Best new movies and TV series on Amazon Prime Video UK: November 2021

Each month, new films and TV shows are added to Amazon Prime Video’s UK library. Eliza Janssen presents her picks for titles worth watching. For the full list of everything arriving on the platform, scroll down.

Top picks

Ad Astra (November 10)

Brad Pitt plays the perfect astronaut, in this poignant 2019 space odyssey. He seems to feel at home in the vast, isolating vacuum of space, and his heartbeat barely raises above a sensible blip, even when he’s plummeting towards earth. His latest mission? To voyage into the solar system’s farthest reaches to stop his own father (Tommy Lee Jones) from destroying all human life.

The Lost City of Z director James Gray has been quietly making some of the most wondrous films of the last decade, bringing us back to the expansive worlds of genres past. Both that jungle exploration and this sobering sci-fi are adventurous and gorgeously-rendered tales of fatherhood. But maybe don’t watch Ad Astra with your dad, unless you’ve got a very solid relationship.

Curse of the Chippendales (November 12)

Eye candy with a poison center: a legendary male strip revue and the inspiring immigrant entrepreneur behind it are sent spiraling after insinuations of murder. Sounds like a good yarn, right? Hollywood thinks so, too. Over the coming years we’re getting multiple screen depictions of Steve Banerjee, with both Kumail Nanjiani and Dev Patel signed up to play the fallen strip club magnate.

Before then, this docuseries will reveal all with a more clear-eyed, true crime angle, and Curse of the Chippendales focuses on the club’s salacious dancers more than its management. The branch was among the first to capitalize on a female thirst for sweaty, public acknowledgement of their sexual desires. And the four episode series really does provide ‘the whole package’: nothing is left to the imagination in retro NSFW footage.

The Wheel of Time: Season 1 (November 19)

90 million fantasy readers will be wheely excited for this grand adaptation of Robert Jordan’s novels. Just about the only big names amidst the sprawling ensemble cast are Oscar nominees Sophie Okonedo and Rosamund Pike. But emerging Aussie talent Madeleine Madden could stun us as Egwene al’Vere, one of *checks Wikipedia* 2782 distinct characters from Jordan’s fourteen novels. Geez.

There’s some serious budget behind all eight hour-long episodes, and The Wheel of Time has already been given the go-ahead for another season. Go ahead and get emotionally invested, then, in the power and prophecy of the all-female Aes Sedai and their mythical mission.