10 Best New Movies on Netflix in December 2025
A packed December lineup brings a mix of prestige originals, long-awaited sequels, and big licensed arrivals that promise to keep your Netflix queue lively right through the holidays.
December on Netflix always brings a mad shuffle of big Netflix awards hopefuls, and plenty of licensed movies to keep you entertained over the festive period. As always, we’re diving deep into the December 2025 lineup, and we believe this batch of movies should earn a place on your watchlist as the nights get long and the streaming queue fills up.
As always, for our roundups of the best of what’s to come, we’ll split our article into two sections. First, we’ll cover the Netflix Original movies we already know are great or are most excited about throughout the month. Then we’ll cover the licensed lineup for December, which will be incredibly busy. These licensed titles are only available in the United States, and their availability may vary internationally.
To see every new release coming to Netflix throughout December 2025, keep our full monthly guide bookmarked.
Best New Netflix Original Movies Coming in December 2025
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Coming to Netflix: December 12th
Rian Johnson is back with his third Benoit Blanc adventure, and Wake Up Dead Man feels like the director tipping the whole toy box onto the table. After the sun-soaked decadence of Glass Onion and the chilly New England intrigue of the first film, this new mystery swings for something bigger and stranger, with Blanc navigating a fresh web of secrets, egos, and inconvenient corpses once again ensembled with a cast at the height of their game.
For this one, we’re already in the “we know it’s fantastic” category. We’ve published our review ahead of its Netflix debut and gave it a four-star rating, concluding:
“Named for a U2 song that asks if there’s “an order in all this disorder”, Wake Up Dead Man delivers a sermon of faith, fanaticism, & fun that guides its audience away from the dark with more humor & hijinks than past Knives Out films. Brolin, O’Connor, Close, & a more expressive and playful Daniel Craig will leave you begging for another Rian Johnson film as soon as possible.”
As a reminder, you can go and watch this movie in theaters across the United States and in many international regions, too. According to Johnson, the film is playing in about 1,100 theaters worldwide. You can find out where the movie is playing where you live using this link.
Troll 2 (2025)
Coming to Netflix: December 1st
To this day, no non-English movie has managed to knock off the original Troll movie from the top spot of being Netflix’s most-watched movie in that category in its history. Under Paris came mighty close, but ultimately, Troll prevailed. Hoping to get close, match, or better still, top that record is a long-awaited sequel that dials the mayhem of the first movie up to 11.
Featuring a cast of returning characters from the original, plus plenty of new faces, the movie picks up exactly where the cliffhanger of the first leaves us, with a new troll getting awakened. The plot will have you following Nora, Andreas, and Captain Kris, who are embarking to discover exactly what ancient being they’ve unleashed. It looks bigger, louder, and if you’ll forgive me, more absurd than ever. Count me in.
Goodbye June
Coming to Netflix: December 24th
Kate Winslet’s directorial debut, Goodbye June, will premiere exclusively on Netflix this December, with the actress also starring. Per Netflix, “The film takes place just before Christmas, when an unexpected turn in their mother’s health thrusts four adult siblings and their exasperating father into chaos as they navigate messy family dynamics in the face of potential loss. But their quick-witted mother, June, orchestrates her decline on her own terms — with biting humour, blunt honesty, and a lot of love.”
The festive season usually brings cheery films designed to lift your spirits, but based on the trailer and everything we know so far, this one looks set to hit you right in the tear ducts, with the hope that its humor and warmth still shine through when it lands.
Jay Kelly (2025)
Coming to Netflix: December 5th
Noah Baumbach returns with his fourth Netflix film, after The Meyerowitz Stories, Marriage Story, and White Noise. This new one looks poised to be his biggest yet, though topping Marriage Story is no small climb (sorry, White Noise was a bust for me). Built around a knockout ensemble, it follows an actor traveling across Europe with his manager as he’s forced to confront the mess and meaning of both his past and his present.
Adam Sandler reunites with Baumbach for the first time since The Meyerowitz Stories and stars alongside George Clooney, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough, Grace Edwards, Patrick Wilson, and Greta Gerwig.
Our review isn’t live yet, but plenty of critics have already weighed in thanks to its festival run. The film currently carries a Certified Fresh badge on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus noting that “George Clooney riffs on his star persona with disarming vulnerability while Adam Sandler impressively expands his dramatic range in Jay Kelly, a Hollywood satire that’s gentler than one might expect from director Noah Baumbach.”
Best New Licensed Movies Coming in December 2025
Relay (2025)
Coming to Netflix: December 12th
Netflix is getting a lot of SVOD debuts throughout December (this is where Netflix has the first-run rights, or, in other words, this is the first time they’ve been available on a streaming service), and among the ones we’re really excited to watch is Relay, a thriller headlined by Riz Ahmed and Lily James.
Directed by David Mackenzie, the film centers on a broker who arranges lucrative payoffs between corrupt corporations and the people who threaten them, only to break his own rules when a new client begs for protection to stay alive.
The film picked up a bunch of strong reviews upon its release, and that’s perhaps not reflected in its surprisingly poor box-office haul. Among the chorus of strong reviews included New York Magazine (Vulture), which wrote, “Mackenzie and his cast dance around and through this drama so elegantly and delicately that the twisty, generic ending feels like even more of a letdown than it might have in a more ordinary picture. The details are not worth getting into, but Relay is the rare movie where I might recommend leaving ten minutes before the end.” Fingers crossed the movie finds some redemption and love when it drops on Netflix.
House of Gucci (2021)
Coming to Netflix: December 12th
From some truly bizarre casting choices to scenes that will leave your jaw hanging for being either painfully cringey or impressively risqué, House of Gucci isn’t the most polished of the new releases, yet it’s compelling for all the right and wrong reasons, something you simply can’t look away from.
The story follows Patrizia Reggiani as she meets and falls for the unassuming Maurizio Gucci, only to find herself on the outside of a dynasty still exerting influence today. It stands as one of Ridley Scott’s most curious films and arrives on Netflix in the middle of the month. The impressive ensemble cast includes Lady Gaga, Adam Driver, Al Pacino, Jeremy Irons, Jared Leto, and Salma Hayek.
Side note: This is among the many MGM movies we’ve seen licensed to Netflix as of late. For the most part, we haven’t seen MGM movies arrive on Netflix in the US or, frankly, anywhere in the world since Amazon acquired MGM. Interesting development! The Hustle, starring Rebel Wilson and Anne Hathaway, is also due out alongside House of Gucci.
Babylon (2022)
Coming to Netflix: December 7th
Another potentially controversial pick following House of Gucci! I’m a big fan of Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash (who isn’t), so Babylon was high up on my list of most anticipated movies for 2022. Is the final product a bit too long and overindulgent? Definitely, but that’s part of its charm, and it’s a movie that I’ll regularly revisit. The sprawling movie transports you back to 1920s Hollywood. It follows various characters as they navigate their careers across various aspects of the business, from just starting to the twilight years.
It’s a visual treat from start to finish and features one of the best ensembles in recent years, with Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, and Diego Calva the biggest draws.
Sew Torn (2025)
Coming to Netflix: December 1st
Don’t let anyone tell you Netflix doesn’t have recent movies. Another fresh arrival at the start of the month is Sew Torn, a horror that’s picked up lots of buzz but isn’t quite a Netflix debut, given that it’s already streaming on AMC and Shudder as I type this. As we’ve covered, we’ve already seen several Shudder titles drop on Netflix around Halloween, and Sew Torn joins the line-up for the festive season, even if its Vertigo-distributed grit is anything but festive.
Barbara Duggen, a mobile seamstress played by Eve Connolly, finds herself tangled in far more than thread when she steals a briefcase from a drug deal that’s already gone sideways, setting off a tense psychological thriller where each choice she makes splinters into sharply different outcomes. Directed by Freddy MacDonald and written by Fred MacDonald, the film stars Connolly alongside Calum Worthy and John Lynch, and unfolds in English with a cat-and-mouse rhythm that keeps tightening as Barbara’s world unspools.
Titanic (1997)
Coming to Netflix: December 16th
Finally, we conclude with an easy pick: James Cameron’s blockbuster hit, Titanic. Soon coming up on its 30th anniversary, the incredibly well-produced film still looks a million bucks to this very day and arguably cemented Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio’s acting prowess, with both having gone on to star in and even produce some of the biggest modern classics of our time.
You shouldn’t need an introduction to Titanic by this point, but in case you do, it remains James Cameron’s sweeping epic about love, class, and catastrophe aboard the ill-fated ocean liner, a film that turned a historical tragedy into one of cinema’s most enduring cultural touchstones.
This movie notably held the record for 13 years as the highest-grossing film in history, only for James Cameron to beat it again in 2010 with Avatar. Speaking of Avatar, the third movie arrives in theaters over the Christmas period, so if you’re looking to rewatch Cameron’s work, you’ll be able to find at least one title on Netflix, though the Avatar movies are locked to Disney+.
Wrath of Man (2011)
Coming to Netflix: December 31st
We always love getting a good action thriller into our monthly lists, and Wrath of Man more than earns its spot, delivering that unmistakable mix of cold precision, grim resolve, and Jason Statham doing what Jason Statham does best.
Are any of these movies on your radar for December? Let us know in the comments down below.