The Best Movies and TV Shows to Watch on Max This Month

November on Max will feature the premieres of three notable series: the sci-fi epic Dune: Prophecy; ode to culinary magical realism Like Water for Chocolate; and the gritty crime drama Get Millie Black. The Sex Lives of College Girls is returning for a third season, Max original rom-com Sweethearts is on tap, and if you'd rather to watch people compete with hamsters or just stare at some wood burning, those are options as well.

Dune: Prophecy, Season 1

We all need more Dune in our lives. This series, based on Frank Herbert's Sisterhood of Dune, takes place 10,000 years before the ascension of Paul Atreides. It details the formation of the Bene Gesserit and the Harkonnen sisters' fight against the enemies of humanity. Dune: Prophecy stars Emily Watson, Olivia Williams, Travis Fimmel, Jodhi May, and many more. Epic!

Starts streaming Nov. 17.

Like Water for Chocolate, Season 1

In this adaptation of Laura Esquivel's magical realism novel, Irene Azuela and Azul Guaita play Tita de la Garza and Pedro Múzquiz, lovers who are kept apart by their families' customs. Tita uses cooking to fight her oppression, creating recipes so powerful they act as spells on the people who taste them. If you're a sensualist, you'll want to clear time to watch Like Water for Chocolate .

Starts streaming Nov. 3.

Janet Planet (2023)

A24 has cracked the code for making emotional movies for smart people; movies like Janet Planet, in which precocious 11-year-old Lacy (Zoe Ziegler) spends the summer of 1991 splitting time between living in her rich internal world and quietly worshipping her otherworldly mother Janet (Julianne Nicholson). Writer/director Annie Baker's carefully crafted film explores the subtly and intensity of a mother-daughter relationship with rare grace.

Starts streaming Nov. 1.

The Sex Lives of College Girls, Season 3

Mindy Kaling's show about the amorous adventures of the students of New England’s prestigious Essex College is entering its third season, and this time, it's sexual; wait, it's always sexual. Sex Lives of College Girls' regulars Pauline Chalamet, Amrit Kaur, Alyah Chanelle Scott, Christopher Meyer, Ilia Isorelýs Paulino, Renika Williams, Gracie Lawrence, and Mia Rodgers are all returning.

Starts streaming Nov. 22.

Get Millie Black

Get Millie Black's title character is an ex-Scotland Yard detective who returns to her childhood home in Kingston, Jamaica to work missing person cases. Played by Tamara Lawrance, Black's mission to find lost souls is complicated when Scotland Yard detective Luke Holborn (Joe Dempsie) shows up in Kingston on an investigation of his own.

Starts streaming Nov. 25.

Sweethearts

In romantic comedy Sweethearts, Kiernan Shipka and Nico Hiraga play best friends who return to their hometown from college for Thanksgiving break. (Hey! It's premiering on that weekend in real life!) They're both still tied to their respective high school sweethearts and make a pact to end the relationships. Will love blossom between these just-friends before the weekend is over? I would bet on "yes" but no one will take my action.

Starts streaming Nov. 28.

Various Yule Logs

I like when streaming companies do unexpected things with their platforms. This month, Max is streaming a trio of different themed yule logs: Studio Ghibli's Calcifer Yule Log, A Very Merry Rickmas Yule Log, and Harry Potter: Fireplace. It's just logs burning, but they're branded logs burning.

Starts streaming Nov. 14.

Human vs. Hamster

Like the title says, this show pits humans against hamsters in scaled games of strength, smarts, and agility, to answer the age old question of whether we're better than rodents. Remember after the pandemic? When streaming services and networks were so absent of content that really bizarre shows would appear? Human vs. Hamster reminds me of that, and I mean that in a good way.

Starts streaming Nov. 21

Music Box: Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary

Put on your Sperry Topsiders and tie that sweater around your waist; it's time for some yacht rock. This "dockumentary" (get it?) chronicles the rise of California soft rock brought to you by the likes of Christopher Cross, Michael McDonald, Kenny Loggins, Steely Dan, and Toto.

Starts streaming Nov. 30.

Last month's picks

The Franchise

The Franchise takes superhero movies to another level by focusing on the cast and crew of flea-bitten superhero franchise that's falling out of public favor. While their movie counterparts are saving the world, the actors that play them are trying to save the movie series they star in. If you're into a workplace comedy that skewers Hollywood blockbusters, The Franchise might become your favorite show.

Starts streaming October 6.

Caddo Lake

HBO original movie Caddo Lake tells the story of the mysterious disappearance of an 8-year-old girl at spooky Caddo Lake. The search uncovers a series of past deaths and disappearances that shakes the girl's family to their core. Directed by Celine Held and Logan George, Caddo Lake was produced by horror auteur M. Night Shyamalan.

Starts streaming October 10.

Salem’s Lot

This reimagining of Stephen King's 1975 novel takes us back to the haunted town of Jerusalem's Lot, Maine, which has a long-running problem with vampires. Lewis Pullman plays Ben Mears, a writer who returns to his hometown to learn about himself. Instead, he learns that a blood-sucking freak and his familiar just bought a notoriously haunted house in town.

Starts streaming October 3.

Tuesday

Put on your crying shoes for this one. In Tuesday, Julia Louis-Dreyfus plays a single mother whose teenage daughter has a terminal illness. Death and dying are given the magical realism treatment here, when Death itself shows up in the form of a sentient parrot. There aren't many quirky movies about the death of a child, but there is now at least one.

Starts streaming October 11.

Roller Jam

Did you know that, in 2024, there are people out there for whom high-level roller skating is lifestyle? Roller Jam takes viewers into their hidden world. Singer/songwriter and actress Jordin Sparks hosts this reality competition in which 10 teams of roller skaters create a different number each week and perform it in front of a live audience and a judges panel that includes two-time U.S. Olympian and figure skating champion Johnny Weir and "roller-skating legend Terrell Ferguson." The winning team gets $150,000.

Starts streaming October 10.

MaXXXine (2024)

In MaXXXine, the third and final installment in Ti West's X trilogy, Mia Goth reprises her role as Maxine Minx, the adult-film actress from X. With the unpleasantness on the farm behind her, Minx moves to Hollywood to make it big. But there is more unpleasantness in store in the form of a psycho killer who targets people connected to her. West established himself as one the most original and ferocious directors in horror with X and Pearl, and MaXXXine more than lives up to its predecessors.

Starts streaming October 18.

Nightmare on Elm Street mania!

It's not October in my house without a screening of 1984's Nightmare on Elm Street and 1987's A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. This year, I'm having a Freddy Krueger festival because Max is streaming the first five Elm Street movies, plus Freddy vs. Jason. Sadly, the final movie of the original run, 1991's Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare is not available on Max. Happily, the 2010 remake isn't either.

Here are all the Elm Street movies streaming on Max in October:

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988)
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child (1989)
Freddy vs. Jason (2003)

Doctor Sleep (2019)

If you don't judge 2019's Doctor Sleep against 1981's The Shining, it's an effective, scary, and interesting movie that somehow manages to be respectful to both Kubrick's movie and King's novel. It's one of those sequels that feels like seeing relatives at a family reunion: "There's the elevator full of blood! There are the spooky twins saying 'hello, Danny! Oh my god! Room 237!" The "new elements" are pretty good too.

Starts streaming October 1.

Four Christmases (2008)

If you're sick of all this Halloween crap and would rather look ahead to a real holiday, Four Christmases is for you. It's not a great movie, but it's a comfortable one. Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon's charisma and this movie's non-threatening "ain't my family crazy?!" vibe is the perfect thing to wash the taste of ghosts and zombies out of your mouth for good.