[Editor’s Note: This article is reviewed and updated on a weekly basis.]
Picture the scene. You’re sat on the sofa after a long day at work, hot tea (or coffee) in hand, all cosy and ready to fire up Netflix for your next film fix. You’re scrolling, scrolling, scrolling… and suddenly it’s 10pm, your brew’s gone cold, and movie night is cancelled because there’s just too damn much to choose from. A familiar scenario, we’re sure. But not any more, friends — your friendly neighbourhood Empire is here to help.
There’s a whole wide world of underrated gems, tried and trusted comfort watches, and all-time canonical bangers out there in the streamer’s library just waiting to be explored. And with that in mind, we here at Empire HQ have decided it’s high time our dear readers had a list of the 60 best movies on Netflix UK to help separate the streaming wheat from the streaming chaff. “But how do you do it, Empire?” we hear you cry. Well…
How We Choose The Best Movies To Watch On Netflix UK
Honestly, it’s pretty simple actually: basically, we gather the forces of our square-eyed, crack team of film critics from the world’s biggest movie magazine on a weekly basis to weigh up the movers, shakers, and headline makers among the latest additions to the Netflix catalogue. From those conversations, we update and refine our ever up-to-date, ever comprehensive guide to the best movies the streamer has to offer right now. We even throw in direct links so you can jump straight in to whatever catches your eye.
All of this means that whether you’re after a cracking comedy (Happy Gilmore 2), an eye-popping actioner (HAVOC), one of the greatest horrors of the 21st century (Barbarian), an emotionally walloping Gothic sci-fi epic (Frankenstein), or a good old-fashioned timey-wimey romance (We Live In Time), we’ve got you covered. So what are you waiting for? Feast your eyes on our list of Netflix UK’s finest features, and get your next big night in sorted.
New on Netflix this week: Goodbye June (24 December)
Leaving Netflix soon: Sing (16 December); The Apprentice (18 December); No Country For Old Men (19 December)
Jump To:
The 61 Best Movies Streaming On Netflix UK (January 2026)
EMPIRE’S Pick Of The Month | Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery)
Director: Rian Johnson | Genre: Mystery | Runtime: 2hrs 24m
Starring: Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Jeremy Renner, Josh Brolin, Kerry Washington, Daryl McCormack, Thomas Haden Church, Mila Kunis, Cailee Spaeny, Andrew Scott
Chills, thrills, twists, and turns abound in Daniel Craig’s third outing as passive obsuh-vuh of truth Benoit Blanc. Eschewing the autumnal cosiness of Knives Out and sun-kissed island razzmatazz of Glass Onion, Wake Up Dead Man — which centres on a locked-room mystery involving a controversial small-town priest (Josh Brolin) — is instead a more Gothic, brooding affair, a meditation on faith filtered through Johnson’s signature brand of razor-sharp wit and incisive social commentary. Once again fronted by a *ahem* murderers’ row of Hollywood’s finest, Benny B’s latest case is every bit as entertaining, noodle-twisting, and ingeniously configured as his first two — the perfect pre-Christmas whodunnit. More please!
Streaming 12 December on Netflix.
Read Empire‘s review of Wake Up Dead Man.
New In 2025
Jay Kelly
Director: Noah Baumbach | Genre: Drama | Runtime: 2hrs 12m
Starring: George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Emily Mortimer, Kyle Soller, Greta Gerwig
In Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, George Clooney stars as an ageing, ineffably charismatic Hollywood icon with the world at his feet and legions of fans the world over. We know, we know, it’s a part Clooney must’ve really struggled to relate to. But beneath Kelly’s debonair demeanour is a father, a friend, and an ultimately incredibly existentially anxious man looking to reconcile his past and present, which is where the focus of Baumbach’s beautifully shot melodrama lies. It’s a real treat to watch a never-better Clooney travelling through Europe with his loyal but long-suffering manager Ron (Adam Sandler) and publicist Liz (Laura Dern), and Baumbach and co-writer Emily Mortimer bring a brand of old-school Hollywood glamour, zippy dialogue, and earnestness to this that proves intoxicating. If Clooney retired tomorrow (please don’t, George!), this wouldn’t be a bad send-off at all.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire‘s review of Jay Kelly.
Train Dreams
Director: Clint Bentley | Genre: Drama | Runtime: 1hr 42m
Starring: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, William H. Macy, Clifton Collins Jr.
There’s a bit of a lazy habit in film criticism of watching a movie that’s slow-paced, elemental, deeply invested in the passage of time and the essence of humanity, and likening it to the works of the great Terrence Malick (The Tree Of Life, The Thin Red Line). With that being said, Clint Bentley’s Train Dreams — a gently delivered yarn that delicately chronicles the changing shape of early 20th century America through the life of a humble logger and railroad worker (Joel Edgerton) — is about as Malickian as a non-Malick-made movie gets. Almost mumblecore by nature yet emotionally louder than thunder, Train Dreams creeps up on your heart and takes root in your soul.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire‘s review of Train Dreams.
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein
Director: Guillermo del Toro | Genre: Sci-Fi | Runtime: 2hr 29m
Starring: Jacob Elordi, Oscar Isaac, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz, Charles Dance, Lars Mikkelsen
It might’ve taken Guillermo del Toro almost two decades’ work and a lifetime of dreaming to bring his vision of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to cinematic life, but boy was it worth the wait. Oscar Isaac and Jacob Elordi lead a starry ensemble here as Victor Frankenstein and his pitiable Creature, brought together — and torn apart — by their wildly divergent quests to divine the secrets of being human. Gloriously Gothic, loaded with pathos, and deft in its handling of the themes of Shelley’s book, del Toro’s film is in many ways the culmination of all the Mexican fabulist’s work to date. And yes, Jacob Elordi really is that extraordinary as Frankenstein’s accursed creation.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire‘s review of Frankenstein.
A House Of Dynamite
Director: Kathryn Bigelow | Genre: Thriller | Runtime: 1hr 52m
Starring: Rebecca Ferguson, Idris Elba, Tracy Letts, Gabriel Basso, Greta Lee, Jared Harris
Kathryn Bigelow is back back back with a razor sharp, race-against-the-clock real-time thriller that imagines what the fraught minutes before a nuclear strike makes impact would look like. Split into a triptych of interweaving perspectives, each climaxing moments before disaster strikes, Bigelow’s movie — penned by Jackie and Zero Day scribe Noah Oppenheim — is a breathless, almost unbearably intense affair driven by a constellation of heavyweight stars (Rebecca Ferguson! Jared Harris! Tracy Letts! Greta Lee!). It’s a remarkable line-up, who all excel themselves playing out the minute-to-minute decisions and deliberations of a nation under unknown hostile attack right before our eyes. As explosive as a Zero Dark Thirty or The Hurt Locker without ever needing to actually explode its bomb, A House Of Dynamite is a Bigelow banger.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire‘s review of A House Of Dynamite.
Steve
Director: Tim Mielants | Genre: Drama | Runtime: 1hr 33m
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Jay Lycurgo, Emily Watson, Tracey Ullman, Little Simz
Following hot on the heels of last year’s Magdalene Laundries drama Small Things Like These, Tim Mielants and Cillian Murphy have reteamed for British borstal movie Steve, a powerful adaptation of Max Porter’s Shy. Set over the course of a single day at a struggling reform college in 90s England, Steve locks into the headspace of Murphy’s titular head teacher as he tries to keep a handle on his mental health, the prospect of his school’s possible closure, and the wellbeing of his behaviourally challenged pupils, all while a TV documentary crew unhelpfully hover around in pursuit of capturing their own Broken Britain narrative. If it all sounds incredibly stressful, then that’s because it absolutely is. But, buoyed by a magnetic central turn from Murphy and an exceptional young cast of lads you can’t help but love — in particular, Jay Lycurgo’s loaded gun of pent-up emotion, Shy — Steve lands like a sort of rough-and-ready British Dead Poets Society.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire‘s review of Steve.
Hard Truths
Director: Mike Leigh | Genre: Drama | Runtime: 1hr 37m
Starring: Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin, David Webber, Tuwaine Barrett
Mike Leigh’s reunion with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, the actor who led his 1996 Palme d’Or winning drama Secrets & Lies, was always going to be something special. What makes Hard Truths such a must-see however is how extraordinarily ordinary it actually is. Jean-Baptiste is on firebrand form as Pansy, a reclusive middle-aged woman whose world-weariness scorches all and sundry around her (to often hilarious effect — her babies-and-pockets rant is an all-timer), but whose pain and bone-deep misery is plain for all — especially sister Chantelle (Michele Austin) — to see. Not always the easiest of watches, especially as Leigh has no interest in curing Pansy’s bitterness with a syrupy Hollywood ending, Hard Truths is nevertheless an essential watch. It’s human, raw, real: in other words, a Mike Leigh movie through and through.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire‘s review of Hard Truths.
Recent Bangers (2020s)
We Live In Time (2024)
Director: John Crowley | Genre: Rom-Com | Runtime: 1hr 47m
Starring: Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh, Grace Delaney, Lee Braithwaite, Douglas Hodge, Niamh Cusack
Every decade gets its weepy, chronologically tricksy romance with ‘Time’ in the title. The noughties gave us The Time Traveler’s Wife, the 2010s came in hot with Richard Curtis sob-a-thon About Time, and now, to that canon, John Crowley has added We Live In Time — and a worthy addition, it is. Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh are utterly magnetic as Weetabix salesman Tobias and chef Almut, whose worlds quite literally collide when the former gets taken out by the latter’s car. From there on out, Crowley jazzes back and forth through Tobias and Almut’s relationship, jumping from furtive first touches to devastating diagnoses, family life to petrol station childbirth, at will to weave a delicate tapestry of life as it is lived, experienced, and remembered. It’s frequently funny, often emotional, and driven at all times by the electrifying chemistry of its leads. It’s also, perhaps most significantly, almost definitely not exactly what you think it’s going to be. It’s knottier, messier, more mature than your average rom-com, and all the more powerful for it. Make time for it.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire‘s review of We Live In Time.
The Outrun (2024)
Director: Nora Fingscheidt | Genre: Drama | Runtime: 1hr 48m
Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Paapa Essiedu
Saoirse Ronan reminded us all why she is one of the greatest actors on the planet today with a brace of phenomenal performances in 2024 — in Steve McQueen’s lavish WWII drama Blitz, and to IFTA winning and BAFTA nominated effect in The Outrun. A heart wrenching portrait of substance addiction set against the devastatingly beautiful backdrop of Orkney, Nora Fingscheidt’s adaptation of Amy Liptrot’s memoir chronicles the journey of Rona (Ronan), a recovering alcoholic seeking sobriety and natural healing upon returning to her island home. A masterclass in restraint on Ronan’s part, Fingscheidt’s film offers a nuanced, non-judgmental take on the cycle of addiction and the ravaging effects of mental illness. You may only ever watch it the once, but watch it the once you absolutely should.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of The Outrun.
Rebel Ridge (2024)
Director: Jeremy Saulnier | Genre: Action Thriller | Runtime: 2hrs 11m
Starring: Aaron Pierre, Don Johnson
If watching hyper competent individuals perform under extreme pressure is your bag, then look no further than Jeremy Saulnier’s Rebel Ridge. The Green Room filmmaker’s latest — a 21st century riff on First Blood shot through with all the relentless intensity of Uncut Gems (or indeed any of Saulnier’s own films for that matter) — centres around former Marine Terry Richmond (a magnetic Aaron Pierre), who finds himself facing off against a small-town police department when a pair of corrupt cops confiscate his cousin’s bail money. Far from simply the bone-crunching one-man-against-the-system movie you may be expecting (although bones do be getting crunched here, make no mistake), Saulnier’s latest nimbly navigates systemic and institutional racism, police corruption, and the insanity of civil asset forfeiture both as a concept and as an actionable legal framework, all whilst managing to crack wise and provide white-knuckle thrills at every turn. The Aaron Pierre for Bond campaign starts here.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Rebel Ridge.
The Holdovers (2024)
Director: Alexander Payne | Genre: Comedy Drama | Runtime: 2hrs 13m
Starring: Paul Giamatti, Dominic Sessa, Da’Vine Joy Randolph
Alexander Payne’s story of Christmas-based alienation may have a festive flourish, but really it’s a film for all seasons. Paul Giamatti is perhaps the best he’s ever been as curmudgeonly classics teacher Paul Dunham, forced to oversee the ‘Holdovers’ during the Christmas holidays — the kids who, for whatever reason, can’t go home. He’s matched perfectly by Dominic Sessa who, in his very first screen role, gives as good as he gets, snarling up a storm as disaffected teen Angus. But it’s Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s grieving cook Mary who steals the show — the trio’s individual frostiness melting away as the days pass, and they gain a better understanding of each other, and themselves too. Both appropriately chilly and wonderfully warm (not to mention gut-bustingly funny, too), The Holdovers is a sweet tale with little sentimentality. An instant Christmas classic.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire’s review of The Holdovers.
Hit Man (2024)
Director: Richard Linklater | Genre: Action/Rom-Com | Runtime: 1hr 55m
Starring: Glen Powell, Adria Arjona
Having proven his leading man potential with star turns in Top Gun: Maverick and Anyone But You, Glen Powell goes full movie star with a magnetic turn — or, more accurately, turns — in Richard Linklater’s true story inspired Hit Man, a smoking hot rom-com with an intoxicating noir edge. Here, Powell plays philosophy-lecturer-turned-fake-assassin Gary Johnson, whose unlikely side-hustle gets complicated when — whilst disguised as smooth talking contract killer Ron — he meets Madison (Adria Arjona), a woman trying to escape an abusive marriage, during a set-up. Sparks fly between the pair, the sting collapses, and a whirlwind romance ensues. From there, the heat turns up in every possible way as Gary attempts to keep up his double-life without rousing the suspicions of the feds — or his new girlfriend. Smart, sexy, slick, and quick-witted, this is fiercely original filmmaking that grabs you from minute one and never lets go. What else can we say? It’s a hit, man!
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Hit Man.
Love Lies Bleeding (2024)
Director: Rose Glass | Genre: Thriller | Runtime: 1hr 44m
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Katie O’Brian, Ed Harris, Jena Malone
After her slow, unsettling debut Saint Maud, Rose Glass ups the ante with the riotous, pulpy, queer crime thriller Love Lies Bleeding. Kristen Stewart steps into a role she was born to play as gym manager Lou, who falls for bodybuilder Jackie (Katy O’Brian, also perfectly cast) when she rolls through town preparing for a competition — but as the pair become more entwined, so too does Lou’s family drama with her abused sister (Jena Malone) and menacing, gun-toting father (Ed Harris). Sex, drugs and violence are combined with Glass’ signature supernatural tinges and magical realism, all set in the sweaty, dusty Albuquerque desert of the ‘80s. Stewart and O’Brian’s chemistry is off the charts, the trippy sequence at Jackie’s bodybuilding contest is one for the ages, and there are enough twists, turns and shocks along the way to keep you on the edge of your seat. Might even encourage you to start doing some regular bicep curls.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire’s review of Love Lies Bleeding.
Carry-On (2024)
Director: Jaume Collet-Serra | Genre: Thriller | Runtime: 1hr 59m
Starring: Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman
An absolutely killer 90-minute movie housed in the body of a still pretty darn great two-hour one, Carry-On — which is not a bawdy British sex comedy set at an airport (sadly) but rather a rollicking high-concept gem — is an absolute blast. A single location, seasonally set thriller that pits Taron Egerton’s TSA agent Ethan against a nameless, nefarious, Jason Bateman shaped baddie, this sure-fire future Christmas classic wears its Die Hard aspirations on its sleeve and wipes said sleeve on a juicy cat-and-mouse caper pulled straight from the Hitchcock playbook. Directed with oodles of style and an infectious sense of joie de vivre by Jaume Collet-Serra, a filmmaker who has perhaps seemed a tad weighed down and diluted by a slew of studio gigs in recent years, Carry-On represents a real return to form for the Spanish-American. Every minute might be a nightmare for Egerton’s beleaguered TSA agent, but for us it’s the gift that keeps on giving. Carry-On 2: Keep Calm And Carry-On, anyone? Anyone?!
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire’s Carry-On review.
The Kitchen (2024)
Director: Daniel Kaluuya, Kibwe Tavares | Genre: Dystopian Sci-Fi | Runtime: 1hr 47m
Starring: Kane Robinson, Jedaiah Bannerman, Ian Wright
The list of British social-realist sci-fi films may be short, but this promising co-directorial debut from actor-turned-filmmaker Daniel Kaluuya and architect-turned-filmmaker Kibwe Tavares compellingly makes the case that there should be more. Presenting a bracing, all-too-believable vision of a near-future London that’s equal parts Mike Leigh, Syd Mead, and Attack The Block, Kaluuya and Tavares’ barely dystopian film dextrously tackles gang culture, the trials of parenthood, and the inadequacies of the British social housing system. Most impressively though, it juggles these commentaries whilst still managing to tell an emotionally engaging story about two wayward souls (Kane Robinson and newcomer Jedaiah Bannerman — both captivating) drawn together on the last council estate left in town. That the movie also just so happens to boast a genuinely blinding performance by Gooners legend Ian ‘Wrighty’ Wright as the pirate DJ at the heart of the titular community is just a bonus, really.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of The Kitchen.
Oppenheimer (2023)
Director: Christopher Nolan | Genre: Drama | Runtime: 3hrs
Starring: Cillian Murphy, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Robert Downey Jr., David Krumholtz, Joshua Hartnett, Matt Damon, Jason Clarke
If the building hype for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has you hankering for another epic from the biggest filmmaker working in British cinema today, then you could do far worse than revisit Nolan’s Oscar winning J. Robert Oppenheimer biopic, er, Oppenheimer. Zeroing in on Oppenheimer and his team of scientists’ creation of the atomic bomb, Nolan’s movie — one of our picks for the best movies of 2023 — is a muscular, cerebral work of art that reckons with the price to be paid, both personally and on a global scale, for pursuing the act of creation — for taking a theory and putting it into practice. An all-star cast (Blunt! Pugh! Downey Jr.! Damon!) is headed up by a transcendent Cillian Murphy, who plays Oppy’s shock, awe, inarguable brilliance, and bone-deep guilt for playing Prometheus in an age of nuclear power superlatively. From the Trinity Test to the courtroom to a pond side pondering with Albert Einstein, Oppenheimer‘s near three-and-a-half hour runtime flies by: it’s the days, weeks, and months you’ll find yourself thinking about it after you’ve really got to look out for.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire‘s review of Oppenheimer.
Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (2023)
Director: Dean Fleischer Camp | Genre: Mockumentary | Runtime: 1hr 30m
Starring: Jenny Slate, Dean Fleischer Camp, Isabella Rossellini, Rosa Salazar, Nathan Fielder, Andy Richter
He may be an existentially anxious, one-eyed exoskeleton who sleeps in a matchbox, but man alive does shoe-wearing shell Marcel have us heart and soul. Dean Fleischer Camp’s delicately crafted, lilting stop-motion masterpiece is a winning blend of visual invention, intricate world-building, and sensitive storytelling, all driven by the creative talents of Jenny Slate, whose voice fills our half-inch hero with a wit, warmth and wisdom well beyond his years. You may be duped by the film’s twee set-up and Marcel’s, well, Marcelness into thinking this’ll be a short, sweet parade of cuteness — and, on one level, it absolutely is. But look closer, and Camp’s movie — co-written by star Slate — is a delicately observed meditation on loss, pain, and the empowerment that comes when we discover and embrace who we are. Deservingly Oscar nominated alongside works from the likes of Guillermo del Toro, DreamWorks, and Pixar, Marcel The Shell With Shoes On is a big hearted movie with big ideas, delivered in a package that’s all sorts of wholesome and adorable. (It also ranked highly on our list of the best movies of 2023, too!)
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire’s review of Marcel The Shell With Shoes On.
Infinity Pool (2023)
Director: Brandon Cronenberg | Genre: Horror | Runtime: 1hr 58m
Starring: Mia Goth, Alexander Skarsgård, Cleopatra Coleman, Adam Boncz, Jalil Lespert
Outlining the basic plot for Infinity Pool, you’d be forgiven for thinking it’s clear how this will all play out. An author (Skarsgård) struggling with writer’s block takes a luxury resort vacay with his wife (Coleman) to shake off the cranial cobwebs, only for a chance encounter with actress Gabi (Mia Goth) to complicate matters. It’s the perfect set-up for a romantic drama, an erotic thriller even perhaps. But in the hands of Brandon Cronenberg, son of David and boundary pushing experimentalist filmmaker in his own right, what you get is something near impossible to explain. A fiercely creative chimera of extreme body horror, fetishistic erotica, and eye-popping hedonism, Cronenberg’s film asks a simple question — “If you could buy your way out of anything, even a death sentence, what would you do?” — and answers it in satirically sharp, utterly unhinged fashion. Sucky babyyy!
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire’s review of Infinity Pool.
Godzilla Minus One (2023)
Director: Takashi Yamakazi | Genre: Action | Runtime: 2hrs 4m
Starring: Ryûnosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Sakura Andô, Munetaka Aoki
For lovers of Kaiju cinema, Godzilla’s cinematic resurgence over the past decade — first in 2014’s Godzilla, then in 2016’s Shin Godzilla, and several times since in Legendary’s Monsterverse sequels — has been a glorious thing to behold. But not since Ishirō Honda’s original 1954 masterpiece has there been a movie that understands the cultural resonance and power of the monstrous Titan as well as Godzilla Minus One. Japanese-made and post-war set, Takashi Yamazaki’s heartfelt melodrama restores Gojira’s status as a potent symbol of the death, destruction, and sheer devastation wrought upon Japan by the nation’s nuclear bombardment at the end of WWII, framing the irradiated lizard’s reign of terror around a poignant tale of survivor’s guilt. Striking an impeccable balance between tenderly constructed human drama and jaw-slackening Kaiju action (somehow achieved on a meagre $10 million budget), Yamazaki’s Oscar-winning creature feature is everything a great Godzilla movie should be. Believe the hype — behold GOJIRAAAAA! (Now also available in monstrously gorgeous monochrome, too…)
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Godzilla Minus One.
Femme (2023)
Director: Sam H. Freeman, Ng Choon Ping | Genre: Thriller | Runtime: 1hr 39m
Starring: Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, George MacKay
Nathan Stewart-Jarrett (Candyman) and George MacKay (1917) share incredible, incendiary chemistry in writer-directors Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping’s erotically charged, noir-inflected queer revenge thriller. Here we follow Jules (Stewart-Jarrett), a drag performer who — months after being viciously beaten in a homophobic assault — plots revenge when he sees his attacker, closeted hothead Preston (MacKay), in a gay sauna. What starts as an act of narrative reclamation and role-reversal on Jules’ part however complicates as lines — between sex and violence, submission and domination, erotic fantasy and lived reality, victim and abuser even — dangerously start to blur. Sharp in its assessment of the way entrenched societal homophobia continues to corrode and encourage the cannibalisation of queer hearts and bodies, this is a difficult but ultimately necessary watch, assembled with real care and great craftsmanship by everyone involved.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Femme.
No Hard Feelings (2023)
Director: Gene Stupnitsky | Genre: Comedy | Runtime: 1hr 43m
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman, Laura Benanti, Matthew Broderick, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Kyle Mooney
You know how it is: Girl is broke, girl needs car, girl makes deal with boy’s parents to take his virginity for the price of a Buick Regal. It’s the classic rope-a-dope formula for a teen sex comedy, right? Right? Okay fine, perhaps not, but it is the set-up for Gene Stupnitsky’s No Hard Feelings, which is actually more of an exploration of the unlikely friendship that forms between Jennifer Lawrence’s out-of-work Uber driver Maddie and 19-year-old anxious kid Percy (Feldman) than the slightly more salacious affair suggested by its premise. Come for JLaw struggling to roller-skate up a hill, getting accidentally punched in the throat, and wrestling with would-be thieves whilst fully naked on the beach; stay for a surprisingly well considered commentary on gentrification, generational gaps, and anxiety buoyed by our leads’ sparky chemistry.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire’s review of No Hard Feelings.
M3GAN (2023)
Director: Gerard Johnstone | Genre: Horror | Runtime: 1hr 42m
Starring: Allison Williams, Violet McGraw, Jenna Davis, Amie Donald, Brian Jordan Alvarez, Jen Van Epps
With M3GAN 2.0 almost ready to launch, there’s no time like the present to revisit Gerard Johnstone’s original Blumhouse blast. Introducing murderously loyal AI robot M3GAN (voiced by Jenna Davis, embodied by Amie Donald) to the world in a haze of quite-literally-killer dance moves, sassy line deliveries, and torn-off ears, what Johnstone’s movie lacks in any actual plausibility, it more than makes up for in sheer entertainment. Sure, there’s some commentary on man’s precarious relationship with technology here, a bit of a meditation on grief as experienced by Violet McGraw’s orphaned protagonist Cady there, but largely this is a movie about a robo bad bitch who will creepily sing ‘Titanium’ to you one minute, and run four-legged through a forest to bump off the school bully for you in the next. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire’s review of M3GAN.
Pearl (2023)
Director: Ti West | Genre: Horror | Runtime: 1hr 42m
Starring: Mia Goth, David Corenswet, Tandi Wright, Matthew Sunderland, Emma Jenkins-Purro, Alistair Sewell
At the end of his sexploitation slasher joint X, filmmaker Ti West surprise-dropped a teaser for Pearl, a prequel promising to reveal the origins of Mia Goth’s titular farmhouse murderess. And the result, a deeply disturbing riff on The Wizard Of Oz that recasts Dorothy as a sexually repressed stablehand experiencing deadly delusions of grandeur in early 20th century, influenza stricken Texas, is something that truly has to be seen to be believed. Goth (who also co-wrote the film) is on preternatural form here as we watch her dancing with scarecrows, terrifying Superman-in-waiting David Corenswet’s ridiculously handsome projectionist, soliloquising to her absent husband, and eventually snapping in a way that’d make even Norman Bates shudder. It’s the kind of star turn that puts this in-the-mind-of-a-monster movie up there with genre classics like Repulsion, Psycho, and Henry: Portrait Of A Killer. And that final scene? Sheesh…
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire’s review of Pearl.
Missing (2023)
Director: Nicholas D. Johnson, Will Merrick | Genre: Psychological Thriller | Runtime: 1hr 51m
Starring: Storm Reid, Nia Long, Megan Suri, Ken Leung, Tim Griffin, Ava Zaria Lee
Quite possibly the best in the surprisingly niche ‘screenlife’ subgenre of movies (see also: Searching, Unfriended, Host), Missing — a screen-based, propulsive mystery thriller tailor-made for the TikTok generation — is, ironically, a bit of an underseen gem. Storm Reid stars as June, a home alone Gen Zer forced to turn amateur sleuth when her single mother (Long) and new boyfriend (Leung) suddenly go missing while on a trip to Colombia. Making maverick use of everything from FaceTime, to remote home security systems, to smartwatch cameras to adhere to their self-imposed only-screens-allowed format, directors Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick manage to pull off a ripping yarn that not only manages to offer enthralling twists and turns at every click, but also serves as a genuinely well thought out and surprisingly emotionally affecting mystery movie that’d still play gangbusters in any form.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire’s review of Missing.
Society Of The Snow (2023)
Director: J.A. Bayona | Genre: Survival Thriller | Runtime: 2hr 24m
Starring: Enzo Vogrincic, Agustín Pardella, Matías Recalt, Esteban Bigliardi, Agustín Della Corte, Blas Polidori
The sensational true story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 is one that has been told many times before – on page, stage, screen, podcasts, even experimental punk rock singles. Its latest telling however, from survival genre veteran J.A. Bayona (The Impossible, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom), feels like the definitive account of what happened when a plane carrying a team of Uruguyan rugby players and their families crashed over the Andes in October 1972. Based on journalist Pablo Vierci’s exhaustive 2009 book of the same name, Bayona’s film – notably the first Spanish-language telling of this tale on-screen – seamlessly blends epic location work and pulsating set pieces with intimate, character-driven storytelling to honour both the flight’s victims and its survivors. Survival is as much about choosing to live as it is refusing to die, and with Society Of The Snow, Bayona and his across-the-board brilliant ensemble stage a powerful reckoning with the cost of that decision.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Society Of The Snow.
Maestro (2023)
Director: Bradley Cooper | Genre: Drama | Runtime: 2hr 9m
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer, Michael Urie, Sarah Silverman, Vincenzo Amato
Confidently proving that 2018’s A Star Is Born was no mere fluke, Bradley Cooper’s sophomore directorial effort Maestro is every bit as technically remarkable and emotionally resonant as his first feature. Here, Cooper puts down the guitar and picks up the conducting baton of Leonard Bernstein, vividly bringing the legendary West Side Story composer’s tale — as artist, husband, and father — to life both behind and in front of the camera. The first half of the film is a lavishly staged if somewhat standard issue biopic, DoP Matthew Libatique’s evocative black and white lensing and dynamic camerawork sumptuously framing Bernstein’s rise to musical prominence and courtship of wife Felicia Montealegre (an astounding Carey Mulligan). The back half however, which strays from the genre playbook to zero in on moments shared between Leonard, Felicia, and their family as tragedy looms, is where Cooper’s command of his craft really approaches the virtuosic. And that recreation of the ‘Resurrection’ at Ely Cathedral? Instant chills.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Maestro.
The Killer (2023)
Director: David Fincher | Genre: Thriller | Runtime: 1hr 58m
Starring: Michael Fassbender
If 2020’s Mank represented David Fincher taking an earnest directorial diversion onto Passion Project Lane, paying homage to his late father with a black-and-white Golden Age Hollywood biopic that split critical opinion, then consider this cerebral thriller a sublimely self-aware bit of course correction. Making his first screen appearance since 2019, Michael Fassbender is impossibly chill as the eponymous assassin, a Smiths loving, bunless McMuffin eating contract killer who embarks on a globetrotting quest for bloody retribution after a hit goes wrong. Hypnotic in tone and formal presentation, Fincher’s film – a masterclass in sound design, framing, and sustained tension – sees the Fight Club filmmaker continue his enquiry into our world’s oddballs and loners whilst reflecting on his own (in)famously meticulous movie making method. The result is Fincher’s most Fincher-esque film in years. And *THAT* fight sequence? Brutal!
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of The Killer.
Talk To Me (2023)
Director: The Philippou Brothers | Genre: Horror | Runtime: 1hr 34m
Starring: Sophie Wilde, Miranda Otto
With A24 possession chiller Talk To Me, filmmaking twins Danny and Michael Philippou – better known to many as YouTube duo RackaRacka – add another soon-to-be-classic to the illustrious canon of great Australian horrors. Newcomer Sophie Wilde is captivating as Mia, a grief-stricken teen who finds herself caught up in a viral trend that has teens holding an embalmed hand and getting high off of 90 second sojourns into the spirit world. Needless to say, not all involved in this possession-based pursuit can expect to live to TikTok their tale. As much a bleak meditation on the all-consuming nature of addiction as it is a jumpscare-laden Gen Z riff on Flatliners, Talk To Me — which already has a sequel on the way — breathes new life into a genre long since thought (un)dead.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Talk To Me.
They Cloned Tyrone (2023)
Director: Juel Taylor | Genre: Sci-Fi | Runtime: 2hr 2m
Starring: Jamie Foxx, Teyonah Parris, John Boyega
Call us crazy, but we’re pretty confident that They Cloned Tyrone is the best satirical Blaxploitation sci-fi mystery action thriller you’ll ever see. Juel Taylor’s directorial debut is an oodles-of-style, bags-of-substance joint that retrofits a cutting edge contemporary story of identity displacement and racial discrimination into a gleefully pulpy exploitation flick decked out in furs and set to the sounds of hip-hop, soul, and disco. Jamie Foxx, Teyonah Parris, and in particular a dynamite John Boyega shine as the wisecracking pimp, savvy sex-worker, and existentially anguished drug dealer respectively who pull back the curtain on their neighbourhood’s suspiciously seasoned chicken cottage of Oz. The jokes land, the gut punches punch the gut, and the politics and social commentary underpinning the whole thing are clear, righteous, and leave a smarting mark. Just remember, respect the cuticle!
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of They Cloned Tyrone.
How To Blow Up A Pipeline (2023)
Director: Daniel Goldhaber | Genre: Eco-Thriller | Runtime: 1hr 44m
Starring: Ariela Barer, Kristine Froseth, Lukas Gage, Forrest Goodluck, Sasha Lane, Jayme Lawson
As the world’s climate crisis rages on, Daniel Goldhaber’s urgent eco-thriller How To Blow Up A Pipeline – adapted from Andreas Malm’s same-named non-fiction book – swerves sermonising and political point-scoring to remind us that actions speak louder than words. Here, said action comes in the shape of a gang, led by the righteously indignant Xochitl (Ariela Barer, also co-writer), setting out to sabotage a Texan oil pipeline. Telling the deeply personal stories of what drove our young heroes to activism while capturing their explosive endeavours on intense 16mm film, Goldhaber manages to concoct a call for revolutionary change that balances a globalist sense of urgency with a steadfast commitment to personal, intimate storytelling. It’s a bit like Uncut Gems for anyone who finds the realisation that unyielding capitalist expansion is shepherding us all towards an irreversible environmental apocalypse a bit terrifying.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of How To Blow Up A Pipeline.
Extraction 2 (2023)
Director: Sam Hargrave | Genre: Action Thriller | Runtime: 2hr 3m
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Golshifteh Farahani, Adam Bessa, Tornike Gogrichiani
Howard Hawks once said a great movie is “three great scenes and no bad ones”. Sam Hargrave’s Extraction 2, which sees Chris Hemsworth back in action as black market merc Tyler Rake after all but dying first time out, is a great movie. It’s so good in fact that it pretty much does all three great scenes in its breathless opening, which takes in an infernal prison escape, a forest-set car chase, and a helicopter-besieged train sequence all over the course of one of the craziest oners you’ll ever see. From there, the action rarely relents as Rake overcomes hell and high water to keep his ex-sister-in-law and her children safe. Packing bone-crunching foley work and some surprisingly emotional character beats, sold deftly by natural-born action man Hemsworth, this one’s a real action filmmaking tour de force.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Extraction 2.
Nimona (2023)
Director(s): Nick Bruno, Troy Quane | Genre: Fantasy | Runtime: 1hr 41m
Starring: Riz Ahmed, Chloë Grace Moretz, Eugene Lee Yang, Frances Conroy, RuPaul, Indya Moore
Having survived studio closures and cancellation before finally being resurrected by Netflix, the fact that Nimona exists at all is cause for celebration. That Nick Bruno and Troy Quane’s adaptation of ND Stevenson’s beloved graphic novel also happens to be a visually inventive, witty, subversive and diverse animation that feels wholly original is a testament to the resilience and belief in the story shared by its makers. This revisionist fairytale stars Riz Ahmed and Chloë Grace Moretz as outlawed knight Ballister “Bal” Blackheart and shapeshifting agent of chaos Nimona, misunderstood malcontents who form an unlikely bond as they try to prove Bal’s innocence. Gorgeously rendered in eye-popping 2.5D animation, Nimona’s is a story that refused to go unheard, and rightly so. TL;DR version — it’s all chaos, destruction, something-something-something. And we win.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Nimona.
Barbarian (2022)
Director: Zach Cregger | Genre: Horror | Runtime: 1hr 42m
Starring: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, Justin Long
We could’ve been given a hundred guesses as to what Barbarian had in store for us before heading in, and yet still nothing would’ve prepared us for the truly wild ride multi-hyphenate comedian Zach Cregger’s feature directorial debut — one of the best horror movies of the 21st century so far — would take us on. It starts with documentary researcher Tess (Georgina Campbell) heading to Detroit for a job interview, only to find her AirBnB has been double-booked and she now faces the prospect of a night with Keith (Bill Skarsgård), who’s so nice you — and Tess — can’t help feeling like maybe he’s just too nice. Suffice it to say, if you think you’ve seen this film before (and didn’t like the ending), then you ain’t seen nothing yet. Horrifying, shocking, subversive, and utterly unpredictable in all the best ways possible, this one belongs firmly in the “Don’t look in the basement!” file alongside Parasite. Fun Fact: You can’t spell Barbarian without AirBnB!
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Barbarian.
All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
Director: Edward Berger | Genre: War Drama | Runtime: 2hr 28m
Starring: Felix Kammerer
The third cinematic adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s seminal pacifist screed, Edward Berger’s Oscar and BAFTA award-winning All Quiet On The Western Front — a film sixteen years in the making — is no less bone-rattling or soul-shaking than any of its forebears. The bleak tone of Berger’s film is set during a harrowing prologue, which sees a young German recruit shot by a French bullet. From there, we follow his uniform’s journey as it is cleaned, recycled, and readied to meet its next victim, bright-eyed teen recruit Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer). From there, we’re viscerally thrust into the abyssal maw of war as Paul and his friends each in turn lose their minds — and, for many, eventually their lives. Volker Bertelmann’s doomful death knell of a score, the film’s awe-inspiring, biggest screen possible worthy framing and production design, and Kammerer’s shattering central turn result in an unforgettable, brutal cinematic experience.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of All Quiet On The Western Front.
Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022)
Director(s): Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson | Genre: Fantasy | Runtime: 1hr 57m
Starring: David Bradley, Ewan McGregor, Gregory Mann, Ron Perlman, Finn Wolfhard, Cate Blanchett, Christoph Waltz
A long-gestating passion project for its eponymous maker, who lost both of the parents who inspired his love for this story before the film’s release, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio departs from past tellings of Carlo Collodi’s classic tale to celebrate disobedience, confront fascism head-on, and greet death like an old friend. From the tragedy that befalls David Bradley’s Geppetto in the film’s Up-rivalling opening minutes, to cricket narrator Sebastian’s (Ewan McGregor) simply spoken closing words – “What happens happens, and then we’re gone” – del Toro takes us on the kind of darkly wonderful odyssey only the great Mexican fabulist could’ve helmed (there’s a reason his name’s in the title). This, his first animated feature (co-directed by the late Mark Gustafson), is a delicately hand-crafted, spellbinding affair – an all-singing, all-dancing, all-sobbing-by-the-end tale “of imperfect fathers, imperfect sons, love, and loss”. Pure poetry in (stop-)motion.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
Director: Rian Johnson | Genre: Mystery | Runtime: 2hr 20m
Starring: Daniel Craig, Edward Norton, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, Kate Hudson, Hugh Grant, Janelle Monáe
Ever since we first met Daniel Craig’s passive observer of the truth, Benoit Blanc, in 2019’s subversive sleuther_Knives Out_ (a movie that, noteworthily, we believe ranks among the best murder mystery movies ever made), we’ve been slightly obsessed with Rian Johnson’s Foghorn Leghorn-accented gentleman detective. That obsession ratcheted up several notches with last year’s follow-up Glass Onion, which makes Blanc an active player in the game as he sets out to catch a killer during a murder-mystery weekend on oddball billionaire Miles Bron’s (Edward Norton) private island. As gleefully self-aware as its predecessor and just as satirically sharp (no prizes for guessing who the tech billionaire buffoon with no people skills and a God complex could be), Johnson’s sequel adopts a bigger equals better philosophy and applies it perfectly. Among a starry ensemble – Dave Bautista! Kathryn Hahn! Kate Hudson! Hugh Grant! – special props have got to go to Janelle Monáe, whose standout performance as the enigmatic Andi Brand is as layered and eye-catching as the titular vitreous veggie.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Glass Onion.
Pig (2021)
Director: Michael Sarnoski | Genre: Psychological Drama | Runtime: 1hr 32m
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Alex Wolff
Taken with Bacon. Pigatouille. Farmed & Dangerous. By the time the first trailer dropped for Michael Sarnoski’s Oregonian odyssey Pig, just about everyone had a pun ready to pre-memeify a movie that, in fairness, did essentially sound like John Wick featuring a kidnapped pig and a crazy Nic Cage. What nobody could’ve anticipated however was the poignant, melancholic, oh-so-delicately observed character study of a broken man re-entering the world after years spent in solitude that we actually got. Drawing on Greek mythology and powered by an emotionally charged yet incredibly restrained Cage central performance, Sarnoski’s directorial debut is the kind of film you watch on a whim and then think about every day for a year. An unmissable journey through love, loss, and the underworld of New Orleans’ haute cuisine scene, Pig is, in a word, oink-redible.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire’s review of Pig.
The Fear Street Trilogy (2021)
Director: Leigh Janiak | Genre: Horror
Starring: Kiana Madeira, Olivia Scott Welch, Sadie Sink, Emily Rudd, Gillian Jacobs, Fred Hechinger
The Fear Street trilogy is one of the coolest horror experiments in years. Across the summer of 2021, director Leigh Janiak dropped three brand new scary movies on Netflix, each arriving a week apart with their own distinct look and feel, but telling an interconnected story spanning hundreds of years. Part One: 1994 pays significant homage to Scream and establishes the rival towns of Shadyside (where townsfolk regularly go murder-happy for no apparent reason) and Sunnyvale (where people, er, don’t) as a playground for serial killers. Part Two: 1978 goes full Camp Crystal Lake as the bodies pile up at a summer camp. And Part Three: 1666 delivers a witch-hunt horror full of secrets. All in, it’s a slick, smart, funny treat – and whilst primarily playing with teen characters, it goes hard on the gore for a well-earned 18 rating. Set three nights aside, and begin your binge now.
Streaming now on Netflix
The Mitchells Vs The Machines (2021)
Director(s): Mike Rianda, Jeff Rower | Genre: Sci-Fi Adventure | Runtime: 1hr 54m
Starring: Abbi Jacobsen, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Eric André, Fred Armisen, Olivia Colman
Even the bonkers trailer for The Mitchells Vs. The Machines didn’t completely sell how crazy and wonderful this animated adventure turned out to be. Featuring a similarly frenetic, switching-styles technique to the Spider-Verse films (both those and this are produced by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller), the visual pizazz is matched by a massive heart and the ability to turn a story of family bonding in the midst of a robot apocalypse into something fresh. Just try not to crack up at the marauding Furby sequence. LET THE DARK HARVEST BEGIN!
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of The Mitchells Vs. The Machines.
Uncut Gems (2020)
Director: The Safdie Brothers | Genre: Thriller | Runtime: 2hr 15m
Starring: Adam Sandler, Julia Fox, Idina Menzel, LaKeith Stanfield, Pom Klementieff, Kevin Garnett
The first 10 minutes of Uncut Gems is one of the wildest openings to a movie you’ll ever see. To spell it out would be to spoil it, but it’s a none-more-head-spinning way in to this palpitation-inducingly stressful thriller. Filmmaking duo the Safdie Brothers are on killer form with the story of jeweller Howard Ratner (a never-better Adam Sandler) who is in a constant world of trouble – always one big score away from safety, and one terrible decision away from catastrophe. Uncut Gems is a two-plus-hour shakedown, as Ratner tries to stop his world falling apart. You’ll thrill at his near-misses, shout out loud at his dire judgment, and find yourself rooting for him nonetheless. Small-scale but utterly pulse-pounding, the Safdies’ smash-and-grab of a thriller comfortably made it into the upper echelons of our list of the best movies of 2020.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Uncut Gems.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
Director: George C. Wolfe | Genre: Drama | Runtime: 1hr 34m
Starring: Viola Davis, Chadwick Boseman, Colman Domingo
Based on August Wilson’s play of the same name, George C. Wolfe’s simmering drama of blues, cultural exploitation and Black artistry dials up the tension and incisive power across its 94-minute runtime. Viola Davis is exceptional as the titular Ma Rainey, playing the real-life ‘Mother Of The Blues’ as she assembles her band for a recording session in 1927 Chicago – unrelenting in her demands from the studio, and aware exactly of her real value within a system intent on reducing it. But it’s Chadwick Boseman who steals the show as trumpeter Levee, whose burgeoning talent and ambition for his own musical career pushes him towards tragedy. It’s a powerhouse performance of an iconic character, sure to garner awards attention – but it cuts deep as Boseman’s final film role, released a few short months after his death in August 2020. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom makes it all too clear how much his presence on our screens will be missed.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.
Da 5 Bloods (2020)
Director: Spike Lee | Genre: War Drama | Runtime: 2hr 34m
Starring: Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, Isaiah Whitlock Jr., Chadwick Boseman
Spike Lee followed up BlacKkKlansman with another film that blends a pulpy adventure story with a righteous anger about the African-American experience. Here, it’s looking at the role that Black American soldiers played in the Vietnam war, how that intersects with forces of Capitalism, and how its legacy plays out in future generations today. Delroy Lindo, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis and Isaiah Whitlock Jr. play four Vietnam veterans returning to Ho Chi Minh City in order to recover a cache of hidden gold, and find the body of their fallen leader Stormin’ Norman, played by Chadwick Boseman in one of his final performances, who died in the field. The result is part buddy film, part Shakespearean tragedy, part war movie, part history lesson – sprawling and captivating, with stellar performances all round, especially from Lindo’s MAGA hat-wearing Paul.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Da 5 Bloods.
Modern Greats (2000s-2010s)
Parasite (2019)
Director: Bong Joon Ho | Genre: Thriller | Runtime: 2hr 12m
Starring: Song Kang-ho, Park So-dam, Choi Woo-shik
When Parasite won Best Picture at the Oscars back in 2020, it became the first non-English language movie to have done so – and it’s hard to imagine a more deserving first. A genre-defying, propulsive work of technical brilliance and conceptual genius, this South Korean juggernaut is a masterclass in suspense and release with more twists than a French pastry, brought to vivid life by a family of excellent performances from Song Kang-ho, Park So-dam, Choi Woo-shik and many more besides. Satirically razor sharp, blackly comic, and meticulously designed in every department, this (occasionally all too literal) skewering of the divide between the haves and have-nots is cinema at its purest and most powerful. In his Oscar acceptance speech, director Bong Joon-ho talked about the “one inch barrier” of subtitles that has historically so often stood between cinemagoers and exceptional international filmmaking. With Parasite, that barrier is comprehensively demolished.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Parasite.
The Irishman (2019)
Director: Martin Scorsese | Genre: Gangster | Runtime: 3hr 29m
Starring: Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Al Pacino, Harvey Keitel, Anna Paquin, Stephen Graham
Netflix’s most high-profile original movie is a stellar coup – reuniting legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese with Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel for another gangster epic. If that’s not enough, The Irishman also marked the first time Scorsese worked with Al Pacino. In short, it’s mobster heaven – or, mobster purgatory, as De Niro’s aged hitman Frank ‘The Irishman’ Sheeran reflects on his life of violence as he approaches the grave. Think Goodfellas meets Silence – a 209-minute late-career masterpiece that more than deserves your time.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of The Irishman.
Marriage Story (2019)
Director: Noah Baumbach | Genre: Drama | Runtime: 2hr 16m
Starring: Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Ray Liotta, Laura Dern
How many divorce movies can claim to be as love-fuelled as Marriage Story? There’s an understandable level of pain to be found in Noah Baumbach’s Netflix movie, but also a surprising amount of comedy and lightness to balance it out, as Scarlett Johansson’s Nicole and Adam Driver’s Charlie navigate the breakdown of their relationship. It’s a screwball-tinged fallout that only makes the sadness hit harder, the heartbreaking central performances bolstered by supporting performances by Laura Dern and Ray Liotta – the two lawyers orchestrating the divorce. An empathetic portrait of a split that avoids taking sides.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Marriage Story.
Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)
Director: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman | Genre: Superhero | Runtime: 1hr 57m
Starring: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Jake Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Nicolas Cage, John Mulaney, Zoë Kravitz, Lily Tomlin
Web-slinging wonder Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse’s showstopping centrepiece sees Brooklyn teen Miles Morales (Shameik Moore), Spider-suited and Air Jordan booted, take a leap of faith. Glass shatters, the world turns upside down, and our hero ascends where others would fall. It’s not only a stunning scene in a film that marks animation’s biggest jump since Pixar sphered the circle with Toy Story, but a ripe metaphor for the movie itself. The Phil Lord and Christopher Miller production smashes the ceiling for the form with its gorgeous, Day dotted pop art blend of 2D and 3D animation, and in turning our understanding of superhero cinema on its head tells an emotionally rich, narratively daring coming of age story. By creating a multiverse where anyone can wear the mask, be they badass drumming ballerina, Nazi-punching Nicolas Cage, mech-wearing tween, slimy toon pig, or simply a kid trying their best, Into The Spider-Verse changed the game in animation forever. So much so, in fact, that it remains — in our humble opinion — the very best animated movie of all time.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. See where it came in our list of the 50 greatest teen movies.
Annihilation (2018)
Director: Alex Garland | Genre: Sci-Fi | Runtime: 1hr 55m
Starring: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, Benedict Wong, Sonoya Mizuno, Oscar Isaac
Alex Garland followed up the excellent Ex Machina with this similarly smart sci-fi brimming with beautiful visuals that demand to be seen on the biggest and best screen possible, and compelling questions. Natalie Portman’s Lena joins an expedition into ‘The Shimmer’, a mysterious ‘infected’ zone on the American coast where her husband and his troops went missing on a mission. A very loose adaptation of Jeff Vandermeer’s extraordinary novel, Garland’s film nods to genre classics but feels striking and original, boasting an elliptical final half hour that’s bound to be talked about for decades to come.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Annihilation.
Roma (2018)
Director: Alfonso Cuarón | Genre: Drama | Runtime: 2hr 15m
Starring: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey, Carlos Peralta, Marco Graf, Daniela Demesa
Alfonso Cuarón’s beautifully human drama may be shot in black and white, but it’s a vibrant and evocative work brimming with heart and emotion. A partial paean to the director’s own childhood, Roma follows the housekeeper of a middle-class Mexican family through a tumultuous year in the early 70s, depicting the moments both big and small that change and define lives. With stunning cinematography from Cuarón himself, and a compelling, soulful performance from Yalitza Aparicio, it ranks highly among the director’s own impeccable output – and could be a frontrunner at the 2019 Oscars. Stick it right to the top of your watchlist.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Roma.
Gerald’s Game (2017)
Director: Mike Flanagan | Genre: Psychological Horror | Runtime: 1hr 43m
Starring: Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Chiara Aurelia, Carel Struycken, Henry Thomas, Kate Siegel
Director Mike Flanagan manages the near-impossible task of making Stephen King’s (almost) single-setting survival thriller Gerald’s Game impressively cinematic. Carla Gugino’s Jessie is left fighting for her life when her husband has a heart attack in the middle of a sex game, leaving her handcuffed to a bed in a secluded house. Outside, a wild dog starts to sniff out fresh meat, while Jessie’s grip on sanity starts to slip. It’s a thriller set-up with true horror execution — including an astonishingly gory finale just waiting to burn itself into impressionable minds.
Streaming now on Netflix
Okja (2017)
Director: Bong Joon Ho | Genre: Dystopian Sci-Fi | Runtime: 2hr
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Ahn Seo-hyun, Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Steven Yeun, Lily Collins
Enjoyed the wild swings of Parasite? Check out Bong Joon Ho’s darkly satirical girl-meets-genetically-modified-super-pig story. Okja is an environmental fable, and a fantastical story of friendship between a young girl (Ahn Seo-hyun) and a strange, shy and introverted animal on a long journey together. Okja itself is a sort of hippo-pig, created for its meat by Tilda Swinton’s shady multinational company. It’s not often you get dystopian sci-fi and wide-eyed Spielbergian movie magic in the same stew, but director Bong and writer Jon Ronson somehow mix the disparate ingredients perfectly.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Okja.
Paddington (2014)
Director: Paul King | Genre: Family Adventure | Runtime: 1hr 36m
Starring: Ben Whishaw, Sally Hawkins, Hugh Bonneville, Julie Walters, Nicole Kidman, Jim Broadbent
Anyone who has read Empire or listened to the podcast knows how much we love Paddington, the adaptation of the beloved children’s stories. An exceedingly family-friendly film about an exceedingly friendly family, Paul King’s movie is a Pixar-level delight that’s whimsically, quirkily British – a pure, pleasant surprise. Ben Whishaw, in a role at one point remarkably set for Colin Firth, brings guileless charm to the Peruvian marmalade lover, whilst the human characters offer abundantly warm support. The sequel, boasting a sublimely self-deprecating star turn from Hugh Grant, is just as good — as sweet and sharp as marmalade, and a high flyer in our rundown of the best kids movies (and big kids’ movies) out there.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Paddington.
Creep (2014)
Director(s): Mark Duplass, Patrick Brice | Genre: Horror | Runtime: 1hr 17m
Starring: Mark Duplass, Patrick Brice
Yes, it’s found-footage, but this psychological ordeal from co-writers, directors and stars Mark Duplass and Patrick Brice is more than worth its unassuming 77 minutes of your time. Brice is the videographer who answers Duplass’ advertisement for a documentarian to chronicle a day in his life. But as we get past the initial 24 hours it becomes clear that the real agenda is something altogether different. A masterclass in WTF-is-going-on tension, Creep also somehow manages to be extremely funny. Be sure to catch Creep 2 on Netflix too, which continues in equally captivating style.
Streaming now on Netflix.
The Harry Potter Series (2001-2011)
Director(s): Chris Columbus, Alfonso Cuarón, Mike Newell, David Yates | Genre: Fantasy Adventure
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane, Dame Maggie Smith, Sir Kenneth Branagh, David Thewlis, Gary Oldman, Julie Walters
There isn’t a child (or indeed adult) alive who doesn’t know the name of Warner Bros. behemothic blockbuster series of Wizarding World adventures. The Harry Potter franchise, which follows Daniel Radcliffe’s eponymous lightning bolt scarred boy wizard and his pals’ adventures at Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft And Wizardry, is the perfect example of a page-to-screen adaptation done right. Helmed by four distinctive filmmakers, each of whom offer their own unique yet faithful take on this beloved universe over its eight chapters, to watch this franchise and its stars grow and evolve before our very eyes is… well… magical. Even after all this time? Always.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire‘s Harry Potter ranked list.
Four Lions (2010)
Director: Chris Morris | Genre: Comedy | Runtime: 1hr 34m
Starring: Riz Ahmed, Kayvan Novak, Adeel Akhtar, Nigel Lindsay, Benedict Cumberbatch
Co-written by none other than Succession supremo Jesse Armstrong, Four Lions is the first – and remains perhaps the only – suicide bomber comedy (why that sub-genre never took off we’ll never know!). In lesser hands, this could’ve been little more than a button-pushing bit of edgelord controversy courting. But, under the writing and direction of maverick satirist Chris Morris, the film – which sees Riz Ahmed, Kayvan Novak, Adeel Akhtar, and Nigel Lindsay bungling preparations for a bombing – instead poses a thought-provoking, oftentimes profoundly melancholic assessment of the lethal combination of peer pressure, pride, confusion and idiocy that makes martyrs of deeply misguided men. It just also happens to be very, very, very funny, proving that you can in fact joke about anything, so long as you do it well. Rubber dinghy rapids, bro!
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of Four Lions.
Timeless Classics (Pre-2000s)
Princess Mononoke (1997)
Director: Hayao Miyazaki | Genre: Fantasy | Runtime: 2hr 13m
Starring [English Dub]: Billy Crudup, Claire Danes, Minnie Driver, Billy Bob Thornton, John DiMaggio, Gillian Anderson
It’s not without good reason that Hayao Miyazaki’s dark fantasy epic Princess Mononoke sits proudly atop our list of the greatest anime movies ever made. Set in the 13th century, Miyazaki’s 1997 masterwork — which richly suffuses high fantasy with its maker’s deeply rooted environmentalist concerns — follows Prince Ashitaka (Crudup), who, after being cursed by a rampaging demon and exiled from his home, follows the beast west in search of a cure, only to find himself caught in the ongoing conflict between a town of industrialists and the people (and spirits) of the forest they seek to raze. Rejecting conventional moral binarism, Miyazaki’s movie manages to find beauty in both its natural and industrial elements, from the inquisitive spirits of the woods to the bustling community of Iron Town, while carving out a mythic questing narrative for the ages in lock-step. Essential viewing for anime enthusiasts and newcomers to the form alike, if you ever needed definitive proof that AI will never rival the work of actual artists then this is it.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire’s review of Princess Mononoke.
Heat (1995)
Director: Michael Mann | Genre: Crime Thriller | Runtime: 2hr 50m
Starring: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Val Kilmer, Jon Voight, Tom Sizemore, Diane Venora
Michael Mann’s starry upgrade of his TV movie LA Takedown squeezed every last drop of icon-juice out of its heavyweight double-billing, bringing Al Pacino and Robert De Niro together on screen, sharing scenes, for the very first time. The trick was to only do it twice during the movie’s entire running time, with that first diner meeting virtually fizzing with alpha-star electricity. It certainly doesn’t hurt that between those two incendiary encounters, Mann serves up an endlessly quotable, drumskin-tight cat-and-mouse thriller for the ages, peppered with the kind of bone-rattling set pieces that make you say things like “they don’t make ’em like they used to any more,” and “yeah, the action really is the juice!”
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire‘s review of Heat.
My Neighbour Totoro (1988)
Director: Hayao Miyazaki | Genre: Fantasy | Runtime: 1hr 28m
Starring (English Dub): Dakota Fanning, Elle Fanning, Tim Daly, Pat Carroll, Lea Salonga
Hayao Miyazaki‘s beloved animation couldn’t be gentler – it’s an utterly charming ode to childhood and the natural beauty of rural Japan. Packed with cute creatures and gorgeous, lush-green visuals (the big grey Totoro forest spirit looks ludicrously huggable), My Neighbour Totoro is a film almost entirely without conflict, a steady stream of joy, wonder and serenity to ease any troubled mind. All darkness – the mother of central sisters Satsuki and Mei, recently relocated to an old house in the countryside, is in hospital throughout the film – exists firmly on the fringes, and the effect of this creative choice is sheer bliss. Whether you’re discovering the films of Studio Ghibli for the first time on Netflix, or you’ve seen all the way through to The Boy & The Heron and simply want to revisit one of the all-time greatest anime movies, you’ll never go wrong with Totoro.
Streaming now on Netflix
Read Empire‘s review of My Neighbour Totoro.
Back To The Future (1985)
Director: Robert Zemeckis | Genre: Sci-Fi
Starring: Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Crispin Glover, Thomas F. Wilson
Ask anyone: Back To The Future has one of the strongest scripts ever written. That’s not just for the indelible characters, like teenager Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and his eccentric inventor friend Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd), or its witty observations on both the 1950s and the 1980s, or that breathlessly exciting final race against time; no, it’s the sheer neatness of it all. It feels like every line, every moment, has a knock-on effect elsewhere, with every thread perfectly intertwined as Marty is zapped back to the time of his parents’ youth, and has to ensure they meet-cute so that he eventually gets born — all while figuring out how to zap himself back to 1985. It was a smash at the time, but even now, 40 years later, your kids are gonna love it.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire‘s review of Back To The Future.
Indiana Jones Collection
Director: Steven Spielberg | Genre: Adventure
Starring: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, John Rhys-Davies, Ke Huy Quan, Sean Connery, River Phoenix
“It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.” Which is exactly why, four decades after his introduction in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Empire readers still rank Indiana Jones as the greatest character in movie history. And while James Mangold’s Indiana Jones & The Dial Of Destiny may well have seen Harrison Ford’s action hero archeologist hang up the fedora and whip for good, his adventures will live on forever. So kick back and relax and watch Ford fight Nazis and search for the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders, skip over to Disney+ to see Ford fight Nazis and search for Sankara stones in The Temple Of Doom, come back to Netflix to see Ford fight Nazis and search for the Holy Grail — and closure with his dad Sean Connery — in The Last Crusade, and then hop back over to Disney+ to see Ford fight Nazis and search for the Crystal Skull in, err, Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, before fighting Nazis and turning the Dial of Destiny in, well, The Dial Of Destiny. That’s four – yes, four! – great film nights right there, folks. Hold on to your potatoes!
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire‘s review of Raiders Of The Lost Ark. (See also: reviews of The Temple Of Doom, The Last Crusade, and Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.)
E.T. The Extraterrestrial (1982)
Director: Steven Spielberg | Genre: Sci-Fi, Adventure | Runtime: 1hr 55m
Starring: Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore
Over the years, the phrase “Amblinesque” has come to be a calling card for family-friendly adventures thrumming with heart, wonder, and just a smidge of darkness – and never has that moviemaking method been more perfectly encapsulated however than in E.T. Equal parts stonking children’s adventure and poignant meditation on familial dysfunction and our capacity for healing, E.T. carefully beds its supernatural elements in an utterly relatable everykid world, tempering its cuter, more sentimental moments with a true sense of jeopardy. Boasting an extraordinary lead performance from a 10-year-old Henry Thomas, one of John Williams greatest scores, and an ending that still has us in floods over forty years later, E.T. remains the gold standard for family filmmaking.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire‘s review of E.T. The Extraterrestrial.
Jaws (1975)
Director: Steven Spielberg | Genre: Thriller | Runtime: 2hr 4m
Starring: Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Bruce The Shark
The original summer blockbuster still has serious teeth. Back in ’75, Steven Spielberg unleashed his mighty shark thriller on an unsuspecting world – teaching generations of swimmers to be afraid of the water. If the shark animatronic is a tad clumsy, the filmmaking of Jaws remains ultra-sharp, as does the impeccable script and trio of stellar performances. Roy Scheider is utterly believable as police chief Brody, suddenly out of his depth when shark attack victims start washing up – while Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw are brilliantly bickersome as marine expert Hooper and salty seadog Quint, forced to co-operate in order to bring the great white down. From the ultra-famous dolly zoom, to the head-in-the-boat jump scare, to that final line, it remains a masterpiece.
Streaming now on Netflix.
Read Empire‘s review of Jaws.
This list was compiled by Jordan King, Ben Travis, and James Dyer. Jordan is an Online Writer at Empire, having first joined the team in 2021. He’s spent over a decade writing about film, TV, and popular culture.. Ben is Deputy Online Editor at Empire, having joined the team in 2018. He’s been a culture and entertainment journalist for over 10 years. James is Empire’s Digital Editor-In-Chief, host of the Pilot TV Podcast and co-presenter of The Empire Film Podcast. He watches more TV than you do.
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