Your mood board for year-end viewing: thorny, theatrical and occasionally tender enough to feel like a hug after a long, loud dinner.
No Other Choice
Where to watch: Mubi
Park Chan-wook’s latest turns a laid-off mill worker’s desperation into a pitch-black crime caper. It is violent, meticulous and perversely funny.
Knives Out: Wake up Dead Man
Where to Watch: Netflix
Knives Out is back for another round of rich people behaving badly, and this time the mystery comes wrapped as Wake Up Dead Man, a case that drags Benoit Blanc into even darker, stranger territory. Set against a fresh constellation of suspects and secrets, it feels less like a repeat and more like Johnson twisting the snow globe and letting the pieces fall in entirely new, delightfully crooked patterns.
Jay Kelly
Where to watch: Netflix
Noah Baumbach pairs George Clooney and Adam Sandler in a wry midlife road movie about a fading star and the manager who has to babysit both his career and his ego. Sardonic, talky and unexpectedly tender.
Avatar Fire and Ash
Where to watch: In cinemas from 19th December
Cameron’s blue-tinted opus returns with expanded clans, bigger battles and eco-angst rendered in retina-searing detail. For families, it doubles as a seasonal ritual, like a pilgrimage to Pandora.
Christmas Karma
Where to watch: In theatres right now
Christmas Karma takes the classic redemption arc and threads it through karmic payback, as one person’s bad behaviour boomerangs with escalating, magical precision. Expect twinkly lights, spiritual comeuppance and a distinctly desi sense of humour about guilt and grace.
Marty Supreme
Where to watch: Early January in theatres
Marty Supreme transforms 1950s table tennis into a full-blown quest for greatness, led by a dreamer no one takes seriously until the ball hits the table. It is offbeat, sweaty and unexpectedly rousing with the rising star Timothee Chalamet in the titular role.
Goodbye June
Where to watch: Coming December 24th on Netflix
Kate Winslet’s directorial debut, Goodbye June trades tinsel for liminal, in-between days, following characters desperate to shut the door on one phase of life before the calendar resets. Melancholic but quietly hopeful, it feels made for that hazy week when time blurs and resolutions start to look negotiable.
Ikkis
Where to watch: 25th December in Theatrer
Set in 1921, Ikkis stages a patriotic war drama around a young soldier whose courage turns him into legend, offering a rousing counterpoint to frothy seasonal fare. Big on battlefields and bigger on sentiment, it channels year-end emotion into chest-thumping spectacle.
Emily in Paris Season 5
Where to Watch: Netflix
The latest season of Emily in Paris leans into full holiday-caper mode, splitting Emily’s chaos between the postcard streets of Paris and the sun-drenched drama of Rome. This chapter turns her picture-perfect feed into a tug-of-war between two cities and two versions of the life she could be living.
Words Hansika Lohani
Date 16.12.2025