11 of the best TV shows to watch this November

From a small-screen spinoff of the Denis Villeneuve Dune films to the return of Sharon Horgan's Bad Sisters, these are the shows to stream this month.

Casting is the biggest lure in this action thriller, with Eddie Redmayne as an assassin-for-hire, code-named Jackal. The character first appeared in Frederick Forsyth's 1971 novel, which became a 1973 film with Edward Fox, but the story has been updated to the present. Now Lashana Lynch is Bianca, an MI6 agent determined to catch the Jackal. "I will find him and kill him myself," she tells her sceptical bosses. He varies his look with disguises, eluding her as she chases him across Europe amid explosions and shootouts. Redmayne is known for more sympathetic roles, like Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, but he has said that playing this villain was part of the series' appeal. "They have a really complex moral com and do horrendous things, but are also extraordinarily talented," Redmayne told Vanity Fair about The Jackal and Bianca. "You're drawn to them and repelled by them in equal measure." Charles Dance and Richard Dormer also feature in the show, which was created by Ronan Bennett (Top Boy).

The Day of the Jackal premieres 7 November on Sky Atlantic and NOW in the UK and 14 November on Peacock in the US

This show about sisters and murder in Dublin won the 2023 Bafta for best drama series, but it is also a delicious dark comedy. In this second season the five Garvey sisters can't avoid more fallout from the past, when Grace (Anne-Marie Duff) killed her abusive husband, and her siblings helped cover it up. Now Grace marries a new love, apparently borrowed from Sandra Oh because he is played by Owen McDonnell, Oh's husband on Killing Eve. Sharon Horgan, who also created Bad Sisters, plays the responsible Eva, with Eve Hewson as the freewheeling baby of the family, Becka, Sarah Green as Bibi, and Eva Birthistle as Ursula, a nurse whose skills are handy because people around that family tend to need medical help. Two terrific new cast additions include Fiona Shaw as a nosy neighbour and Thaddea Graham as a smart, underestimated young detective who has her suspicions about the Garveys. The plot often hinges on near-escape – how many times can the sisters narrowly avoid being locked up? – and it is great fun to watch them try.

Bad Sisters premieres 13 November on Apple TV+ internationally

Patrick Raden Keefe's 2018 non-fiction book about the Troubles in 1970s Northern Ireland was compelling because of its strong narrative and focus on characters, which makes it a natural source for this fact-based drama. The story begins when Jean McConville, a suspected member of the Irish Republican Army, is abducted. The series then takes us inside the IRA. Lola Pettigrew plays the central character, Dolours Price, who along with her sister, Marian (Hazel Doupe), was imprisoned for setting off a car bomb in London in 1973. Maxine Peake plays an older version of Dolours, who told her own story later in life (the centrepiece of the 2018 documentary I, Dolours) and who died in 2013. Anthony Boyle (Masters of the Air) plays the IRA strategist Brendan Hughes, and Josh Finan is Gerry Adams, the best known of the real-life characters, who was instrumental in the Good Friday peace agreement of 1998 and has always denied an association with the IRA. The show may be historical, but its theme of political violence is resonant and timely.

Say Nothing premieres 14 November on Disney + in the UK and Hulu in the US

Nothing says confidence more than renewing a show for a second season before the first has even premiered, which is the case with this crime series based on James Patterson's Alex Cross novels. (The earliest was published in 1993 and the most recent just last year.) Aldis Hodge, who has shown intensity and charisma in smaller roles in One Night in Miami and The Invisible Man, stars as Cross, a police detective and forensic psychologist in Washington DC, on the trail of a serial killer. John Sampson (Isaiah Mustafa), his best friend and partner on the force, is by his side as the widowed Cross grapples with the psychological fallout from his job while raising two small children. The Cross novels have already been adapted into three films, with Morgan Freeman starring in two sturdy ones, Kiss the Girls (1997) and Along Came a Spider (2001) and Tyler Perry in a flop, Alex Cross (2012). Still, the odds favour a success, and a breakout for Hodge.

Cross premieres 14 November on Amazon Prime internationally

One of the most intriguing aspects of Denis Villeneuve's Dune films is the Bene Gesserit, the religious order of women who have developed supernatural powers. Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), mother of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) is a member. This spinoff takes place in the same Dune universe, and tells the origin story of the Bene Gesserit. Emily Watson stars as Valya Harkonnen and Olivia Williams as her sister, Tula, founders of the order. "We like to say this show is set 10,000 years BC, meaning 'Before Chalamet'," Watson told Empire magazine. Mark Strong plays Emperor Javicco Corrino, ruler of the Imperium. The show, one of the season's most anticipated, has a built-in Dune audience. But Jessica Barden, who plays the younger Valya, tells Den of Geek that the series may undercut movie viewers' expectations that the Harkonnens are evil. "Is this a villain">window._taboola = window._taboola || []; _taboola.push({ mode: 'alternating-thumbnails-a', container: 'taboola-below-article', placement: 'Below Article', target_type: 'mix' });