Netflix spent most of 2024 getting roasted for a slate that felt like leftovers, but the streamer's December release calendar tells a different story.
Between a long-delayed A-lister thriller, a holiday rom-com reunion, and a documentary everyone will be arguing about at dinner, there's suddenly too much to watch and not enough December.
The headliner is "Carry-On," a TSA thriller starring Taron Egerton as a burned-out airport agent who gets a mysterious earpiece and a impossible demand right before Christmas Eve.
Jason Bateman plays the voice on the other end, and early reactions from the trailer have people calling it "Die Hard in an airport" — which is either the highest compliment or the laziest pitch depending on who you ask.
Egerton told press he did most of his own running through a decommissioned terminal, and the behind-the-scenes clips Netflix dropped on TikTok have already racked up millions of views.
The movie lands December 13, which puts it directly in the "watch with the family after dinner" window.
Then there's the return of a genre Netflix basically owns: the glossy holiday rom-com.
This year's entry pairs two former teen-drama stars in a fake-dating plot set at a Vermont inn, and the trailer's final shot — a snowball fight that turns into a near-kiss — has been clipped and reposted thousands of times.
It's formula, sure, but December is not the month for experimental cinema.
The documentary side is where things get messier.
A new three-part series about a 1990s music-industry scandal has already sparked backlash from one of the people featured, who posted a since-deleted statement calling the show "deeply misleading." Netflix hasn't responded, which is very on brand.
What's driving all this attention isn't just the titles — it's the timing.
With theaters leaning hard into a few massive releases, Netflix is betting that audiences want options at home, not a $60 night out.
The strategy seems to be working: "Carry-On" is already trending on Google before a single full review has dropped.
There's also a wildcard: a Spanish-language thriller that Netflix quietly added to the December slate with almost no marketing.
Early festival buzz suggests it could be the sleeper hit of the month, the kind of thing that blows up two weeks after release when everyone's cousin texts them "have you seen this yet." The bigger picture here is that Netflix seems to have remembered what actually makes it sticky.
Not prestige bait, not a thousand forgettable originals — a handful of movies people can talk about at the same time.
December is built for that. **Our take:** Netflix's December slate isn't revolutionary, but it's smart.
Pairing a crowd-pleasing thriller with a cozy rom-com and one messy documentary gives every kind of viewer a reason to open the app.
Final Thoughts
If "Carry-On" delivers even half of what the trailer promises, this could be the month Netflix stops getting dunked on — at least until January.