Netflix’s Most Popular Movies — 3 You Need to Watch Now (December 8-12)

The weeks are winding down in 2025, but Netflix has enough movies to keep us busy until the new year.

That constant influx of new films to watch has been the open secret of Netflix’s success for a long time.

It also made it easy for the Watch With Us team to select Netflix’s three most popular movies that you need to watch right now.

Our picks include a newly premiered Netflix original drama, a fantastic tale of survival and an unflinching military action thriller.

‘Jay Kelly’ (2025)

The title character of Jay Kelly is almost the perfect role for George Clooney, because he has a lot of the characteristics we’ve come to expect from the A-list actors of Clooney’s stature. The movie finds Jay at a difficult moment in his life, as neither of his daughters, Jessica (Riley Keough) and Daisy (Grace Edwards), is eager to spend any time with him after he spent a lifetime prioritizing his career over family.

Adam Sandler costars as Jay’s manager, Ron Sukenick, and he finds it very difficult to stand by Jay when it costs him other clients. Jay has his good points, but his selfish nature is pushing away the people in his life that he needs the most. If he’s not careful, Jay may end up alone and without anyone to turn to for support.

Jay Kelly is streaming on Netflix.

‘Cast Away’ (2000)

Tom Hanks undertook a physical transformation to play Chuck Noland, a FedEx employee who is trapped on a deserted island in Cast Away. It’s even an appropriate Christmas-time movie, since Chuck is called into work on an international assignment during the holiday, much to the dismay of his girlfriend, Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt).

It’s almost a crime that Hanks didn’t get his third Best Actor award for this film, because once Chuck survives a plane crash, he’s the only character on-screen for the vast majority of the movie. To convincingly portray a man who spends years on an island, Hanks really let his hair grow, and he lost a significant amount of weight.  The movie also has an ingenious way to give Chuck someone to talk to in the form of a volleyball he calls Wilson. It may sound silly, but you’re very likely to feel something for Wilson simply because of how much Chuck cares about it.

Cast Away is streaming on Netflix.

‘The Covenant’ (2023)

What do we owe the people who stand beside us as we go to war? Director Guy Ritchie offers his answer to that question in The Covenant. The film follows Master Sgt. John Kinley (Jake Gyllenhaal), a US soldier in Afghanistan who forms an unlikely bond with his interpreter, Ahmed Abdullah (Dar Salim). At great cost to himself, Ahmed manages to save John’s life and help him return to his fellow Americans for medical treatment.

Those actions leave Ahmed and his family on the run from the Taliban, and the US government refuses to help. John is so outraged by the injustice that he returns to Afghanistan on a quest to save Ahmed and his loved ones, just as he was saved by the latter. However, the odds are stacked against them, and John’s largely on his own without any official backing from his country.

The Covenant is streaming on Netflix.