The titles leaving Netflix for U.S. subscribers in December are among their most-churned — the “Austin Powers,” “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Back to the Future” trilogies, for example, come and go from the streamer with near-clockwork regularity. Rather than recommend those titles yet again, here are five worthwhile selections that haven’t been boosted in this space before or written about by The Times extensively elsewhere. (Dates reflect the first day titles are unavailable and are subject to change.)
‘Hot Shots!’ / ‘Hot Shots! Part Deux’ (Dec. 1)
Stream “Hot Shots” here and “Hot Shots Part Deux” here.
The writing and directing team of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker refined and perfected the gag-a-minute satire in such comedy classics as “Airplane!,” “Top Secret” and “The Naked Gun.” When the team split in the early ’90s, Abrahams kept that tradition going with “Hot Shots!,” an uproariously funny spoof of “Top Gun” (among many others). Charlie Sheen first showed his comedic chops in the Cruise stand-in role of the cocky Navy pilot Topper Harley, while Valeria Golino (Cruise’s leading lady in “Rain Man”) plays the sexpot with a knowing wink. But the whole enterprise is stolen by Lloyd Bridges, doing basically what Nielsen did in the Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker efforts — playing it straight and silly at the same time. Two years later, “Part Deux” targeted the Rambo movies and similarly excessive action extravaganzas with similar success, though its funniest moment is an unexpected cameo by Sheen’s father, Martin.
‘Game Night’ (Dec. 1)
The directors John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein were just announced as the new shepherds of the “Star Trek” film franchise, which is one more good reason to check out this delightful 2018 action comedy. Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams star as Max and Annie, a married couple whose regular game night with their friends (Kylie Bunbury, Sharon Horgan, Billy Magnussen and Lamorne Morris) is disrupted by Max’s hot-shot brother, Brooks (Kyle Chandler). What begins as an elaborate faux-kidnapping slowly starts to look like the real thing, with wildly funny results. Jesse Plemons is a standout as Max and Annie’s humorless neighbor who desperately wants to play along, but McAdams is the M.V.P. — her reading of the simple line “Oh no, he died!” is comic perfection.
‘How I Met Your Mother’: Seasons 1-9 (Dec. 3)
Three-camera, laugh-track, network sitcoms rarely attempt narrative ambition or structural experimentation, which was part of what made this long-running CBS comedy so refreshing. Its central premise — a dad telling his teen kids the long, involved story from which the show takes its title — allowed the creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas to tinker amusingly with narration, format and style. But beyond those flourishes, it was also an excellent traditional sitcom, featuring a gifted, “Friends”-style ensemble cast (Neil Patrick Harris, Alyson Hannigan, Josh Radnor, Jason Segel and Cobie Smulders). The later seasons are a bit of a struggle — there’s too much reliance on repeated jokes, and the late addition Cristin Milioti proved so charismatic as to accidentally sour the finale’s twist ending — but for most of its run, “Mother” is a light, tasty treat.
‘Supernatural’: Seasons 1-15 (Dec. 18)
When it debuted in 2005, “Supernatural” seemed like a calculated attempt to create an “X-Files” clone populated by the young adult dreamboats so ubiquitous on its home network, then known as the WB. (Jared Padalecki had been a supporting player on one of the mini-network’s biggest hits, “Gilmore Girls.”) As the WB became the CW and the show’s original five-season blueprint somehow became a 15-year run, Padalecki and his co-star Jensen Ackles carved out their own little universe, turning the story of the demon-slaying brothers Sam and Dean Winchester into a winkingly self-referential yet undeniably earnest mash-up of science fiction and family drama. The show takes a while to find its footing, but once it does, “Supernatural” is first-rate potato chip television; you can’t consume just one at a time.
‘Idiocracy’ (Dec. 29)
The writer-director Mike Judge’s live-action feature debut, “Office Space,” was haphazardly released by 20th Century Fox and found its audience only on home video, so he couldn’t have been surprised when his next effort met with the exact same fate from the exact same studio. But “Idiocracy” has grown only more popular in the passing years, primarily because its portrait of a future America governed by a knuckle-headed wrestler, dominated by corporate greed and populated by a numbed and dumbed electorate has proved eerily prescient. Luke Wilson charms as a regular guy who comes out of a 500-year hibernation and finds himself, by default, the smartest man in the country; Maya Rudolph, Dax Shepard and especially Terry Crews (as the president) land big laughs in support.
Also leaving:
“Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery,” “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me,” “Austin Powers in Goldmember,” “Back to the Future,” “Back to the Future Part II,” “Back to the Future Part III,” “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Beverly Hills Cop II,” “Beverly Hills Cop III,” “Billy Madison,” “Clueless,” “Coming to America,” “The Dark Tower,” “Edge of Tomorrow,” “The Equalizer,” “The Goonies,” “Inglourious Basterds,” “Midnight Run,” “The Nutty Professor,” “The Nutty Professor II: The Klumps,” “Paddington,” “Richard Pryor: Live in Concert,” “Wonka” (Dec. 1); “Compliance” (Dec. 5); “The 100”: Seasons 1-7, “Arrow”: Seasons 1-8 (Dec. 18); “10 Things I Hate About You,” “Sweet Home Alabama” (Dec. 29); “Evil”: Seasons 1-3 (Dec. 31).
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