Greetings, Polygon readers!
We’ve successfully made it through another spooktacular season of delightful scares and spine-tingling thrills. However, regular thrills are everlasting, which means this month we have a brand new list of recommendations for viewers looking for a great movie to keep them on their toes.
This month’s top picks include director David Fincher’s latest film starring Michael Fassbender, an extravagant Bollywood blockbuster that can best be summed up as ‘Robin Hood meets Charlie’s Angels”, and a gripping psychological thriller courtesy of Yorgos Lanthimos, the cerebral filmmaker behind the 2015 film The lobster and the next one Poor things. Here’s our list of the best thrillers to watch on Netflix this November.
Editor’s Choice: The Killer
Image: Netflix
Director: David Fincher
Form: Michael Fassbender, Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell
Netflix’s latest thriller is already one of its best. David Fincher’s The murdererreleased this week is one of them The social network the director’s best films and by far the most fun you’ll have with a hitman all year.
The murderer follows a character known simply as the Killer, excellently played by Michael Fassbender. He’s mechanical and methodical, and his inner monologue, which Fassbender delivers with enormous deadpan, is hilariously distant and full of incredible non sequiturs. We see the character go through the careful planning of a hit, only to have things go wrong and set off a chain reaction of revenge, murder, fistfights and Amazon orders.
The murderer is Fincher at his most refined, a casual exercise in filmmaking excellence that is more stylish in its quietest scenes than most directors could ever dream of being at their most flamboyant. The murderer has all the efficiency of a top-notch assassin and still knows better than to take himself too seriously. Fincher’s highly technical precision is so refined here that it feels effortless, switching back and forth between thrilling action, cold-blooded murder and slapstick comedy without even blinking. —Austen Goslin
Jawan
Image: Red Chillies Entertainment
Director: Atlee
Form: Shah Rukh Khan, Nayanthara, Vijay Sethupathi
Superstar Shah Rukh Khan’s latest blockbuster includes everything you would expect from a cinematic spectacle. When “Robin Hood meets Charlie’s angelsSounds like a good time for you, this is the movie you need to watch this weekend.
At first glance a compelling revenge story, Jawan also includes elements from romantic films, musicals, action thrillers and message films, all coming together in one of the most fun movie events of the year. The action scenes are kinetic and hard-hitting, the romance is deeply felt and the film leans even more on SRK’s charisma than his spy blockbuster Pathan. This all culminated in a big hit: Jawan is the biggest Indian film of the year at the box office, and the second biggest Hindi film ever released. Watch it on the biggest screen you own and have a great time. —Piet Volk
Killing a sacred deer
Image: A24
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Form: Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Barry Keoghan
We’re less than a month away from the premiere of Poor things, the latest black comedy from director Yorgos Lanthimos, starring Emma Stone. In a variation on Mary Shelley’s Frankensteinthe film follows a young, naive woman who embarks on a journey of self-discovery and sexual liberation after being resurrected by a mad scientist.
If you’ve never seen a Lanthimos film and want to get used to its particular brand of surreal storytelling, Killing a sacred deer is as good a place to start. Colin Farrell stars as Steven, a heart surgeon with a loving family and a successful career. From the outside, things seem more or less normal, with one notable exception: his abnormal relationship with Martin (Barry Keoghan), a menacing teenager whose father was a former patient of Steven’s. The mystery behind what exactly is going on between these two drives much of the first half of the film.
If the title didn’t already give it away: Killing a sacred deer is a foreign film, filled with bizarrely stilted line deliveries, inexplicable bloodshed and a truly shocking final act. For these reasons and more, it’s definitely worth checking out. —Toussaint Egan