12 Winter TV Shows and Films to Add to Your Watchlist

Winter’s strongest screen picks move between returning dramas, fresh adaptations and films built for a big-screen night out. The mix includes spy thrillers with personal stakes, a new take on Jane Austen, and the next chapter in a sprawling science-fiction saga. Here are 12 releases to keep on your radar, with dates and platforms where the source provides them.

Returning series bring the tension

Black Doves, season 2

Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw return as Helen and Sam, the undercover partners at the heart of Black Doves. The new season picks up after a shocking murder, with Helen once again passing her nation’s secrets to the covert Black Doves organisation. Her position becomes more precarious as her husband, Wallace (Andrew Buchan), prepares for a major public role. Loyalties are under strain, new threats are closing in, and the danger now reaches the people Helen and Sam care about. The appeal lies in that collision between an espionage plot and its characters’ private lives.

Watch on Netflix from 5 November.

The Assassin, season 2

Keeley Hawes returns as Julie, a semi-retired assassin whose family life is proving as difficult to manage as her former line of work. After a failed search for Edward’s birth mother, mother and son are on uneasy terms. Edward has married Kayla without Julie present, but when Kayla is kidnapped during their honeymoon in Spain, he turns to the one person who might find her. The sunlit setting gives the story a different texture from a conventional thriller, while its blend of family tension, humour and high-stakes action remains central. The search also forces Julie and Edward to reckon with the past that drove them apart.

Watch on Prime Video from 6 November.

Rivals, season 2

The fight for a television franchise resumes after the first season’s cliffhanger. A character’s fatal accident leaves the story poised for another round of ambition and upheaval, while the contest around the franchise reaches a new peak. The first three episodes promise the mix that made the series a talking point: lavish drama, sexual tension, unexpected romances and cliffhangers, with 1980s hits setting the mood. The season also builds toward a memorable Bonfire Night and Christmas. For returning viewers, the question is how the show will balance its heightened pleasures with the fallout from that ending.

Watch on Disney+ from 11 November.

Stories with a sharper edge

Prima Facie

Cynthia Erivo takes the lead in this screen adaptation of the acclaimed one-woman play. She plays a young, ambitious barrister whose career in London’s court system has been built around defending men accused of sexual assault. A life-altering event unsettles her confidence in the institution that has shaped both her professional identity and her understanding of the world. The film’s central tension comes from watching a skilled advocate confront the limits of the framework she has worked within. The move from stage to screen gives a new audience access to a story designed around one woman’s changing perspective.

I Am Helen

Nicola Coughlan and Joe Cole play Helen and Steve, a couple who have been together for five years. Their relationship is the focus of this two-part drama, which follows Helen as she faces Steve’s increasingly concerning behaviour and the expectations placed on her. Its subject is the way harmful dynamics can develop gradually, making them difficult to recognise from within a relationship. Rather than framing the story as an easy moral lesson, the drama promises a close, raw portrait of its characters and the pressure surrounding them. It’s a weightier choice for viewers looking for drama that stays with its subject after the final scene.

Watch on Channel 4 from November.

You Can See Everything

Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim direct this documentary, which reaches UK cinemas on 20 November after its US release in October. It begins 34 days before Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes is due to go to prison. Holmes invites the filmmakers, who approach the project sceptically, to document her day-to-day life. What starts as an intimate portrait then expands into a three-year account, taking the film in unexpected directions. The unusual access and long span are central to its appeal, as is the tension between the subject’s invitation and the filmmakers’ critical perspective. It has already drawn attention for its unsettling approach to documentary storytelling.

Watch in cinemas from 20 November.

Big-screen returns and new worlds

The Hunger Games: Sunrise On The Reaping

Francis Lawrence returns to direct this prequel, set 24 years before the events of The Hunger Games. The story centres on the 50th Games, another Quarter Quell, and a young Haymitch Abernathy, chosen from District 12 as a substitute tribute on his birthday after a fatal incident at the reaping ceremony. Based on Suzanne Collins’s bestselling novel, the film introduces a new cast that includes Joseph Zada, Whitney Peak, McKenna Grace, Elle Fanning and Glenn Close. For fans, the draw is a return to Panem through a formative chapter in Haymitch’s story.

Watch in cinemas from 20 November.

Focker-In-Law

Sixteen years after the family’s last big-screen appearance, the Fockers are back, with Greg and Pam’s grown son Henry bringing home a new girlfriend. Greg (Ben Stiller) is wary of Olivia Jones (Ariana Grande), despite her first impression as an ideal match for Henry (Skyler Gisondo). The resemblance to Greg’s first encounter with Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) sets up the family comedy: this time, the new arrival is a former hostage negotiator. Dog attacks, bike crashes and household chaos round out a reunion built around clashing personalities and familiar family nerves.

Watch in cinemas from 25 November.

The Mosquito Bowl

This drama tells the true story of four college football stars who leave packed stadiums behind after the attack on Pearl Harbor and enlist in the Marines. As they prepare for the battle of Okinawa, they take part in a celebrated football game featuring some of the sport’s finest players. For many, it will be their last. The cast includes Nicholas Galitzine, Bill Skarsgård, Ray Nicholson and Tom Francis. The contrast between the game’s familiar rituals and the circumstances surrounding it gives the film its emotional centre.

Watch on Netflix from 25 November.

Tulisa: The Reckoning

This three-part documentary follows Tulisa’s rise with N-Dubz, her time as a judge on The X Factor, and the scrutiny that followed, including her experience with the so-called Fake Sheikh. The series revisits the shifts in her public life through her own account, tracing how fame, setbacks and media attention shaped her story. Its central promise is a closer look at who gets to control a public narrative, and what it means for Tulisa to revisit those events on her own terms.

Credit: Paramount+

Watch on Paramount+ from 26 November.

Adaptations to close out the year

Pride And Prejudice

Dolly Alderton adapts Jane Austen’s beloved romance for a new Netflix series, with Emma Corrin as Elizabeth Bennet and Jack Lowden as Mr Darcy. Olivia Colman and Rufus Sewell play Mr and Mrs Bennet. Alderton has described Austen’s novel as “a gift to adapt”, with drama and depth alongside comedy and charm. That balance is key to a version that must make familiar characters feel vivid to contemporary viewers without losing the pleasures of the original: wit, social observation and romantic friction.

Watch on Netflix from 3 December.

Dune: Part Three

Denis Villeneuve brings his Dune trilogy toward its conclusion with a story set nearly two decades after Paul Atreides took control of the Imperium. Paul is now a ruthless emperor facing the consequences of his reign, as old allies return and new dangers gather. Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh, Rebecca Ferguson, Anya Taylor-Joy and Robert Pattinson lead a cast built for the scale of Villeneuve’s science-fiction world. The time jump gives the final chapter room to explore what power has changed—and what it has cost.

Watch in cinemas from 18 December.

From intimate relationship drama to returning franchises and large-scale cinema, this winter’s releases offer plenty of different moods. The dates span November and December, so there’s a ready-made watchlist for dark evenings and the run-up to the holidays.

Images: Netflix; Disney+