The reasons to tune into this newest season are twofold: first, the glam winners of the first three seasons will be welcomed back as rotating judges, offering a native perspective on each runway, challenge performance and bit of shade thrown. And secondly, Ru’s right-hand-woman and “best squirrelfriend” Michelle Visage is getting a long overdue promotion to host! Visage has gone from being dubbed “the Simon Cowell of drag” to having her softer and more maternal side brilliantly showcased, and some fresh perspective is definitely welcome here.

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Staged: Series 3 (November 2)

A COVID-era gift that just kept giving, Michael Sheen and David Tennant initially pulled together one season of their bickering, 2020-on-Zoom-set comedy before dropping new chapters in 2021 and 2022. Things get insanely meta in this latest instalment, with the famous pals agreeing to once again tackle the same absurdist play from the 1920s…only for their ambitions to spiral into Dickens’ A Christmas Carol instead, and ultimately a fictionalised behind-the-scenes doco mockingly called “Backstaged.”

Celeb pals who pop up include Olivia Colman, Jim Broadbent, and David’s own son Ty, now a big star himself of House of the Dragon fame. If you still get sweaty, pandemic-era war flashbacks at the mere act of logging into a group call, this silly and self-referential show might be the cure.

Yellowstone: Season 5 Midseason Premiere (November 11)

Time to hang up your Stetson: the very last part of the fifth and final instalment of Yellowstone is upon us, and whew mama did the first batch leave things on a tantalising note. Kevin Costner’s steely patriarch John got sworn in as Governor of Montana in the fifth season’s first episode, and episode eight ended with his own traitorous kid Jamie (Wes Bentley) calling for his impeachment…and planning more mortal ends if that didn’t turn out, too. Unbeknownst to him, sister Beth (Kelly Reilly) has similarly murderous objectives in mind: so who’s gonna grab control of the vast family estate, and who’s going to end the series pushing up daisies?

The only person who seems to be hyped about this juggernaut of a western series finally wrapping up is lead Costner, who has been complaining about his pivotal part in the whole ordeal for yonks now. You’re free, Kev! Go make your own super-expensive cowboy-hatted projects forevermore!

Top Picks: Movies + Specials

La Chimera (November 4)

Director Alice Rorhwacher might be the closest thing we have these days to Fellini, with this newest film and her entrancing Happy As Lazarro imbuing rural Italy with surreal, romantic magic. Josh O’Connor makes a great Orpheus in this treasure-hunting take on Greek tragedy: he’s a rumpled tombaroli, a grave-robber with a divine knack for digging up long-forgotten funeral artefacts.

But as the law closes in and his fellow gangsters callously chisel away at buried booty, it’s clear that our guy hopes to uncover something more existential. This is a sumptuous story brimming over with vitality and yearning. The darkened scene of an underground crypt, silent before it’s violated for the first time in thousands of years, was my favourite single cinematic moment of 2023.

The Mountain (November 9)

As summer rolls around, kids are out of school and free to tackle whatever outdoorsy adventures their little minds might imagine—making this warm, bighearted feature from Aotearoa the perfect inspiring watch over the holidays. Directed by actor Rachel House, it’s an old school story about three young misfits who find purpose and friendship on their way up an existentially-meaningful mountain, which one member of the party believes could be key to curing her illness.

In his review, Liam Maguren called it “incredibly rare”: “a distinctly New Zealand film centred on kids that young audiences can latch onto while also telling a story with enough substance to affect anyone of any age.” It just might be winning enough to wean your little ones off their devices.

Nugget Is Dead: A Christmas Story (November 21)

Sometimes, a stinky, slobbery, four-legged family mascot is the only thing keeping a dysfunctional brood together. So what if, as the morbid title of this Stan Original Christmas flick proposes, that pup potentially passes away? Stan has been keeping the flame of new Aussie holiday classics alive for a few years by this point, and centering their newest around one crazy family’s non-human member is a great call.

Director and lead actor Vic Zerbst plays a woman with “very elegant”, sophisticated Christmas plans that get thrown out the window when she has to return to her small coastal hometown…and her bonkers, sprawling family, when dog Nugget gets a tough diagnosis. Legends Tara Morice, Damien Garvey, Gia Carides and Mandy McElhinney appear as the fractured fam.

All titles arriving on Stan in November

November 1

Drag Race Down Under: Season 4 Premiere
Transformers Earthspark: Season 1: Part 2
Fatman
Ghosts: Season 5
Kung Fu Panda
Kung Fu Panda 3
Last Christmas
How The Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)