A massive entertainment week: Streaming giants and theatres roll out their biggest titles of 2025

The final week of November 2025 is turning into a full-blown festival for film and streaming fans. Between long-awaited global franchises dropping new seasons online and star-driven Indian films arriving in cinemas, viewers are spoilt for choice whether they stay home or head to the multiplex.

At the centre of the OTT buzz is the return of Netflix’s flagship series, Stranger Things, whose fifth and final season kicks off this week. But it is far from the only talking point. From prestige documentaries and holiday romances to regional thrillers and stand-up specials, platforms are programming aggressively ahead of the year-end holiday window. On the big screen, Dhanush and Kriti Sanon in Tere Ishk Mein and Vijay Varma, Fatima Sana Shaikh and Naseeruddin Shah in Manish Malhotra’s debut production Gustaakh Ishq (directed by Vibhu Puri) are leading a crowded slate that includes animated sequels, social dramas and dark psychological thrillers.

Below is a look at the key releases on OTT and in theatres between November 24 and November 30, 2025.

OTT releases this week

Netflix’s Stranger Things – Season 5, Volume 1 is the undeniable event of the week, with its first four episodes dropping on November 27. Set in the autumn of 1987, months after the cataclysmic events of Season 4, the new chapters find Hawkins under military quarantine and its teenage heroes — including Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gaten Matarazzo and the full ensemble — forced back together for a final confrontation with Vecna, the architect of the Upside Down. As the rifts between dimensions widen and the town begins to physically merge with the other world, Eleven goes into hiding while Will Byers’ psychic connection to the villain becomes central to humanity’s last-ditch plan. With only four episodes dropping in this first volume, the series is positioning itself for a carefully staged, franchise-defining farewell.

For viewers who prefer grounded drama over supernatural horror, Bel-Air – Season 4 arrives on JioHotstar as the Banks family’s story enters its final lap. The season continues to be led by Jabari Banks (Will), Adrian Holmes (Philip Banks), Tatyana Ali, Tyra Banks and Janet Hubert, alongside the main ensemble. The season follows the family through a critical senior year filled with personal and professional crossroads. Will continues to wrestle with the expectations placed on him after a traumatic past, while Carlton, Hilary, Ashley, Philip, Vivian and Geoffrey each face their own crises. The new episodes promise emotionally charged arcs and notable guest appearances, including Tyra Banks and original Fresh Prince star Janet Hubert, as the rebooted drama moves towards closure.

Holiday-themed programming also begins to roll out in earnest. Netflix’s Jingle Bell Heist, streaming from November 26, blends Christmas schmaltz with a heist caper. The film follows two down-on-their-luck workers who plot to rob a luxury London department store on Christmas Eve, only to find romance complicating their meticulously planned crime. Meanwhile, Netflix’s Is It Cake? Holiday – Season 2 brings back its viral cake-or-fake format with a festive twist, as an ensemble of expert bakers competes under their host’s direction to craft hyper-realistic edible versions of Christmas trees, Santas and other seasonal icons while competing for a cash prize.

For younger audiences and families, Netflix closes out the week with CoComelon Lane: Season 6 on December 1, turning its popular sing-along format into a holiday special that weaves Christmas, Hanukkah and other celebrations into its musical storytelling.

Beyond the headline genre shows, streamers are also leaning into non-fiction and regionally rooted stories.

On November 28, Netflix premieres The Stringer: The Man Who Took the Photo, a documentary re-examining the authorship of one of the most iconic images from the Vietnam War, widely known as the “Napalm Girl” photograph. The film follows photographer Gary Knight and other journalists as they investigate claims that a little-known local stringer was the true author of the image, challenging decades of accepted media history and raising uncomfortable questions around race, credit and power in global newsrooms.

The same day, JioHotstar debuts Born Hungry, a documentary-drama centred on Sash Simpson, who went from a boy scavenging for scraps on the streets of Chennai to an acclaimed Toronto chef. The film documents his emotional journey back to India in search of his roots and birth family, touching on themes of abandonment, resilience and the complicated meaning of home.

Crime and political thrillers have a strong presence on Indian platforms this week. ZEE5’s Raktabeej 2, releasing on November 28, continues the story of intelligence officer Pankaj Sinha and West Bengal police officer Sanjukta Mitra as they track a new terror mastermind across borders in a plot involving arms trafficking and sleeper cells. Also releasing the same day on ZEE5 is Regai, a Tamil crime drama about a police inquiry into a shadowy organisation that disguises the deaths of young clinical-trial volunteers as accidents. The series opens with the discovery of a severed hand under melting ice and expands into a conspiracy linking illegal medical trials and systemic cover-ups.

On Netflix, the Tamil film Aaryan arrives on November 28 after its theatrical run. The thriller centres on a bitter writer who seizes control of a live television programme and reveals a chilling plan: a chain of linked murders in which each victim’s death triggers the next killing. As the body count threatens to mount, a police officer races to decode the pattern and uncover the writer’s deeper motives. Also on the same day on Netflix, Left-Handed Girl explores the story of a mother and her two daughters who move to Taipei to run a night-market food stall, only to have secrets, societal biases and family tensions test their unity.

Regional cinema finds ample representation in the OTT lineup. The Pet Detective, streaming on ZEE5 from November 28, is a Malayalam drama about a couple whose relationship is reshaped in unexpected ways by the arrival of a macaw parrot that becomes central to their lives. Telugu platforms get Sasivadane on SunNXT, streaming from November 28 — a love story set against the lush Konaseema landscape — and Karimulla Biryani Point, streaming from November 30 on ETV Win, a darkly comic tale about two friends wrongly caught up in a kidnapping case after a night of heavy drinking, leading not to an escape plot but to an increasingly desperate hunt for biryani.

The week also sees a sprinkling of genre experiments and specials across platforms. Netflix’s Kevin Hart: Acting My Age, streaming from November 24, features comedian Kevin Hart riffing on mid-life, ageing, intimacy and family life in a new stand-up special. On Apple TV, Prehistoric Planet: Ice Age and WondLa Season 3 continue to serve niche audiences with, respectively, high-spec nature storytelling about Ice Age megafauna and a science-fiction narrative about inter-species conflict on the planet Orbona, both streaming from November 26.

Sci-fi and horror fans have options in titles like Bugonia on Prime Video, available from November 25, in which two conspiracy-obsessed men kidnap a corporate CEO they are convinced is an alien planning Earth’s destruction, and Troll 2 on Netflix on December 1, a sequel that sends its protagonists on a perilous mission against a new, more destructive troll.

Sports fans are not left out: JioHotstar streams the India vs South Africa ODI series from November 30, promising high-octane cricketing action to close out the month.

In theatres this week

If streaming is dominated by franchise television, the theatrical side of the week is defined by a clash between a mass-market romantic saga and an artful, old-world love story.

Tere Ishk Mein, releasing on November 28, reunites filmmaker Aanand L. Rai with Dhanush and composer A.R. Rahman in a film described as a spiritual successor to their 2013 hit Raanjhanaa. Also starring Kriti Sanon, the story is set against the backdrop of student politics and social upheaval, and promises a narrative of intense, possibly destructive love. With lyrics by Irshad Kamil and Rahman’s already popular soundtrack fuelling anticipation, trade expectations suggest it will be the weekend’s biggest Hindi opener.

Challenging it from a different tonal register is Gustaakh Ishq: Kuch Pahle Jaisa, the production debut of Manish Malhotra under his Stage5 Productions banner, also releasing on November 28. Directed by Vibhu Puri and set in Old Delhi in the 1990s, the film stars Vijay Varma, Fatima Sana Shaikh and Naseeruddin Shah in a story steeped in Urdu poetry, pre-digital romance and nostalgia. With music by Vishal Bhardwaj and lyrics by Gulzar, it is being positioned as a visually rich, musically driven drama aimed at audiences who favour “class aesthetics” over high-decibel spectacle.

Hollywood contributes star-driven offerings as well. Disney’s Zootopia 2, out on November 28, brings back Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) in another animated adventure that mixes humour, social commentary and family-friendly storytelling. Also releasing on the same day, Eternity, a fantasy romantic comedy starring Elizabeth Olsen and Miles Teller and set partly in the afterlife, explores themes of love, regret and second chances.

Regional industries are also active. Telugu cinema offers Andhra King Taluka, releasing on November 27 — a slice-of-life romantic comedy about an ardent fan whose life is shaped by his favourite film star. In Tamil, BP 100, releasing on November 28, delivers a crime thriller rooted in the medical world, while Revolver Rita, also releasing on November 28, positions Keerthy Suresh in a guns-blazing crime comedy about a woman pulled into gangland violence. Kannada films such as Bank of Bhagyalakshmi, releasing on November 27, and GST (Ghosts in Trouble), releasing on November 28, lean into crime comedy and horror-comedy respectively, while Bengali audiences get Danab, releasing November 27 — a psychological thriller set around a morgue worker confronted with the body of a loved one.

Social-issue cinema makes its presence felt through Me No Pause Me Play, releasing November 28, which is being marketed as India’s first mainstream feature film on menopause, headlined by Kamya Punjabi and Sudha Chandran. Separately, Kaisi Ye Paheli, releasing November 28 — a crowdfunded dark comedy murder mystery set in a northeastern hill town and featuring a comeback for actor Sadhana Singh — arrives with strong festival word-of-mouth.

Taken together, the final week of November presents an unusually dense grid of content across platforms and languages. For audiences, it is effectively a personalised festival: whether the preference is for Hawkins and the Upside Down, Old Delhi and Urdu couplets, hard-hitting documentaries, regional thrillers or festive comfort viewing, there is a new title waiting on a nearby screen.