8 New Movies to Rent This Month

This article will be updated throughout the month as more movies are available to rent on demand.

It’s been a big few weeks at the box office thanks to the likes of Wicked, Moana 2, and Gladiator 2. But what if you don’t feel like leaving the house and braving the crowds? We’re here to help. Every month, we’ll highlight around ten of the biggest movies coming to services like Apple TV, Amazon, and Fandango at Home, usually available for rent around $19.99. (All release dates subject to change.)

December 3rd

Juror #2

Directed by Clint Eastwood, 114 minutes

The anti-art establishment over Warner Bros/Discovery made a conscious choice to bury the latest work from one of the most successful directors of all time. Clint Eastwood is still delivering solid films for grown-ups, well into his nineties. The latest evidence in the case for his prolonged importance to his craft is this excellent little thriller about a juror (Nicholas Hoult, having an amazing 2024) who discovers that he may actually be the killer in the case on which he’s serving. With a great supporting cast that includes Toni Collette, Chris Messina, Zoey Deutch, and J.K. Simmons, this is a thoroughly entertaining piece of work, and a movie that deserves a better fate than the one to which WBD tried to sentence it.

December 10th

Absolution

Directed by Hans Petter Moland, 112 minutes

The Liam Neeson Action Genre has become one of the most impressive late-career phenomena in film history. Somehow, the star of Schindler’s List and Kinsey became an actor who makes 2-3 action films a year. Are all of them good? Lord no, but a lot of them do still get the job done. Maybe this is one! Neeson stars as an old mob enforcer who is told he has CTE and a ticking clock on his mortality (a lot of Neeson action heroes lately turn his age into a plot point). He tries to escape the mob and reunite with his kids before he no longer has the chance to do so — that’s probably not so easy, but Neeson alway has a special set of skills to get things done. 

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Directed by Dallas Jenkins, 95 minutes

There are not a lot of new Christmas offerings this year, especially with the disastrous responses to Red One and Dear Santa. The one that’s gotten the best response from critics has been this family-friendly adaptation of the novel of the same name by Barbara Robinson. It’s about a troubled family that finds itself in the middle of its town’s Christmas pageant, and it stars the extremely likable Judy Greer, Pete Holmes, and Lauren Graham.

Heretic

Directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, 111 minutes

One of the best horror films of 2024 presents an interesting dilemma: What’s scarier, believing in a horror power that controls our fate or believing that we’re all alone? The question is woven through the story of two Mormon missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East, both excellent) who answer the call of a man (Hugh Grant, wonderfully leaning into his malevolent side) who decides to challenge them on all of their beliefs. It’s smart, tense, and riveting genre filmmaking.

Venom: The Last Dance

Directed by Kelly Marcel, 109 minutes

Reportedly the final story of the alien parasite Venom and his human host Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), The Last Dance was kind of seen as a disappointment in theaters. Maybe it can get a reappraisal at home. After all, these goofy buddy comedies aren’t really for the critics, right? Maybe if enough of you rent it on PVOD, Sony will convince Hardy to return for a fourth film? Crazier things have happened.

December 17th

Anora

Directed by Sean Baker, 139 minutes

Universally acclaimed as one of the best films of 2024, this Palme d’Or distills everything that the writer/director of The Florida Project and Red Rocket does into one glorious comedy. Mikey Madison shines as the title character, a dancer who ends up the wife of an immature, wealthy, young Russian guy who didn’t ask his crime lord daddy for permission to get married. What happens next is a gloriously conceived and executed series of events on one long night in New York that recalls great ‘80s comedies like Something Wild and After Hours. Smart, hysterical, and perfectly performed.

Small Things Like These

Directed by Tim Mielants, 98 minutes

Cillian Murphy can do anything. Coming off his Oscar-winning work in Oppenheimer, he shifts gears radically in this film about an average man in a small Irish town in the ‘80s who discovers that the church in town is doing something very wrong. Using the real story of the Magdalene Laundries, writer Enda Walsh, working from the book by Claire Keegan, tells a story that hinges on a great moral dilemma. Murphy’s father knows that if he reveals what the church is doing, he will forever change the fate of his daughters, who are supposed to attend the religious school in town. Murphy gives a stunningly nuanced performance, selling so many emotions behind his eyes. It also has maybe the best final scene of the year.

December 31st

A Real Pain

Directed by Jesse Eisenberg, 90 minutes

The star of The Social Network takes a massive leap forward as a writer/director/star with this likely Oscar nominee, a delicate film about friendship, grief, and empathy. Eisenberg plays David, who is going on a trip to Poland with his cousin Benji (Kieran Culkin, doing career-best work) to visit the hometown of their recently-deceased grandmother. Instead of just another buddy road movie built on cliché, Eisenberg focuses on character, making us believe in David, Benji, and their journey. It’s moving and funny in equal measure, and contains one of the best performances of 2024 from Mr. Culkin, a lock for an Oscar nomination.