Nov 24, 2016 11:00 AM

Watch These 8 Movies Before They Leave Netflix in December

An unfairly maligned Best Picture winner, an unlikely sequel, more than one career-maker, and one of the best '80s action films ever.

The Thanksgiving plates have been cleared away. You're stuffed. The football games are over. As you're nodding into your third nap of the day, it hits you: Netflix is there all weekend, but since we're inching ever closer to December, there's a bunch of stuff you need to prioritize before it leaves the streaming service perhaps forever. We've got you covered with the eight movies to move up in the queue before the end of the month. Fear not; you can start working off that third piece of pie on Monday.

A little more than a decade ago, we saw glimmers of an Adam Sandler comic renaissance. First, he took a page from Jim Carrey and went dark in in Paul Thomas Anderson's *Punch-Drunk Love*, and then two years later delivered *50 First Dates*, a charming (if high-concept) rom-com set on Oahu. Marine veterinarian Henry (Sandler) falls for Lucy (Drew Barrymore), a woman with short-term memory loss, and tries to make a relationship work. It may reek of Sandler trying to get a vacation out of work on a movie, and once gain it features the Happy Madison ensemble players as supporting cast members—but it's better than just about all of Sandler's output in recent years.
It's trendy to hate on Best Picture winners, and *American Beauty* is an easy target, what with its strange fascination for plastic bags and surface take on suburban malaise. But those smug Oscar-night acceptance speeches ended up overshadowing Alan Ball's script, Annette Bening's performance is still a towering achievement, and the two contrasting dinner scenes (pay attention to the centerpieces) are a master class in how production design and set dressing can help unscore a theme.

The Wayans brothers’ send-up of the ’90s "hood movies" explosion may not have been well received by critics, but it launched the family’s post-Keenan parody arc that served them so well. Ashtray (Shawn Wayans) gets sent to live with his father so that he can learn how to be a man, and hangs out with his cousin Loc Dog (Marlon Wayans) while just about every genre trope comes through for a good skewerin'. When this is over, seek out *Friday* for a double feature—or, if you want to stick with the Wayans, watch Terry Crews' [magical dance performance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6hgGIdLOpE) in *White Girls*.
One of the most unlikely sequels ever, *The Golden Age* is Shekhar Kapur’s follow-up to *Elizabeth*, continuing to depict the 16th-century reign of Queen Elizabeth I (Cate Blanchett). (Hold on to your seats!) This second film focuses on plots to assassinate Elizabeth and install the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots (Samantha Morton) on the throne, as well as mounting conflict between England and Spain resulting in the Anglo-Spanish War. If you’ve already finished watching *The Crown* and know about the rise of Elizabeth II, but haven’t had your fill of Anglophilia, this is a soapy primer on England’s other historically significant female monarch.

New Zealand director Taika Waititi (*What We Do in the Shadows*, *Hunt For the Wilderpeople*) is helming *Thor: Ragnarok* next year, so it’s a perfect time to revisit his breakthrough indie film. Lily (Loren Hosley) works as a cashier at a fast food restaurant, and admires video game shop worker Jarrod (Jemaine Clement). Their interactions are ceaselessly, cringingly awkward, but Clement is so dependably funny that it pushes past "quirky Sundance hit" and into "must-see" territory.
Karl Sinders (Billy Bob Thornton), a man with a developmental disability, is released from the psychiatric hospital where he’s been a patient since killing his mother and her lover at the age of 12. Working in a small-town Arkansas repair shop, he befriends 12-year-old Frank (Lucas Black), and his mother Linda (Natalie Canerday). *Sling Blade* was a sleeper hit, winning Thornton an Oscar for his screenplay and launching his acting career for the subsequent two decades. It’s not exactly a pick-me-up after everything happening in 2016, but it’s still pointed dramatic writing and one of those rare lucky instances where an actor writes and directs his own best performance.

After the first *Star Trek* film with the cast of *The Next Generation*, the film series took that show’s most iconic new villain—the cybernetic hive-mind known as The Borg—as fodder for one of the best movies of the franchise. Building off of the two-part episode “The Best of Both Worlds,” Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) is having recurring nightmare of being assimilated by the Borg. His crew on the *Enterprise* must follow a Borg cube and restore the proper timeline of the universe. It’s the first film without any cast members of the original *Star Trek* series, but we promise you won't miss them.
Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise), a Navy fighter pilot, and his Radar Intercept Officer Nick “Goose” Bradshaw (Anthony Edwards), go to train at the Navy’s Fighter Weapons School. Look, you either know everything about *Top Gun* already and should watch it all over again to get the adrenaline rush, or you’ve been living under a rock and should check this off your list. Director Tony Scott wrings every bit of action possible out of high-speed fighter planes, and every emotion—and [well-oiled torso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmfd9etbXGE)—is turned up to maximum intensity.

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