Good Movies to Watch – Highly-Rated Movies on Netflix (Page 3)

An unsung hero of the civil rights movement gets the customary Oscar bait treatment in this biopic. Though he was instrumental in organizing the historic March on Washington — which helped force the US government to enshrine civil rights — gay Black activist Bayard Rustin isn’t the household name his peers are. In an inversion […]

Set in 1920s India, RRR follows two revolutionaries who strike up an unlikely bond and fend off the British regime from their home. In their epic journey to protect their people, they encounter a number of setbacks that prompts them to put their incredible combat skills on full display. Despite its three-hour run, RRR never […]

With the tried-and-tested music and lyrics of Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray, this film adaptation of the Color Purple musical was practically guaranteed to have power in its key moments. And with a cast that includes tremendous vocalists like Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks (both of whom had previously played their respective characters […]

Compared to recently released age-gap romances The Idea of You and A Family Affair, Lonely Planet feels more mature. Liam Hemsworth’s Owen is a capable financier without any manchild tendencies, and his attraction to Laura Dern’s Katherine has nothing to do, at least explicitly, with age. They like each other simply because they do. They […]

There’s little to like in Hidden Strike, a shoddy action thriller riddled with dodgy CGI, melodramatic performances, and ultra-predictable plotlines. You could even play a drinking game spotting all the action cliches present in the film (take a shot every time the patriotic hero dedicates a killing to his countrymen). Mostly, it’s laughable and complex […]

Stutz is Jonah Hill’s loving tribute to his therapist Phil Stutz, a smart and empathetic man who’s dedicated his entire life to helping people. The conversations between them, deeply personal and vulnerable, are meaningful in themselves, but Stutz also works as a helpful instruction on how to be your best self and as a metanarrative […]

Pain Hustlers is based on a 2018 New York Times article of the same name exposing a drug company that marketed a fentanyl-based drug. Zanna, the on-screen pharmaceutical start-up, is modelled after Insys: the actual company who pushed a fentanyl-based spray for pain management with the help of sales reps who particularly appeal to a […]

A remake of the 2018 South Korean film of the same name, Keys to the Heart never really seems like it comes together as a thematic whole. In its bid to be a modest slice of life—as a story that just happens to feature boxing and classical music amid family conflict—its separate parts wind up […]

Beat for beat, word for word, Love is in the Air moves just like any other romantic comedy. Within that genre, it slots easily into the category of romcoms that follow a city guy who falls in love with a country girl, eventually learning and preferring the ways of small-town living. But Love in Air […]

Part fantasy, part road trip, and part coming-of-age, Suzume is a rich and fast-paced tale with no dull moments in between. The energy is relentless and the animation, as expected, is dazzling, so even though there are occasional plot holes and melodramatic reaches, you’d be hard-pressed not to forgive them. Suzume still wins you over. […]

Just in time for Halloween, Netflix has shelled out for a new, high production value doc about demonic possession. It has all the right ingredients: a true story (that of Arne Cheyenne Johnson, also known as the “Devil Made Me Do It” case of 1981), some convincing re-enactments, the air of exclusivity (use of real […]

Even if the overall message screams “Girl power!”, The Tinder Swindler must be taken with a pinch of salt. Yes, it’s perversely entertaining to witness the victims of an emotional and financial scam retell their traumatic experience. Yes, whoever decides to watch a true crime probably knows the genre’s highs and lows by heart. And […]

The Sea Beast tells the story of Jacob, a legendary sea monster hunter, and Maisie, a wannabe monster hunter herself. When a dangerous encounter isolates them from the rest of the crew, they’re forced to team up and reconcile their opposing beliefs—Maisie believes there’s good in the beasts, but Jacob has yet to be convinced. […]

This installment in Netflix’s series of sports documentary films, Untold, relies too heavily on information to pad its runtime. Even with intriguing parallel storylines that explain what Victor Conte was doing to secretly deal performance-enhancing drugs, and what investigators were doing to try and catch him, the story begins to repeat itself, forgetting to place […]

Entergalactic, a vibrant animated romcom from the mind of musician Kid Cudi, follows new neighbors Jabari (Cudi) and Meadow (Jessica Williams) as they navigate their way through the ups and downs of modern love. They’re both established artists at the height of their careers, but when it comes to romance, they’re still scraping for lessons, […]

Unknown’s next documentary installment takes us to the stars following the construction and deployment of the James Webb Space Telescope. The documentary centers on the behind-the-scenes of launching the telescope, which eradicated all possible errors as it was the most expensive operation to enter space without human intervention. Explanations are palatable, and the highlights of […]

You don’t really have to watch the first two movies to get this third installment of the rom-com trilogy. Squared Love Everlasting is largely about how two people who are settled and secure in their relationship deal with a major curveball, in this case, the revelation that Enzo has some unfinished business with his ex, […]

For the entirety of Where Was I, Trevor Noah is comfortably in his pocket—speaking to an audience that’s clearly familiar with his style and his views (if the respectful silences and occasional cheering are any indication) and branching off into sharing more serious facts between the jokes. And Noah’s style is clearly refined, as he […]

A healthy mix of despair and self-deprecation has always been Bo Burnham’s signature, but Inside takes it to the next level. It’s a deconstructed film, rather than a simple one-night special; a one-man-show that constantly undercuts itself. Even more so, it sabotages its own immersive qualities and explores the depths of self-loathing by turning oneself […]

It’s very likely you already know about the fictional character Matilda, a clever but neglected child who discovers she has telekinesis and uses it for good. You may have even grown up watching the 1996 film multiple times, as I have, and secretly tried to move a random object with your mind to see if […]

Nothing happens in Soultcatcher that you haven’t seen before. There is an evil scientist who creates a weapon of mass destruction. There are government officials fighting to obtain the weapon for political gain. And of course, there is a rugged team of mercenaries, each with their own distinct identifier, tasked to save the day. None […]

If you’re looking at posters and stills of this film thinking, “I know exactly what will happen here,” you’re right. Whatever it is, you’re right. Mother of the Bride is the type of vacation-wedding movie that’s been done a thousand times better before. But a generic premise is one thing; it’s easy to forgive cliches […]

Based on a true story, Darin J. Sallam’s controversial debut feature Farha is, at heart, a brutal coming-of-age film. Set in 1948, the film is about a girl who gets locked into her family’s storeroom at the start of the Nakba, the Palestinian Catastrophe. Sallam’s choice to limit most of the film’s perspective to that […]

Built entirely around the star power of its lead performers, A Very Good Girl does, indeed, provide ample opportunities for both Kathryn Bernardo and Dolly de Leon to chew the scenery with wild abandon. But even their most campily delivered one-liners are only entertaining in the moment, as the film twists itself into increasingly complicated […]

Family Switch is a film clearly built to give its ensemble fun acting opportunities, with Jennifer Garner and Ed Helms being given excuses to loosen up more than expected, and Brady Noon and Emma Myers (arguably the movie’s MVP) moving beyond mere imitation into more full-bodied performances as adults seeing through their kids’ eyes. Unfortunately, […]

In terms of the quality of the material delivered in Son I Never Had, this special is really just okay at best. Heather McMahan has charisma and personality, but she has a tendency to run directly into the set-ups for her jokes, without the kind of build-up between segments that would make the whole hour […]

Narrated by the familiar voice of Jack Black, Apollo 10 ½ is a throwback story told with admirable specificity and imagination. Black plays a grown-up Stan, who looks back on his younger years with a mix of fondness and wonder: how did they get away with the things they did then? American suburbia in the […]

To Catch a Killer feels like a limited series shrunken down to fit a movie’s runtime: its many ideas, though potentially compelling on their own, are so underserved by the breezy treatment here that they lose all value. The film wants to hit every hot button — misogyny in the police force, demagoguery on TV […]

Despite an engaging opening that promises to deepen the world already established in 2018’s Bird Box, this new installment slips back into the usual routine before long. That is: cheap thrills and an overall lack of scares, not necessarily because of the fact that the creatures terrorizing this world are invisible, but because the film […]

Russel Crowe, Nicole Kidman, and the immensely talented young actor Lucas Hedges (Manchester By the Sea) form an amazing pack of talent in this excellent drama. The story is based on the memoir by Garrard Conley, a true story. Set among deeply pious Christians in Arkansas, Hedges plays 18-year-old Jared Eamons, who discovers that he […]

Set in the capital of Peru, How to Deal with a Heartbreak is a follow-up to the mildly successful romantic comedy How to Get Over a Breakup. The titles are pretty self-explanatory, but where the first film is strictly about romance, the sequel experiments with more tender themes like family and friendship. It features everyday […]

Alfonso Cuaron is a master storyteller, Academy Award-winning director, and the man behind masterpieces such as Y Tu Mamá También, Gravity, Children of Men, and perhaps more importantly, the (uncontested) best Harry Potter movie (Prisoner of Azkaban, of course). In Roma, he tells a different story. His own. Building on events from his childhood, he […]

This is an amazing documentary but be warned, the main character has some weird characteristics. By coincidence, an art collector stumbles upon an undiscovered collection of sculptures and paintings that can only be described as the work of a genius. There was almost no reference to the artist, but upon research the collector finds that […]

All the little twists in the case of Mirna Salihin’s murder are intriguing enough to speculate over, so Ice Cold is definitely a true-crime case worth revisiting. The problem is in how the documentary indulges sensationalist arguments and pure speculation with the same level of urgency as it does with expert counsel. A large part […]

The idea of a true-crime documentary being narrated mostly by the very person who did it should be appealing to fans of the genre, especially those who would rather stay away from non-violent crimes. And Vjeran Tomic is a compelling thief, with his own perspective on the people he tends to steal from and the […]

Better known as a podcast host, Stavros Halkias proves that he does have the writing ability and (the lack of shame and/or pride) to come up with effective jokes from his own perspective. But his momentum just doesn’t hold throughout this hour-long special; he starts strong and keeps a coherent train of thought throughout the […]

The tired stereotype is that in horror films, it’s always the Black characters who are the first to die. The Blackening turns that on its head and gives us an interesting premise by asking, what if all the characters are Black? While it’s not the first film to do this (in fact, a lot of […]

This film really satisfied my craving for an original thriller, despite the fact that I spent most of it thinking about how Logan Marshall-Green looks like a budget Tom Hardy. He plays a guy whose wife is killed during a violent mugging that also leaves him paralyzed in the aftermath. When a billionaire approaches him […]

More a clip show than a real stand-up special—and certainly not a documentary about the New York-based comedy club—The Improv: 60 and Still Standing only really seems to be for the most hardcore devotees of American stand-up. But even if you are familiar with all the comics who make an appearance here, the film doesn’t […]

If it’s been said about one American stand-up comedian, it’s been said about a dozen of them: just because a joke is edgy doesn’t mean it’s brave, nor does it mean it’s actually a well-written joke. Throughout this hour-long special, Mike Epps rambles from one topic to another with little sense of direction, usually resorting […]

You ought to know what you’re getting into with a movie like The Out-Laws, a production from the Adam Sandler-founded Happy Madison banner that’s behind such lofty cinematic heights as Grown Ups and Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Even in that charitable frame of reference, though, The Out-Laws feels, even more than usual, like a tax […]

After receiving virtually unlimited funding from a wealthy businessman, Lola (played by the always excellent Penelope Cruz) sets out to mount an ambitious adaptation of a bestselling novel. To make her vision work, she employs renowned actors Ivan Torres (Oscar Martinez) and Felix Rivero (Antonio Banderas), knowing full well that their opposite philosophies in art […]

A deep dive into African-American cinema in the 1970s, Is That Black Enough for You?!? may at times feel like an extended audiovisual Wikipedia article, but it convincingly sets up its ideas in breezy, entertaining fashion. And it successfully argues that Hollywood today just hasn’t cashed in on the wealth of innovative Black art that […]

Even if it knows to keep its ambitions modest, Holiday in the Vineyards still doesn’t find much to do for its small cast. The actors do what they can and certainly seem like they’re having fun play-acting a warm Christmas romcom, but when all is said and done there simply isn’t anything particularly striking about […]

A gritty and realistic thriller set in France’s notorious capital city of crime – Marseille.  Zachary is released from Juvenile prison to learn that his mother has abandoned him. He finds kinship in an underage sex worker by the name of Shéhérazade.  This seems like the set-up for a tough watch, but Shéhérazade plays like […]

The Hand of God is the autobiographical movie from Paolo Sarrantino, the director of the 2013 masterpiece The Great Beauty. He recently also directed The Young Pope with Jude Law and Youth Paul Dano, both in English. He is back to his home Italy with this one. More precisely, he’s in his hometown Naples, in […]

The Spy Kids movies have always been knowingly corny, which hasn’t changed for this latest installment—it’s just that it also has an odd lack of color and personality to its generic action movie shenanigans. This is especially disappointing given the film’s focus on video games, which it only seems to understand in their most surface […]

You don’t need to be familiar with the rest of the Rurouni Kenshin live-action movie series—or the original manga and anime, for that matter—to appreciate The Beginning as a powerful period drama in its own right. This is a story that courses its historical context about a tumultuous time in Japan’s past through a stoic, […]

About My Father is clearly intended to be a cringe comedy a la Meet the Parents (it even features Robert De Niro as another grumpy dad), but it stretches the concept of “funny” so thin that the memory of that scene in which a cat pees on the contents of a smashed urn will feel […]

In the Mexican film A Cop Movie, director Alonso Ruizpalacios mixes fact and fiction, documentary and narrative, to tell the tale of Teresa and Montoya, two police officers whose dreams are dashed by the corruption of their trade and who, eventually, find love and comfort in each other. Ruizpalacios takes thrilling risks in structuring this […]

Given the political nature of the story, it’s not surprising that The Mauritanian takes a somewhat safe and simple approach in depicting the real life Guantanamo Bay prisoner who was unjustly detained for more than a decade. Nevertheless, sticking to familiar procedural beats is effective, because of the powerful story itself, and the outstanding performances […]

Prayers for the Stolen takes more time to observe life in its rural town, than to showcase the action and violence inflicted by the cartels that pass by. It’s a needed perspective. This move drives home how long these cartels were left unaddressed, as the women of the town have gotten used to the danger […]

Phenomenal and heartbreaking, Wind River is a true masterpiece by Taylor Sheridan, the man behind Sicario and Hell or High Water. In a Native American Reservation, a local girl is found dead and a young detective (Elizabeth Olsen) tries to uncover the mystery. She is accompanied by a tracker (Jeremy Renner) with his own dark […]

As far as documentaries go, The Lady of Silence doesn’t deviate much from the true-crime formula. It follows a serial killer in charge of a series of attacks against elderly women from the late 1990s to 2003 in Mexico City. But the show stands out for highlighting just how unfamiliar the Mexican government was with […]

Animated in every sense of the word, The Mitchells vs. the Machines is a fun and lively watch for anyone of any age. On the surface, it’s about a tech company’s AI going haywire as it turns against humans and takes over the world (an obvious and much-deserved dig at Big Tech). It also immediately […]

Given the nature of the subject (the discovery of a species that predates humans), this installment of the Unknown documentary movies has more fanfare than its predecessors. The narrative never transcends positing that a Homo Naledi is just like Homo Sapiens, but not really. The experts’ enthusiasm is often unsettling when you quickly realize that […]

This fun comedy-drama is about a New York playwright called Radha who never hit big. When she turns 40, she decides to reinvent herself as RadhaMUSPrime, a rapper. And it’s all a personal affair: Radha Blank plays the main character (named after herself) and is also the writer, director, and producer. The story is about […]

It would be unfair to focus only on Jagun Jagun’s obvious budget limitations (relative to the blockbusters churned out from the United States), when there’s clearly still much creativity at work here. Impressively lived-in production design, solid fight choreography, and a go-for-broke lead performance by Lateef Adedimeji ensure that there’s always something worth looking at—not […]

This insightful and uplifting documentary is about a growing movement within indigenous communities: obtaining food sovereignty by going back to pre-genocide ways of cultivating food. The violent changes that have affected indigenous communities don’t impact just the people, but also the animals, the fish, and the land. All of these are now bearing the brunt […]

The pulp and machismo that defined the ‘80s is very much present in Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, but instead of glorifying the era, Indonesian auteur Edwin smartly flips the script and puts the headstrong Iteung (Ladya Cheryl) front and center in this subversive and heady action film. As the anti-damsel-in-distress, Iteung expertly […]