What to Watch on TV and at the Movies This Week

Your Netflix Watch of the Week is here!

A Dog’s Perfect Christmas (2026, NR)

Made-for-TV holiday movies operate on a pretty standard formula: Take a picturesque, snowy setting; sprinkle in a couple of famous faces; toss a couple of romantic obstacles in their path and let them find their way to one another under the mistletoe. A Dog’s Perfect Christmas has all of the above, but it also has a twist — an adorable pair of mutts whose thoughts we can hear. As for the humans, you can’t do much better than Dennis Quaid, 72, as a grieving widower and Mary Steenburgen, 73, as the woman who melts his icy heart. 

Watch it: A Dog’s Perfect Christmas, Nov. 4 on Netflix

Don't miss this: The Best Things Coming to Netflix This Month

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Your Prime Video Watch of the Week is here!

The Greatest

Michael Mann’s 2001 biopic of Muhammad Ali earned two Oscar nominations, but some legends’ lives are just too big to be contained in a two-and-a-half-hour feature film. Newcomer Jaalen Best stars as the famed boxer who was as quick with his tongue as he was with his punches in this limited series executive produced by Michael B. Jordan and the late champ’s widow, Lonnie Ali.

Watch it: The Greatest, Nov. 4 on Prime Video

Don’t miss this: The Best Things Coming to Prime Video this Month

New at the movies this week

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ The Mongoose, R

Liam Neeson, 74, has said numerous times in recent years that he’s getting too old for action movies. But clearly that hasn’t happened quite yet: In this action thriller, Neeson plays former Green Beret Ryan “Fang” Flanagan, a rugged veteran who’s fly enough to drive a stolen Ford Mustang Shelby Super Snake at ungodly speeds. Fang’s on the lam, fleeing from the shooting of his ex-wife’s abusive partner with endless smokies on his tail. The gimmick to get Neeson back into action is to put him behind the wheel for most of the run time, with occasional stops for emotional encounters with his ex (Marisa Tomei, 61) and his retired military ride-or-die (Ving Rhames, 67), plus dusty flashbacks of the tour in Afghanistan that left Fang with PTSD. Is The Mongoose high art? No. Oscar-worthy? Pass. But it’s fast and furious as Neeson returns to the action-hero highway, gritting his teeth in a fun high-tension collision thriller that still has bite. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: The Mongoose, Oct. 30 in theaters

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, R

Brooklyn-born journeyman actor and filmmaker John Turturro, 69, is overdue for an Oscar. Here, he plays the title role, Harry, in writer-director Noah Segan’s funky love letter to New York City. When not tending his paralyzed wife, Harry plies his craft on unsuspecting pedestrians and straphangers. But, when he robs a vintage car, netting mad cash and a pistol, he lands on the wrong side of the mob and finds himself in way over his head. With Giancarlo Esposito, 68, and Steve Buscemi, 68, delivering strong support, the resulting caper gives audiences an affectionate, shambling, panoramic view of the city Turturro loves. Despite that winning performance, though, the movie ultimately lacks the pace, rhythm and surprises for a truly outstanding crime thriller. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, Oct. 30 in theaters

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Wicker, R

Alexander Skarsgård, 50, is a charm bomb as the title character in this fairy tale for adults. The gentle, flammable Wicker Husband was conjured up by the unmarried Fisherwoman (a marvelous Olivia Colman, 52) and created by the Basket Weaver (Peter Dinklage, 57, as an appealing fantasy Rumpelstiltskin type). The peculiar pair’s passion, true love and work partnership challenge the village’s traditional dynamic of gossip-fueled disharmony and outright hatred. The angriest is the mean-girl Tailor’s Wife (Elizabeth Debicki), whose profound unhappiness and jealousy drive her to stir up the townsfolk against the duo. What a tale! Wicker is compelling, funny, sexy, a delight from start to finish and one of my five favorite films of 2026. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: Wicker, Oct. 30 in theaters

Don’t miss this: Fall Movie Preview 2026: 20 Films We Can’t Wait to See

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⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Fatherland, NR

If you’re seeking the perfect framing for biographical historical fiction, Fatherland is the gold standard. Set in 1949 in the aftermath of WWII, the main players are the Nobel Prize–winning German novelist Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler, 79), his daughter and driver, Erika (the brilliant Oscar-bound Sandra Hüller), and her homosexual, drug-abusing anti-fascist brother, Klaus (the great sad-eyed German actor August Diehl, 50), the prominent author of Mephisto, a cautionary parable of Nazi collaboration. Mann senior is returning with his daughter to his native Germany for the first time since he fled Nazi persecution in 1933. The younger writer is in Cannes resisting the elder’s invitation to join them on a trip back to the fatherland — suggesting both Deutschland and the land of his father with whom he has a fraught relationship. It’s a powder keg of a moment: a collision of politics, art, sexuality and family. The drama unfolds in glistening black-and-white, one perfectly framed image after the other that captures both the most intimate tremor on Erika’s face and the barren expanse of a bomb-scarred landscape. Provocative, insightful, thrillingly acted and tightly scripted, Fatherland will be the Polish contender for the Oscar and is a theatrical must-see. —Thelma A. Adams

Watch it: Fatherland, in theaters

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⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Klara and the Sun, PG-13

Klara and the Sun has impressive bona fides: It’s based on the 2021 dystopian young adult novel by Kazuo Ishiguro, 71, and directed by Jojo Rabbit’s Taika Waititi, 51. As the title character, Wednesday’s Jenny Ortega shines like the sun. And she’s surrounded by a talented cast including Amy Adams, 52, Steve Buscemi, 68, Natasha Lyonne and rising star Aran Murphy, son of Cillian, 50. Ortega plays a solar-powered AF (Artificial Friend) adopted by an unwell teen named Josie (Mia Tharia). The unpopular pair bond as Klara increasingly learns the ways of the human world and Josie realizes her capacity for friendship. Along the way, they also gain wisdom about grief, death and love, which will be pretty heavy for some youngsters. Despite all this promise, Klara and the Sun is like a magician who says “abracadabra” and then experiences an awkward pause when magic fails to materialize. Similarly, this good-hearted movie works hard to conjure enchantment from its writing, directing and acting power, but a warming charm is all it can deliver. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: Klara and the Sun, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ A Talent for Murder, NR

Fans of Patricia Highsmith, rejoice! The late author of the elegantly poisoned pen gets the full Dame Helen Mirren, 81, treatment. The actor, who has played everyone from Queens Elizabeth I and II to Golda Meir, brings her ample gifts to the role of the wily reclusive artist living in self-exile in Switzerland in the twilight of her life. The conceit is that a young representative from her New York publisher (Alden Ehrenreich) arrives to convince Highsmith to write one last Ripley novel for a pile of cash — and to burnish his own reputation. In return for signing the contract, she dispatches him on a manipulative mission to discover his inner murderer, his inner Ripley. In the process, the movie itself becomes a new Ripley story, a tale of a striver who will do anything to achieve his ends. It’s a tasty nugget of a murder mystery that spins out on the classic, casually evil, fresh-faced villain that Highsmith created in her acclaimed novels. —Thelma M. Adams

Watch it: A Talent for Murder, in theaters