The 40 best movies on Netflix to watch this week
New this week: The Bikeriders' Jodie Comer takes on the apocalypse in The End We Start From, and Troye Sivan and Lucas Hedges take on homophobes in Boy Erased
GQ's best Netflix movies guide is updated weekly.
The thing about movies, not least on a streamer like Netflix, is that there are so goddamn many of them. Shit-yourself-scary movies; shoot ‘em up action movies; frenetic thrillers that send your heart into your mouth and blood pressure into overdrive.
Spinning through the bright red carousel like the world's longest magazine rack, how are you to separate the good from the naff? We just have so little free time, and we give too much of our lives to movie-picking.
But freeze no more in the shadow of the Big Red N. Here are GQ's top 40 movies now streaming on Netflix, updated every Monday morning for the week ahead, and if you're looking for a list of the best new arrivals to Netflix UK in May 2024? Look no further.
New this week: The Bikeriders' Jodie Comer takes on the apocalypse in The End We Start From, and Troye Sivan and Lucas Hedges take on homophobes in Boy Erased. And if you fancy taking a gamble on Amazon Prime and Disney+, try these guides.
1/40The End We Start From
If you liked The Last of Us, you'll be into this dystopian mid-apocalyptic fare based on the book of the same name by Megan Hunter. We're taken to near-future London in the middle of an ecological crisis: presumably down to climate change, the UK has been hit by a devastating, biblical flood, leaving the capital underwater and its refugee residents escaping to the relative safety of towns and villages on higher ground. Jodie Comer stars as a woman who gives birth at the beginning, and the rest of the film concerns her and her husband's journey to keep the baby safe as the country collapses around them. You can watch The End We Start From on Netflix.
2/40Boy Erased
Pop megastar and sometime-actor Troye Sivan turns out a compelling performance in Boy Erased, a biographical drama centred on the unjust evils of a conversion therapy camp. Lucas Hedges is the lead: his parents, portrayed by Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe, are fundamentalist Christians who ship him off to homophobic school, whose student pool of queer kids are browbeaten by abusive religious teachers into changing their ‘deviant’ ways. It's variously a difficult and optimistic watch, and the ensemble — including Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers — kills it. You can watch Boy Erased on Netflix.
3/40Lone Survivor
Mark Wahlberg turns out a corker of an action performance in Lone Survivor, in which he deploys his underrated dramatic nous — such as seen in The Fighter, Boogie Nights and The Departed — to raise the film up from B-movie territory. Based on the true story of Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell, who was the only survivor of his squad after a mission in Afghanistan went awry, Lone Survivor is pretty much what it says on the tin, following Wahlberg's fight for survival as the Taliban track him down. You can watch Lone Survivor on Netflix.
4/40Bad Boys
One of those film titles that is difficult to read without mentally singing the song with which it is associated, Bad Boys is packed to the rafters with guts, guns and glory. It pits two unorthodox Miami detectives — Will Smith's Mike and Martin Lawrence's Marcus, the duo at the height of their powers — against the sunshine state's drug smugglers and crooked cops. Pretty much the film that redefined the modern buddy cop genre, spawning one of those rare franchises that has kept up the momentum for three further instalments (including this year's Bad Boys: Ride or Die). You can watch Bad Boys on Netflix.
5/40Nope
This is arguably Jordan Peele's most straightforward film, which really isn't saying anything, given his trade in batshit genre pieces (he also directed Get Out, for those less versed in the works of Monkeypaw). Think The X-Files with dashes of Spike Lee and Ari Aster: Nope centres on a sibling pair of Hollywood horse trainers who start to experience strange phenomenon at their ranch in the remote desert — a UFO, in that it is both a flying saucer and literally unidentified. Weird stuff happens, Steven Yeun rocks around in a cowboy hat, there's a killer ape in there somewhere, and Brandon Perea turns out a breakout performance. Great! You can watch Nope on Netflix.
6/40Forrest Gump
Tom Hanks won two Oscars in a row in the early ‘90s. The first was for the weepy, groundbreaking AIDS drama Philadelphia, and the second was for his ultra-accessible, beloved ode to the American Dream, Forrest Gump. Both boast pride of place on Mount Hanxmore, reflecting the ideals embodied by the actor at his Jimmy Stewart, America’s Dad best: hope, optimism against adversity, empathy for your fellow man, and the triumph of the individual spirit. Its conservative political undertones may curdle Gump in modern eyes — it's one for the centrist dads — but it remains a proper heart warmer; a literal Odyssey through thirty-odd years of American history, seen from the perspective of a good guy who just makes your soul sing. You can watch Forrest Gump on Netflix.
7/40Hit Man
Glen Powell's movie star ascent continues with Hit Man, a classic call-back to ‘90s rom-coms — think Clooney, think steaminess, think a silly twist in the premise that somehow actually works — that is just about the most crowd-pleasing movie of the year. In it, Powell stars as Gary Johnson, a ludicrously jacked psychology professor who moonlights as a pretend assassin for the local cops, deploying his unique skills and array of elaborate costumes to snag a series of would-be murder-buyers. Such is his talent on the job he bags upwards of 60 perps, per the true story Hit Man is partially based on, before fiction throws reality to the wind for an invented second-half folding in the story of a beaten wife (Adria Arjona) who solicits Gary's services — and then they fall in love. What a meet-cute. You can watch Hit Man on Netflix.
8/40Under Paris
Des rues are saying that Netflix's surprise summer hit comes in the form of an inane-on-paper but surprisingly thoughtful snappy shark thriller set in the deep, dark waters of the Seine. We're going need a bigger bateau — OK, I should stop Googling “[enter noun here] in French” — and a fistful of cigarettes to get through this one. To be a little more serious about it, as the French are, Under Paris has had favourable enough reviews for a fin flick, even if the consensus roundly agrees that it ain't got the teeth of Jaws. But hey, sometimes a gloriously schlocky premise is all you need, and “great white terrorises [unexpected population centre]” is always a winner. You can watch Under Paris on Netflix.
9/40In Bruges
Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson are a winning combination in this killer comedy from Martin McDonagh — the playwright's feature-film debut. They star as a pair of feckless assassins sent by their boss (Ralph Fiennes) to wait around in Bruges after a hit goes wrong. Chaos promptly descends on this sleepy Belgian town; ample sprays of blood and brain-matter lend its historic streets a lick of welcome colour. Zippy and tight at just 107 minutes, it feels even shorter. Pair with McDonagh's second feature, Seven Psychopaths, for a double hit of Farrell doing the most. You can watch In Bruges on Netflix.
10/40Godzilla Minus One
Takashai Yamazaki's period take on cinema's biggest monster (literally, have you seen the guy, he's a unit) places the kaiju mayhem in postwar Japan, following a former kamikaze pilot's (Ryunosuke Kamiki) brush with the beast. After it released in the U.S. in December last year, movie critics and directors from Steven Spielberg to Christopher Nolan queued up to heap praise on the flick, helping it on its way to a nearly $116 million worldwide gross. It's Godzilla as you've probably never seen him before, with not a single Matthew Broderick in sight. You can watch Godzilla Minus One on Netflix.
11/40Lady Bird
Before Barbie, director Greta Gerwig announced her eminent filmmaking talents to the world with Lady Bird, a Sacremento-set bildungsroman about a talented teen (Saoirse Ronan) doing everything she can to tear herself away from an overbearing mum (Laurie Metcalf) and her chokingly small town. It's a beautiful film which touches on, and refreshes, all of the familiar coming-of-age tropes: she falls in love, has sex for the first time (with a guy who turns out to be a bit of a wrong'n), and goes to prom, because what's a high school movie without prom? Gorgeously shot in oranges and reds as if in Sacramento — or Lady Bird's head — it's always autumn, the most transitional of the seasons: the leaves fall away and crack under our feet on the march towards college and adulthood. You can watch Lady Bird on Netflix.
12/40Nocturnal Animals
Like Tom Ford's previous film A Single Man, his sophomore feature Nocturnal Animals has the feeling of a dream — only this one quickly becomes a nightmare. It centres on a novelist (Jake Gyllenhaal) who is in the process of writing his most haunting work, a story of a family who are kidnapped and assaulted by hillbillies in The Middle of Nowhere, Texas. Gyllenhaal also plays the story's patriarch in scenes which unfold throughout the film, as the writer imagines himself in his book. A heart-in-throat noir elevated by brilliant performances across the board, not least Aaron Taylor-Johnson, the evil ringleader of the hillbilly gang. You can watch Nocturnal Animals on Netflix.
13/40Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
To those who think that Quentin Tarantino's love letter to ‘60s Movieland should be taken as a true-to-life render for how it really was way back when, its title is a riposte: this is a fantasy, a fairy tale, a myth, with summer in the air and freedom at the wheel of a topdown convertible, baby. The director's greatest film — did I stutter? — doesn't recall a place or time so much as the ideas epitomised by said place and time: free love, the ingenunity of old-timey Hollywood movie making, the spirit of the American dream, that stunt guys don't get enough props, wearing a leather jacket that stinks of cow is cool actually and will never go out of vogue, etc. Pour yourself a cognac, pick up your best cuban cigar, and enjoy. You can watch Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood on Netflix.
Everett Collection14/40The Lost Daughter
Olivia Colman is the queen of playing frazzled women, and The Lost Daughter, in which she plays a stuffy academic who takes a Greek sojourn out of term time, is no different. Then a family of brash Brooklynites (led by Dakota Johnson) arrive to ruin her chill; on watching Johnson struggle with being a young mum, she recalls the difficulties she faced raising her twins, with the character portrayed in flashback by I'm Thinking of Ending Things' Jessie Buckley. Once nowt more than a fly in her Aperol spritz, her guilt overwhelms her. Hardly a holiday for the scrapbook. You can watch The Lost Daughter on Netflix.
15/40Paprika
Satoshi Kon's headfuck anime preceded Inception with its daring premise in which a scientist invents a machine to explore people's dreams — quite literally. Things go rather caput when the machine is stolen by a “dream terrorist”. Watching this will inspire Google searches such as: “Paprika plot explained,” “giant teddy bear Paprika why,” and, most crucially, “did Christopher Nolan see Paprika before he made Inception?” The answer to the latter remains hotly contested, with the director wisely wading away from such discourse. But hey, you'd never turn down being dubbed the inspiration for a Best Picture nominee, would you? You can watch Paprika on Netflix.
16/40Triangle of Sadness
Ruben Östlund's first English-language film takes his uniquely cynical, blackly comic worldview to society's wealthy few in an eat-the-rich satire that sees a lot of them vomiting to death. The Iron Claw's Harris Dickinson and breakout Charlbi Dean, who tragically passed away before the film was released, star as an influencer couple who are invited on a luxury cruise attended by arms dealers and oil barons — a nice bunch, really. A botched dinner turns messy, the captain gets drunk, and the ship sinks, leaving a handful of survivors at the mercy of the ship's savvy cleaner on a nearby island. You can watch Triangle of Sadness on Netflix.
17/40Forrest Gump
Was this the role that cemented Tom Hanks' status as America's dad? The second of his one-two punch at the Oscars, winning Best Actor twice in a row for Gump and 1993's Philadelphia, cast him as a simple man growing up amid the chaos and political upheaval of America in the ‘50s, ’60s and ‘70s. Along the way, he meets no end of famous people — Hanks is digitally superimposed into conversations with the likes of John Lennon, which would’ve had '90s audiences reacting in the same way that viewers did when that train came rushing towards the screen in the 1900s. He also sets up a shrimping business and makes a gazillion dollars. A classic tearjerker. You can watch Forrest Gump on Netflix.
Rex / Shutterstock18/40Crazy Stupid Love
Before the upcoming The Fall Guy, before Barbie and before the criminally underappreciated The Nice Guys, there was Crazy Stupid Love, a film where Ryan Gosling got to prove to the world that he's just a goofy, funny guy underneath the tan and the abs. In it, he plays a reforming ladies' man who takes a shlubby almost-divorcee (Steve Carrell) under his wing to teach him how to get laid. It's better left there, as it's really not worth spoiling the meat of its movie (which would make the writers of any 50s screwball comedy shed a tear of pride). You can watch Crazy Stupid Love on Netflix.
Rex / Shutterstock19/40The Talented Mr. Ripley
If you so desire, thanks to Netflix right now, you can give yourself a Tom Ripley overdose. Not only is there the lush new black-and-white series starring Andrew Scott as the notorious scammer, but you can also indulge in the 1999 Anthony Minghella classic starring young Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Matt Damon and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Props to Minghella for not only evoking the sundrenched sensuality of 1950s Italy, but securing these later-iconic stars in their absolute prime. It's truly hard to imagine any group of people ever looking better on screen. You can watch The Talented Mr. Ripley on Netflix.
Rex Features20/40Lost in Translation
Sofia Coppola's vignette of two lonely people in Tokyo soothing their isolation in the strange comfort of each other is iconic. Chances are, if you know anyone who's been to Japan, they made some punny Instagram caption referring back to the movie or grabbed a drink at the Park Hyatt bar shown in the movie. The movie is both heavy and light, showing the crushing weight of being stuck in the mud of your own life while at the same time letting us find joy and levity in the way Scarlet Johansson's lonely wife and Bill Murray's existential actor fill their time. You can watch Lost in Translation on Netflix.
21/40Annihilation
With Alex Garland's sure-to-have-hands-wringing-everywhere Civil War coming out in April, why not catch up with his other big action-infused bit of cerebral dystopian fiction? Sure, this one doesn't have a Donald Trump stand-in played by Nick Offerman, but it does have a fucking terrifying alien-deer-creature-thing which copies the last sound you make before it kills you to bits. Natalie Portman stars as a bulky military scientist type who leads an expedition into “The Shimmer,” an eerie no-go zone which appeared in a Floridian nature reserve after a meteor landed and has since been ETifying the local fauna. Thrilling action-horror which actually asks you to use your brain: who'd'a thunk it! You can watch Annihilation on Netflix.
22/40Pulp Fiction
When was the last time you saw this stone cold classic? Quentin Tarantino's sophomore feature, which he wrote and directed in his early 30s (cue us feeling very, very insignificant) stands up as a feast of witty dialogue, timeless performances and cinematic maximalism. You know the drill. There are the suited assassins who like quoting scripture and debating French fast food (Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta); there's the boxer (Bruce Willis) who refuses to throw a fight, and subsequently comes to blows with the match fixer he double crossed (Ving Rhames); there's Uma Thurman doing the twist. There's the soundtrack. There's Marvin (Phil LaMarr) getting his brains blown out. Let's face it: you will watch this at least 100 times before you die. You can watch Pulp Fiction on Netflix.
23/40Top Gun: Maverick
The biggest movie of 2022 comes to streaming from Friday, so you can watch Tom Cruise and Miles Teller fly around to Kenny Loggins, and those deeply homoerotic scenes of half-naked beach volleyball, to your heart's content. One of the greatest sequels ever made; one of the greatest action movies; an unimpeachable argument for the superiority of practical stunts and effects; conclusive proof that Cruise is one of the greatest film stars ever to grace our planet. You can watch Top Gun: Maverick on Netflix.
24/40Memento
With Christopher Nolan's latest big screen epic, Oppenheimer, finally securing the director his Oscar bag, why not catch up with the movie that made him? Memento has many of the tropes that have come to be associated with Nolan's filmography. For one, it's a real head fuck. It tells the story of a man (Guy Pearce) suffering from short-term memory loss who uses an array of photographs and notes that he has left for himself, like breadcrumbs, to find out who has killed his wife. To do this, Nolan eschews conventional linearity: instead, the film intercuts between black-and-white and colour sequences, the latter in reverse order, putting us in the mind of Pearce's character. Still, not as confusing as Tenet. You can watch Memento on Netflix.
Courtesy Everett Collection25/40Uncut Gems
Lauded by critics as the best performance of his career, Adam Sandler swaps out his family-friendly Hawaiian shirts (not the cool ones from Prada) for leather jackets and some serious bling in the Safdie’s Uncut Gems. Playing a Jewish jewellery dealer, Howard, who’s in some pretty substantial debt thanks to an even bigger gambling habit, the film is a non-stop, two-hour frenzy in which he must come up with a plan to keep underground debt collectors at bay. Also starring Lakeith Stanfield and Idina Menzel, with cameos from The Weeknd and basketball player Kevin Garnett, Uncut Gems will get your heart pumping faster than a SoulCycle spin session – and you don’t even have to leave your house to watch it. You can watch Uncut Gems on Netfilx.
Courtesy Everett Collection26/40Past Lives
Celine Song's striking debut film Past Lives is one of the must-watch movies of the year if you haven't already had a chance to see it. The semi-autobiographical picture tells the story of Nora and Hae-sung, former childhood best friends who intermittently reconnect over the course of 20 years until one fateful week in New York brings them back together. Then, they have to contend with a life's worth of ‘what ifs’ all while coming to terms with who they are in the present. Starring Greta Lee (who tragically missed out on an Oscar nom) and Teo Yoo, it's a film that will stick around with you like a crush you just can't shake. You can watch Past Lives on Netflix.
©Sony Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection27/40Whiplash
This year it will be a decade since Damien Chazelle’s dive into the competitive inner world of jazz drumming hit screens, so your adrenaline may have only just calmed down. Time to give it a spike again! Chazelle managed to make a psychological thriller out of music school and genuine horror scenes out of jam sessions in his second directorial outing. Miles Teller plays Andrew, an aspiring jazz musician, and JK Simmons plays his conductor, Terrence, in one of the most villainous roles in film outside of playing an actual serial killer. Chazelle has mastered the art of making sensory overload its own technical marvel, from La La Land to Babylon, but we’d argue nothing beats the way he uses it in Whiplash. You can watch Whiplash on Netflix.
28/40Men in Black
An intergalactic classic starring Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith — the latter at the height of his ‘90s blockbuster powers, having just topped the bill in 1996’s highest grosser, Independence Day. Smith portrays a young beat officer recruited into a clandestine organisation, the eponymous Men in Black, set up to monitor and police the activities of alien refugees, who inhabit the planet unknown to the lion's share of Earthlings. The chemistry between Jones and Smith remains pretty unparalleled, elevating an already whip-smart script. You can watch Men in Black on Netflix.
29/40Get Out
A star making vehicle for the director-actor duo of Daniel Kaluuya and Jordan Peele — who would reunite on the kooky alien horror Nope five years later — Get Out skewers white liberal complicity in American racism. Odds are if you keep up with buzzy films, you'll have seen it: Kaluuya stars as Chris, who visits his white girlfriend's family for the first time. They're amiable enough. They voted for Obama, they say. And then something all the more sinister unfolds, straddling the absurd and the supernatural, as Chris finds himself embroiled in a terrifying family conspiracy going back centuries. Bradley Whitford, so good. You can watch Get Out on Netflix.
30/40Red Rocket
Sean Baker's (best known for Orlando bildungsroman The Florida Project) Red Rocket won Simon Rex — Scary Movie 3's Simon Rex, who once had a thriving career in adult movies — the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actor in 2022. For good reason! He's terrific, cast as a tearaway rogue who comes home to Texas from the glitz and glam of L.A. after his once-fruitful porn fame collapses in on itself. It's a performance brimming with raw, expressive vulnerability; it's also quite literally vulnerable in the sense that Rex drops hog for a running scene soundtracked by NSYNC ("Bye Bye Bye," rights for which were approved by all five members, including Justin). You can watch Red Rocket on Netflix.
31/40Dune: Part One
Timothée Chalamet came of movie-star-age in Dune: Part One, the first major studio project he led in the aftermath of his Call Me by Your Name prompted ascendency. And what a mantle to take on. Adapted from Frank Herbert's dense sci-fi tome that has more than its share of zealots, Dune: Part One is a bit like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings combined. It's packed with granular lore, telling the psychedelic story of a distant intergalactic society who covet control of the sand planet Arrakis (think Tatooine, with gigantic, carnivorous space worms) for its unique resource, a drug called “spice”. So far, so very, very ‘60s. Directed by Denis Villeneuve, it’s big, bold, takes its time and boasts stellar performances across the board, with a sequel — mounted by Zendaya, whose character is briefly glimpsed in Dune: Part One — arriving this year. You can watch Dune: Part One on Netflix.
32/40Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood
What is Quentin Tarantino's best film? The movie hipsters tend to go for an esoteric option, like Jackie Brown (great!) or Death Proof (fine!) The meat and potatoes enthusiasts? Well, it's gotta be Inglourious Basterds, Reservoir Dogs, or Pulp Fiction. And the Uma Thurman stans have the Kill Bill duology. For everyone else there's Tarantino's great feat in historical fantasy making, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, a late-career epic which revisits the most consequential moment in Los Angeles' glitzy, grimy history — the death of actress Sharon Tate (portrayed by Barbie's Margot Robbie) at the hands of the Manson cult. Simultaneously it's a two-hours-and-45 hangout flick, basking in the Hollywood sun with washed up actor Rick Dalton (Leo DiCaprio) and his washed up stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). Just a banger. And maybe the most Tarantino has ever Tarantino'd. You can watch Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood on Netflix.
33/40Jaws
Spielberg’s blockbuster trendsetter broke new ground for monster movies and we can thank it for a tonne of the ones to come after it: the likes of Alien and even Spielberg’s later classic Jurassic Park, about violent monsters stalking their human prey for two-hours-plus of runtime, might be reductively described as “Jaws in space” or “Jaws in a giant T-rex zoo,” respectively. But the O.G. holds up just as well as it did in the mid-70s, with its iconic piano stabs and astonishingly life-like animatronics. You can watch Jaws on Netflix.
Everett Collection34/40Little Women
Before Greta Gerwig dropped her megapink Barbie bomb and ended life on Earth as we know it, she was best known for plying her trade in the studio-indie sphere, on quaint — but deeply felt — artsy pics like Lady Bird. And, indeed, Little Women. This modern adaptation of the Victorian coming-of-ager, with a handsome trim of festive frost, was Gerwig's starriest movie to date: Lady Bird herself Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson and Florence Pugh star in the film, with terrific supporting performances from Laura Dern, Meryl Streep and an ascendant Timothée Chalamet, rocketing to stardom in the sunnier shadow of Call Me by Your Name. Watch for the heartfelt ode to female adolescence; stay for the scene where Bob Odenkirk says the titular line. You can watch Little Women on Netflix.
35/40The Killer
After his big Old Hollywood passion project Mank, The Killer marks a return to familiar territory for David Fincher, with his noted career-running interest in weirdos and outcasts. Michael Fassbender certainly plays one here: the eponymous Killer is the most anal assassin of all time, meticulous and exacting. He's also pretty inept, as becomes clear twenty minutes in and a crucial hit goes to shit, setting in motion a globetrotting revenge story with the Killer exacting bloody retribution for an attack on his girlfriend. A pulpy, noirish delight from a technical master, simple and effective. You can watch The Killer on Netflix.
Everett Collection36/40Portrait of a Lady on Fire
This resplendent period piece was one of a few films in 2019 centring on sapphic love in Ye Olden Days — the strangest but most welcome bit of cinematic kismet in recent memory (beside all the hitman movie parodies of 2023). By French filmmaker Céline Sciamma (shot in her native tongue), Portrait of a Lady on Fire tells the story of a delicate love blossoming between an aristocrat and her painter, with passion and heartbreak aplenty. It's a Film Twitter fave for good reason: it's shot with the artful touch of a decorous watercolour, and leads Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel are sensational. Call it recency bias, but there's a reason the thousand-plus critics assembled for Sight and Sound's most recent poll of the greatest films ever made picked it for 30th. You can watch Portrait of a Lady on Fire on Netflix.
37/40Call Me by Your Name
Call Me by Your Name made a star out of Timothée Chalamet six — yes, that's right, you read that correctly, six! — years ago. Half a decade on, it still stands out as a major moment in recent cinematic history. Not only did it lay the foundations for the cult of “Timmy”, it brought the resplendent Italian flair of Luca Guadagnino to the global mainstream. And it stands up impressively on repeat viewing. Beyond the delicate gay love story at its centre, take the watercolour landscapes of Crema, the sleepy little town in Northern Italy (subtitled, like a fairytale, “somewhere”) or those earworm ear drops, from the Psychedelic Furs to any of the original tracks Sufjan Stevens contributed. Then there are the devastatingly chic summer fits: come for the kino, leave with a newfound proclivity for billow shirts and bright blue polos. You can watch Call Me by Your Name on Netflix.
Everett Collection38/40Parasite
After Parasite won Best Picture at the Oscars in 2020, Bong Joon-ho — reverently referred to as Director Bong by his fans and acolytes — issued a challenge to movie audiences in the West. “Once you overcome the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles,” he said, glistening statuette raised high, “you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” Perhaps it didn't move the dial for world cinema quite as far as we then anticipated, but Parasite — a masterful class thriller — has become a new gateway drug for new cinephiles getting into Korean cinema. You can watch Parasite on Netflix.
39/40The Squid and the Whale
Every Brooklynite movie nerd's fave, Noah Baumbach — otherwise known as husband to Barbie's Greta Gerwig — stuck his flag in the turf with this, his third feature. Produced by Wes Anderson, it's very much in tune with the thematic interests of Baumbach's wider filmography, namely how shitty families can be. This one puts us in the child's eye view of Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline, the Berkman kids, witnessing the unceremonious collapse of their parents' marriage. If you liked Marriage Story… (bonus points: it's just eighty-one minutes, including credits). You can watch The Squid and the Whale on Netflix.
40/40The Irishman
Have you been putting off watching Martin Scorsese's The Irishman because it's too long to fit into your very busy schedule? Well, we don't blame you. At well over three hours long, it is quite the commitment, but if you suddenly find yourself at home with some time on your hands, then now is the time to grab that prestigious bit of filmmaking by the horns and hunker down with Scorsese and his pals for 209 minutes of good ol' fashioned gangster movie action. Telling the real-life story of renowned hitman Frank Sheeran, as he becomes involved with the mafia, it's perhaps the last time we'll see De Niro, Pacino and Pesci join forces, so soak up every last, immaculately shot second of it. You can watch The Irishman on Netflix.
