New this week: Sam Mendes flexes his war movie muscles in 1917, plus Chloë Grace Moretz and Isabelle Huppert queen off in Greta
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: Sam Mendes flexes his war movie muscles in 1917, plus Chloë Grace Moretz and Isabelle Huppert queen off in stalker thriller Greta. Plus, if you fancy taking a gamble on Amazon Prime and Disney+, try these guides.
1/401917
Shot in a handful of continuous, hectic takes, 1917 is the story of one boy's (George MacKay) journey into the depths of hell (read: the trenches in World War I). With some of the best directed action scenes of Sam Mendes' career this side of Skyfall, the film plays out like an extended version of the bloody prologue to Saving Private Ryan, albeit transposed to the Somme. It is dark but not without its Hollywood sheen, and at its core remains a deeply human story with an attractive young face. What you're getting with 1917, then, isn't so much an anti-war treatise on the unique barbarism of trench warfare as a pretty conventional war movie with behind-the-camera flair — but that shouldn't undermine what a striking technical achievement it is. You can watch 1917 on Netflix.
- 2/40
Greta
In which Chloë Grace Moretz and Isabelle Huppert have a queen off. After an innocent young woman (Moretz) finds a handbag on the New York metro, she thinks nothing of it — only to reunite it with its owner. Such is her terrible luck, said owner turns out to be an unhinged widow (Huppert) who has caught a chronic case of the crazies. The subsequent thriller is two-parts dark, one-part funny, and one-part camp, with a sprinkling of tragedy, floating like bitters at the top of an Old Fashioned. You can watch Greta on Netflix.
- 3/40
Hit Man
Richard Linklater doesn't miss. (See Boyhood below, see also Apollo 10 ½, see also Before Midnight). So he was never going to drop the ball on a sort-of-mostly-true story about a mild-mannered professor who pretends to be a hitman in order to catch criminals and criminals-to-be, played by doer of no wrong Glen Powell. Chuck in a love interest who hires him to take out her abusive husband and this film was always going to be up against it if it wanted to be a stinker. Obviously it's anything but. You can watch Hit Man on Netflix.
- 4/40
Boyhood
Birdman is the film that won the best picture Oscar the year Boyhood should've done. Birdman was good and innovative and not a million miles off deserving that Oscar, but it wasn't Boyhood. Boyhood is Boyhood. The main thing many people know about Richard Linklater's masterpiece is the quasi-gimmick of it having been shot over 12 years with the same cast. And the effect, it must be said, is worthwhile, lending the film an essential realism. But there's so much more that goes into Boyhood – Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke, some fantastic music, beautiful direction, and perhaps most crucially, the choice of a lead actor, in Ellar Coltrane, who turned out to be capable of the performance this film needed to bring everything together. You can watch Boyhood on Netflix.
- 5/40
Glass Onion: a Knives Out mystery
A crucial stage in Daniel Craig's recent embrace of silly fun. The first Knives Out was a star-studded revelation, the absolute embodiment of the word “caper” (except for in the culinary sense, it's really not one of those. No never mind about the “onion” thing.) The second one is largely the same – murder mystery in a grandly bizarre, semi-sealed location – but with perhaps a little more to say, about the corruptive influence of wealth and vapidity of celebrity, and a much grander, more bizarre finale to boot. Up with this sort of thing! You can watch Glass Onion on Netflix.
- 6/40
Leave No Trace
A father and teenage daughter who have been living off the grid in an Oregon forest come into contact with the instruments of officialdom they've long been avoiding. Father Will (Ben Foster) is consequently forced to gradually relax his avoidance of modernity, while daughter Tom (Thomasin McKenzie)'s progress to adulthood meet challenges – and opportunities – her previous lifestyle had shielded her from. A beautifully sensitive film that asks big, big questions about the role of the state and how it and we interact with or separate ourselves from nature, gently. You can watch Leave No Trace on Netflix.
- ©Paramount/Courtesy Everett Collection7/40
Smile
The great mid-budget horror boom has been well documented in recent years, and Smile may be the trend's glorious epitome — it was made for $17 million and brought in ten times its budget, a box office coup practically unheard of in the streaming age. So what's it actually about? It's a bit like The Ring, sans the video tape. A therapist (Sosie Bacon) and her patients are terrorised by a mysterious entity that forces them to commit suicide one by one — but no, unlike M. Night Shyamalan's wonderfully schlocky The Happening, this isn't mother nature getting her own back. The sequel is out later this year, so now's a perfect time to catch up. You can watch Smile on Netflix.
- ©Focus Features/Courtesy Everett Collection8/40
Mrs Harris Goes to Paris
One of the great gems of 2022 was a Leslie Manville star vehicle — anyone who has seen Phantom Thread or her part in The Crown will attest that there aren't enough of those — that teems with charm and joy. In the film Manville portrays a lowly ‘50s cleaning lady, the titular Mrs Harris, who comes upon some money and strikes out to visit France’s capital and buy a Dior dress. It's really that simple: a funny, endlessly pleasant, handsomely shot rags-to-relative-riches fairy tale in which a brusque Londoner rubs up against the snooty elitism of mid-century French couture. Perfect Sunday afternoon stuff. You can watch Mrs Harris Goes to Paris on Netflix from Friday.
- ©MCA/Courtesy Everett Collection9/40
Notting Hill
The prototypical Richard Curtis rom-com stars Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant — of course it does — as a pair of starcrossed lovers flung together by surreal circumstance in the film's namesake West London borough. It's a timeless premise: Grant is a divorced bookshop keeper, Roberts is a megawatt film star, and their meet-cute on the street evolves into a brilliant affair. It's the stuff that lovey-dovey comedies are made of. You can watch Notting Hill on Netflix.
- 10/40
Beverly Hills Cop
America's highest grossing movie of 1984 made a household name of budding SNL showman Eddie Murphy, and with Police Academy, marked the crest of a wave for buddy cop comedies. (What came later? The likes of Red Heat, Last Action Hero and Lethal Weapon.) After his best friend is murdered, Murphy's hot shot Detroit cop Axel Foley is refused the case, so he heads out to Los Angeles to crack it on his own time. He causes no end of mayhem in a breakneck caper that sees him outwit bad guys with cunning and charm — that or blow them away. Oh, and he pisses Judge Reinhold right off. You can watch Beverly Hills Cop on Netflix.
- 11/40
Bodies Bodies Bodies
This very Gen Z slasher brings together the A-list of internet It Girls and Online Boyfriends for a fairly tame horror-murder-mystery-class-satire combo. Think Knives Out crossed with Scream. The new faces of Hollywood assemble in a remote American manor house at peak hurricane season, and shit gets real when the lights go out. Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova and Myha'la Herrold lead the pack, with supporting appearances from Chase Sui Wonders, Rachel Sennott, Lee Pace and Pete Davidson. And don't forget the Charli XCX banger on the score. You can watch Bodies Bodies Bodies on Netflix.
- 12/40
Bad 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.
- 13/40
Nope
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.
- 14/40
Hit 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.
- 15/40
In 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.
- 16/40
Nocturnal 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.
- 17/40
Once 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 Collection18/40
The 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.
- 19/40
Paprika
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.
- 20/40
Triangle 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.
- Rex / Shutterstock21/40
The 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 Features22/40
Lost 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.
- 23/40
Pulp 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.
- 24/40
Top 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.
- 25/40
Memento
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 Collection26/40
Uncut 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 Collection27/40
Past 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 Collection28/40
Whiplash
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.
- 29/40
Get 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.
- 30/40
Red 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.
- 31/40
Dune: 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.
- 32/40
Once 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.
- 33/40
Jaws
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 Collection34/40
Little 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.
- 35/40
The 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 Collection36/40
Portrait 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.
- 37/40
Call 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 Collection38/40
Parasite
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.
- 39/40
The 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.
- 40/40
The 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.