What Good Film to Watch on Netflix
The 50 Best Movies on Netflix Right Now
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The sheer volume of films on Netflix — and the site's less than ideal interface — can make finding a genuinely great movie there a difficult task. To help, we've plucked out the 50 best films currently streaming on the service in the United States, updated regularly as titles come and go. And as a bonus, we link to more great movies on Netflix within many of our write-ups below. (Note: Streaming services sometimes remove titles or change starting dates without giving notice.)
Here are our lists of the best TV shows on Netflix , the best movies on Amazon Prime Video and the best of everything on Hulu and Disney Plus.
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'Ali' (2001)
Will Smith nabbed his first Academy Award nomination for his masterly turn as Muhammad Ali in this robust biopic. Thankfully eschewing the cradle-to-grave approach of too many such projects to focus on the key decade of 1964 to 1974, "Ali" adroitly dramatizes the champ's transformation from gifted young fighter to political figure as he loses his hard-earned title for refusing to fight in Vietnam and becomes the focus of controversy for his conversion to Islam. The director Michael Mann exchanges his customarily sleek and contemplative style for something earthier and more emotional; our critic predicted, "his overwhelming love of its subject will turn audiences into exuberant, thrilled fight crowds."
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'The Nightingale' (2019)
Jennifer Kent, the writer and director of the terrifying "The Babadook," returns with this "rigorous, relentless" riff on revenge narratives and Hollywood westerns, refracted through the prism of white supremacy and violent patriarchy. Aisling Franciosi stars as an Irish woman in 19th-century Tasmania who embarks on a perhaps ill-advised crusade for justice after a brutal assault by a powerful commander. But such a summary makes "The Nightingale" sound like a straightforward story of good and evil; Kent complicates her characters at every turn and causes us to question which side we're on. It's a long, brutal, difficult picture, but an undeniably powerful one.
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'Snowpiercer' (2014)
Before making Oscar history with his simultaneous wins for best picture and best international feature (and for best original screenplay and directing), the South Korean director Bong Joon Ho brought his considerable gifts to American audiences with this 2014 adaptation of the French graphic novel "Le Transperceneige." Marshaling an impressive international cast that includes Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, Ed Harris and Chris Evans, Bong creates a "playfully postmodern" English-language variation on his signature combination of action spectacle and social commentary, creating thrilling set pieces and thoughtful allegory with equal aplomb.
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'Moneyball' (2011)
It would seem impossible to craft an entertaining film adaptation of Michael Lewis's dense nonfiction account of number-crunching in baseball — much less to make one as breezy and engaging as this one. But the screenplay, by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, finds the proper balance of egghead theory and character development, Bennett Miller's direction is fleet-footed without being lightweight, Brad Pitt's restless charisma has rarely found a more appropriate showcase, and the supporting cast (including Jonah Hill, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Robin Wright and Chris Pratt) is, well, an all-star team. Manohla Dargis called it "the kind of all-too-rare pleasurable Hollywood diversion that gives you a contact high." (Hill also lights up "21 Jump Street.")
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'Apocalypse Now' (1979)
Francis Ford Coppola's loose, Vietnam-era adaptation of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" was a notoriously troubled production, harassed by weather woes, political struggles, budget and schedule overages and problems with actors. Considering how much drama occurred offscreen, it's somewhat miraculous that the final product is so singular and powerful — an awe-inspiring fusion of '60s psychedelic film, '70s genre reimagining and classic wide-screen epic, its ambition even more striking in this extended "Redux" cut from 2001. Our critic called it "a stunning work."
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'Titanic' (1997)
Few expected James Cameron's dramatization (and fictionalization) of the 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic to become a nearly unmatched commercial success (it was the top-grossing movie of all time for over a decade) and Academy Award winner (for best picture and best director, among others); most of its prerelease publicity concerned its over-budget and over-schedule production. But in retrospect, we should have known — it was the kind of something-for-everyone entertainment that recalled blockbusters of the past, deftly combining historical drama, wide-screen adventure and heartfelt romance. And it stars, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, provided the latter in spades, becoming one of the great onscreen pairings of the 1990s. Our critic called it "a huge, thrilling three-and-a-quarter-hour experience." (DiCaprio also shines in "Shutter Island" and "What's Eating Gilbert Grape.")
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'The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)' (2017)
Everyone in the Meyerowitz family has an ax to grind, from the aging sculptor father worried about his legacy (Dustin Hoffman) to his current, perpetually inebriated wife (Emma Thompson) to his adult children (Elizabeth Marvel, Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller), who have spent their lives trying to please their father and are all screwed up because of it. The writer and director Noah Baumbach conveys their insecurities slyly, via their skittish interactions with their father and each other, and he masterfully makes their tribulations both wittily specific and richly universal. It's a dryly funny and surprisingly moving serio-comic drama; our critic praised its "near-perfect balance between engagement and discomfort." (Baumbach's "Marriage Story" is also on Netflix.)
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'Do the Right Thing' (1989)
Spike Lee wrote, directed and co-starred in this drama of racial tensions on the rise during the hottest day of the summer. Lee sets his story on one block in Brooklyn, as a minor conflict in the neighborhood pizzeria escalates into a full-scale uprising, but it's no mere polemic; he populates that block with richly drawn characters of all races, ages and backgrounds, filling the frame with such vibrancy and humor that when the violence begins, it's like a kick in the gut. Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Samuel L. Jackson, Giancarlo Esposito, John Turturro and Rosie Perez are among the four-star cast, while Danny Aiello was nominated for an Oscar for his complex work as the pizzeria owner. Our critic called it, simply, "one terrific movie."
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'Bright Star' (2009)
The young poet John Keats and the free-spirited woman with whom he shared something like a romance during his final years are the focus of this drama from the writer and director Jane Campion. As in her earlier film "The Piano," Campion refuses to let the film's period setting distance its story from a contemporary audience; she's dealing with themes and ideas that are bigger than any particular time and place, and she keeps its characters and their conflicts universal and approachable. As a result, her film has more life and electricity than the typical drab literary biopic — it's intelligent, involving and sexy. A.O. Scott praised its "wild vitality."
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'Mudbound' (2017)
In this powerful adaptation by the director Dee Rees of the novel by Hillary Jordan, two families — one white and one Black — are connected by a plot of land in the Jim Crow South. Rees gracefully tells both stories (and the larger tale of postwar America) without veering into didacticism, and her ensemble cast brings every moment of text and subtext into sharp focus. Our critic called it a work of "disquieting, illuminating force." (For more period drama, queue up "The Piano" and "Cold Mountain.")
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'The Edge of Seventeen' (2016)
Nadine Franklin (Hailee Steinfeld) is a fairly typical teen — cynical, bitter, intelligent and smart-mouthed while also plagued by self-doubt, awkwardness and self-destructiveness. The first-time director Kelly Fremon Craig tells the story of how Nadine hits bottom (the high school version of it, anyway) and struggles mightily to bounce back with the help of a teacher who has the patience of a saint (Woody Harrelson), and a best friend (Haley Lu Richardson), who has made things … complicated. Steinfeld plays Nadine to the hilt, creating a portrait of teenage ennui and social anxiety that's as recognizable as it is uproarious, resulting in what our critic called a "smart, achingly bittersweet comedy." (To see a scholastic comedy for younger viewers, try "School of Rock.")
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'The Game' (1997)
David Fincher followed up the smash success of his breakthrough feature "Seven" with this puzzle movie, which begins as yet another sleek, Michael Douglas-fronted valentine to yuppie extravagance before taking a hard turn into the province of jittery conspiracy thrillers. Douglas is spot on as Nicholas Van Orton, a grim investment banker whose ne'er-do-well brother (Sean Penn) gives him the birthday gift of a role-playing game that slowly, methodically strips away his money and power. Our critic wrote that Fincher shows "real finesse in playing to the paranoia of these times." (Fincher's brilliant "Zodiac" is also streaming on Netflix)
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'Magnolia' (1999)
Paul Thomas Anderson burst onto the scene with "Boogie Nights," his blazing, energetic, Altman-esque tapestry of life in the seedier corners of the San Fernando Valley, circa 1977. His follow-up is in much the same style (and brings back much of the same cast), but with the filmmaker going for broke, creating a rich, lengthy (over three hours), mournful and often scathingly funny narrative of several interlocking lives over a single, extraordinary day. Operatic in its emotions and ambitions, this is Anderson's messiest work, yet one of his very best. (Anderson's "The Master" and "There Will Be Blood" are also streaming on Netflix.)
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'Killing Them Softly' (2012)
Brad Pitt teamed up again with Andrew Dominik, the writer and director of "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," for this "grisly little crime movie," adapted from the novel "Cogan's Trade." Pitt and James Gandolfini (in one of his final roles) star as two contract killers sent by their mob bosses to take out a group of small-timers who robbed the wrong poker game. But "Softly" is neither a traditional gangster movie nor a Tarantino-style hit-man flick. Dominik sets the film during the 2008 financial crisis and presidential election, the better to situate his central thesis: that capitalism and organized crime aren't as far apart as we might like to think.
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'Silver Linings Playbook' (2012)
Jennifer Lawrence won the Oscar for best actress for her spectacularly sassy and unapologetically haunted performance in David O. Russell's (somewhat loose) adaptation of Matthew Quick's novel. It's a balancing act of seemingly contradictory tones and styles, slipping nimbly from serious mental-health drama to screwball comedy to romance thanks to the deceptive casualness of Russell's approach and the skill of his cast — particularly Bradley Cooper as its unsteady protagonist and Robert De Niro and Jackie Weaver (all also Oscar nominees) as his parents. Our critic called it "exuberant" and "a delight."
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'My Fair Lady' (1964)
George Cukor's energetic adaptation of the Broadway musical (itself an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion") won an astonishing eight Academy Awards, including best picture, best director and best actor, and it remains one of the cornerstones of the movie musical genre. Audrey Hepburn shines as Eliza Doolittle, the lower-class Cockney flower girl who the phonetics professor Henry Higgins (Rex Harrison) believes he can turn into a proper lady my merely refining her speech. Alan Jay Lerner's intelligent script carefully navigates issues of sex and class while concocting a credible "opposites attract" chemistry between the leads. Our critic called it "a film that enchantingly conveys the rich endowments of the famous stage production in a fresh and flowing cinematic form." (Fans of classic movie musicals should also check out "White Christmas.")
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'Million Dollar Baby' (2004)
Clint Eastwood directs and stars in this modest Best Picture winner, and it's a smooth fit for his classical style: It has the feel, texture and tone of a 1940s boxing movie, but with the modern twist of a crusty old-timer taking a "girl fighter" under his wing. But it's not really a sports movie. It's about the comfortable, lived-in, longtime friendship between Frankie (Eastwood) and Scrap (Morgan Freeman); the subtle respect Scrap pays to Maggie (Hilary Swank) and her tenacity; and the evolution of Frankie's irritation toward Maggie into grudging respect and, eventually, love and sacrifice. A.O. Scott called it "a work of utter mastery that at the same time has nothing in particular to prove." (Eastwood's "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and "Mystic River" are also on Netflix.)
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'Misha and the Wolves' (2021)
Misha Defonesca told a horrifying story of kidnapping and survival in Nazi Germany, first to the members of her community and then in a memoir, until … well. Like "Three Identical Strangers" or "Dear Zachary," Sam Hobkinson's "absorbing" true-crime-adjacent documentary is a film that relies on the jaw-dropping turns of its narrative, so it's better to go in knowing little or nothing about its story. But his construction is suspenseful without being overly deceptive, and the execution is stylish. It's a compelling and peculiar account of the stories we tell to the world — and to ourselves.
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'Middle of Nowhere' (2012)
Ava DuVernay won the directing award at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival for this sensitive, thoughtful and moving drama. Our critic Manohla Dargis noted, "she wants you to look, really look, at her characters," seeing past the clichés and assumptions of so many other movies, as she tells the story of Ruby (Emayatzy Corinealdi), a young nurse whose husband (Omari Hardwick) is in prison. Ruby dutifully visits, and keeps a candle burning at home, but when a kind bus driver (David Oyelowo) takes a shine to her, she begins to question her choices and allegiances. Corinealdi is a marvelous presence, playing the role with empathy and complexity, and the considerable charisma of Oyelowo — who would team up again with DuVernay for "Selma" — makes her dilemma all the more difficult. (Fans of this moving indie romance may also enjoy "Love Jones.")
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'High Flying Bird' (2019)
The director Steven Soderbergh reunites with Andre Holland, his co-star from "The Knick," for this rarest of beasts: a sports movie without any sports. The screenplay by Tarell Alvin McCraney is instead about the business of professional athletics, set during an NBA lockout in which a high-powered agent (Holland) attempts to use the shutdown to turn the entire league — and all of the presumptions and hierarchies of organized sports — upside down. McCraney's script is rich with historical references and inside-basketball shout-outs; Soderbergh's direction is reflexively nimble, using on-the-fly photography and interviews with real N.B.A. players to give the film a sense of documentary immediacy. A.O. Scott called it "an exhilarating and argumentative caper."
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'Zathura' (2005)
The director Jon Favreau started his career making chatty indies like "Swingers" and is now the go-to guy for Marvel ("Iron Man") and Disney ("The Lion King"). This "enchanted" 2005 family adventure was the bridge he built between those worlds. Based on a 2002 novel by the "Jumanji" author Chris Van Allsburg, it tells a similar story in which children are drawn into the world of a board game that is perhaps too immersive. The special effects are jaw-dropping, and the adventure elements are enthralling (particularly for young audiences), but Favreau's background in small-scale, character-driven narratives shines through in the sweet and surprisingly moving conclusion. (This film is a sequel of sorts to the 1995 adventure "Jumanji," also on Netflix.)
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'Ma Rainey's Black Bottom' (2020)
The acclaimed stage director George C. Wolfe brings August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize winner to the screen, quite faithfully — which is just fine, as a play this good requires little in the way of "opening up," so rich are the characters and so loaded is the dialogue. The setting is a Chicago music studio in 1927, where the "Mother of the Blues" Ma Rainey (Viola Davis) and her band are meeting to record several of her hits, though that business is frequently disrupted by the tensions within the group over matters both personal and artistic. Davis is superb as Rainey, chewing up her lines and spitting them out with contempt at anyone who crosses her, and Chadwick Boseman, who died in 2020 and won a posthumous Golden Globe best actor award for his performance, is electrifying as the showy sideman, Levee, a boiling pot of charisma, flash and barely concealed rage. A.O. Scott calls the film "a powerful and pungent reminder of the necessity of art."
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'Midnight Run' (1988)
Robert De Niro took his first big swing at comedy with this wildly entertaining mixture of action and laughs. He stars as Jack Walsh, a grouchy bail bondsman sent to collect a Mafia accountant (the late, great Charles Grodin) and take him across the country — with the mob, the feds and a rival bounty hunter in hot pursuit. It sounds like your typical '80s action-comedy, but "Midnight Run" transcends those tropes thanks to its crackling dialogue, energetic direction (by Martin Brest, of "Beverly Hills Cop") and winning leads, who, as our critic noted, "give the comedy their own very humane comic dimension."
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'His House' (2020)
Genre filmmakers have spent the past three years trying (and mostly failing) to recreate the magic elixir of horror thrills and social commentary that made "Get Out" so special, but few have come as close as the British director Remi Weekes's terrifying and thought-provoking Netflix thriller. He tells the story of two South Sudanese refugees seeking asylum in London, who are placed in public housing — a residence they are forbidden from leaving, which becomes a problem when things start going bump in the night. In a masterly fashion Weekes expands this simple haunted-house premise into a devastating examination of grief and desperation, but sacrifices no scares along the way, making "His House" a rare movie that prompts both tears and goose bumps. (For more horror, queue up "Bram Stoker's Dracula" and "It Follows.")
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'Loving' (2016)
Mildred and Richard Loving never saw themselves as heroes: As far as the Virginia couple were concerned, they were merely two regular people who wanted to spend their lives together. So the writer-director Jeff Nichols ("Mud") makes "Loving" a personal tale, trusting that the politics will be apparent. The Australian actor Joel Edgerton and the Ethiopian-Irish actress Ruth Negga are wholly convincing as these rural Southerners, creating a relationship so unstaged and lived-in that the emotional stakes are as important as the historical ramifications. Manohla Dargis raved, "There are few movies that speak to the American moment as movingly — and with as much idealism."
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'Blade Runner' (1982)
This stylish and influential adaptation of Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" melds the conventions of film noir, dystopian sci-fi and action-adventure with masterly care. Its portrait of Los Angeles circa 2019, both sleek and decaying, is especially striking; the neon-lit, rain-soaked cityscape is an ideal environment for Harrison Ford's hard-boiled, futuristic gumshoe. And while it's no mere sight-and-sound show — Dick's thoughtful explorations of humanity, memory and empathy are retained — the director, Ridley Scott, does deliver the genre goods, including a final chase and shootout that still packs a wallop. (Netflix is currently streaming the 2007 "Final Cut.")
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'Dick Johnson Is Dead' (2020)
"I've always wanted to be in the movies," Dick Johnson tells his daughter Kirsten, and he's in luck — she makes them, documentaries mostly, dealing with the biggest questions of life and death. So they turn his struggle with Alzheimer's and looming mortality into a movie, a "resonant and, in moments, profound" one (per Manohla Dargis), combining staged fake deaths and heavenly reunions with difficult familial interactions. He's an affable fellow, warm and constantly chuckling, and a good sport, cheerfully playing along with these intricate, macabre (and darkly funny) scenarios. But it's really a film about a father and daughter, and their lifelong closeness gives the picture an intimacy and openness uncommon even in the best documentaries. It's joyful, and melancholy and moving, all at once.
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'The Old Guard' (2020)
Gina Prince-Blythewood's adaptation of Greg Rucka's comic book series delivers the expected goods: The action beats are crisply executed, the mythology is clearly defined and the pieces are carefully placed for future installments. But that's not what makes it special. Prince-Blythewood's background is in character-driven drama (her credits include "Love and Basketball" and "Beyond the Lights"), and the film is driven by its relationships rather than its effects — and by a thoughtful attentiveness to the morality of its conflicts. A.O. Scott deemed it a "fresh take on the superhero genre," and he's right; though based on a comic book, it's far from cartoonish. (For more action, queue up "Shadow" or "Cliffhanger.")
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'Da 5 Bloods' (2020)
Spike Lee's latest is a genre-hopping combination of war movie, protest film, political thriller, character drama and graduate-level history course in which four African-American Vietnam vets go back to the jungle to dig up the remains of a fallen compatriot — and, while they're at it, a forgotten cache of stolen war gold. In other hands, it could've been a conventional back-to-Nam picture or "Rambo"-style action/adventure (and those elements, to be clear, are thrilling). But Lee goes deeper, packing the film with historical references and subtext, explicitly drawing lines from the civil rights struggle of the period to the protests of our moment. A.O. Scott called it a "long, anguished, funny, violent excursion into a hidden chamber of the nation's heart of darkness." (For more genre-infused drama, check out "Sleight.")
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'13TH' (2016)
Ava DuVernay ("Selma") directs this wide-ranging deep dive into mass incarceration, tracing the advent of America's modern prison system — overcrowded and disproportionately populated by Black inmates — back to the 13th Amendment. It's a giant topic to take on in 100 minutes, and DuVernay understandably has to do some skimming and slicing. But that necessity engenders its style: "13TH" tears through history with a palpable urgency that pairs nicely with its righteous fury. Our critic called it "powerful, infuriating and at times overwhelming."
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'I'm Thinking of Ending Things' (2020)
Charlie Kaufman writes and directs this mind-bending adaptation of the Iain Reid novel, in which a nervous young woman (Jessie Buckley) accompanies her boyfriend (Jesse Plemons) on a road trip to meet his parents (Toni Collette and David Thewlis). Kaufman intersperses — and often interrupts — the de rigueur scenes of familial discomfort with surrealist imagery, nightmare logic, bizarre parallel stories and events shuffled out of time, bound together with his protagonist's voice-over narration, a nonstop monologue of verbose uncertainty. A.O. Scott deemed it "Kaufman's most assured and daring work so far as a director." ("A Ghost Story" is another unusual mixture of surrealism, drama and pathos.)
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'Lady Bird' (2017)
Greta Gerwig made her solo feature directorial debut with this funny and piercing coming-of-age story, set in her hometown, Sacramento, Calif. Saoirse Ronan dazzles in the title role as a quietly rebellious high-school senior whose quests for love and popularity bring her long-simmering resentments toward her mother (Laurie Metcalf, magnificent) to a boil. Parent-child conflicts are nothing new in teen stories, but Gerwig's perceptive screenplay slashes through the familiar types and tropes, daring to create characters that are complicated and flawed, yet deeply sympathetic. A.O. Scott praised the film's "freshness and surprise." ("Yes, God, Yes" is a similarly insightful look at the teenage years.)
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'Rain Man' (1988)
Dustin Hoffman won his second Oscar for his meticulously wrought performance as Raymond Babbitt, an autistic savant who meets his brother Charlie (Tom Cruise) for the first time after the death of their father. But "Rain Man" is not a heartfelt, tear-jerking family drama; it's "a becomingly modest, decently thought-out, sometimes funny film" in which Charlie, a small-time hustler, has to drag his brother on a cross-country road trip to fight what he feels is an unfair inheritance. In retrospect, though Hoffman collected all the awards and accolades, this is Cruise's film — he's the character who changes between the beginning and the end — and it's a marvelous performance, expertly revealing and exploring the psychological cracks in the gleaming golden-boy persona he spent the '80s perfecting. (Netflix is also streaming the later Best Picture winners "Dances With Wolves" and "The Artist.")
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'Uncut Gems' (2019)
Josh and Benny Safdie have all but singlehandedly kept the tradition of the grimy New York street movie alive in the 21st century, with films like "Heaven Knows What" and "Good Time" (also streaming on Netflix) explicitly recalling the sweaty desperation of '70s Gotham cinema. Their latest is also their best, featuring a career-high performance from Adam Sandler as a diamond dealer and inveterate gambler whose eternal quest for one big score puts his livelihood — and his very life — on the line. Manohla Dargis called it a "rough and glittering thing of beauty."
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'No Direction Home: Bob Dylan' (2005)
Martin Scorsese directs this exhilarating, informative and frequently funny chronicle of the early years of the folk singer, poet and provocateur born Robert Zimmerman but known to the world as Bob Dylan. Over its nearly four-hour running time, the film explores Dylan's childhood, his immersion in the Greenwich Village folk scene, his groundbreaking "topical songs" and his still-controversial changeover to electrified rock music. But "No Direction Home" is more than your typical rock bio-doc (most of which are more like illustrated Wikipedia pages); thanks to Scorsese's curiosity, Dylan's candor, and David Tedeschi's innovative editing, it becomes the story of an artist's perpetual search for identity and truth. (Scorsese recently returned to the Dylan story with the playful Netflix original "Rolling Thunder Revue"; music doc fans will also love "What Happened, Miss Simone?")
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'Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution' (2020)
"This camp changed the world," we're told, in the early moments of James LeBrecht and Nicole Newnham's documentary, "and nobody knew about it." The most refreshing and surprising element of this moving chronicle is that, title notwithstanding, the subject is not Camp Jened, the Catskills getaway that offered disabled kids and teens a "normal" summer camp experience. It's about how that camp was the epicenter of a movement — a place where they could be themselves and live their lives didn't have to be a utopian ideal, but a notion that they could carry out into the world, and use as a baseline for change. (Documentary fans should also seek out "Elena" and "F.T.A.")
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'The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson' (2017)
The Oscar-nominated director David France ("How to Survive a Plague") pays overdue tribute to Johnson, affectionately nicknamed the Mayor of Christopher Street, telling the story of her eventful life through interviews with friends and fascinating archival footage. And by framing her story as an investigation into her mysterious death 25 years before — an investigation led by Victoria Cruz, another transgender activist — France draws an explicit and affecting parallel to the violence against transgender women of color today. The result is both a powerful look at our past and a frightening snapshot of our present. (The vintage, and complementary, 1968 documentary "The Queen" is also streaming on Netflix.)
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'Hugo' (2011)
A film directed by the maker of such violence- and profanity-laden classics as "Taxi Driver," "Raging Bull," and "Goodfellas" isn't an obvious choice for family entertainment. But the source material for this 2011 charmer from Martin Scorsese centers on another of his obsessions: cinema history. The titular novel by Brian Selznick concerns a young orphan boy's love of the then-nascent motion picture form, forged in the tiny cinemas of 1930s Paris. By exploring the boy's unexpected bond with a bitter shopkeeper, Scorsese mixes heartfelt storytelling with film history. But it won't bore the kids, thanks to the generous helpings of slapstick comedy, jaw-dropping effects and full-on movie magic. Manohla Dargis called it "serious, beautiful, wise to the absurdity of life and in the embrace of a piercing longing." (For more high-spirited family fun, check out "Labyrinth," "Addams Family Values" and "ParaNorman.")
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'The Florida Project' (2017)
The director of "Tangerine," Sean Baker, returns with another warm and funny portrait of life on the fringes, melding a cast of nonactors and newcomers with an Oscar-nominated Willem Dafoe as the manager of a cheap Orlando motel populated by confused tourists and barely-managing families. The script (by Baker and Chris Bergoch) captures, with startling verisimilitude, the anxieties of living paycheck-to-paycheck (particularly when the next paycheck's very existence is uncertain) while also borrowing the devil-may-care playfulness of the children at the story's center. Our critic called it "risky and revelatory." (Fans of this risky drama may also enjoy "The Kindergarten Teacher.")
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'American Factory' (2019)
Documentary filmmakers have long been fascinated by the logistics and complexities of manual labor, but Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert's recent Oscar winner for best documentary feature views these issues through a decidedly 21st-century lens. Focusing on a closed GM plant in Dayton, Ohio, that's taken over by a Chinese auto glass company, Bognar and Reichert thoughtfully, sensitively (and often humorously) explore how cultures — both corporate and general — clash. Manohla Dargis calls it "complex, stirring, timely and beautifully shaped, spanning continents as it surveys the past, present and possible future of American labor." (Netflix's documentaries "Icarus" and "Sky Ladder: The Art of Cai Guo-Qiang " are also well worth your time.)
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'The Irishman' (2019)
Martin Scorsese reteams with Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci for the first time since "Casino" (1995), itself a return to the organized crime territory of their earlier 1990 collaboration "Goodfellas" — and then adds Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa. A lazier filmmaker might merely have put them back together to play their greatest hits. Scorsese does something far trickier, and more poignant: He takes all the elements we expect in a Scorsese gangster movie with this cast, and then he strips it all down, turning this story of turf wars, union battles and power struggles into a chamber piece of quiet conversations and moral contemplation. A.O. Scott called it "long and dark: long like a novel by Dostoyevsky or Dreiser, dark like a painting by Rembrandt."
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'Roma' (2018)
This vivid, evocative memory play from Alfonso Cuarón is a story of two Mexican women in the early 1970s: Sofía (Marina de Tavira), a mother of four whose husband (and provider) is on his way out the door, and Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), the family's nanny, maid and support system. The scenes are occasionally stressful, often heart-wrenching, and they unfailingly burst with life and emotion. Our critic called it "an expansive, emotional portrait of life buffeted by violent forces, and a masterpiece." (For more character-driven drama, check out "The Two Popes.")
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'The Bling Ring' (2013)
Sofia Coppola takes on conspicuous consumption, Millennial malaise, and upper-class entitlement in this darkly funny and stylishly thought-provoking true story (adapted from a Vanity Fair article by Nancy Joe Sales). Emma Watson leads a crew of young, attractive rich girls who spent years helping themselves to the homes (and spoils) of their famous neighbors, partying in Paris Hilton's "nightclub room" and casually lifting Lindsay Lohan's jewelry. Coppola refuses to condemn their crimes or apologize for them; it is, A.O. Scott wrote, "neither a cautionary tale of youth gone wrong nor a joke at the expense of kids these days." (Coppola's remake of "The Beguiled" is also on Netflix.)
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'Private Life' (2018)
Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti shine as two New York creative types whose attempts to start a family — by adoption, by fertilization, by whatever it takes — test the mettle of their relationships and sanity. The wise script by the director Tamara Jenkins is not only funny and truthful but also sharply tuned to their specific world: Few films have better captured the very public nature of marital trouble in New York, when every meltdown is interrupted by passers-by and lookie-loos. "Private Life," which our critic called "piquant and perfect," is a marvelous balancing act of sympathy and cynicism, both caring for its subjects and knowing them and their flaws well enough to wink and chuckle. (For more character-driven comedy/drama, add "Mystic Pizza" and "As Good As It Gets" to your list.)
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'My Happy Family' (2017)
A 52-year-old Georgian woman shocks her family, and her entire community, when she decides to move out of the cramped apartment she shares with her husband, children and parents in order to begin a life of her own. "In this world, there are no families without problems," she is told, and the conflicts of the script by Nana Ekvtimishvili (who also directed, with Simon Gross) are a sharp reminder that while the cultural specifics may vary, familial guilt and passive aggression are bound by no language. Manohla Dargis praised its "sardonically funny, touching key." (For more critically acclaimed foreign drama, try "Happy as Lazzaro" or "On Body and Soul.")
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'Atlantics' (2019)
Mati Diop's Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix winner is set in Senegal, where a young woman named Ava (Mama Sané) loses the boy she loves to the sea, just days before her arranged marriage to another man. What begins as a story of love lost moves, with the ease and imagination of a particularly satisfying dream, into something far stranger, as Diop savvily works elements of genre cinema into the fabric of a story that wouldn't seem to accommodate them. A.O. Scott called it "a suspenseful, sensual, exciting movie, and therefore a deeply haunting one as well."
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'Burning Cane' (2019)
The brief running time of Phillip Youmans's "haunting" debut feature is, in a way, an act of mercy; it is a story of such bleakness and melancholy, of so many lives in various states of distress and despair, that to dig in longer might be more than some viewers can bear. Yet "Burning Cane" is somehow not a depressing experience; its filmmaking is so exhilarating, its performances so electrifying, its sense of time and place so deeply felt that the picture crackles and vibrates like the old blues records that inspired Youmans, who wrote as well as directed the 2019 film. That he was a teenager at the time renders his work all the more stunning; it has the kind of richness and wisdom some filmmakers spend a lifetime accumulating. (Indie drama lovers may also enjoy "Everything Must Go" and "Residue.")
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'Pan's Labyrinth' (2006)
Guillermo Del Toro's 2006 Oscar winner is many things: a lush period drama, a dark fairy tale, a special-effects showcase, a valentine to fantasy cinema, a harrowing fable of Fascism. Yet Del Toro's filmmaking is so confident that the picture's tone never wavers; he's such a thrilling storyteller that we follow his protagonist (the marvelous Ivana Baquero) through every dark passageway and down every mysterious rabbit hole on her mystical journey through Franco-era Spain — and out of the clutches of her evil stepfather. It's both scary and enchanting, terrifying and dazzling; "If this is magic realism," writes A.O. Scott, "it is also the work of a real magician." (Netflix is also streaming Del Toro's luminous Gothic romance "Crimson Peak.")
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'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' (1975)
The British comedy troupe Monty Python created its funniest, wildest and cult-friendliest feature-length comedy with this 1975 sendup of the legend of King Arthur — and of medieval literature in general, and of big-screen epics. Graham Chapman is Arthur, leading his Knights of the Round Table on a quest for the Grail, but the plot is merely a clothesline on which to hang blackout sketches and self-aware gags, and there are many. Our critic called it "a marvelously particular kind of lunatic endeavor." (For more fun with Python, queue up "Life of Brian"; for more wild comedy, try "Stripes.")
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'Okja' (2017)
A marvelously absurd, stingingly satirical and unexpectedly moving story of a girl and her genetically engineered super-pig, this Netflix original from the director Bong Joon Ho is the kind of movie that goes in so many wild directions at once — urban mayhem one moment, character drama the next — it leaves you breathlessly off-balance. Bong coaxes game and unpredictable performances from his gloriously unhinged cast, with particularly juicy turns by Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal. A.O. Scott raved, "Bong juggles delight and didacticism with exquisite grace."
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What Good Film to Watch on Netflix
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/article/best-movies-netflix.html
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