Netflix Leads With The Great Flood, Eden, and Stranger Things

Netflix is monopolizing the queue this week with one intercontinental spectacle, a prestige drama, and a marquee series endgame.

The Great Flood sweeps in from Korea with high-stakes disaster thrills; Ron Howard’s Eden brings star power to a true-history survival story; and Stranger Things makes the final push toward Hawkins’ last stand. It’s a cute holiday play: an event series to serve as the spine of the week, a buzz-bin international film to fuel discussion and discovery, and a conversation-starter for the adults in the room.

What’s New on Netflix This Week: Key Premieres and Picks

Netflix’s programming cadence here is quintessentially “tentpole plus counterprogramming.” The streamer has history here already, employing year-end weeks to goose weekly time spent, and with Nielsen’s The Gauge consistently reporting that streaming now accounts for more than a third of all TV usage in the U.S., there is some real estate grabbing going on here. Look for The Great Flood to pop on the non-English film chart, Eden to court awards-season curiosity, Stranger Things to boss social chatter and the Top 10 all at once.

Noah’s Waves: The Great Flood Brings Korean Disaster Thrills

Brought to furious life by Byung-woo Kim and starring Kim Da-mi and Park Hae-soo, The Great Flood is engineered for full-frontal immediacy: rising seas, rampant infrastructure failures, and a mother-and-child dash for survival gets compacted into one claustrophobic location. Korean genre cinema has been on a rampage with international audiences — Netflix reports that well over half of its members have tried Korean titles in recent years — and this one works the same funked-into-fury vibe that powered hits like Train to Busan and The Host: big-emotion storytelling joined at the hip with acid social observation.

If you’re looking for a family-night spine-stiffener aimed at teens and up, this one meets the criteria: intelligible stakes, muscular pacing, and production value that looks good on a large screen. But look for the precision sound design and water effects; it’s not just spectacle here — they’re narrative pressure cookers.

Ron Howard’s Eden Lands on Streaming With Star Power

Starring Jude Law, Ana de Armas, and Sydney Sweeney in an ensemble cast, Eden tells the bizarro-real saga of idealists who migrated to a remote Galápagos island to a utopia — a new society ripped apart by class, ego, and the thrusting natural world. Howard’s method splits the difference between survival thriller and character study, sounding some echoes of The Galápagos Affair but sifting through the material with his clean, classicist craftwork.

And there will be much to talk about after the credits: who has the power in a “fresh start,” what the island gives and takes, how utopian rhetoric shrivels under scarcity. For viewers who prefer their dramas rooted in the historical record but geared toward modern attention spans, this is the most talk-worthy pick of the week.

Stranger Things Suits Up for Endgame in Final Season Push

Netflix’s flagship returns for its last stretch, and you can always feel the strategy: finish out a cultural phenomenon when people are at home co-viewing. Not many shows get people to press play like this one. The Nielsen report when the last full season bowed was 7-plus billion minutes viewed in one week, and Netflix data, courtesy of its own Top 10 lists, has kept this franchise among the most-watched English-language series ever.

What to expect without giving away a single frame: bigger emotional stakes; more sprawling mythology, including some that circle back to the earliest of mysteries; and a tone that leans darker while still giving all the character beats — friendship, family, and first love — that turned Hawkins into a global obsession. If you’ve been holding on to a rewatch, look for what connects the Upside Down’s origin to Eleven’s evolving powers to the cost of the community’s resilience — they’re paying all that off now.

Also Worth Adding to Your Queue: Films, Series, and Sports

There’s a wealth of talent below those headliners on this week’s depth chart. Procedural fans have a marathon of The Closer seasons 1–7, a go-to for viewers craving case-of-the-week comfort. For the collectibles die-hards, dig into season 3 of King of Collectibles: The Goldin Touch, a behind-the-scenes look at an industry that transformed graded cards and rare memorabilia into seven-figure assets.

There’s a studio-franchise debut for action neophytes, with a raft of Transformers films docking simultaneously for an all-night Autobot-a-thon. By the time period drama fans get their mitts on Downton Abbey: A New Era, they might be grateful to escape into something just a little bit polished. And in the event that your household is skewed toward stand-up, Tom Segura: Teacher brings a fresh hour to the comedy carousel. Sports fans aren’t left without offerings, either: The holiday slate features an NFL live doubleheader, as Netflix continues to make inroads into the appointment programming business.

How to Prioritize Your Watchlist for This Week on Netflix

If you have time for only one, lead off with The Great Flood; it’s a propulsive crowd-pleaser that also has something to say. Save “Eden” for a quieter night when you can settle into its moral knots. And make room for more Stranger Things episodes; Netflix’s event drops have a penchant for spreading spoilers across social feeds in the blink of an eye, and this is one finale you’ll want to watch before the discourse takes off.

The throughline this week is about breadth with intent: a blockbuster from beyond, an adult-skewing drama aiming for awards season, and a megahit closing its loop. It’s Netflix making full use of every muscle at once — and for viewers, it’s an easy yes to pressing play.