Welcome to my monthly “Failures” column, where I look back at some of the films I could, would, maybe even should have watched last month… but failed to.

On the big screen, Sony’s latest attempt at making a Spider-Man spin-off, Kraven the Hunter finally arrived almost two years after its first announced release date, and seemed to be received about as well as you’d expect for a Sony Spider-Man spin-off that had a two-year delay (i.e. poorly). In similar desperate franchise moves, animation The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim seemed to generate more column inches because they admitted it was rushed out to secure the ongoing Rings film rights, rather than anyone saying anything about the film itself. I feel like Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King, a “live-action” prequel that no one asked for, must fall into a similar bracket.

Conversely, I’ve read Sonic the Hedgehog 3 is good; the crazy idea of making a Robbie Williams biopic starring a CG monkey seems to have actually paid off in Better Man; and I keep hearing how good Daniel Craig is in Queer. Various other films managed theatrical releases of various other sizes, of course, but the one that most intrigues me is Shakespeare / video game mashup documentary Grand Theft Hamlet, which I believe is coming to MUBI sometime early in 2025, so I’ll look out for it then.

Over on streaming, various attempts at creating a Christmas classic seem to have been overshadowed by Carry-On — not a modern revamp of the old British comedy series, but an airport-based thriller starring Taron Egerton. I’d probably have watched it if I had a Netflix subscription (there’s a few things on there I need to catch up on now, so maybe it’s time I signed up again). As for the aforementioned seasonal fare, Netflix had the Richard Curtis written and produced animation That Christmas, plus 15-rated “birth of Jesus” movie Mary starring Anthony Hopkins as Herod (that’s literally all I know about it. I’ve not seen anyone discuss or review it. Is it actually real?); Sky Cinema and their fateful Original brand tried public-domain-IP mashup The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland; and Amazon had the streaming debut of (briefly theatrically released) wannabe-blockbuster Red One — which apparently was a huge hit for them, even after it flopped on the big screen, thus proving once again that the best way to ensure a streaming success is to have a wide theatrical release first.

Meanwhile, Disney+ had… fuck all. You’d’ve expected them to trot out something seasonal, right? But I don’t think they even had a premiere that was, er, non-seasonal. Even Apple TV+ spat out Fly Me to the Moon, the Channing Tatum/Scarlett Johansson Nasa-during-the-space-race romcom with posters that made it look like a fake movie-in-a-movie. But Disney+ never have anything much new anymore in the way of original movies, it seems to me (just their high-profile theatrical releases making relatively-speedy debuts). Has the Mouse already got wise to the false promises of streaming originals? Let’s hope others follow suit.

In the second tier of films making their streaming debuts, basketball anime The First Slam Dunk came to Netflix. Sports movies aren’t normally my bag, but I’ve seen this on various “great films” lists (especially animated ones) for what feels like years, so here’s a chance to… be reminded to watch the other copy I, ahem, got hold of fairly recently. Indeed, Netflix seemed to specialise in things I already own but haven’t watched, which is always irritating. Other titles included Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Scream VI, and Knock at the Cabin, which has already been on NOW so I’m doubly miffed at myself. NOW themselves pulled the same trick with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, plus Abigail, Kung Fu Panda 4, and A Quiet Place: Day One. And at the more… esoteric end of the spectrum, MUBI had a new version of an old film in Caligula: The Ultimate Cut, and a film they self-described as Andrea Arnold’s “long-awaited return to fiction filmmaking”, Bird.

The ever-changing streaming back catalogue is a beast of greater size than even Santa’s bulging sack, but a selection of titles of particular interest included Killer Joe, Mississippi Grind, The Reader, Warm Bodies, and the return of streaming perennial The Notebook (all on Amazon); Bodies Bodies Bodies, I, Tonya, King Richard, and Stan & Ollie, and the original Point Break, which I’ve been meaning to rewatch (all on iPlayer); and Brian and Charles, I’m Your Man, Petite Maman, A Quiet Place Part II, Spencer, and The Worst Person in the World (all on Channel 4). There were also various other Christmas-related movies, like The Holiday (which has somehow transformed into a modern classic in recent years) and various versions of The Grinch, none of which I’m going to watch in January because it’s not Christmas anymore. Maybe next year.

The above paragraph doesn’t even touch on all the films that arrived on streamers this month but I already own on disc and haven’t watched, acting as a reminder of the slight ludicrousness of my physical media collection. A soupçon of particularly daft ones (read: I’ve owned them for so long, why haven’t I watched them?) includes on Howard’s The Missing, Guy Ritchie’s Revolver, and Alfonso Cuarón’s Y Tu Mamá También on Netflix (I own all of those on DVD. Why would I watch a DVD when they’re streaming in HD? Besides, for all I know they could have disc rot or something by now); Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, Billy Wilder’s The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, and Ben Affleck’s The Town on Prime; Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm, Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dynamite, and Alex Cox’s Repo Man on NOW; Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, trilogy-completing How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, and John Frankenheimer’s The Train on iPlayer; and Brian De Palma’s Carlito’s Way, Robert Eggers’s The Northman, and M Night Shyamalan’s Old on Channel 4. And that’s without even starting on stuff to rewatch.

In the face of such overwhelming evidence that I don’t watch enough of what I buy, I naturally went ahead and bought even more. Now, of course I’m going to buy something like Alien: Romulus, because I own all the others and I’m a completist. I’m not sure the same logic really applies to Joker: Folie à Deux (I stopped buying all the DC movies a while ago), but there we go, I bought it anyway. And I couldn’t resist a classic like Galaxy Quest making its 4K debut, especially when it comes with all the correct aspect ratios for the first time on home media. As for most of the rest of my purchases…

You know what, they’re not the sort of thing that usually turns up on streaming, so I feel a lot less bad about those. I’m talking the kind of stuff put out by Radiance: their Luis Buñuel box set, Nothing Is Sacred, containing Viridiana, The Exterminating Angels, and Simon of the Desert; Swedish crime thriller The Man from Majorca; and Japanese neo-noir Yokohama BJ Blues. I’m talking various labels’ commitment to getting loads of classic Hong Kong action on disc, which this month was represented by Eureka’s wittily-titled four-film set of historical epics directed by the prolific Chang Cheh, Horrible History, containing Marco Polo, The Pirate, Boxer Rebellion, and Four Riders. I’m talking stuff you can only get if you import it from Australia, like the third volume in Imprint’s After Dark: Neo-Noir Cinema Collection, containing Homicide, White Sands, The Crossing Guard, Heaven’s Prisoners, Under Suspicion, and Dirty Pretty Things; plus a pre-Bond Roger Moore in Swinging Sixties thriller Crossplot, and sci-fi noir The Man in Half Moon Street.

I’m also talking about stuff like Studiocanal’s epic Hitchcock: The Beginning box set. Streamers infamously have very few movies from The Past (often only a small handful from before 1980, if any), so who’s going to offer ten Hitchcocks from the 1920s and ’30s? Especially when almost half of them are silent. (Studiocanal do have their own channel on Amazon Prime, but that doesn’t really count.) The set includes both silent and talkie versions of Blackmail, newly restored in 4K, supplemented by the brand-new feature-length documentary Becoming Hitchcock: The Legacy of Blackmail. The set also contains UK HD debuts for The Ring, The Farmer’s Wife, Champagne, The Manxman, Juno and the Paycock (which was scarcely even available on DVD, if I remember correctly), Murder!, its German-language variant Mary, The Skin Game, Rich and Strange, and Number Seventeen; plus a wealth of special features — and you definitely don’t get those on streamers.

Okay, maybe the line gets a little blurrier elsewhere. Masters of Cinema recently released animation The Secret of NIMH, which is mainstream enough you might expect to find it streaming (though, currently, it’s not); but then they also released the Kinji Fukasaku-directed Japanese answer to Star Wars, Message from Space, and where else are you likely to find that but on disc? (Whether it’s worthy of being a Masters of Cinema release is another matter.) Of course, sometimes streamers will surprise you. Which one out of time-bending actioner Run Lola Run, East-meets-West Western Red Sun, and Ealing Comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets do you think is currently on a streamer? (It’s the Western.) You can rent the other two, but that’s not quite what I’m talking about. And I’ll add this: I got all of those on 4K UHD, and only one of them is streaming in that format. I may spend a disproportionate amount on physical media, but it’s still the best.