Image Credit: Focus Features
Polly Findlay’s acclaimed and deeply moving play midwinter holiday is officially packing his bags for Netflix. Following its initial SVOD debut on Peacock earlier this spring, Focus Features’ indie will officially hit Netflix US on August 10, 2026.
Based on the celebrated 2017 novel by Bernard McLaverty and adapted by McLaverty with Nick Payne (we live in time), midwinter holiday It marks the influential feature directorial debut of acclaimed theater director Polly Findlay.
This intimate, slow-burn drama stars two of cinema’s most credible veterans, Academy Award nominee Lesley Manville (ghost thread, Crown) and Ciaran Hinds (belfast). They play Stella and Gerry, a retired, long-married couple living a quiet life in Scotland after fleeing Ireland during The Troubles decades earlier. Hoping to improve their comfortable but stagnant routine, Stella books a winter vacation to Amsterdam for the two of them. However, picturesque holidays soon become emotionally memorable. As old memories, unspoken traumas and unresolved tensions (including Gerry’s quiet struggle with the bottle and Stella’s deep religious faith) rise to the surface, the couple are forced to confront the true state of their marriage.
Critics praised the film upon its initial release in theaters in February, with many fondly comparing it to Richard Linklater’s senior-citizen version. First Trilogy. Not surprisingly, the real highlight was the excellent central performance. Critics said Manville and Hinds effortlessly captured the vibrant rhythms, quiet resentments and enduring warmth of a decades-long marriage, making the 90-minute film a brilliant and deeply affecting film.
How the Universal/Focus Feature Netflix Window Works
If you’ve been keeping track of our ongoing coverage of Universal Pictures movies coming out in 2026 and beyond, you’ll know that the live-action slate for Universal and its exclusive studio Focus Features currently adhere to a rigid, fast-track 18-month pay-1 window.
Under this deal, films do not go to Netflix immediately after their theatrical and PVOD runs. Instead, they make a four-month special stop on Universal’s own streaming service, Peacock. midwinter holiday It has already completed the first leg of this journey, making its SVOD debut on Peacock Back on April 10, 2026.
Just four months after Peacock’s debut, Stella and Gerry’s Amsterdam Getaway arrives on Netflix. That means midwinter holiday Will officially release on Netflix US 10 August 2026.
Once it arrives, it will remain in the Netflix library for exactly ten months (until June 2027) before returning to Peacock for the final four months of the Pay-1 window.
Image Credit: Focus Features
will you check midwinter holiday When will it be on Netflix this August? Let us know in the comments below. For more info on what’s coming up in August, check out our full schedule here.
