The 30 best films on Netflix to watch now
It’s a brave soul who would play pot luck with Netflix’s film selection: you could easily wind up with a particularly tatty Netflix Original Movie and rue the day you subscribed. Watch out for The Titan, starring Sam Worthington as a genetically-modified ex-Marine who becomes an alabaster superhuman, or Tyler Perry’s turgidly worthy war drama The Six Triple Eight, which could send whole battalions to the Land of Nod.
Luckily, I’ve set about sorting the wheat from the chaff. Of course, Netflix will never be the place for fans of say, 1940s screwball comedy, or the work of Akira Kurosawa. The oldest Hollywood film currently on the service, which I’ve included, is The Sting (1973) – and there’s very little else before the late 1980s.
The algorithm is a mystery. There are films that land at number one for a week or two, and then are never heard of again. Finding the keepers on here takes a bit of digging around, then, but they do exist – at least, for as long as the service gives them legs.
AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R84ekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«Rg4ekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframeWhether a film is worth a second spin, or a sixth, was probably the biggest factor in choosing what made the cut. After all, the best film dates on Netflix are almost never first-time views or punts on something shiny and new. They’re more likely to be catch-ups with trusty old friends.
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Drama
Thriller
Comedy
Animation
Drama
Pig (2021)
Nicolas Cage in Pig - Film StillsPrepare to meet an adorable truffle pig, and brace yourselves for the trauma of watching her pignapped, leaving her reclusive owner (a spellbinding Nicolas Cage) inconsolable. As a grief-stricken ex-chef, Cage burrows down into his role with gourmet precision, and the other actors bounce off him superbly. Michael Sarnoski’s Portland-set drama could have spun off in all kinds of violently cathartic, John Wick-like directions, but resists that urge: Cage’s quest to recover his snuffling companion is mournful, muted, and uncommonly affecting.
Y tu mamá también (2001)
Three’s a crowd: Y tu mamá también - Film StillsPerhaps the grittiest film about adolescent hormonal urges ever made, this is a sensationally sad piece, too – not least for convincing us of a truly intimate friendship that, like everything in life, cannot last. Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna hit the road with the older woman of their dreams (Maribel Verdú) – except there’s only one of her, and two of them. Alfonso Cuarón lays on the vivid raunch and reframes coming of age as a gorgeous recognition of paradise lost.
The Lost Daughter (2021)
Dakota Johnson and Olivia Coleman in The Lost Daughter - NetflixAdapting Elena Ferrante’s novel, writer-director Maggie Gyllenhaal (in her feature film debut) fashioned a twisty, slippery psychological drama here, built around Olivia Colman’s finest performance this side of The Favourite. She plays a literature professor holidaying in Greece, drawn into the orbit of a young mother (Dakota Johnson) and confessing that she abandoned her own children years before. In flashback scenes, Jessie Buckley plays the same character losing her grip in early motherhood. Both Colman and Buckley were Oscar-nominated. It’s teasing and thriller-adjacent, while insisting on the unknowability of people, even to themselves.
The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)
Eva Mendes and Ryan Gosling sizzle in The Place Beyond the PinesAdvertisementAdvertisement#«R8oekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«Rgoekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe This multi-strand crime epic from Derek Cianfrance (Blue Valentine) is well worth rediscovering. Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper have become exponentially more famous since, but brought a lot of grit to the table here. It would be a spoiler to explain how their characters – a motorcycle stuntman and a cop in upstate New York – intersect, or how the third part of the story, involving two rebellious teens arrested for drug possession (Dane DeHaan, Emory Cohen), fits either. Still, Cianfrance lets his tale unfold with braggadocio and heaps of visual flair.
Atlantics (2019)
Mama Sane in Atlantics - NetflixThe white mist rising off the Senegalese coast in Atlantics, the debut feature from 36-year-old Mati Diop, gives her film a stunningly painterly quality. It’s the story of Ada (Mama Sane), the lover of a construction worker driven by poverty to attempt an illegal crossing to Spain. Overarching is a serious tendresse for these characters, especially Senegal’s abandoned women, forced into impossible choices between freedom and security. The shivery accomplishment of Diop’s vision is something to behold.
Manchester by the Sea (2016)
In Kenneth Lonergan’s bruising study of guilt and grief, Casey Affleck’s janitor, Lee Chandler, carries the burden of an appalling tragedy. We don’t know the details until a midway flashback that mustn’t be spoiled, which explains Lee’s estrangement from his ex-wife (a sterling Michelle Williams) and the gloom that lies heavy on his shoulders from the first minute of the film. Long after those events, he is named the legal guardian of his late brother’s son (Lucas Hedges) and they stumble towards a connection. All three actors were Oscar-nominated, and the never-better Affleck won Best Actor.
Leave No Trace (2018)
Thomasin McKenzie in Leave No Trace - MAB ProductionsDisappearing in America has got to be reckoned an easier task than in most places. In this eye-opening, fiercely compassionate drama from Winter’s Bone auteur Debra Granik, it’s a perpetual problem for the father and daughter played by Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie. This pair have nothing to escape from, except a society with which they feel no kinship. They are not runaways so much as refuseniks, spurning the conventions of domestic life, and fending for themselves, in the public woods around Portland, Oregon. When they are found by the authorities and social services intervene, it’s a test of their ability to adjust, and of how symbiotic their bond actually is.
The Irishman (2019)
Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci in The Irishman - Film StillsAdvertisementAdvertisement#«R99ekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«Rh9ekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe Scorsese’s finest of this century had the contours, naturally, of a classic gangster saga, but the difference is all in the longevity of De Niro’s real-life Mob lackey, Frank Sheeran: the sense of waste, the epic sag of a life lived too long. It’s a huge ragged sigh of a film which traffics much less in set pieces than is the director’s wont. The scale is instead symphonic, with movements that surge, dovetail and crest, before a dying fall for the ages. As Sheeran’s one-time boss Jimmy Hoffa, Al Pacino’s vigour is undimmed, majestic; and Joe Pesci came back from retirement to do arguably the most astonishing work of his life.
You Can Count On Me (2000)
An earlier offering from the wonderful Kenneth Lonergan – his writing-directing debut for the screen, after major successes as a playwright on Broadway. Laura Linney, in her first truly great leading role, and an adorably rumpled Mark Ruffalo play orphaned siblings reconnecting in upstate New York, and realising what they mean to one another. Lonergan’s warmly astute comedy-drama is about all the ways they’ve separately failed to grow up. Matthew Broderick’s plum turn, as the boss Linney really shouldn’t be sleeping with, is the icing on the cake.
Schindler’s List (1993)
Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler - Film StillsProbably not casual week-night viewing, but as a reckoning with the darkest days of the 20th century, it’s impossible to dismiss or exclude. Perhaps Spielberg was incapable of making a film about the Holocaust which doesn’t end in redemption – that’s why he’s Spielberg. The soul of Liam Neeson’s playboy industrialist hangs in the balance, as do the hundreds of lives Oskar Schindler is known to have saved by using his factories as sanctuaries. The film’s plea for humanity feels desperately sincere, and on every level of craft and performance, it’s an all-timer.
Thriller
Total Recall (1990)
Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall - AlamyBig, brash, proudly tasteless science fiction from Paul Verhoeven, who mined a Philip K Dick short story for its key concept: paying for a “memory vacation” on Mars. In the process, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s blue-collar worker learns that he may or may not be a secret agent whose real memories have been replaced, and that his wife (a pre-Basic Instinct Sharon Stone) is in on the deception. This boasts the most expensive action choreography 1990 could buy, terrific villains (Ronny Cox, Michael Ironside), and a kind of snarling virtuosity.
Parasite (2019)
AdvertisementAdvertisement#«R9pekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«Rhpekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframeOne by one, fib by fib, a happy but hard-up family inveigle their way into the designer household of another, plotting a devious takeover. Bong Joon-ho’s brilliant Parasite is a class-war parable taken over by a heist flick, gazumped by black comedy, and then infected by a lethal strain of satirical horror. Few Best Picture Oscar-winners manage such bold swerves, from hysterical laughter to savage shock, while keeping a storytelling grip this white-knuckled, and still managing to say so much.
Copycat (1995)
Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter in Copycat - Corbis HistoricalYou’ll rarely catch Sigourney Weaver (as a criminal psychologist with acute agoraphobia) and Holly Hunter (as a San Francisco homicide cop) standing abreast here, since they’re almost a foot apart in height. But they’re paired addictively to hunt down a serial killer, who has been drawing his inspiration from the modi operandi of America’s most infamous psychopaths. This may not be the crème de la crème of 1990s crime thrillers, but it’s a caustic pleasure and a compulsive throwback.
The Sting (1973)
Robert Shaw, Robert Redford and Paul Newman in The Sting - Corbis HistoricalRobert Redford in pin-striped suits. Paul Newman with a cigar dangling from his lips. Scott Joplin’s most iconic ragtime melodies on honkytonk pianos. This tale of Chicago con men in the mid-1930s, who plot a spectacularly elaborate scam against Robert Shaw’s ruthless, wide-lapelled mob boss, pulled off a heist of its own at the Oscars, beating The Exorcist in the top two categories that year. The most justified wins were for its screenplay and editing, which lure us through the tricksy plot with dazzling sleight of hand.
Arrival (2016)
Amy Adams in Arrival - Paramount PicturesNewly announced as the next James Bond director, Denis Villeneuve is no slouch when it comes to crafting intricate, soulful blockbusters. Before Blade Runner 2049 and his Dune films came this, a fable about alien contact, inspired by a Ted Chiang short story, with a nested twist that’s both ingenious and emotive. Amy Adams plays a linguist charged with decrypting communications from 12 spaceships that have mysteriously landed all over the planet: the non-linear nature of their language allows her to perceive time differently, and potentially to stop interplanetary war breaking out.
Anatomy of a Fall (2023)
Anatomy of a Fall: a thrilling, intellectual trial dramaAdvertisementAdvertisement#«Raaekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«Riaekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or-winning trial drama lingers in the mind for days. Unseen by us, and possibly by anyone, the fatal plunge of a man from upstairs in his Alpine ski chalet is put under a microscope. The deceased’s wife – sensationally played by Oscar-nominated Sandra Hüller – is a celebrated German writer who may or may not have pushed him: their entire relationship must be dissected in court. What follows is an intellectual thriller of rare calibre that takes your breath away.
No Country for Old Men (2007)
Javier Bardem’s Oscar-winning performance as Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men - Film StillsThe Coen Brothers triumphed with this crime-western hybrid, adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s novel about a three-way cat-and-mouse chase, triggered when a drug deal goes bad on the Mexican border. Josh Brolin’s welder stumbles on a small fortune; a psychopathic hitman called Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) comes after him; and Tommy Lee Jones’s weary sheriff tries to staunch the ensuing bloodshed. Wherever you stand on the film’s heavy philosophical weather, it’s tremendous on the level of genre craft, and swept the Oscars, winning Best Picture, Best Director, as well as Best Supporting Actor for Bardem’s creepily mesmeric turn.
Eyes Wide Shut (1999)
Nicole Kidman as Alice Harford in Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut - Film StillsFancy a masked orgy this Christmas? High-society doctor Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) and his disengaged wife Alice (Nicole Kidman) have lavish balls to attend, presents to wrap and buy. Their feigned enthusiasm for any of it crumbles, though, after a bitter row in which Alice reveals she once toyed with infidelity and breaking up their marriage. Bill goes on a long, dark night of the soul, becoming a voyeur in the debauched sex lives of others, in Kubrick’s last, riskiest and most mischievously profound film. It took over 15 months to shoot, and was worth every last day.
’71 (2014)
Jack O’Connell as Gary Hook in ‘71 - Film StillsBomb-torn Belfast in 1971 must have been like nowhere else on Earth – more like a rubble-strewn circle of hell. This is the apocalyptic vision laid out in Yann Demange’s stunningly well-crafted survival thriller, starring Jack O’Connell (who had a stellar 2014, with this and his prison drama Starred Up) as a greenhorn squaddie cut adrift from his unit on the streets. The film’s stark realism and bruising impact are enough in themselves, but the risk, and the real artistic payoff, is its bold sensory plunge into this Hadean inferno.
Se7en (1995)
AdvertisementAdvertisement#«Raqekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«Riqekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframeIf The Silence of the Lambs (1991) made the serial-killer-thriller respectable again, Se7en toyed with the format like a puzzle-box, not to mention a dazzling showcase for directorial style. Without David Fincher, it could have seemed gimmicky and glaringly hollow. With him, the concept – one killing for each of the deadly sins – became as gripping as it was ghastly, tucking away surprises with an illusionist’s wicked sense of timing. That gloomy, rain-soaked, pointedly unnamed metropolis; the surrogate father-son relationship between Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt; Darius Khondji’s breathtakingly moody cinematography; the twists in store involving an uncredited, now-infamous star handing themselves in as the culprit. The sum of all this was a high peak for 1990s genre craft.
Barbarian (2022)
Barbarian: An Airbnb mix-up has never been scarier - DisneyAn Airbnb mix-up lands two strangers together in the scariest, most decrepit neighbourhood of Detroit, where they are anything but alone, and wind up trapped in a hidden dungeon with an unspeakable history of trauma. Quick to achieve cult status, this hit US horror is craftily structured to wrong-foot us at every step. Granted, there are third act developments that let credibility out of the door, sacrificing the claustrophobia that’s its strong suit. Even with this caveat, it’s an intense and bracingly yucky ride. Writer-director Zach Cregger returns this year with “horror epic” Weapons, about an entire classroom of children that disappear overnight.
Comedy
Bridesmaids (2011)
Kristen Wiig in Bridesmaids - Film StillsThe female ensemble comedy of its decade, and a whopping hit, about the chaos, competition and weaponising power of wedding rituals to drive friends apart. The nuptials of Maya Rudolph’s Lillian are a social minefield because of her mismatched friends – the perfect one (Rose Byrne), the foul-mouthed liability (Melissa McCarthy, who scored an Oscar nom) and above all Kristen Wiig’s Annie, who is broke, depressed, envious and neurotic. Food poisoning at a high-end bridal boutique is just one of the uproarious treats in store.
Mean Girls (2004)
So fetch: Mean Girls, the seminal teen comedy of its era - Film StillsSome high-school cliques, like the infamous “Plastics” headed here by Rachel McAdams’s queen bee, are all-but-unjoinable. If you somehow think you’ve been granted admittance, there’s a horrible likelihood of getting burned and publicly humiliated. Such is the fate awaiting Lindsay Lohan’s bright-eyed newcomer, in one of the seminal teen comedies of its era. The script delivers quotable zingers by the bucketload – even if no one will ever make “fetch” (Amanda Seyfried’s pet neologism, a doomed synonym for “cute”) happen.
Asteroid City (2023)
AdvertisementAdvertisement#«Rbbekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«Rjbekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframeWes Anderson invites us to a tiny desert town that’s meant to be the fictional milieu for a stage production in the 1950s, where an assortment of actors from the New York theatre world play a range of oddballs, all assembled for a Junior Stargazer science convention. Among the usual galaxy of stars, Scarlett Johansson’s stranded movie idol and Jason Schwartzmann’s grieving widower catch each other’s attention. The colours are eerily lush – skies a surreal Hockney blue. It’s one of Anderson’s saddest, most dreamily evocative confections; the tonal contrast from the chilly business dealings of his new one, The Phoenician Scheme, is immense.
Pride & Prejudice (2005)
Keira Knightley’s Oscar-nominated performance as Elizabeth Bennet - Alex BaileyThere’s a stately glow to this adaptation, neither too reverent nor insolently modern, which won over many, many people who might have been deeply sceptical beforehand. The reason for that? Keira Knightley (fresh off Pirates of the Caribbean’s Black Pearl) as Elizabeth Bennet. It was casting that may have made purists hiss at the time, but worked out swimmingly, and got her nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. Much else in Joe Wright’s film is a repeatable delight, from the heart-swelling score to a very special ensemble (Rosamund Pike, Judi Dench, Carey Mulligan, Donald Sutherland, Matthew Macfadyen, Tom Hollander) he managed immaculately.
Clueless (1995)
Stacey Dash and Alicia Silverstone in Clueless - MoviepixAs if! The teen-movie revival began here, thanks to the bubblegum verve of Alicia Silverstone’s performance as a latter-day Emma Woodhouse. She’s the high-school fixer, the matchmaker with a gleam in her eye, who tries to work her magic on Brittany Murphy’s newcomer, while being a messy romcom queen in her own right. Amy Heckerling’s richly quotable script brought so much Valley Girl lingo into the mainstream, you could devote whole anthropology courses to it.
Beetlejuice (1988)
Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder in Beetlejuice - AlamyTim Burton stepped up to mainstream success (after Pee-wee’s Big Adventure) with this zany masterwork – a comedy about what happens after we die, in which the living characters are far scarier than the dead ones (even Michael Keaton’s titular ghost, more guest visitor than protagonist). The belated (iffy) sequel, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, tried to recapture what’s special about this by concentrating on practical effects, rather than throwing CGI at the afterlife. The primitive joy of the movie lies precisely in noticing its seams – admiring the outré showmanship of it – rather than pretending for a moment that what’s happening is real.
Animation
Spirited Away (2001)
Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away - Film StillsAdvertisementAdvertisement#«Rbrekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe AdvertisementAdvertisement#«Rjrekkr8lb2m7nfddbH1» iframe 10-year-old Chihiro stumbles into a magical spirit realm, after her parents are turned into pigs by a witch called Yubaba. This was Studio Ghibli’s biggest-ever hit around the world, adapted lately into a stage adaptation with wondrous puppetry. It sums up everything the animation house does best – an invitation into a make-believe world whose rules are both slippery and somehow very credible. The experience is gorgeous, and incrementally more sad every time the adult viewer returns.
Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)
Feathers McGraw is back in 2024’s Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl - BBCThe first feature-length W&G outing since Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) is not just the beloved duo’s long-awaited comeback, but Feathers McGraw’s. This villainous penguin has been incarcerated for all this time in the City Zoo, doing pull-ups in his cell and plotting a savage second act. Essentially, he’s the U-rated answer to Robert De Niro in Cape Fear. Rest assured, Aardman Animations don’t miss the chance for that hat-tip in a madcap escapade that hits all the gleeful highs you could hope for.
Grave of the Fireflies (1988)
Another Studio Ghibli entry: Grave of the Fireflies - Kobal CollectionStudio Ghibli are well-known for breaking our hearts, but they’ve rarely done it so consummately as here, in this innocence-shattering saga about casualties of war. Beyond Bambi and perhaps Watership Down, it might be the most upsetting animated film of all time. It follows Seita (Tsutomu Tatsumi), a teenager charged with the care of his younger sister, Setsuko (Ayano Shiraishi), after an American firebombing during the Second World War separates the two children from their parents.
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