The great conundrum of the streaming age is that dozens, if not hundreds, of movies are available at your fingertips to stream—but the best movies on Netflix can be extremely hard to decide on. Let this list be your guide as you navigate Netflix's catalog of feature films. These 25 movies feature something for everyone—comedy, adult drama, action, science-fiction epics, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Beyoncé. From some of the best movies of recent years to a few stone-cold classics, you’re sure to find plenty worth checking out without wasting half your life on a never-ending scroll.
Boyz n the Hood
Release Year: 1991
Director: John Singleton
Notable Cast: Cuba Gooding Jr., Ice Cube, Laurence Fishburne, Morris Chestnut
The late John Singleton became the first Black nominee for the Oscar for best director (as well as the youngest nominee in history) for this film about friends living in South Central Los Angeles. Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Tre, a teenager living with his father (Laurence Fishburne) in Crenshaw. The film deals with the way gang culture impacts the lives of Tre and his friends, played by Morris Chestnut and Ice Cube. With Regina King and Angela Bassett in supporting roles, the film is a collection of some of the best Black talent of the ’90s. It’s a landmark film, one of the best movies on Netflix right now, with some heart-wrenching, career-best performances.
Burning
Release Year: 2018
Director: Lee Chang-dong
Notable Cast: Yoo Ah-in, Jeon Jong-seo, Steven Yeun
Director Lee Chang-dong crafts an insidious psychological thriller out of what first seems to be a story of young love. Yoo Ah-in plays a young man who falls for a girl (Jeon Jong-seo) shortly before she leaves South Korea for a trip to Africa and returns with… not exactly a boyfriend, but he’s played by Steven Yeun, so you can see why Yoo’s character would feel threatened. What follows is a game of psychological paranoia, unreliable perceptions, and possible murder. Yeun in particular gets to dig into his role as a plausible villain, making cryptic threats (or are they?) seeming unnervingly charming. It’s one of his best performances.
Captain Phillips
Release Year: 2013
Director: Paul Greengrass
Notable Cast: Tom Hanks, Barkhad Abdi
At some point in the 2010s, it became apparent that we were taking Tom Hanks for granted. That may have hit its peak (or nadir, to be accurate) with Captain Phillips, where Hanks gives one of the most understated performances of quiet competence of his career for about 120 minutes, only to unleash a torrent of held-back emotion in the final 15 minutes in one of the single most affecting things he’s ever done on screen—and the Oscars didn’t even nominate him for it. Rude is what that was. The good news is that, regardless of awards, Captain Phillips remains a tense, humane thriller that resonates far beyond any “I’m the captain now” memes.
Carol
Release Year: 2015
Director: Todd Haynes
Notable Cast: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara
If May December gets you in the mood to check out director Todd Haynes’s other cinematic achievements, you won’t be able to do much better than Carol. Based on a Patricia Highsmith novel, the film is a 1950s story about a married woman, the titular Carol (played by Cate Blanchett), who finds herself intrigued by Therese, a sales girl at a department store (Rooney Mara). The younger Therese experiences an awakening with Carol, and the two have to navigate their romance around the strictures and bigotry of their time. This is perfect material for Haynes, who illuminates the corners and specificities of repressed lives—and how the world can burst open when that repression is overcome. Blanchett and Mara deliver two of the best performances of the current century, which is reason enough to press play.
Chicken Run
Release Year: 2000
Director: Peter Lord and Nick Park
Notable Cast: Mel Gibson, Miranda Richardson, Timothy Spall, Imelda Staunton
The Aardman Animation classic, which now has a brand-new sequel also on Netflix, was the first feature-length film from the studio, which had made stop-motion characters like Wallace and Gromit into icons in the 90s. Envisioned by the animators as a spoof on The Great Escape, the film enlists Mel Gibson in full action hero mode as an American circus rooster who crash lands into a British poultry farm. At the time Roger Ebert called it “a magical new animated film that looks and sounds like no other.”
Dune
Release Year: 2021
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Notable Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac
Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s gargantuan sci-fi tale was split into more than one part, with the second part awaiting us later in 2024. But this opening chapter is a spectacle all of its own. Leading an all-star cast, Timothée Chalamet plays Paul Atreides, the heir apparent to a great house in the distant future whose inheritance will be the desert planet Arrakis—the only place in the known universe where the unfathomably valuable resource spice is produced. Featuring standout performances from Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Charlotte Rampling, Josh Brolin, and Jason Momoa—and with Zendaya around just long enough to have us intrigued about where her character goes from here—this is a suitably epic and dazzling sci-fi adaptation.
The Forty-Year-Old Version
Release Year: 2020
Director: Radha Blank
Notable Cast: Radha Blank, Peter Kim, Oswin Benjamin
Director and actor Radha Blank brings every aspect of her multi-hyphenate skillset to this semi-autobiographical comedy about a playwright (Blank) who finds herself frustrated with her career prospects and the racial condescension within the theater world, so she embarks on a new career as a fledgling rapper. Blank is an incredibly winning personality, and the personal nature of the film really lets her shine. And as specific as the film is to Blank’s own experience, it’s impossible not to glean a more broad affinity to her story, whether or not you’re hitting that 40-year-mark and the crises that come with it.
Frances Ha
Release Year: 2012
Director: Noah Baumbach
Notable Cast: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Michael Zegen
One of Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s earliest collaborations as screenwriters (Baumbach directed) was this contemporary black-and-white story about a young woman (Gerwig) trying to deal with the fact that she’s seemingly the last person her age to have figured her life out. In what would become a hallmark of Gerwig’s work to come, she manages to pull off story beats and character traits that might otherwise come off as twee or annoying by committing hard to finding insight and compassion in Frances’s story. The supporting cast is killer, with Mickey Sumner as Frances’s estranged best friend and Michael Zegen as her star-crossed would-be love interest taking place of prominence. But Adam Driver, Grace Gummer, and Charlotte d’Amboise get great scenes to play as well.
Heat
Release Year: 1995
Director: Michael Mann
Notable Cast: Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Val Kilmer
Michael Mann’s epic of cops and criminals might be the most “every straight man you’ve ever met had told you to watch this” movie of all time. Unfortunately, they’re right—this is one of the best movies on Netflix right now. The selling point in ’95 was that this was the long-awaited first screen pairing of acting legends Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, and Mann directs their restaurant face-off with such understated meaning that it lives up to the hype. The shootout scenes have the streets of Los Angeles looking like war zones, but there’s a poetry to Mann’s visuals—not to mention his storytelling. All that plus a doomed romance between Val Kilmer and Ashley Judd where they’re both looking the most gorgeous either has ever looked in their lives.
Homecoming
Release Year: 2019
Director: Beyoncé
Notable Cast: Beyoncé
If you weren’t able to catch Renaissance during its theatrical run, or you did and you need to keep that energy going, Netflix has Beyoncé’s other brilliant concert film ready and waiting for you. Homecoming presents an intimate look at Beyoncé’s 2018 Coachella performance, one of the defining events of a career that has not exactly lacked for defining events. No Beyoncé fan needs this blurb to tell them what this film offers, but if you’ve never seen Beyoncé perform live and want to see the kind of epic-scale spectacle that one artist is capable of, check this one out.
It Follows
Release Year: 2014
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Notable Cast: Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, Daniel Zovatto
One of the most terrifying horror movies of the last decade—full stop—in addition to one of the best horror movies on Netflix. Writer and director David Robert Mitchell gets maximum creativity out of a micro budget in this movie about a curse that passes from person to person when they have sex. That curse comes as a creature that can take the form of any person and is visible only to its intended victim as it relentlessly pursues them. The simplicity of the monster’s motivations is matched only by its various guises, from an old woman, to a terrifyingly tall man, to someone you know. There are levels of metaphor at work here, but Mitchell never lets any kind of thematic message outweigh the gut-level terror.
Jackie Brown
Release Year: 1997
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Notable Cast: Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert De Niro, Robert Forster
Quentin Tarantino’s eagerly awaited follow-up film to Pulp Fiction probably unavoidably landed as something of a letdown in the moment. But in the intervening years, his tribute to blaxploitation movies and Elmore Leonard has emerged as the discerning cinephile’s Tarantino movie of choice. See it for no other reason than Pam Grier getting the comeback role of a lifetime as an airline stewardess who opportunistically jumps in on a scam to steal a life-changing sum of money. She and Forster make for an incredible pair, while Samuel L. Jackson is all fireworks as the villain.
The Killer
Release Year: 2023
Director: David Fincher
Notable Cast: Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell
David Fincher, the meticulous director behind The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, is back with the story of a meticulous assassin whose carefully planned hit job goes awry. The assassin is played by Michael Fassbender, who is a gift to understated intensity and to bucket hats. This one is incredibly violent but also frequently darkly funny, and it’s hard to pass up a movie that has one great Tilda Swinton scene.
Lady Bird
Release Year: 2017
Director: Greta Gerwig
Notable Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, Lucas Hedges, Beanie Feldstein, Timothée Chalamet
With Greta Gerwig in the thick of the Oscars conversation this year for Barbie, it’s probably time to revisit her first Oscar-nominated movie and debut solo feature, among the best comedy movies on Netflix (or anywhere else). Saoirse Ronan plays the titular role, a high school senior who can’t get along with her mother (Laurie Metcalf) as she navigates first loves, bad-boy infatuation, and fights with her best friend. The ensemble cast is to die for, featuring note-perfect turns from Lucas Hedges, Timothée Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein, and Tracy Letts. If you’re in the mood for a coming-of-age movie, a mother-daughter story, Stephen McKinley Henderson as a priest, and Lois Smith as a nun, this is your movie.
Leave the World Behind
Release Year: 2023
Director: Sam Esmail
Notable Cast: Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Mahershala Ali, Myha'la
Remember when Bird Box was a post-apocalyptic smash for Netflix in late 2018, putting an Oscar-winning actress through hell as society fell apart after some kind of cataclysmic event? Leave the World Behind is traversing some of that same territory. Julia Roberts plays a woman who takes her husband (Ethan Hawke) and two teenage kids to a Hamptons vacation home for a weekend getaway, only for the house’s owner (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter (Myha’la) to show up at the door unexpectedly on the first night, frightened of a blackout in Manhattan—and maybe something worse. Director Sam Esmail is the guy behind shows like Mr. Robot and Homecoming (which starred Roberts in its first season), and he’s bringing a lot of visual flair and some sly dark humor to what just might be the collapse of civilization.
Living
Release Year: 2022
Director: Oliver Hermanus
Notable Cast: Bill Nighy
This is an understated hidden gem that wouldn’t normally jump out at you while scrolling through a menu—but it’s so worth it. It’s based on a 1952 Akira Kurosawa film, which itself was inspired (at least in part) by the Tolstoy story The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and adapted for the screen by the great Kazuo Ishiguro. Bill Nighy stars as a 1950s London gentleman, a mostly unremarkable bureaucrat, who receives a terminal diagnosis. Making the decision to commit suicide rather than fade slowly away, Nighy goes away to a seaside town, and there he spends a lovely evening of conversation, song, and life unencumbered by the concerns of daily life. The story goes on from there, with Nighy giving one of the best performances of his career. The film is far from flashy, but there are bursts of emotion that make it unforgettable.
May December
Release Year: 2023
Director: Todd Haynes
Notable Cast: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton
Popular fascination with the subjects of trashy tabloid scandals is only one of the many themes at work in Todd Haynes’s new film. Natalie Portman plays an actress whose next role will be a Mary Kay Letourneau figure nearly 20 years after her scandal, so she’s gone to visit this woman (Julianne Moore) and her family in order to research her performance. This one’s been all over year-end top-10 lists and awards ballots, with Portman and Moore delivering some of their best work and Charles Melton giving a true breakthrough performance in what’s easily one of the best new movies on Netflix.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Release Year: 1975
Director: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
Notable Cast: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin
One of the greatest and most quotable films of all time, and easily one of the best comedy films on Netflix, from Britain’s famed Monty Python comedy troupe. This retelling of the Arthurian myth is just nonstop silliness, from clomping around horseless but with coconut sound effects, to French-accented castle guards, to a killer bunny rabbit (“look at the bones!”). With Spamalot back with a Broadway revival, it makes sense that its source material should be back in the zeitgeist as well. Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, and Michael Palin are at their absolute funniest, and you can’t really ask for better than that.
My Best Friend’s Wedding
Release Year: 1997
Director: P.J. Hogan
Notable Cast: Julia Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, Cameron Diaz, Rupert Everett
Julia Roberts plays Jules, a big-city restaurant critic who’s about to turn (gasp) 28 when her longtime platonic best friend Michael (Dermot Mulroney) calls her up and tells her he’s getting married. With her backup plan for romance now in danger of walking down the aisle with a younger, peppier woman than herself (Cameron Diaz, insidiously perky), Jules springs into action to thwart the nuptials. The brilliance of this movie lies in just how bad it allows Roberts’s character to be—she smokes, she schemes, she commits email fraud, she tries to embarrass poor Kimmy at karaoke—while still asking us to empathize with her. Roberts relishes the chance to be this complicated, and it pays off with one of her very best performances. You don’t like Jules just because she’s the bad guy? Grow up, life’s complicated, and we all deserve to have a dance at the end.
No Hard Feelings
Release Year: 2023
Director: Gene Stupnitsky
Notable Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman
It’s not exactly a surprise that Jennifer Lawrence turns out to be incredible at broad comedy. But it’s still a hilarious thrill to watch her tear into a role like this one. She plays a Long Island townie who needs to make some extra money, so a rich couple pay her to date their sheltered 19-year-old son so he’s not a completely antisocial disaster when he enters Princeton in the fall. The son is played by breakthrough talent Andrew Barth Feldman, and he and Lawrence have tremendously sweet comedic chemistry with one another in one of the best comedy movies on Netflix. No Hard Feelings rides the line of friend-com and rom-com, but it’s so winning, and Lawrence’s beachfront naked fight scene is worth a stream all on its own.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Release Year: 1975
Director: Miloš Forman
Notable Cast: Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Brad Dourif
This stone-cold American classic offers one of the definitive Jack Nicholson performances as Randle Patrick McMurphy, a patient at a mental hospital. McMurphy’s defiance of the established order and of society’s determination to call himself and his fellow patients insane leads to a power struggle with the fascistic and cruel Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). Nicholson and Fletcher both won Oscars for their performances, as did director Miloš Forman, en route to the film winning the Oscar for best picture. It stands as one of only three films to win the five top Oscars (the aforementioned plus the award for best screenplay) in a single night.
RRR
Release Year: 2022
Director: S.S. Rajamouli
Notable Cast: N. T. Rama Rao Jr., Ram Charan
This record-breaking Indian action epic was an Oscar winner last year for best original song for one of the most eye-popping, energetic musical numbers in years, “Naatu Naatu.” And the music is only part of the appeal for this movie, which tells an oversized story about brotherhood and revolution and action scenes where a tiger just comes flying right at the screen. There are set pieces in this movie that will have you breaking out in applause in your living room. In terms of action blockbusters that have hit big in the United States, this is a singular achievement; nothing else in America is remotely like this film.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Release Year: 2023
Director: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson
Notable Cast: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Oscar Isaac, Jason Schwartzman
The sequel to 2018 animated superhero story lives up to the first film's visual splendor, and in fact goes beyond it. Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) is back again as Spider-Man, hopping interdimensional portals in order to battle the Spot (Jason Schwartzman) and romance Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld). While the live-action Marvel movies are slumping trying to get their own multiverse storyline off of the ground, Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s animated multiverse is in full chaotic swing, making for one of the best family movies on Netflix. New voices this time around include Oscar Isaac as Miguel O’Hara, Daniel Kaluuya as Spider-Punk, and Issa Rae as Spider-Woman.
Tick, Tick… Boom!
Release Year: 2021
Director: Lin-Manuel Miranda
Notable Cast: Andrew Garfield, Robin de Jesús, Alexandra Shipp
Director Lin-Manuel Miranda and star Andrew Garfield took on the daunting task of adapting Rent creator Jonathan Larson’s famously unfinished musical as a feature film, one of the best Netflix movies produced by the streamer. This was a project packed with meaning, owing to Larson’s untimely death before he could finish it. It’s hard to imagine anyone could do it justice without tipping into either schmaltz or missing Larson’s undeniably earnest spirit. Somehow, Tick, Tick… Boom! pulls it off, with an energy and sincerity that are hard to deny. Garfield is a perfect fit for Larson’s despair and chutzpah, and Miranda’s debut as a filmmaker is very impressive, no more so than in a diner number that brings together a crowd of theater legends.
The Woman King
Release Year: 2022
Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood
Notable Cast: Viola Davis, Thuso Mbedu, Lashana Lynch, John Boyega
As the great sage and poet of our time, Ariana DeBose, once put it: “Viola Davis, my woman king.” Truer words have never been spoken. Oscar-winner Viola Davis does indeed play the titular Woman King in Gina Prince-Bythewood’s historical action drama. The film depicts the real-life story of the Agojie, the all-female warrior battalion who safeguarded the kingdom of Dahomey in West Africa during the 17th to 19th centuries. The film is a thrilling action epic, with tremendously staged and photographed battle scenes, bolstered by strong performances by Davis, Lashana Lynch, Thuso Mbedu, John Boyega, and Sheila Atim. There’s a throwback quality to the film’s commitment to storytelling through action, and Davis is an iconic and powerful presence at the film’s center.
