From comedy classics to recent Oscar winners, these are the titles you don’t want to miss.
It can be hard to find the best movies on Netflix. We all understand the struggle of scrolling time—hours lost to wading through all of the Netflix movie options that could instead have been spent, you know, watching something. Or maybe something has been sitting patiently on your queue, waiting for someone to give you a nudge to finally press play. So, like a beacon in the night, here’s a guide to 25 of the best films within Netflix’s huge selection—including everything from landmark films to cult classics to Netflix-original hidden gems—updated monthly as films appear on and leave the platform. Take that, decision fatigue.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (2023)
Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
Genre: Teen Drama
Notable cast: Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, Abby Ryder Fortson, and Benny Safdie
MPA rating: PG-13
Rotten Tomatoes: 99%
Metacritic: 84
Based on Judy Blume’s indelible 1970 coming-of-age novel, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret follows Margaret Simon (breakthrough star Abby Ryder Fortson) as she faces all the milestones on the road to becoming a young adult. There are the tumultuous upheavals of friendship, religion, puberty, and understanding a parent as their own full-fledged person for the first time. “Honestly, her spiritual journey is very much the reason I wanted to make the film in the first place,” said director Kelly Fremon Craig. “I was really struck and moved by the fact that she carves out her own sense of spirituality.” But the film’s surprise is a fully lived-in performance from Rachel McAdams as Margaret’s mother, a portrayal that Vanity Fair said “deftly paints a thorough and compelling picture of a woman of the era—someone who, like Margaret, is stuck between who she was and who she seems to be becoming.”
Atlantics (2019)
Director: Mati Diop
Genre: Drama
Notable cast: Mame Bineta Sane, Amadou Mbow, and Ibrahima Traoré
MPA rating: PG-13
Rotten Tomatoes: 96%
Metacritic: 85
Achingly romantic and fiercely original, Atlantics is a shape-shifting ghost story of sorts that defies simple categorization. Mati Diop’s first feature follows a young woman set to marry a man she does not love, while her lover flees their native Senegal by sea in search of work. Overnight, spirits begin to possess the townsfolk, seeking revenge against an exploitative corporation. Never less than captivating, the film features unforgettable visuals and an arresting blending of themes that make for one of the most daring Netflix originals—and signal Diop as one of the major breakthrough directors of the past decade.
Boyz n the Hood (1991)
Director: John Singleton
Genre: Drama
Notable cast: Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding Jr., Ice Cube, Angela Bassett, Regina King, Nia Long, Morris Chestnut, and Tyra Ferrell
MPA rating: R
Rotten Tomatoes: 96%
Metacritic: 96
John Singleton’s landmark film about young adulthood in South Central Los Angeles set a high bar for 1990s coming-of-age films at the start of the decade, and it’s one that other coming-of-age films have been chasing ever since. At the center is the story of three reunited childhood friends, Tre, Doughboy, and Ricky, whose plans for the future fatefully collide with the violence in their community. On top of featuring a staggering ensemble of future major stars, Boyz N the Hood launched Singleton as a major voice—making him both the youngest-ever nominee for best director at the time and the first Black director nominated for the award. What has endured is a highly influential and still emotionally powerful film about the Black American experience, and a new-era must-see classic.
Bridesmaids (2011)
Director: Paul Feig
Genre: Comedy
Notable cast: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne, Chris O’Dowd, Ellie Kemper, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Jon Hamm, and Jill Clayburgh
MPA rating: R
Rotten Tomatoes: 89%
Metacritic: 75
Back in the day, Vanity Fair (correctly) assessed Bridesmaids as the best comedy of 2011. But that’s a bit modest for my taste—it’s the best and funniest comedy of that decade. The film follows Kristen Wiig as a depressed baker experiencing a slow-motion meltdown when her closest friend (played by Maya Rudolph) becomes engaged. Melissa McCarthy may have deservedly been Oscar-nominated for playing a contently abrasive sister-in-law, but Rose Byrne should have been nominated alongside her as Rudolph’s rich and power-playing new bestie. What unfolds is a comedy-set-piece masterclass—from Jon Hamm’s sexual lunacy to the notorious food poisoning sequence to a colonial woman churning butter on the wing of an airplane—that has only gotten funnier in the years since it became a phenomenon. If annual rewatches haven’t maxed you out on Bridesmaids, hold on for one more play.
Burlesque (2010)
Director: Steven Antin
Genre: Musical
Notable cast: Christina Aguilera, Cher, Stanley Tucci, Julianne Hough, Kristen Bell, Alan Cumming, Peter Gallagher, Cam Gigandet, and Diana Agron
MPA rating: PG-13
Rotten Tomatoes: 37%
Metacritic: 47
Sorry, critics, but your complaints about Burlesque are at a pitch that can’t physically be heard by the girls and gays. Reviews were quick to dismiss the film for its pop star-led campiness (such as Cher shouting “Wagon Wheel Watusi!” at Xtina with grand dame chutzpah). But its noted highbrow fans include film critic Guy Lodge, who called it “[a] sequined patchwork quilt of all manner of backstage musicals and melodramas from various eras of Hollywood.” Indeed, the surprise of Burlesque is how smoothly it marries contemporary glitz with the traditions of the old fashioned Hollywood musical, including a handful of musical numbers more rousing than what you might find in some of the better received movie musicals that came after it. Best among them is Cher belting out the Diane Warren ballad “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me” with only a chair and a spotlight.
Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020)
Director: Kirsten Johnson
Genre: Documentary
MPA rating: PG-13
Rotten Tomatoes: 99%
Metacritic: 89
Kirsten Johnson is always breaking the boundaries of what we think a documentary can be—never more so than in her deeply moving yet not-depressing tribute to her father on the eve of his death. Between candid interviews with her father, Dick, Johnson stages his death in various, surreally funny scenarios, such as a fall down the stairs or being struck by a rogue air conditioner. The director told Vanity Fair that making the film was an act of coping with her beloved parent’s dementia: “How can my father and I together confront the fact that he, who is irreplaceable, will disappear?” The effect is whimsical, profound, and restorative, making for the wildest study of love and loss in Netflix’s vast stable.
Frances Ha (2013)
Director: Noah Baumbach
Genre: Comedy
Notable cast: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Adam Driver, Michael Zegen, Charlotte d’Amboise, Josh Hamilton, and Grace Gummer
MPA rating: R
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
Metacritic: 82
A gorgeous and sardonic fable about a screwup who stumbles her way toward getting her life together, Frances Ha remains the most essential collaboration between Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig. In an absolutely must-watch performance, Gerwig plays New York dancer Frances as she loses connection with her best friend, Sophie (an underrated Mickey Sumner), and as her rapidly approaching 30s begin to catch up to her. The joy of Frances Ha comes from its romantic vantage on New York City living and Frances’s antics: twirling herself through the streets to David Bowie, having boy roommates, taking an ill-advised trip to France. But it also possesses a sly quotability that leaves gems hiding in plain sight.
Godzilla (2014)
Director: Gareth Edwards
Genre: Action
Notable cast: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elisabeth Olsen, Ken Watanabe, Brian Cranston, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, and Juliette Binoche
MPA rating: PG-13
Rotten Tomatoes: 76%
Metacritic: 62
Though the American Godzilla movies have devolved into mashup silliness (and the franchise generally. has been eclipsed by the great Godzilla Minus One), Gareth Edwards’ 2014 reboot played its monster movie cards straight, and to incredible effect. Edwards brings an earthy, terrifying scale to the monster, and real human stakes to the bang-boom-smash havoc that ensues, even when the pseudo science of the film gets, yep, pretty silly. For American iterations of the beloved cinema character, this version had to basically erase the lingering stain of Roland Emmerich’s version, which bombed in 1998–no small feat that it nevertheless achieves within its first moments.
Happy as Lazzaro (2018)
Director: Alice Rohrwacher
Genre: Drama
Notable cast: Adriano Tardiolo, Sergi López, and Alba Rohrwacher
MPA rating: PG-13
Rotten Tomatoes: 91%
Metacritic: 87
Director Alice Rohrwacher earned a legion of new fans from 2023’s Josh O’Conner–led La Chimera—but prior to that masterpiece, she made another with this idiosyncratic fable. Another foray into symbolic magical realism, the story of frozen-in-time sweetheart farmhand Lazzaro is used by Rohwacher to weave a magical examination of class and exploitation. Around its midpoint, the film takes a daring leap that recontextualizes everything we have seen as more than meets the eye, setting the tender Lazzaro on a course for tragedy to come. It’s one of Rohrwacher’s bespoke visual wonders that seem to commune with some kind of cinematic deity, casting a spell that lingers long after viewing.
His Three Daughters (2024)
Director: Azazel Jacobs
Genre: Drama
Notable cast: Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen, Jovan Adepo, and Jay O. Sanders
MPA rating: R
Rotten Tomatoes: 98%
Metacritic: 83
Carrie Coon, Natasha Lyonne, and Elizabeth Olsen give three revelatory performances as diametrically opposed estranged siblings—the dictator, the hippie, and the burnout, respectively. They cram together in a tiny New York City apartment as they await the death of their father. They battle over groceries, monologue about the Grateful Dead, and try (and fail) to keep their many past resentments at bay. Sure, His Three Daughters is at times a painful watch, brimming with claustrophobic tension and biting wit. But writer-director Azazel Jacobs gives this chamber piece on death and family a light touch, lifting it off into something unexpected in its emotional depth and making for one of 2024’s best films.
The Irishman (2019)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Genre: Crime
Notable cast: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Harvey Keitel, Bobby Cannavale, Ray Romano, Stephen Graham, Jesse Plemons, Jack Huston, Marin Ireland, and Anna Paquin
MPA rating: R
Rotten Tomatoes: 95%
Metacritic: 94
Martin Scorsese’s epic fable on legacy, loyalty, and unions follows the life of Mob hit man Frank Sheeran, played by Robert De Niro. As Vanity Fair put it, “There’s something crucial about sitting with the same actors for so long. It communicates the weight and ravages of time more keenly than if the actors had been swapped out halfway through.” Much was made of the de-aging visual effects that allowed De Niro to play the character at all stages of Sheeran’s life, as was about Netflix’s refusal to play ball with the theater chains for the film’s limited theatrical release. Now that all that dust has settled, what remains is one of the defining masterpieces of this late stage of Scorsese’s career, one with a lot to say about where to place your loyalties and priorities in life.
A League of Their Own (1992)
Director: Penny Marshall
Genre: Sports Drama
Notable cast: Geena Davis, Lori Petty, Tom Hanks, Madonna, Rosie O’Donnell, Bill Pullman, David Strathairn, Jon Lovitz, Garry Marshall, Tea Leoni, and Megan Cavanagh
MPA rating: PG
Rotten Tomatoes: 82%
Metacritic: 69
Put some respect on Penny Marshall’s name! One of the all-time great sports movies and Marshall’s second $100 million grosser (after Big made her the first female director to do so), A League of Their Own is basically perfect. Recounting the story of–all together now!–the members of the All-American (Girls Professional Baseball) League during World War II, it celebrates an incredible ensemble of female characters in the orbit of two sisters (Davis and Petty) who eventually are pitted against one another on opposing teams. Plus add in the glorious histrionics of peak era Tom Hanks and you’ll be shouting “there’s no crying in baseball!” once again.
Little Women (2019)
Director: Greta Gerwig
Genre: Drama
Notable cast: Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Timothee Chalamet, Laura Dern, Chris Cooper, Emma Watson, Eliza Scanlen, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, Louis Garrel, and Meryl Streep
MPA rating: PG
Rotten Tomatoes: 95%
Metacritic: 91
The ultra-modern Greta Gerwig understood why some. might be skeptical of her adapting an umpteenth version of Louisa May Alcott’s legacy novel, material that has been deeply important to countless readers over the decades. “This feels like autobiography,” Gerwig told Vanity Fair at the time. “When you live through a book, it almost becomes the landscape of your inner life. … It becomes part of you, in a profound way.” Gerwig, too, felt close to the story of the March sisters—and that may be why her adaptation is now largely seen as the definitive one. Her big gamble of changing the structure of Alcott’s novel pays off by focusing on the emotional stakes of each sister, as well as the seismic shifts they endure over the course of the film.
May December (2023)
Director: Todd Haynes
Genre: Drama
Notable cast: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton
MPA rating: R
Rotten Tomatoes: 91%
Metacritic: 86
Todd Haynes’s darkly comedic, sleazy satire stars Natalie Portman as an actor who becomes obsessed with the real-life figure she is about to play: a former teacher (Julianne Moore) who became a tabloid fixture for her sexual relationship with a teenage student (Charles Melton). As much as the film skewers tabloid culture (it’s loosely inspired by Mary Kay Letourneau), it’s also a darkly comedic look at performance and the lies we tell ourselves. In calling it one of the best films of 2023, Vanity Fair wrote, “May December could probably be endlessly unpacked, so varied are its tones and textures and piercing insights.”
Moulin Rouge! (2001)
Director: Baz Luhrman
Genre: Musical
Notable cast: Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, Jim Broadbent, Richard Roxburgh, John Leguizamo, and Kylie Minogue
MPA rating: PG-13
Rotten Tomatoes: 75%
Metacritic: 66
Baz Luhrman’s maximalist musing on a century’s worth of pop culture is a Paris-set musical about a young poet who falls for a dying courtesan. It has been divisive since the day it was released, back when musicals were dead and buried in Hollywood. This film’s pop sensibility revived the movie musical, gave us a smash girl power rehashing of “Lady Marmalade,” and cemented a never-more-radiant Nicole Kidman’s status among the eternal A-list. But its status as a genre resuscitator can’t be understated: without Luhrman’s masterpiece going really out on a limb when doing so was still unfashionable, there wouldn’t be a best picture Oscar for Chicago or record-busting box office for Wicked. Moulin Rouge! may be a lot, but there hasn’t been a more audacious musical since.
Parasite (2019)
Director: Bong Joon Ho
Genre: Drama
Notable cast: Song Kang-ho, Choi Woo-shik, and Park So-dam
MPA rating: R
Rotten Tomatoes: 99%
Metacritic: 97
If you haven’t already seen the international sensation and first non-English-language winner of the best-picture Academy Award, what’s wrong with you? If you have, revisiting the film only confirms how right we all were to make such a big deal about it in 2019. Director Bong Joon Ho’s tragicomic class satire is a modern-day classic, with a socially conscious point of view that has proven to be immediately influential. After Netflix made hits out of non-English-language fan favorites in both film (like The Platform) and television (heard of Squid Game?), the “one-inch-tall barrier” of subtitles that Bong spoke about at the Oscars now makes Parasite right at home on the streamer. It’s always going to be a good time to rewatch Parasite.
Phantom Thread (2017)
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Genre: Romance
Notable cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Vicky Krieps, Lesley Manville, and Harriet Sansom Harris
MPA rating: R
Rotten Tomatoes: 91%
Metacritic: 90
The reclusive Daniel Day-Lewis gives what was then billed as his final performance as the fictional couturier Reynolds Woodcock. As Woodcock falls in love and unravels at the demands of being in a relationship, the character spews forth an ego to rival that of a previous Day-Lewis and Paul Thomas Anderson character collaboration, There Will Be Blood’s Daniel Plainview—though Woodcock is less violently inclined. It may seem like a showcase for one of the greatest living actors (and, to be fair, it is), but its greatest surprise lies in a less familiar performer in a major breakthrough role: the luminous Vicky Krieps as Reynolds’s beloved Alma. Phantom Thread is a darkly hilarious, deeply romantic swoon of a movie and perhaps the most revealing of Anderson’s formidable career.
The Power of the Dog (2021)
Director: Jane Campion
Genre: Drama
Notable cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Thomasin McKenzie, Keith Carradine, and Frances Conroy
MPA rating: R
Rotten Tomatoes: 94%
Metacritic: 89
Jane Campion’s big-screen return earned high praise for its psychologically intense study of masculinity in the American West. It’s never quite the movie you expect: In calling it one of 2021’s best films, Vanity Fair critic Richard Lawson said this “stately and mysterious film isn’t quite a character-study drama, not quite a thriller, and not really a Western. It is an elusive and mesmerizing thing unto itself.” An all-consuming visual experience, The Power of the Dog features top-to-bottom outstanding performances from its cast, including Benedict Cumberbatch as one of the most terrifying movie villains in recent memory. It’s not just one of the best movies on Netflix right now; it’s one of the best movies ever.
Private Life (2018)
Director: Tamara Jenkins
Genre: Comedy
Notable cast: Paul Giamatti, Kathryn Hahn, Molly Shannon, John Carroll Lynch, Kayli Carter, and Denis O’Hare
MPA rating: R
Rotten Tomatoes: 94%
Metacritic: 83
In one of Netflix’s best movies and most overlooked masterworks, Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti star as an infertile New York City couple who, after several unsuccessful attempts at fertility treatment, consider surrogacy with their wayward niece (Kayli Carter). It’s only the third entry in writer-director Tamara Jenkins’s (flawless) filmography, but it’s maybe the best showcase of her bittersweet comic pathos yet: There’s nude ranting, people shoving their feet in their mouths, and bits about overly specific lox portions. If the film’s final shot doesn’t heal whatever ails you, please consult your doctor. All that, plus a powder keg, career-best performance from Hahn–before she would become a household name with her MCU debut as Agatha in WandaVision–makes this essential viewing.
Pulp Fiction (1994)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Genre: Crime/All of the Above
Notable cast: John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Uma Thurman, Bruce Willis, Harvey Keitel, Ving Rhames, Tim Roth, Amanda Plummer, Eric Stoltz, Rosanna Arquette, and Christopher Walken
MPA rating: R
Rotten Tomatoes: 92%
Metacritic: 95
What can you say about Pulp Fiction that hasn’t already been said ad nauseum in the past thirty years? Every inch of its making and release has become legend, from the career-reviving effect casting of John Travolta to its Cannes triumph to it being too cool and/or subversive for an Academy then eager to award the Americana of Forrest Gump. Or have we gotten to a point in our Tarantino idolization—particularly as his box office receipts have been climbing new heights—where Pulp Fiction is starting to go… a little ignored? It might be time to order up another Royale with Cheese, and revisit how Tarantino changed everything for American movies.
Shirkers (2018)
Director: Sandi Tan
Genre: Documentary
MPA rating: PG-13
Rotten Tomatoes: 99%
Metacritic: 88
When filmmaker Sandi Tan was a young adult, she participated in a production that would have been Singapore’s first road movie. But after filming, the footage and Tan’s eccentric producer disappeared. The resulting documentary charts Tan’s quest for the footage, bringing the footage back from the dead to make something entirely fascinating and deeply personal. This thoughtfully crafted production considers what was lost through the theft of the original film, both for Tan and for Singaporean film culture at large. Shirkers delights both as a personal investigative documentary and as a uniquely film-obsessed story for movie lovers.
Strong Island (2017)
Director: Yance Ford
Genre: Documentary
MPA rating: Unrated
Rotten Tomatoes: 100%
Metacritic: 86
Yance Ford tackles his own family history and the injustice of the legal system with this nonfiction stunner, a recounting of his brother’s 1992 murder and how the killer went free. Where other documentaries navel-gaze at the details of a murder, Strong Island is more interested in the aftermath of the crime—how his brother’s killer going free shaped both his identity and his family’s. Ford approaches such personal subject matter with a sober and unflinching formal rigor, including in some audacious moments where he directly addresses the camera. The result is a film that’s something of an antidote to the rise of the exploitative true-crime documentary, a deeply intimate and searingly introspective portrait of a still-grieving family denied justice.
Train Dreams (2025)
Director: Clint Bentley
Genre: Drama
Notable cast: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon, William H. Macy, Clifton Collins, Jr., Paul Schneider, and Will Patton
MPA rating: PG-13
Rotten Tomatoes: 95%
Metacritic: 88
Of all Netflix’s 2025 original films, Train Dreams quietly reigns supreme. Joel Edgerton stars as an early-midcentury logger in this quiet stunner based on an acclaimed Denis Johnson novella. The film depicts his life with equal parts pain and beauty, giving the history of the American Pacific Northwest landscape a mythic scope. Vanity Fair has already declared the film to be “delicate and deeply existential, with breathtaking imagery and a moving, heartbreaking performance at its center.” Viewers continue to discover that after its Thanksgiving-adjacent premiere. If you want to look at this year’s awards underdog, it’s sitting right there waiting for you on Netflix.
What Lies Beneath (2000)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Genre: Horror
Notable cast: Michelle Pfeiffer, Harrison Ford
MPA rating: PG-13
Rotten Tomatoes: 48%
Metacritic: 51
Anchored by a terrific performance by Michelle Pfeiffer, this Zemeckis horror movie trifle follows an aging couple who begin to notice a supernatural presence in their seaside mansion. With its big budget visual effects, soapy drama, and immaculate home decor, it’s kind of like if Nancy Meyers remade Gaslight with ghosts. And yes, this is meant as a compliment. Famously, What Lies Beneath was made while Zemeckis took a break from filming Cast Away so that Tom Hanks could lose a bunch of weight. (As the ghost encroaches on Pfeiffer, it’s like you can feel the pounds falling off Hanks.) The result here is a refreshingly unpretentious and unfussy horror movie that’s also unafraid to be a little goofy. But the finale bathtub sequence is still a nerve-shredding marvel.
Y Tu Mamá También (2001)
Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Genre: Drama
Notable cast: Maribel Verdú, Gael García Bernal, and Diego Luna
MPA rating: Unrated
Rotten Tomatoes: 90%
Metacritic: 89
After a few financial misfires, director Alfonso Cuarón catapulted to global acclaim with this Mexican drama about two teenage friends (Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna) who take a sexually charged road trip with an older woman (Maribel Verdú). Cuarón would be even more lauded for later flashier films, including Oscar-winning Netflix original Roma, but perhaps none of them match the fiery spark of this breathtaking erotic drama. Blending explicit sex scenes with swoon-worthy visual beauty and evocative social commentary, the film hasn’t lost its ability to surprise in the more than 20 years since it arrived.
