Netflix has an odd way of celebrating the holiday season. No, I’m not talking about Hot Frosty, a popular movie offering that sees Frosty the Snowman transformed into a hot human man with abs. I’m talking about Carry-On, a thriller set during the holidays that chronicles the desperate situation a young TSA agent named Ethan, played by Taron Egerton, finds himself in during his busy shift on Christmas Day.
A mysterious and unseen traveler blackmails Ethan into letting a suspicious package through on a plane that’s about to leave the airport. If he doesn’t comply, his pregnant girlfriend will die. That’s quite a pickle. It’s also a great premise, one that will surely grab plenty of eyeballs. If you’re a fan of the movie and are craving more movies like it, then keep reading since this list has three options that will satisfy your action-thriller needs.
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If Carry-On was made in 2002, it would look and sound something like Phone Booth. The 2002 Joel Schumacher film largely confines its handsome leading man, in this case, The Penguin‘s Colin Farrell, in one location and has an offscreen villain who makes some impossible demands on the film’s hero. It’s also just as tense and has a great ending that will make you want to watch it again.
Farrell plays Stuart, a cocky publicist who is about to cheat on his wife. As he is about to leave a Times Square phone booth, the phone rings, which he answers. What follows is a perverse game of cat and mouse as the mysterious caller forces Stuart to confront the lies he told other people and himself as well. Will Stuart pass the caller’s moral tests? Or will his last moments be on the phone with a stranger who holds his life in his hands?
At least one Liam Neeson movie needs to be on this list, and The Commuter has the most in common with Carry-On. In Jaume Collet-Serra’s 2018 thriller, Neeson plays Michael McCauley, an ex-cop turned insurance agent who is commuting from New York City to his hometown of Tarrytown. While on the train, Michael is approached by a stranger, Joanna (Vera Farmiga), who makes him an offer: She’ll pay him $100,000 if he can help her locate Prynne, the fake name of an unknown passenger who is later revealed to be in the witness protection program.
Michael smells a rat, but his initial refusal is complicated by Joanna informing him that if he doesn’t cooperate, his family will die. Can Michael do the right thing while keeping his family from being harmed? The Commuter is one of the best action-thrillers of the last decade, and those seeking the same thrills that Carry-On delivers should watch, or re-watch, this movie pronto.
The Commuter can be rented or purchased on Amazon Prime Video.
Now, here’s a movie that uses an airport as an effective setting for thrills … and one spectacular action set piece after another. Die Hard 2 is, of course, the follow-up to the massive 1988 hit Die Hard, which people still insist is a legitimate Christmas movie. It’s not, but Die Hard 2 is because it has tons of snow and festive cheer, even if the snow is covered in blood and the Christmas jingles are drowned out by the sounds of explosions.
Detective John McClane just can’t catch a break. It’s Christmas Eve, and he’s waiting in a Washington D.C. airport for his wife’s plane to land. A plane carrying an international terrorist is also scheduled to land at the same airport, and a rogue band of ex-military sympathizers plan on hijacking the plane and setting the terrorist free. That doesn’t sit well with McClane, so he does what he does best: shoot bad guys and blow up various cars, buildings, and even a plane. Die Hard 2 is a great action movie, but it’s also an effective thriller that just doesn’t let up until the end credits roll.
Die Hard 2 is streaming on Hulu.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.