New to Netflix UK: December 2022

New season, new style. That’s right: the Instagrammable American in Paris is back, with a brand-new fringe. A year has passed since Emily (Lily Collins) dropped into the French capital to zhuzh up the marketing firm Savoir, and she’s had a lavish, surreal time of it – helping campaigns that range from leeks to Dior. She also tangles herself up in complicated romances, splitting fans between Team Gabriel (the cute, culinary neighbour) and Team Alfie (the hunky, straight-talking Londoner).

Netflix has said little about the plot for season 3, but has revealed that Emily will face 'a crucial crossroads in every aspect of her life'. Her decisions will affect her future in France, but that doesn’t stop the ludicrous, Parisian adventures.

Read our review of season two.

Let’s face it: banned books are often the most interesting. Lady Chatterley’s Lover is one of those historic literary divisions, igniting a failed obscenity trial in 1960 for its sex and swearing. That's never stopped its continuous popularity and constant adaptations, the newest of which stars The Crown’s Emma Corrin as Lady Chatterley and The North Water’s Jack O’Connell as her working-class lover Oliver.

After her husband suffers injuries in World War I, Lady Chatterley falls out of love with him. She starts an affair with her gamekeeper, who shows her a life of desire and intimacy she didn’t think possible – breaking the traditions of the time.

2022 is the year of Pinocchio rivalry between streaming services. Robert Zemeckis’ remake of the Disney classic premiered on Disney+ last September, starring the loveable Tom Hanks as Geppetto. Naturally, Guillermo del Toro’s stop-motion Netflix adaptation adopts a darker tone.

Del Toro and co-writer Patrick McHale (Adventure Time) set the story in Mussolini’s Italy, where Gepetto (David Bradley) carves a wooden puppet child from the tree under which his dead son is buried. Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) is animated to life by Tilda Swinton (playing the sister of Death), and he's pushed into a journey of many moralistic adventures with Sebastian J Cricket (Ewan McGregor) by his side.

Everyone’s favourite Southern detective returns for another case. Rian Johnson’s eclectically enjoyable whodunnit Knives Out was a surprise hit in 2019, spurring Netflix to invest in further mysteries for Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc to solve. Glass Onion, Blanc's latest puzzle, takes him to a stupendous mansion on a Greek island owned by the arrogant, Elon Musk-y billionaire Miles Braun (Edward Norton).

A group of wealthy individuals (‘disruptors’) are invited to his island to play a murder-mystery game. There’s a politically incorrect model (Kate Hudson), a men’s rights activist (Dave Bautista), a politician (Kathryn Hayn), and a sour ex-colleague (Janelle Monáe). For some strange reason, Blanc also receives an invitation and the ‘game’ becomes more real.

Martin Amis once called Don DeLillo's novel White Noise a ‘beautifully tender fever dream’, and that doesn’t immediately call Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story) to mind. Generally, the latter has a Woody Allen-like aesthetic: mutedly examining the emotional lives of creatives and intellectuals. Baumbach's new film adaptation is a trippy, experimental diversion, translating an author whose post-modern body of work is rarely converted to the big screen.

White Noise stars Adam Driver as a professor of ‘Hitler studies’ at a university town, with students and lecturers staring in awe at his command of an audience. He balances those talents with an embarrassing grasp of German, a complex family of kids from previous marriages, and an incoming wave of airborne toxic waste that floods the town. Greta Gerwig and Don Cheadle also star.

For Bardo, Alejandro G Iñárritu (The Revenant, Birdman) channels Federico Fellini’s 8½ – another vivid, somnambulant stride through the mind of a film director. The Mexican-born ‘docufiction’ filmmaker Silverio (Daniel Giménez Cacho) struggles with his identity and his native country’s history, channelling those complicated feelings into his latest project.

You’re treated to unforgettable images of a baby returned to its mother's womb, a pyramid constructed from human bodies, and a long shadow flying through the desert. But more accessible human emotions peek through as Silverio discusses his sense of self, fractured between the US and Mexico, and his growing fear of death.

Thursday 1 December
Goodbye
The Raven
Stuart Little
Troll

Friday 2 December
Firefly Lane, season 2, part 1
Girlclock
Hot Skull
Lady Chatterley’s Lover (2022)
My Unorthodox Life, season 2
Scrooge: A Christmas Carol
Sr.
Warriors of Fortune

Tuesday 6 December
The Boss Baby: Christmas Bonus
Sebastian Maniscalo: Is It Me?

Wednesday 7 December
Burning Patience
I Hate Christmas
The Marriage App
The Most Beautiful Flower
Smiley
Too Hot to Handle, season 4

Thursday 8 December
In Broad Daylight: The Narvarte Case

Friday 9 December
Dragon Age: Absolution
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio

Tuesday 13 December
Gudetama: An Eggcellent Adventure
Last Chance U: Basketball, season 2
Tom Papa: What A Day!

Thursday 15 December
Sonic Prince
Who Killed Santa? A Murderville Murder Mystery

Friday 16 December
Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths
Cook At All Costs
Dance Masters
The Recruit
A Storm for Christmas

Tuesday 20 December
Mothering Sunday

Wednesday 21 December
Emily in Paris, season 3

Thursday 22 December
Alice in Borderland, season 2

Friday 23 December
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Monday 26 December
Treason

Tuesday 27 December
Chelsea Handler: Revolution

Friday 30 December
White Noise