Alfonso Cuaron’s ‘Roma’ Is the Most Cinematic Movie to Hit Netflix Ever

Even though it’s already played film festivals at Venice and Telluride — and it will also play at New York Film Festival in a few weeks — the anticipation for Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma at the Toronto International Film Festival was high. It’s the film that many are predicting to be the Oscar jewel in Netflix’s crown this fall, the one movie that could finally land the streaming giant where it’s been wanting to go for several years now: the Best Picture race. The film is an artistic and personal triumph for Cuaron, who mines his own childhood and his native Mexico City for an evocative black-and-white movie about a domestic worker (Yalitza Aparicio) who experiences life on both sides of the class divide, as she helps to take care of the middle-class family that employs her while dealing with turmoil in her own life, all of which is set against the backdrop of political and social turmoil in 1970s Mexico City.

Netflix has done a great job in the last 12 months in branching out into new areas with their film output. Mudbound was more successful than any previous Netflix movie in capturing Oscar’s attention in some top categories; Set It Up and To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before made strides in romantic comedy; Bright, despite being awful, staked out some ground in the blockbuster arena. With Roma, Netflix has created the space for a world-class auteur like Cuaron to create his most personal, ravishing, spectacular-looking film to date, and in return, Cuaron has given Netflix its most purely cinematic film to date.

Cuaron begins quietly, gradually, laying out a domestic situation low on drama for Cleo (Arapacio), but one which deftly lays out the class divisions that will end up greatly impacting the narrative. Cleo gets pregnant by her martial-arts-obsessed boyfriend (his kung-fu exercises in the nude are an early highlight), and the married couple she’s working for might be ending their marriage, but the stakes are relatively low. The film is maybe even a bit snoozy to start. By the time big things start happening — street protests, fires, gun violence, medical emergency — the fuller picture of what Cuaron has been going for comes into urgent focus.

Cuaron shot the film himself, serving as his own cinematographer. The black-and-white 65-millimeter production is spellbinding, full of many of his signature tracking shots. It does at first seem perverse to imagine watching such a cinematic treat via Netflix home-viewing, but if Netflix is as serious about pushing this film for Oscar as they seem to be, a semi-significant theatrical run may well be coming anyway. If Netflix can pull this off, they’ll prove that they can be a home for art-driven auteurs looking to make films the studios can’t or won’t. With films on the way from directors like Paul Greengrass, Joel and Ethan Coen, and Martin Scorsese, they’ll have plenty of chances to prove it. With Roma, know that they definitely have the goods.

Where to stream Roma