The Best Streaming Releases You Didn't Watch In November 2024

(Welcome to Under the Radar, a column where we spotlight specific movies, shows, trends, performances, or scenes that caught our eye and deserved more attention ... but otherwise flew under the radar. In this edition: Megan Park's "My Old Ass," Steve McQueen's "Blitz," and Clint Eastwood's "Juror #2" lead our picks for November.)

I know, I know. Thanksgiving is behind us, the holiday season lurks ahead, and all those Best of 2024 lists aren't going to write themselves. Caught in this weird liminal space, November is hardly an ideal time to release smaller hidden gems or auteur-driven projects — not if you don't want to be swallowed up completely by box office behemoths like "Moana 2," "Gladiator II," and "Wicked," that is. Even the close proximity to award's season isn't a guarantee of leading anyone to the promised land. In fact, that might actively work against most hopefuls, considering just how many contenders are all jockeying for attention at the same time during this hectic period of the year. It ain't easy making a movie with a budget under $100 million these days, folks, let alone ones telling original stories that dare not to be based on any pre-existing IP. Releasing them in November, of all months, only makes things that much harder.

But let's maybe hold off on closing the book on 2024 just yet. November might be over, but our obsessive quest to be fully-informed moviegoers never ends. For those looking to play a last-minute game of catchup before the year's officially out, here are three must-see movies coming in just under the wire from last month that deserve their moment in the sun.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret: people only ever fall into one of two categories. There are those of us who've wished we could travel back in time and dispense sagely advice to our younger selves, and then you have everyone else too young to have reached that point themselves ... but will, eventually. That's it! Regrets are a fact of life, but wouldn't it be great to reach back and warn yourself about all those mistakes, missed opportunities, and just plain bad choices that made things more difficult than they should've been? Countless movies have attempted to broach this tricky topic in decades past. Few have ever managed to do so with as much originality or verve as "My Old Ass."

Best of all, it does so entirely without ever condescending to The Youths. Writer/director Megan Park is a Millennial actor-turned-filmmaker (though she more than proved her bona fides with "The Fallout"), and the only established name in the cast is Aubrey Plaza — someone who just happens to perfectly straddle the lines between generations with ease. Though she doesn't receive all that much screen time, her presence only makes the Gen Z-tailored storyline hit all the harder. The film stars the supremely talented newcomer Maisy Stella as Elliot, a teenager right on the cusp of leaving her family's cushy Canadian cranberry farm (say that five times fast) for college in faraway Toronto. Before her big move, she and her friends go for one last mushroom-fueled camping trip ... and promptly comes face to face with, well, her "old ass." Of all the possible warnings she could give, Plaza's older Elliot simply offers the following: "Avoid Chad." What unfolds from there is a rich, hilarious, and deeply moving coming-of-age tale — and it's one of the year's best.

"My Old Ass" is currently available to stream on Prime Video.

Clint Eastwood, you will be avenged. "Juror #2," you will not be forgotten. It's both incredibly ironic and terribly disheartening that a movie all about the miscarriage of justice and the shortcomings of our greatest institutions would itself become a victim of one of the most feel-bad stories of the year. You'd think that Warner Bros. throwing this would-be theatrical release under the bus in favor of a direct-to-streaming debut on Max would be bad enough. But no, to add insult to injury, this has threatened to overshadow what turned out to be exactly the kind of movie we need these days: an original, adult-minded drama from a living legend. And call me naïve, but something tells me that even an extremely talky legal thriller in the same vein as "12 Angry Men" and "A Few Good Men" would've pulled in solid numbers at the box office had it been given longer than a weeklong run. Still, at least streaming is a better fate than banishing this into the ether as part of a tax write-off?

The appeal of "Juror #2" goes far beyond its admittedly hokey premise. Right on the cusp of his very pregnant wife's (Zoey Deutch) delivery, Nicholas Hoult's Justin Kemp ends up called in for jury duty to deliberate over a murder case. The suspect is a local hothead known for his troublemaking ways. The victim is a young woman who was last seen storming out of a bar to get away from her lover. And the real killer? It eventually dawns on Justin that it might be ... himself. Once viewers buy into this (and Eastwood's firm hand on the directing wheel makes it easy to do so), they're promptly taken on a ride — not just through Justin's complicated personal life or that of his fellow jurors, but through the moral rot at the center of America itself. If that sounds preachy, moralizing, and more than a little old-fashioned, well, welcome to a Clint Eastwood movie. This one, however, might be his most worthwhile effort of the last decade.

"Juror #2" is currently available to buy and rent digitally and (deep sigh) will stream on Max December 20, 2024.

What's worse than being trapped in World War II-era London during the Blitz? How about being a Black kid trapped in World War II-era London during the Blitz? Director Steve McQueen has taken quite a bit of flak (er, pun not intended?) for some of the weirdest possible reasons. Consider the pushback he's received from some critics for making a fairly straightforward war drama that apparently doesn't "feel" much like a McQueen movie — whatever that means. Then there's the bad-faith campaign on the part of certain audiences who, quite frankly, can't stomach the idea of anyone other than white people appearing in period movies. You know what's the perfect movie for both of these (admittedly insular) demographics to watch and learn from? You guessed it: "Blitz."

McQueen might follow the contours of a prototypical war drama here, but the script does nothing short of yeomen work to transcend the limits of the genre. That starts with the choice to center the action on a tightknit family of three: Saoirse Ronan as single mother Rita, Paul Weller as her elderly father Gerald, and especially first-time actor Elliott Heffernan as George. Set at the height of the Nazis' unrelenting aerial attack on London, the story begins when Rita sends away her son to safety in the countryside, along with millions of children as part of mass evacuations. But unable (or unwilling) to grapple with the situation, young George escapes the train and attempts the long trek back home on his own — all while his mother must somehow balance her factory job making bombs for the war effort, dodging air raids raging throughout the city at night, and keeping her mind off things by volunteering at a nearby shelter. Along the way, George must come to terms with his own mixed-race heritage and the disadvantages this affords him, especially when his fellow citizens are equally capable of lending him a helping hand or spitting in his face.

"Blitz" is as incisive, tense, and tender as we've ever seen McQueen before.

"Blitz" is now streaming on Apple TV+.