Essential fall viewing, as curated by me
Perhaps my most important listicle to date. Even as I type this, I’m propped up in bed, with my laptop on my lap, a veritable Kathleen Kelly (hold the Kathleen).
In my most decidedly unhumble opinion, the best time to watch anything is in the fall. All you want to do in autumn is hunker down in a giant fisherman sweater in front of something very delightful. Bonus points if you fall asleep in a little sun puddle, with a black cat draped across your lap, in a room that looks like the it’s straight out of the Practical Magic house. Here’s what I would watch if I was there right now.
Gilmore Girls
Watch On: Netflix
You knew I was going to say this first, didn’t you. The holy grail of fall watches. Gilmore Girls is to fall what Mariah Carey is to December.
I have seen this show at least a hundred times through and it never fails to be a perfect little hug. I’m especially partial to the first, second, and third seasons when it’s cozy outside. There’s something about Max Medina and that specific type of leather blazer/pencil skirt/low heeled shoes combo Lorelai wears in season one that is so fall it hurts. I mean, the entire first season is basically done in sepia. Nostalgic and perfect.
If you like this try: Never Have I Ever
Dan in Real Life
Watch on: Hulu
I can’t quite explain this thing that I get in movies sometimes, a kind of soul hurt kinship with a certain character that makes it both difficult and absolutely entrancing to watch. I feel that kind of heartburn about Steve Carrell in this.
It’s also such a lake house film and despite having nothing to do with Michigan, reminds me deeply of the going up north lake house experiences of my youth.
It doesn’t hurt that Steve Carrell is unbearably hot in this either. If you get it, you get it.
If you like this try: The Family Stone
Killing Eve
Watch On: Hulu
Many shows and movies on this list don’t take place entirely in fall or only spend a moment there, but feel so quintessentially autumn to their very bones. Killing Eve is like this. It’s a perfectly tailored suit with a tie clip so sharp it’ll slice your throat open.
Disturbing, delicious, and oddly satisfying to watch. It’s like one of those scalp scrubbers but for your brain. I only cosign the first two seasons though, so take that as you will.
If you like this try: Bad Sisters
Good Omens
Watch On: Prime
This show is in my top five series of all time. It speaks to me so deeply — it’s weird, and wonderful, and cozy, and incredibly silly. I love it like a totally healthy normal amount and definitely not with a blistering intensity that is chilling to behold. Aziraphale’s bookshop makes this very fall to me — lots of velvet and old dusty bookcases and tiny little teacups.
Side note: It’s so weird to love a show that has come out after DVDs are essentially obsolete. I miss the obviousness of having seven thick ass DVD packs for Gilmore Girls stacked in my room like trading cards. How will people know what shows I like now?!
The Astrological Guide to Broken Hearts
Watch On: Netflix
This Italian series is SO GOOD, I adored it. We watch Alice try to fall in love by following advice exclusively from her horoscope. There is a STEAMY kiss outside an elevator that really hits, plus the ending will leave you with the goofiest smile. Nothing gets me like a good workplace romance.
Random side note: The best friend in this looks so much like the Italian version of Jonathan Bailey (from Bridgerton) that it is truly wild.
If you like this try: Lovesick
Life Unexpected
Watch On: Paramount+
A million years later, I’m still incensed this show was cancelled. The two seasons it does have feel very fall to me — everyone is bundled up and there is a general aura of winter about. Many navy peacoats and leather jackets here.
The story feels very cozy in that heart-warming yet a little spiky way — we’re following Lux as she tries to become an emancipated minor and surprises her birth parents in the bargain. It’s the perfect balance of weighty subject matter with lighthearted found family-ness. 10/10.
If you like this try: Friday Night Lights
You’ve Got Mail
Watch On: Hulu
I feel I must preface this by saying that if you have never seen this film, I don’t recommend you watch it. Everyone I know who has only seen You’ve Got Mail as an adult has been less than impressed. Which I can sympathize with, but will never understand on an absolutely fundamental level. The first time I remember watching this, I must have been seven or eight, and it feels so inherently cozy to me now that even seeing the cover art of the DVD makes me grin like a fool. I can quote every line and there are still absolute zingers that make me laugh to this day.
It’s not about the ethics of him putting her out of business (though it is absurd she would fall for him), but simply THE VIBES. And the vibes are pure fall perfection.
If you like this try: Rye Lane
Doom At Your Service
Watch On: Netflix
There’s something about cold weather that makes me want to be a little melancholy at times, and this K drama is the perfect watch if you want to have a cozy little cry by yourself with a chilled glass of red wine and your phone on silent. The plot is a little fiddly so I won’t even try to get into it here, but the vibes? The vibes are STRONG. Lots of gorgeous fall clothes, an impeccable soundtrack, and a kind of low burn existential dread, but in like, a nice way. Just let it sweep you away.
If you like this try: It’s Okay to Not Be Okay
The Flatshare
Watch On: Prime
This was delightful in a very sleepy, moving-through-everyday-life kind of way. I binged it all in a single sitting on a Sunday, which is exactly how I’d recommend it. It’s adapted from the book, which I don’t think it follows very well, but as a stand alone piece of entertainment, I think it holds up. Though I do recommend looking up the premise (roommates are sharing a flat — she gets it a night, he gets it during the day) before watching, or you’ll be confused as f*ck.
Unrelated to the plot: deeply obsessed with the two black dots of makeup they put under Jessica Brown Findlay’s eyes in this (if you watch, you’ll know immediately what I mean). I tried to achieve the look and failed abysmally.
If you like this try: Starstruck
Cinderella (the Brandy version, obviously)
Watch On: Disney+
This is truly one of my favorite films of all time. I watched this so many times as a child the VHS came unspooled. Deeply comforting.
What makes this particularly fall, you ask? Hard to explain. Though the film is, in essence, season-less, there’s something about a ball gown that feels inherently autumn to me. There’s also an above average amount of burgundy velvet in this, so there you go.
If you like this try: Ever After
A Discovery of Witches
Watch on: Amazon Prime
Listen, it’s a little (or ahem, more than a little) cheesy at times and I don’t always love the soundtrack, but for the love of all that is holy is this show GORGEOUS. It’s shot so impeccably and everyone is hot and dressed perfectly — it’s like your Pinterest fall capsule wardrobe came to life and started walking around, but with like, witches and stuff. Can’t recommend enough. Perfect turn your brain off viewing.
If you like this try: Interview With a Vampire
Normal People
Watch On: Hulu
The first time I watched this all the way through, I’ll be honest: I was a little annoyed. Like if these two would simply SPEAK to each other, all our problems would be solved. (Also, sooo annoyed by Marianne’s “yeah, I went to college and got pretty.” It’s like ma’am all you did was put on eyeliner, you were always pretty. PLZ ).
But idk, it sneakily grows on you. The acting and chemistry is true next level bananas, and it’s shot beautifully. You just kind of lose yourself in the lushness. There is a whole pivotal section in summer, but it feels so Fall with a capital F to me because of the academic sheen over the whole thing. There is nothing more autumnal than school supplies.
If you like this try: Celeste and Jesse Forever
Meet Joe Black
Watch On: Starz
I randomly saw this movie back in the day when you would just catch a movie on cable (even typing that makes it sound like I’m fifty five), and for the longest time I had no idea what it was called, so in my brain I just called it the Brad Pitt Devil Romance. And I think that’s an adequate description.
I think this technically takes place in the spring or summer, but it feels very cusp of fall to me. It’s kind of sleepy and slow moving and you just wade through it like an autumn afternoon. Perhaps it’s because this film came out in 1998 and the entirety of 1998 feels kind of fall like to me. Also the way Claire Forlani speaks in this is SO fall in a way I can’t even describe. It’s like deliberate and unhurried and kind of soft. I don’t know, is this the best movie I have ever seen? PLEASE. Is this an enjoyable watch on an October afternoon? One million percent.
If you like this try: Sabrina (1995)
Outlander
Watch On: Netflix, Starz
Even though the end of the first season of Outlander destroyed me mentally for quite some time, I still think the first few seasons of this show are so delicious. Gorgeous and deeply, deeply fall. I mean the setting is medieval Scotland, need I say more? Very shot-from-the-female-gaze if you catch my drift. However, for the love of god, check trigger warnings before you proceed.
If you like this try: The Great, The Tudors
The American President
Watch On: Hulu
Watching anything, even something fictional, about politics seems deeply dystopian these days, but I still adore this film. Michael Douglas is so unquestionably hot in the most older man way imaginable, you just know he’d take care of you right.
It’s very fall in that everyone wears a parade of cozy sweaters and turtlenecks. I’d die for Sydney Ellen Wade’s entire wardrobe. Another case for films of the late 90s being inherently autumnal. I don’t make the rules.
If you like this try: Good Will Hunting
Sweetbitter
Watch On: Starz
I am such a hoe for any fictional movies or TV about food and this really hits the culinary spot, without really being about the food at all and more being about the absolutely f*cked up lives of everyone around the food. Delicious. Messy. Delightfully bad. An easy autumn binge. Once again, most of this list is merely about vibes and the vibes here are nice and juicy.
Knives Out
Watch On: Prime Video
Fall was undone and remade in Ransom Drysdale’s image. What even is fall without a luscious, devious Chris Evans, grinning in a threadbare fisherman’s sweater you’d give your firstborn to smell one time? Essential seasonal viewing. The fall palette in this? Exquisite.
If you like this try: Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?
What We Do in the Shadows
Watch On: Hulu
Anything even slightly spooky is perfect for fall and this show has it all. The line readings here are behind every one of your favorite trending Tiktok sounds. This cast is impeccably talented and having the most fun with the absurdity of the premise: a docuseries about the day to day lives of messy vamps. Chaotic and wonderful and so, so weird. Fall aspires to this.
If you like this try: The original movie, Our Flag Means Death
Practical Magic
Watch On: HBO Max
A pitch perfect film that meanders through the lives of witch sisters. Cozily creepy, with just the right amount of drunk, liquid dancing in a house that is as close to perfection as anyone could ever imagine. Again, plot? Who cares!! It’s about the VIBES.
If you like this try: Charmed
When Harry Met Sally
Watch On: Netflix
All Nora Ephron films are fall-forward, and When Harry Met Sally is no exception. Whenever I think of this film, I think of that perfect fall scene — you know the one, with the leaves and that wild but somehow exactly right hat.
The dialogue in this movie makes me want to kiss Nora on the mouth. Exactly right in that soul ache way.
If you like this try: New Girl
Pride & Prejudice
Watch On: Amazon Prime
Don’t even come at me with other adaptations. There is NOTHING that hits like the 2005 version. I only own one movie in my iTunes account and folks, it’s this. I have seen it an unhealthy amount of times and could do a dramatic reenactment of every scene, right here right now if anyone wanted to ask that of me. I’ll wait.
Period pieces are always autumnal because what about a crinoline and windowpane patterned pinafore isn’t inherently autumnal? The only word to describe this film is beautiful. The cast? Beautiful. The setting? Beautiful? The soundtrack? Good lord BEAUTIFUL.
If you like this try: North & South, Bridgerton Season 2
Felicity
Watch On: Hulu
You know how the first season of Gilmore Girls feels like it was shot in sepia? Felicity is exactly that vibe. Very sleepy — one of those shows where it has a million episodes a season (okay, like 22) and it feels like nothing happens but also randomly something BIG happens. Very hang-out-and-watch sort of viewing. Perfect for a background show during the fall.
If you like this try: Dawson’s Creek
Mona Lisa Smile
Watch On: Starz
You know how sometimes you just imprint on certain movies? And they aren’t like your favorite film of all time or anything (you’re not even sure if they’re really any good at all), but you could watch them over and over again? This one’s like for for me. It has a core academic aesthetic that feels peak cozy.
If you like this try: The Marvelous Mrs Maisel
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Watch On: HBO Max
I don’t really rewatch this trilogy, I like to treat this first film as a standalone autumnal experience and I think it works VERY well. A very fall-inspired palette that backdrops a cast of truly delicious looking people, in every genre of hot you could ever want. Even the orks!
Most of my criteria for labeling a film as specific fall viewing is the presence of a jewel tone velvet and there’s no shortage of that here, my friends.
If you like this try: The LOTR TV show (it’s a little meh, but the visuals are stunning)
What’s on your fall binge list?
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Hey, Kelly here. Welcome to The Landline. Dial in for gentle deep dives into anything and everything I'm obsessing over at the moment (mostly sane, always silly). Grab your Diet Coke, wind that phone cord around your finger, and let's get to it.