The latest efforts from the Coen brothers and Mr Alfonso Cuarón, plus new series of Making A Murderer and Black Mirror.

Whether you are looking for reasons to hibernate at home as the nights draw in or an escape from the Christmas countdown, Netflix has some compelling distractions coming your way. Film premieres include award winners and Oscar dead certs, and original documentaries come fresh from festival circuit acclaim. Returning shows, whether fiction or non, are of the blockbuster variety, and even this season’s sitcom is from the king of comedy. Bottom line: these Netflix folks do not mess around. Here are the best options to add to your watch list.

The Coen Brothers started work on The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs 25 years ago, during which time they’ve turned in some of cinema’s most idiosyncratic work. Their signature style has found its way into this anthology film, which plays out like a Coen Brothers greatest hits package. A distinct set of six short stories set in the American West, it stars Messrs Liam Neeson, James Franco and Tom Waits in a pyrotechnic set of tales that turn from screwball to grisly at the drop of a dime.

Out 16 November

Directors Ms Laura Ricciardi and Ms Moira Demos took 10 years to piece together the narrative of their true crime story, Making A Murderer. But life moves fast, especially when you have a global hit on your hands. So, a quick three years on, the filmmakers are back with 10 new episodes charting Messrs Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey’s post-conviction process. As it turns out, there’s been a lot going down in this real-life drama as a new attorney, fresh evidence and the international spotlight that comes from being a Netflix hit, serve to raise the dramatic (and all too human) stakes.

Out 19 October

In new documentary Shirkers, the novelist Ms Sandi Tan goes in search of her film that she shot as a teenager on the streets of Singapore with her friends and an enigmatic American collaborator called Mr Georges Cardona. The plot twist? Mr Cardona disappeared with the 16mm footage at the end of filming in 1992, leaving Ms Tan wondering what the hell happened to her potential cult classic. The Sundance Film Festival winner is part search party, part celebration of lost cinema, which manages to illustrate the bittersweet vision of what might have been.

Out 26 October

Lost cinema is also the theme of Oscar winner Mr Morgan Neville’s (20 Feet From Stardom) latest documentary, which recounts the 15-year struggle Mr Orson Welles endured to get his final film, The Other Side Of The Wind, made. Mr Welles died before he could complete the film, about an ageing film director trying to finish his last great opus. Rather neatly, Netflix has also resurrected The Other Side Of The Wind itself, which, with a new score and edit, will finally see light of day on the streaming service.

Both out 2 November

The Crain family have big plans for Hill House when they move for a summer in the late 1980s. They plan to gut the joint and flip it for a profit to finance their forever home elsewhere. But this is a reimagining of the 1959 Ms Shirley Jackson classic horror novel, not Grand Designs, and the house has other plans, which come to haunt the Crain family forever. Standing in for Stranger Things in the Halloween spot for 2018, The Haunting Of Hill House is a more adult-orientated ride to spooks-ville. New horror maestro Mr Mike Flanagan (Ouija: Origin of Evil) directs the jump scares; you decide how much you can take before hitting pause.

Out 12 October

Clocking in around the 30-minute mark, The Kominsky Method is that hangover-cure Netflix go-to when you can barely get it together to order from Uber Eats. The comedy stars Mr Michael Douglas as a thespian turned acting coach and Mr Aaron Arkin as his long-suffering agent. It’s from Mr Chuck Lorre, the king of network TV comedy in the US (the guy behind The Big Bang Theory), but with punchlines touching on dwindling job prospects and prostate problems, expect The Kominsky Method to be laced with a little Netflix edge.

Out 16 November

Director Mr Alfonso Cuarón is most famed for launching his audiences to space with Gravity, his multi-Oscar-winning film of 2013. His next movie, Roma, is a little more down to earth, but arguably more ambitious in scope. Shot in beautifully romantic monochrome, it’s a domestic drama set in the filmmaker’s native Mexico in 1970 and 1971, and told from the perspective of a live-in maid working for an upper-middle class clan steeped in drama. Intimate and majestic, Roma won the top prize at Venice Film Festival and will surely see Mr Cuarón take his seat at the Academy Awards again, too.

Out December

If you’ve binge-watched Dark, The OA or all those conspiracy theory docs, then 1983 will undoubtedly pop up in your recommended tab come November. Mixing elements of sci-fi, murky politics and time travel from the Netflix storybox, it’s a Cold War thriller set in 2003. Except that it’s actually an alternative 2003 where the Iron Curtain never fell and Poland remains under a brutal police-led regime. When a young law student and grisly cop discover a 20-year-old conspiracy that’s prevented history from happening as we know it, things start to get very dark indeed.

Out 30 November

An isolated island. A dangerous religious cult. Country folk frolicking around in animal masks. Clearly Mr Thomas Richardson, the protagonist of Apostle, did not get the memo on the tropes of British folk horror. Otherwise, our hero – played here by Mr Dan Stevens – would not set sail to rescue his sister from a prophet (Mr Michael Sheen) and a bunch of people disguised as woodland creatures. The bones of this original horror film from Mr Gareth Evans are deliciously Wicker Man in mood and influence, but the scares are all The Raid director’s own. You might think twice about that jaunt to the Isle of Skye after this.

Out now

In the Black Mirror episode “Playtest” (from the programme’s third series), an unsuspecting gamer agrees to take part in a VR experience that manifests his worst fears. Things do not, as with most technological advances in Black Mirror, go well. Consider that your heads up for what comes next in Mr Charlie Brooker’s near-future nightmares, as series five includes a choose-your-own adventure episode. Like much of the new season (including the show’s launch date), the immersive experience remains under wraps.  But it’s probably a good idea to start memorising your safe word now.

Out late 2018