8 New TV Series and Movies We’re Watching This Fall 2024
Alex Cross and Mickey Haller are just two of the characters we’re looking forward to seeing in our most anticipated mystery and thriller movies and TV shows of the fall.
After a brutally hot summer, it’s finally starting to feel like fall. There’s a slight chill in the air, and Starbucks is introducing its pumpkin spice products earlier than ever before. That means it’s time to look ahead to fall movies and TV, when you can cuddle up on your couch or settle into a theater seat to take in the latest in mysteries and thrillers. Here’s what we’re looking forward to watching this season.
The Perfect Couple
The high-profile limited series based on a popular beach read has become a TV institution in the last decade, and Nicole Kidman has become a staple of such shows, with her work on Big Little Lies, The Undoing and Nine Perfect Strangers. She adds to that resume by co-starring in this adaptation of Elin Hilderbrand’s bestselling novel about a dead body discovered on the Nantucket beach where a fancy society wedding is about to take place. Kidman plays the matriarch of the wealthy Winbury family, who’s just one of many suspects in the twist-filled murder mystery.
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Rebel Ridge
Director Jeremy Saulnier has made some of the best — and most underrated — thrillers of the past decade, including Blue Ruin, Green Room and Hold the Dark. His first movie in six years stars Aaron Pierre as a military veteran who finds himself battling an entire corrupt small-town police department when he tries to bail his cousin out of jail. Don Johnson plays the arrogant police chief who underestimates the tenacity of his adversary, in a movie that looks just as brutally violent and hauntingly poignant as Saulnier’s previous work.
Speak No Evil
The Danish film Speak No Evil was a festival sensation in 2022 following its Sundance premiere, and this American remake aims to bring the same unsettling story to a wider audience. James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi play a seemingly friendly British couple who meet an American couple (Scoot McNairy and Mackenzie Davis) and their daughter while on vacation, inviting their newfound friends for a weekend at their remote estate. The idyllic getaway soon turns hostile, and McAvoy projects a sense of pure malice as the ingratiatingly sinister host.
Opens September 13 in theaters.
Moonflower Murders
Lesley Manville returns as book editor turned amateur sleuth Susan Ryeland in the sequel to 2022 series Magpie Murders, once again based on a novel by Anthony Horowitz. As in Magpie Murders, Susan interacts with fictional detective Atticus Pünd (Tim McMullan) as she solves a mystery connected to one of the Pünd novels. This time around, Susan investigates a murder in a hotel that was once the inspiration for a Pünd story, hoping to clear the name of a wrongfully accused man and find the missing woman who insisted on his innocence.
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Oscar-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón brings his talents to TV, writing and directing every episode in this adaptation of Renée Knight’s 2015 novel. Cate Blanchett stars as a documentary filmmaker who discovers that she’s the basis for the protagonist of a mysterious novel, which reveals a dark secret about her life that she’s tried desperately to keep hidden. The impressive cast also includes Sacha Baron Cohen, Kevin Kline and Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Cuarón has a proven track record of finding immersive, nuanced approaches to adapting renowned source material.
The Lincoln Lawyer season 3
Author Michael Connelly’s popular character Mickey Haller (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) returns for a third season, taking on a new high-profile murder case. This season adapts 2013’s The Gods of Guilt, Connelly’s fifth Mickey Haller novel, with Mickey defending Eddie Rojas (Allyn Moriyon), his daughter’s former babysitter. Mickey is also dealing with the fallout of the second season, including the death of his friend Glory Days (Fiona Rene) and the departure of his ex-wife Maggie (Neve Campbell). Mickey and his associates once again balance personal and professional challenges in one of Netflix’s most popular shows.
Flight Risk
Mark Wahlberg has spent most of his career playing goofy lunkheads and righteous heroes, so it’s refreshing to see him embrace villainy in this pulpy thriller. Wahlberg plays a mob hitman who masquerades as a pilot, taking an FBI agent (Michelle Dockery) and a protected witness (Topher Grace) on a private plane over the Alaskan wilderness. When his deception is revealed, the three characters struggle for control of the plane, as they face further threats from dangerous outside forces, all with their own agendas.
Cross
After a couple of incarnations on the big screen (played by Morgan Freeman and Tyler Perry), author James Patterson’s iconic detective character Alex Cross makes his TV debut in this series starring Aldis Hodge. Hodge plays the Washington, D.C., police detective who’s appeared in more than 30 Patterson novels, alongside Isaiah Mustafa as Cross’ best friend and partner, and Ryan Eggold as the season’s main antagonist, a powerful political operator. There’s clearly a lot of confidence in the series, which has already been renewed for a second season, with decades’ worth of material to adapt.
Premieres November 14 on Amazon Prime Video
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Josh Bell is a freelance writer and movie/TV critic based in Las Vegas. He’s the former film editor of Las Vegas Weekly and the former TV comedies guide for About.com. He has written about movies, TV, and pop culture for Vulture, IndieWire, CBR, Inverse, Crooked Marquee, and more. With comedian Jason Harris, he co-hosts the podcast Awesome Movie Year.