Ridley Scott’s Napoleon was high on the list of titles I thought might tempt me out to the cinema in the closing months of the year, but it hasn’t managed it yet — and, with December being as December is, I doubt it will now. (The one remaining big “maybe” is Godzilla Minus One, which is out on the 15th over here. Come back next month to see if that happens…) A close second was wordily-titled prequel The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, because I enjoyed the original “trilogy in four parts”, but, again, it couldn’t quite get me over the line (perhaps it’s no surprise, as I watched all of the rest on Blu-ray).

Noticeably less tempting were Disney’s latest flops, The Marvels (I’m so far behind on the MCU now) and Wish (can’t remember when I last saw a Disney animation at the cinema. Always feels a bit weird going alone as a 30-something bloke). Of smaller scale releases that go on my list to catch somewhere eventually, there was the likes of Emerald Fennel’s Saltburn, festival hit Anatomy of a Fall, horror Thanksgiving, much-discussed on Twitter this weekend May December (I believe it’s already on Netflix in the US, but has been condemned to Sky Cinema over here), and a belated UK release for Bottoms.

Streaming had a premiere of more interest to me than any of those, however, in the shape of David Fincher’s latest, The Killer, on Netflix. I was going to cancel my Netflix subscription at the end of October due to the imminent price rise, but kept it going to catch The Killer in early November, but then events conspired against me and I still haven’t got to it. Of course, mentioning it here now gives me extra motivation, as it now qualifies under an additional category in my Challenge. I wish I didn’t think like that about my film viewing, but when I find so little time for it and the Challenge requires so many films…

According to my notes, there was little else brand-new of note on the streamers this past month; just Adam Sandler animation Leo (also Netflix), romantic sci-fi Fingernails getting lost on Apple TV+, and an aged-up Pierce Brosnan as The Last Rifleman on Sky Cinema. The latter continue to dominate in terms of streaming debuts, this month boasting Beau is Afraid, Magic Mike’s Last Dance, Renfield, and Violent Night. All of which said, I don’t currently subscribe to Sky/Now, so probably shouldn’t be noting them as “failures”. Normally I’d pick it up in late January or February for the Oscars, but as those have moved to ITV now, I have considerably less cause to. Sure, there’s all the films, but it’s not as if I don’t have enough to watch as it is.

Of note on the rest of the streamers, Branagh’s latest Poirot, A Haunting in Venice, came to Disney+ in 4K — a format it’s been denied on disc, so I’ll be streaming it instead of buying it. They also had a real oddity: miniseries Faraway Downs, which is Baz Luhrmann’s film Australia extended and re-cut into a six-parter. Mainly, it’s reminded me I’ve never quite got round to watching the film… which is 15 years old. My perception of time is all kinds of messed up. No other streamer can boast anything quite so irritating as the third film in a series not getting a 4K release when the previous two did, nor so unusual as an old movie being recut into a TV series, but of particular note padding out my never-ending watchlist on other providers were Jackass Forever, Reminiscence, and Studio 666 on Netflix; unloved Oscar nominee Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (which I only feel I need to see to tick that box) on Amazon Prime; 1970s Miyazaki shot Yuki’s Sun on MUBI; on Channel 4, a bunch of foreign titles I’ve heard good things about, like Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy, Riders of Justice, Hit the Road, and Petite Maman; and a French remake of One Cut of the Dead, Final Cut, on iPlayer, along with a load of Shakespeare stuff I’d like to watch thanks to BBC Four’s recent season about the Bard. I’m not going to get into listing all of that, though.

As for physical media purchases, the end of November brings with it Black Friday, and while I didn’t go actively hunting for deals, a few were too good to miss, like Curzon’s 4K box set of Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Three Colours Trilogy, plus their 4K release of his The Double Life of Veronique. Across general two-for-what-have-you offers and other such discount, I also upgraded Interstellar (from Blu-ray) and Event Horizon (from DVD), and picked up a couple of classics I feel I should have seen but that never seem to crop up on streaming anywhere, Rebel Without a Cause and Rosemary’s Baby. I also finally found a price I was happy with for the 4K set of The Godfather Trilogy, which I haven’t watched since the DVD era — which presents a big question for the next rewatch: Parts I and II are easy enough, but do I conclude with Part III or its recent recut, The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone? The set now presents that as the definitive version, with the original cuts of Part III relegated to special features status. Maybe that answers the question for me.

There were a few new releases on 4K too, headlined by a pair I thought might never happen. The most egregious would’ve been the fourth and final film in the Rebuild of Evangelion tetralogy, Evangelion:3.0+1.11 Thrice Upon a Time. When Amazon snaffled up the streaming rights, I was concerned I’d never be able to complete my discs collection; but, a couple of years later, here it is. I’m less thorough about my Predator collection, but Prey is one of the best films in that series and so I’m thrilled to see Disney+ titles like that making it to disc now. There are a good few more I hope we’ll see at some point. Maybe they’ll even persuade Netflix to join in eventually (I want Glass Onion, goddammit!) Less startling, but obviously welcome, was Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (which is gonna look silly if they do retitle Part Two now), plus I took a punt on Arrow’s release of Tremors 2: Aftershocks (direct-to-video sequels obviously have a bad rep, but the very fact they’ve decided this was worth doing says something… hopefully…)

Finally for 4K, I imported Kino’s release of The Train, mainly because the film comes strongly recommended by Christopher “director of one of the greatest train sequences of all time” McQuarrie (which, as you may or may not remember, also merited a mention last month because it was on TV right after I placed the order for this disc copy). I rarely order one thing at a time from the States, and so along with that came ’50s sci-fi B-movie Robot Monster in 3D (probably not a great film, but the disc is packed with stereoscopic goodies), and a double bill of Douglas Fairbanks double bills, seeing the silent star swashbuckle his way through Robin Hood, The Black Pirate, The Three Musketeers, and The Iron Mask.

There were two other foursomes this month, too: Arrow’s second box set of sundry Spaghetti Westerns, Blood Money, and Eureka’s amusingly-titled collection of Mr. Vampire sequels, Hopping Mad. Yes, after watching the original back in May to decide whether I wanted to order the sequel set, I finally did. Will it be another six months before I actually watch any of them? Knowing me, no — it’ll be much, much longer.