11 movies to check out on Netflix in November

In Sam Raimi’s frenetic Drag Me To Hell, Alison Lohman plays loan officer Christine Brown, who is cursed by an old woman (Lorna Raver) after the woman is evicted from her home. Justin Long steals scenes as Christine’s loyal boyfriend with a low tolerance for supernatural shenanigans. The A.V. Club’s Scott Tobias writes, “Just like other PG-13-rated horror movies, the film relies on shock effects instead of blood, but Raimi pushes those effects to a full-on visceral assault. He wants viewers to jump out of their chairs, to laugh and scream and cheer, and to nudge each other over the transcendent ridiculousness of what they’re witnessing. This is junk filmmaking at its finest.”

In the psychological mystery-thriller Locked In Lina (Rose Williams) is an unhappy newlywed locking horns with her mother-in-law (Famke Janssen). An affair triggers a love triangle, murder, and plot to bring Lina to her knees. In the trailer, Lina is heard saying, “I can’t go on like this. I’ll go mad. I suppose all I ever wanted was for her to love me.” The Neon production directed by Nour Wazzi with a screenplay by Rowan Joffé also stars Finn Cole, Anna Friel, and Alex Hassell.

Nyad is a sports biopic about swimmer Diana Nyad (Annette Bening), a woman obsessed with completing the 110-mile swim between Cuba and the Florida Keys. Jodie Foster stars as her best friend and coach, Bonnie Stoll. The A.V. Club’s Manuel Betancourt writes, “If, at the end of the day, Nyad feels like a well-oiled crowd-pleasing sports drama with a heartwarming (if slightly insidious) message about never giving up, that doesn’t blunt its impact. We may not all have the stamina to accomplish anything remotely close to what Diana does but there’s something to be said about a film that uplifts the simple if poetic aspiration to make the most of one’s wild and precious life.”

Patrick Wilson, who plays Josh Lambert in Insidious, reprises his role and takes the director’s chair for Insidious: The Red Door, the fifth and final film in the horror franchise. Set 10 years after the events in 2013’s Insidious: Chapter 2, the movie begins with Josh dropping off his son, Dalton (Ty Simpkins), at an idyllic college university. Dalton’s college dreams soon turn nightmarish when evil entities from his past return to terrorize him and his family. Stick around for the end credits to hear Wilson contribute haunting vocals to Ghost’s cover of “Stay,” originally a hit for Shakespears Sister.

Resident Evil: Death Island is an animated horror-action movie based on the Resident Evil video games. In this installment, a T-virus outbreak in San Francisco spills over to Alcatraz Island, where a new evil takes hold. Directed by Eiichirō Hasumi, Resident Evil: Death Island features characters such as Jill Valentine, Chris Redfield, Leon S. Kennedy, Claire Redfield, Rebecca Chambers, and Ingrid Hunnigan, who should be familiar to fans of both the video games and the movie franchise.

In David Fincher’s The Killer, Michael Fassbender plays the titular hitman, who gets wrapped up in an international manhunt after an assignment goes very wrong. In the trailer, Fassbender repeats the mantra, “Stick to the plan.” He says, “Trust no one, forbid empathy, anticipate … don’t improvise, never yield an advantage, fight only the battle you are paid to fight. Ask yourself: What’s in it for me?” The A.V. Club’s Brent Simon writes, “The Killer successfully aligns viewers with its form; its most memorable moments lie in its textures, its austere settings, its well-ordered frames. That the film doesn’t stir anything in the subconscious, though, is its greatest surprise.”

Taking a break from all of those undead walkers he faced as Victor Strand on Fear The Walking Dead, Colman Domingo switches gears to play openly gay civil rights activist Bayard Rustin in Rustin. The biographical drama directed by George C. Wolfe was produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground. Rustin helped Martin Luther King Jr. organize the 1963 March on Washington. The movie, co-starring Chris Rock, Aml Ameen, and Jeffrey Wright, gets a limited release in theaters on November 3 before dropping on Netflix on November 17.

In the romantic drama See You On Venus, Mia (Virginia Gardner) is an American teen who travels to Spain with Kyle (Alex Aiono) in search of her birth mother. As you might have guessed from a cursory glance at the trailer, the two misfits fall in love as they travel through the picturesque cities of Andalusia. Joaquin Llamas directs the movie, which also stars Rob Estes and had a limited theatrical release in July before heading to streaming platforms.

Adam Sandler produced and provides the voice for the titular classroom pet in the animated musical-comedy Leo. The coming-of-age movie about the last day of elementary school is shown through the eyes of Leo, a 74-year-old lizard who has lived for decades in a Florida classroom terrarium with a turtle (Bill Burr). After learning he only has a year left to live, Leo dreams of escaping to the outside world and makes a bucket list. Also lending their voices to the animated characters in this family flick are Cecily Strong, Jason Alexander, and Rob Schneider.

In the documentary American Symphony, musician Jon Batiste begins to compose a symphony just before his partner, author Suleika Jaouad, learns that her cancer has returned. The doc, directed by Matthew Heineman, is about how two artists at a crossroads move forward with their love for each other and the creative process during a challenging time. Batiste is an Oscar- and Grammy-winning artist who was the musical director and bandleader on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert from 2015 to 2022. He has recorded with Stevie Wonder, Prince, Lenny Kravitz, Ed Sheeran, Lana Del Rey, and many more.

Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms play married couple Jess and Bill Walker who struggle to keep their family connected as their children grow older and more distant in the comedy Family Switch. After an encounter with an astrological reader causes the family to wake up in switched bodies à la Freaky Friday, the body-swapped Walkers have to tackle a job promotion, college interview, record deal, and soccer tryout in the wrong bodies in this family comedy directed by McG.