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Dan Selcke is a pop culture fanatic who writes and talks about movies, TV and books, the nerdier the better. He’s been working on news, reviews, editorials, interviews and podcasts for over 10 years, bringing a wealth of experience. Dan has been published in The A.V. Club, Metro, Salon and elsewhere. He’s interviewed actors and filmmakers from shows like Dune: Prophecy and The Rings of Power.

When he’s run out of things to write, Dan operates a YouTube channel where he dives into more depth on the latest news from the world of entertainment. When not reading, watching TV or gaming, he prefers to be sedentary.

The long holiday weekend has arrived, and you will need things to entertain you and your family. As always, Netflix obliges. People around the world are happily binging Netflix series by the boatload over the holidays, with lots of options from every genre, from comedy to drama to documentary. These seven shows are among the most popular right now.

Man Vs Baby

On the lighter side

In 2022, Netflix released Man vs. Bee, a comedy series about a man named Trevor (Rowan Atkinson, a British comedy legend known for stuff like *Blackadder *and Mr. Bean) having trouble getting rid of a bee while house sitting for a wealthy couple. For the second season, Netflix has given the premise a Christmas makeover as Trevor finds himself taking care of a missing baby over the holidays; no one took home the baby who played little Jesus from the nativity at the school where he works, so what was he supposed to do?

*Man vs. Baby *is lightweight fun that goes down easy. It’s the perfect show to watch with the family while you’re all decompressing over the long weekend.

Release Date 2025 - 2025-00-00

Network Netflix

Writers Rowan Atkinson

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Rowan Atkinson

Trevor Bingley

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Alanah Bloor

Maddy

Genres Comedy

Sean Combs: The Reckoning

On the darker side

And now for something extremely different. The trial of Sean Combs was one of the biggest news stories of 2025, and Netflix has fed our curiosity with a four-part documentary series that people have been inhaling ever since it was released in early December. The Reckoning traces Combs’ story from his early rise through the world of hip-hop in the 1990s through to the present, when he was put on trial for racketeering and sex trafficking. The show treats the subject with the nuance it deserves, with lots of interviews and archival footage to help us understand what happened.

Obviously this is a much heavier watch than Man vs. Baby, but what’s life without a little contrast? *The Reckoning *is one of those one of those documentaries that’s better than any crime show.

• Watch *Sean Combs: The Reckoning *on Netflix

The Beast in Me

The Beast, Me, and TV

*The Beast in Me *is a slow-burning mystery thriller about an author (Claire Danes) grieving the loss of her son. To distract herself, she starts writing about her suspicious new neighbor (Matthew Rhys), a real estate mogul who’s suspected of killing his first wife. That turns into a cat-and-mouse game of psychological one-upmanship that exposes the real truth behind her neighbor’s lies and helps Danes’ character find peace.

*The Beast in Me *is a limited series, so after you watch these eight episodes, the journey is over. When you’ve had all the holiday cheer you can handle, this is the perfect grisly, well-made mystery show to sink into.

Release Date 2025 - 2025-00-00

Network Netflix

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Claire Danes

Aggie Wiggs

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Matthew Rhys

Nile Jarvis

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Brittany Snow

Nina

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Natalie Morales

Shelley

Genres Mystery, Drama, Thriller

Emily in Paris season 5

Now featuring Rome

We’re back to fluff with the fifth season of Emily in Paris, a frothy romantic comedy show about a young woman (Lily Collins) who moves to Paris to pursue her career in marketing. Obviously, she has all kinds of romantic misadventures in the meantime. In the newly released fifth season, she goes to Italy, and it’s teased that she may go to Greece for season 6. The series is becoming something of a travelogue of the most selfie-worthy places on Earth.

With its light-as-air tone and broad gags, it’s kind of easy to make fun of Emily in Paris, but the fact is that it’s very popular, easy to watch, and dresses up its characters in lots of eye-popping fashions. It should go over very well during the holidays, when a lot of us just want to sit back and relax with something silly and fun.

Release Date October 2, 2020

Network Netflix

Showrunner Darren Star

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Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu

Sylvie Grateau

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Lily Collins

Emily Cooper

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Ashley Park

Mindy Chen

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Lucas Bravo

Gabriel

Genres Drama, Comedy, Romance

Culinary Class Wars season 2

The most dramatic cooking show in the history of the world

We’ve been highlighting English-language shows so far, but Netflix also has a wide variety of great international series to enjoy. For instance, the second season of the South Korean cooking competition show *Culinary Class Wars *came out in December and is being enjoyed by people all over the globe.

The setup for *Culinary Class Wars *is pretty basic. One hundred elite chefs are divided into two groups: the white spoons, who are veterans of the industry; and the black spoons, who are relative newcomers. The lot of them compete for a grand cash prize. The contestants are extremely creative and industrious with their dishes and all the events are staged very dramatically. If you want some reality TV in your life this holiday, *Culinary Class Wars *is a great choice.

Release Date September 17, 2024

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Anzu Lawson

Auntie Omakase

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Paik Jong-won

Judge

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Eugene Ko

Narrator

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Anh Sung-jae

Genres Reality

City of Shadows (Ciudad de Sombras)

Murder, Barcelona style

*City of Shadows *is a new crime drama that kicks off when a prominent businessman is found dead and hanging off a balcony on Casa Milà, an iconic building in Barcelona, Spain. A disgraced detective (Isak Ferriz) must team up with a straight-laced inspector (Verónica Echegui) to get to the bottom of things.

I’ve embedded the English-language trailer above, but you’re also free to watch *City of Shadows *in its original Spanish with whatever subtitles you want. It’s a moody drama that also doubles as a travelogue for Barcelona, as much of the plot revolves around iconic buildings in the city designed by Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí.

Release Date 2025 - 2025-00-00

Network Netflix

Directors Jorge Torregrossa

Cast

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Isak Férriz

Milo Malart

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Verónica Echegui

Rebeca Garrido

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Ana Wagener

Susana Cabrera

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Manolo Solo

Mauricio Navarro

Genres Crime, Mystery

Stranger Things

Obviously

Netflix released the first four episodes from the fifth and final season of *Stranger Things *late in November. It’s releasing three more on Christmas Day, and it knows you’re going to watch them. This sci-fi adventure drama has been slowly building momentum ever since the first season came out in 2016, and everyone wants to know how it ends. The Christmas episode drop will get us a bit closer, although we won’t get to watch the series finale until December 31.

Everyone you know is going to be watching this show over the holiday, so you might as well join in.

Related

3 short Netflix miniseries you can actually finish this weekend

We’re trying to make sure you have a good time in a short time.

You can binge *movies *on Netflix too

So those are some of the biggest shows people are loving over the holiday, but if you don’t want to make quite that big of a commitment, there are plenty of movies and specials just waiting to entertain you. If you missed it, the fight between boxer Anthony Joshua and influencer Jake Pual is still burning up the algorithm, as is a new comedy special from Dave Chappelle. People are loving the new survival movie The Great Flood, and the latest *Knives Out *film is still getting lots of attention, even if Netflix still doesn’t know exactly how to treat this franchise.

And of course, there are plenty of undemanding Christmas-themed drama-comedy-romances to enjoy, like My Secret Santa, Christmas at the Chalet, and A Cowboy Christmas Romance. Whatever you want this holiday, Netflix has it.

Release Date 2016 - 2025-00-00

Network Netflix

Showrunner Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer

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Millie Bobby Brown

Jane ‘Eleven’ Hopper

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Finn Wolfhard

Mike Wheeler

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Gaten Matarazzo

Dustin Henderson

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Caleb McLaughlin

Lucas Sinclair

Genres Drama, Mystery, Horror, Science Fiction