Bilal Zouheir: My Curated Picks on Streaming Services
Bilal Zouheir is the founder of A Good Movie to Watch. He is US-based and a member of the Nevada Film Critics Society. He grew up in Morocco, where he learned English from watching movies. Bilal’s work with A Good Movie to Watch is focused on offering an alternative to streaming algorithms, which are often used as commercial tools by streaming services.
This docuseries follows six couples from Japan, the U.S., Spain, Brazil, and India, as they share their stories of a lifelong partnership.
It might sound like any other Netflix Original, but there are no twists or turns, and it never feels forced or aimed at a trend. Instead, it’s a mirror of the peacefulness that the couples have built together: a tender and simple existence that’s impossible not to aspire to.
The first episode follows a couple in Vermont who maintained the last farm in their area until passing it on to their son. Once high-school sweethearts, Ginger and David went on to have six children, and stay married for 60 years.
This life of quiet doesn’t necessarily mean an easy life, especially as the two have to pick between expenses like affording care or getting their grandchildren birthday gifts. Their biggest concern at this point is making it easy for their children after their passing, which carries its own weight.
The culture of propaganda and cover-ups that kicked off the pandemic is the subject of this compelling documentary by award-winning director Nanfu Wang (One Child Nation). Wang, who traveled with her family to China in January 2020, saw and filmed the pandemic firsthand, and wrote to major newspapers like The New York Times to convince them to write about it. They never did.
Media and government in both China and the U.S. played down the threat, and this documentary asks how different everything would have gone otherwise. More dauntingly, it’s an examination of how the Communist Party in China managed to use the event to its advantage.
This sci-fi thriller based on a podcast by the same name is about Dan (Mamoudou Athie), a video archivist who takes a job to restore a set of burned Hi8 videotapes. When he starts seeing the footage, he discovers that it is from a now-missing woman trying to document a cult in the ’90s.
The events of the footage take place in an unassuming apartment building in New York City; after the building mysteriously burned down, many were left dead and missing in its wake. As Dan tries to understand what happened, he uncovers details about the woman filming and something that links even his own family to the fire.
The show is at times more of an unsettling horror than a supernatural thriller, but it features a stunning performance from Mamoudou Athie. It’s also notably co-produced by James Wan, co-creator of the Saw, Insidious, and Conjuring franchises.
Dave Franco stars in this murder mystery as an obnoxious pop star who gets murdered during a 15-year high-school reunion afterparty. An unlikely detective (played by Tiffany Haddish) is dispatched to find out who among the party attendants committed the crime.
Featuring beloved comedians old and new, the series brings to the forefront a myriad of gimmicks and shticks that promises to keep you both entertained and at the edge of your seat. If you’re looking for a quick, lighthearted, no-brainer mystery, this will do the job perfectly.
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 of climate change.
Historically, North American governments forbid Native people from fishing and cultivating their foods as a way to repress them and create dependency. Gather is as much a recognition of the damage that was done as it is a forward-looking vision about how these communities are taking control of their faiths.
“They called me uppity. Uppity n*****. And I loved it”. That’s how this excellent documentary, about the first professional black racing driver Willy T. Ribbs, starts. It summarizes the strong personality of a champion who excelled in tracks that were filled with confederate flags.
The documentary explains the details of the difficulties that Ribbs went through in the 70s and 80s, but also the people who supported him and recognized his talent. It’s by no way a sad movie, on the contrary, even when Ribbs is talking about people spitting wherever he walks or about the death threats escalating, his unharmed determination is at the center of the story.
This is an inspiring documentary about a character who never got his worth in the history books. I was full of shivers by the first half-hour mark.
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 rap and theater, but being so connected to reality, it feels like it’s about Blank making the movie itself. Its very existence feels like a triumph against the pressure of age, the misunderstanding of others, and the weight of unreached goals.
This groundbreaking documentary follows the USA Olympics sexual abuse case that made headlines in 2015. Through interviews with Olympians, their families, and investigative reporters, it’s also a documentary on the overall culture of abuse in gymnastics: sexual, physical, and emotional.
In one scene from the 1996 Olympics, gold medalist Kerri Strug has to run, vault, and land – all with a severe foot injury that was covered up by her coaches. She does this twice, limping between attempts and crawling off the mat on the second, crying. Meanwhile, her family, her coaches, the spectators – the World – is celebrating.
When she’s carried off, it’s Larry Nassar, the pedophile at the center of the documentary, who carries her.
Athlete A is groundbreaking exactly because it illustrates that the problem is not only with one doctor, or the 54 coaches who were also found guilty of sexual abuse, or the morally bankrupt leadership of USA Gymastics; it’s also about what went so wrong with society to see the abuse of young girls as cause for celebration.
This stagelike historical drama is about a meeting between Malcolm X, Jim Brown, Sam Cooke, and Muhammad Ali, the night Ali became world champion and announced he became Muslim.
And here is the thing: Malcolm X and Muhammed Ali have been portrayed many times in film, but never with this much nuance. Their relationship with each other is often frictional and their relationship to their faith is recognizable: they’re not always sure about it, and they take breaks.
Ali smuggles alcohol without Malcolm knowing, Malcolm is accused of being obsessed with celebrity (and later of colorism), Jim Brown is insecure about being an actor, and Sam Cooke wishes he wrote a Bob Dylan song.
This French TV series is set in 1963, at the first high school to have both boys and girls as students.
From boys scared of the smart girls ranking better than them to teachers being afraid that girls will “distract” boys – Mixte is half comedy half a reminder of how differently young people interacted back then. And apart from the exceptional costume design, it functions as an enjoyable, and standard coming-of-age series.
This lovely comedy-romance from Ireland is about a closeted gay teen and his lesbian schoolmate who pretend to be in a relationship to avoid being bullied at their school.
This premise makes Dating Amber an original story in a genre in which that’s increasingly rare. This is added to the setting, in 1995 rural Ireland, which is executed to gorgeous perfection in everything from the clothes to the music.
Dating Amber ends up being more coming-of-age than a comedy-romance. It’s a tale of friendship and self-acceptance.
For three years, the makers of this docuseries gained in-depth access to ICE and other government agencies to document the current state of the U.S. immigration system.
Immigration Nation looks at how ICE functions from within, but it also focuses on the human toll of its methods. When a migrant freezes to death, an officer calls his distraught father to notify him. It quickly becomes apparent that the officer is using the same call to try to establish if the father is in the U.S. legally or if he should be deported.
The show also makes an important point of noting that the harshness of the U.S. immigration system didn’t start with the current administration. “Prevention through deterrence” Clinton-era policies, for example, forced migrants towards desert routes, killing around 10,000 people from dehydration.
Bull is a gritty and haunting drama featuring a phenomenal performance by Rob Morgan as a bullfighter. In a poor Houston suburb, he plays an aging and lonely black man doing everything he can to survive. He brushes off unrelenting racism, rides even when it’s life-threatening and raises chickens to sell them. His next-door neighbor is a grandmother taking care of her daughter’s kids while the daughter is in jail. One day one of these grandaughters harms the chickens and vandalizes Abe’s house, prompting them to clash.
While this perspective on competitive sports is obviously unconventional, it makes perfect sense. Winners are boring. If you win, you win. The losers, however, have defeat to deal with. As the proverb goes, you learn little from victory, but a great deal from defeat. Director and creator of the show’s amazing animation, Mickey Duzyj, was inspired by a personal experience during a tennis tournament as a teenager. Each episode of this 2019 Netflix show tells a different story from a different sport. For starters, episode one looks at Michael Bentt, a world champion boxer who was forced into the sport by his abusive father. So, things do get dark, as could be expected, the storytelling is complex, but the message of Losers is as simple as it is wholesome. Like the characters and life stories it portrays, this show will pick you up when you are down!
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 1980s, where awkward teenager Fabietto Schisa’s life is about to change: his city’s soccer team Napoli is buying the biggest footballer at the time, Diego Maradona.
Sarrantino, who is also from Naples, made this movie that is half a tribute to the city and half to what it meant growing up around the legend of Maradona.
The Hand of God is to Sarrantino what Roma was to Alfonso Cuarón, except it’s more vulgar, fun, and excessive. It is equally as personal though, and it goes from comedy to tragedy and back with unmatched ease.
Two storylines take place in this Parisian animation: one of a Moroccan immigrant who works as a pizza delivery guy, and the other of his hand, somehow no longer part of his body, but also going on a trip around Paris.
The hand storyline is not gory by the way, except for one or two very quick scenes. Mostly, this is a film about loneliness and not being able to find your way back, both as an immigrant who misses how they were raised and as a hand who misses its body.
Sporting some of the most beautiful animation work this year, this movie premiered at Cannes where it became the first-ever animated film (and Netflix film) to win the Nespresso Grand Prize.
This movie narrated by Nicolas Cage is the incredible story of actor Anton Yelchin (Star Trek, Like Crazy): from being born to a Jewish Russian family in Leningrad to moving to the U.S. and ending with his sudden death at age 27. Anton, or Antosha as his loved ones called him, was a gifted kid: he was making his own movies at seven years old, taking highly sophisticated notes on Fellini movies, and picking up playing guitar in a short time. He took photographs that still show in exhibitions around the world. He led an extraordinary life, portrayed here, one that was cut way too short.
Asif Kapadia, the genius of biopics who gave us Senna, is back with this documentary on an even bigger sports personality: Argentinian soccer player Diego Armando Maradona. Considered as possibly the best soccer player of all time, Maradona’s footage on the pitch is pure wizardry, and you’ll feel that way whether you are a soccer fan or not. But that’s not the focus of this documentary. What happens outside the pitch is more interesting: from Maradona’s modest beginnings to the passionate hatred (and love) that entire countries develop of him. And it doesn’t make his story less interesting that during his time in Naples he was affiliated with the mafia.
This is an excellent documentary that distills 500 hours of footage into 2, giving you all you need to know about a character who captured the imagination of a big part of the world for decades.
This documentary starts with Alex Lewis, who gets into a motorcycle accident and wakes up in the hospital not knowing who he is. He doesn’t remember anything (not even what a bicycle or a TV is, or who his mother or father are), but he remembers his twin brother, Marcus. When Alex gets back into his childhood home, he’s full of questions, and Marcus is full of answers. However, slowly, Marcus realizes his power to reshape Alex’s version of their past. Marcus leaves one important detail from Alex’s life that makes this documentary (as if it wasn’t already) such an insane story. I know I said it’s a sad movie, but it’s also fascinating and, ultimately, humanizing of the brothers’ experience.
Meet Rilakkuma, a relaxed teddy bear (which is indeed what his name translates to in Japanese), and Kaoru, a Japanese office worker in her mid-thirties, who lives with said bear as well as a smaller white bear named Korilakkuma and a yellow chick by the name of Kiiroitori. As whimsical as all this may sound, the show offers up endearing and humane life lessons to go with all the heart-warming cuteness as Kaoru navigates being single, her apartment building being demolished, and her job stressing her out. It combines charming stop-motion characters with great writing, adorable animation, and a beautifully quiet tone. You might be surprised at the profundity of a show that, at the surface, is about a Japanese girl with cuddly toy roommates. It’s hard to compare it to anything else!
The simple premise of this series, about real couples going to therapy, shouldn’t feel as revolutionary as it does. And yet, Couples Therapy feels like radical reality-TV, a focused and coherent undertaking.
Couples of different histories, ages, races, and sexual orientations walk into Dr. Orna Guralnik’s New York office. Their problems are as diverse and unique as they are, but there is also a painful universality to them. Couples Therapy becomes a portrayal of human partnership period, a TV show in which to see oneself at times and to learn from the different webs couples get tangled in over time.
Never before has reality TV been the best vehicle to portray something so serious.
Two misfits, an immigrant and a traveling cook, team up to start an unlikely enterprise in this slow but captivating drama. The story, set in 19th century Pacific Northwest, evolves around the arrival of the first cow to that part of the world. This presents a unique opportunity that the two main characters try to benefit from.
First Cow is a mix between a Western and a modern-day plot-less indie drama. It has likable characters, stunning scenery, and a fascinating look into how social outcasts lived back then.
This mini-series by Alex Garland (28 Days Later writer and Ex Machina director) is about a tech company like Google that has a building that only select developers (devs) work in. Sergei is one of the lucky ones that get the call but he disappears after his first day. His girlfriend, who works for the same company, tries to find out what happened to him, first by uncovering well-kept dark secrets about that building. If you liked Mr. Robot or Ex Machina, you will love this. And a surprise bonus: Nick Offerman plays the CEO of the company, in a great serious role.
There are three big reasons to watch Paddleton. The first two are Ray Romano and Mark Duplass, who play the two neighbors at the center of the story. And the third is Alexandre Lehmann, the director, who also is responsible for Blue Jay (on Netflix as well).
These two misfit neighbors find themselves together when one of them is diagnosed with cancer. They embark on a trip to the nearest pharmacy (a six-hour drive) which turns into an adventure.
This premise gives Paddleton a lot to play on: it’s a comedy, but it’s also a drama about a fatal disease. It’s a bromance, but it’s about a fragile friendship. All these contradictions make Paddleton a great slice-of-life movie. And again, both actors are amazing. Watching it just for them is worth it.
The question mark in the title represents the central idea of this fascinating documentary: what if worshipping Satan is the only way of ensuring religious freedom for everyone?
That’s what a group of young members known as The Satanic Temple believe, led by a determined and well-spoken Harvard graduate. They embark on a journey across the U.S. to challenge corrupt officials and the prevalence of religious biases in government agencies. They always request that their belief system (Satanism) is given the same favorable treatment as Christianity, effectively proving that authorities will really only accept a show of religion if it’s one religion: Christianity.
But their intoxicating energy comes with costs: divisions within the organization and growing pains. This documentary perfectly illustrates not only a misunderstood religion (in the documentary it’s referred to as “post-religion”) but the difficulties of establishing grassroots movements in general.
Two incredibly funny women are the stars of this authentic and heart-felt British comedy: writer, stand-up comedian, and main actress Aisling Bea, and the amazing Sharon Horgan (Catastrophe), who also co-produced the show. Irish teacher Áine (Bea) lives in London, yes, like Sharon Horgan’s character in Catastrophe, and works as an English-as-a-foreign-language teacher, but instead of getting knocked up by an American, she suffers a nervous breakdown and goes to rehab. When Áine checks out, she has to re-navigate all the aspects of real life that brought her to rehab in the first place. She does so with her sister Shona (Horgan) at her side. This is very clever and honest comedy about mental health, recovery, and loneliness, and about creating meaningful connections with the people around you. In true Bea and Horgan style, though, the humor is dark and will make you flinch and laugh at the same time. The chemistry between them is incredible!
This documentary from Ken Burns is a selection of stories from prisoners enrolled in a competitive college program. Many of the prisoners are in maximum-security facilities, some for serious crimes.
Seeing their difficult imprisonment conditions, the struggles they come from, and yet their incredible determination to excel in their education – it’s all such a humbling and emotional affair.
An interior designer comes back from Sweden to her birthplace in Thailand where she tries to declutter her family home to make it a minimalist, Marie Kondo-type house. “Minimalism is like a Buddhist philosophy. It’s about letting go,” she tells her mother as she tries to convince her. “Are you nuts?” The woman replies.
Jean insists and she embarks on a journey of touching what hasn’t been touched in decades: traces of an absent father and a past lover among the old Nokias and VHS tape recorders.
Happy Old Year is a contemporary exploration of the age-old resistance to throwing things away. Decluttering is a costly act, one of rejecting and discarding memories. The film was Thailand’s official submission to the Oscars.
The drug trade is international, but it is rarely portrayed as such on TV. Drug thrillers often take place in one country and in one or two languages (usually Spanish and English) – but in reality, there are producers, buyers, and sellers, all based in different parts of the world. So a show depicting the drug business in a realistic way should also move around the world. ZeroZeroZero is that. It’s a fast thriller set in many countries: The U.S., Italy, Mexico, Senegal, and Morocco to name a few. The stunning cinematography bounces between contexts seamlessly, telling a nihilistic yet thrilling story of a conflict that starts within the Italian Mafia.
This artistic Australian coming-of-age drama stars Eliza Scanlen (Little Women, Sharp Objects) as Milla, a teen from a dysfunctional family. The father is a psychologist and the mother suffers from depression, so he medicates her under the table. Meanwhile, Milla, a 16 year old, starts dating a charismatic almost-homeless 24 year old drug dealer. Unusual circumstances make the family tolerate the relationship in this story where every character feels like the main one.
If you’re looking for something different, you will love Babyteeth. Something happens to Milla in the 10 minute mark that descriptions and reviews online all mention – but is definitely a spoiler. Just know that it’s not all romance and coming-of-age, there is slow-burning darkness to this movie.
Clocking just 15 minutes per episode, Special is like a candy bar. It’s quick to consume but sweet as sugar. This new Netflix Original is set around a gay man with cerebral palsy, a disability that affects his body coordination but not his brain. As Ryan puts it in the first episode, it’s a disability that doesn’t make him normal but also is not severe enough for him to be part of the “cool disabled crew”. Ryan decides to turn his life around by pretending his disability is due to a car accident. People around him, especially at the exploitative millennial magazine “eggwoke” where he is an intern, start treating him differently. The car accident story provides a more accessible framework for them to understand his condition. It’s hard to believe a TV show can come out today and still manage to be so different from the rest, but Special does it. In other words, and I’m sorry to be this cheeky; Special is special.
When I learned about Street Food the first time, I was reluctant to sit through yet another Netflix cooking show. They’ve made so many that when I want to bring up an episode with a friend I forget if I saw it in Ugly Delicious, Chef’s Table, Salt Fat Acid Heat or others. I can’t say that Street Food is a different format. It uses the same slow-motion takes of food, the same close-ups on chefs and the same style of interviews. Here is the thing though. Street Food might be similar to other Netflix cooking shows, but it’s also better than them in almost every way. Much better. It’s only 30 minutes long per episode, so it doesn’t indulge in egos or stray into unrelated stories. It doesn’t showcase kitchens where only the rich eat, like Chef’s Table often does, but stalls that are accessible to everyone. And in the best way, it connects the story of the food makers to the food. The show is mostly about middle-aged to senior women, and people who do not make that much money. It’s not about glamorous young chefs. It’s about food stripped away from any marketing or showbiz. Real cooking, real chefs, real diners. In its unpretentious nature, Street Food feels euphoric.
This informative documentary about the former president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev is set against modern-day interviews with him that span 6 months. Sitting opposite of him is the Gorbachev equivalent in filmmaking: Werner Herzog. The prolific director asks interesting questions and narrates events that illustrate Gorbachev’s forgotten importance: ending the cold war, a push for denuclearization and avoiding bloodshed during the fall of the Soviet Block. The fact that Gorbachev is loved by so many, including Herzog – who at some point actually says “I love you” – might be the only problem with this documentary. It’s a great reminder of why people loved the Soviet leader, a phenomenon otherwise known as “Gorbymania”, but it does very little in portraying him in a critical light.
There are only 20 seats in Formula 1 each year, meaning that drivers are not only racing to win but to be kept on the roster. With the big stars, Ferrari and Mercedes, habitually shrouded in secrecy, Formula 1: Drive to Survive focuses more on the back of the grid. Lewis Hamilton, the five-time world champion, is rarely seen, for example, giving more room for other stories to unfold, including that of Günther Steiner, the Italian team principal of the Haas Formula One Team. That is not to say there are no big reveals. Even if you think Formula 1 is a decadent, testosterone-driven sports for rich Europeans, Drive to Survive might be welcome crash course into what makes this sport so appealing for many and might also have the potential to change your mind. If not, it is still a very well-made, slick, and engaging docuseries that will have enthusiasts and newcomers thoroughly entertained.
Co-created and co-produced by an amazing duo, Maya Erskine and Anna Konkle, who play fictional versions of their 13-year-old selves among a bunch of actual adolescents, Hulu’s PEN15 is a painfully funny teen sitcom about two friends going through middle-school together. With meticulous detail, it is set in the 2000s, including the discmen, the khakis, and the AOL dial-up sounds, but you certainly don’t have to be 30+ to enjoy the masturbation, boys, overall awkwardness, and other superbly spun teen comedy tropes. Erskine and Konkle’s middle-school experience was obviously all about being the lesser cool kids and they embody this to the fullest. It’s hilarious and cringey, sometimes gross, but also insightful. A lot of fun!
This crazy adventure thriller was Colombia’s nomination for the 2020 Oscars. “Monos” translates to monkeys, the nom de guerre of a group of teenagers holding an American hostage in an isolated bunker. Other than the occasional visit from their supervisor, they’re left to their devices, forming relationships, smoking weed, drinking, and eating psychedelic mushrooms. One day, on top of the hostage, they’re also trusted with a milk cow, named Shakira. A party goes wrong and one of the Monos accidentally kills Shakira, triggering a series of events that sends them deep into the jungle, and deep into despair.
Monos is not an action movie, it’s more of a character study. It was loosely based on The Lord of the Flies.
This is an thrilling BBC/Netflix show and a Yakuza drama that takes place between Tokyo and London. About half of the dialogue is in Japanese and the other half is in English.
Yakuza families are no longer at peace when a boss’s nephew is assassinated in London. Trying to bring the culprit in without interference from the British police, a Tokyo detective is sent to the UK to try to find him.
There is an undeniable appeal to seeing the world of yakuza unfold, but the show’s title, which translates to Duty/Shame is a reference to the detective’s own personal conflict: the suspected murderer he’s looking for is his brother. Ouu.
This historical show with immaculate production value is about the fall of Constantinople in 1453. It’s fully in English, despite being a Turkish production, featuring a mix of entertaining interviews and dramatic reenactment. The way it’s narrated is reminiscent of History Channel documentaries (with frequent recaps), which is unfortunate. Still, the story and the production compensate well enough. The young 21-year-old Ottoman Sultan Mehmet risks everything in pursuit of Constantinople, a city twelve armies, including his father’s, have failed to take. This moment is pivotal for so many reasons: it marked the end of the Roman empire, it turned the Ottomans from local power to a global one, and the use of advanced military techniques (such as a new generation of cannons) changed warfare forever. But knowing that Mehmet will enter Constantinople (now Istanbul) changes nothing to the appeal of this show. The question is not will he win, but at what cost, and how.
This difficult movie is about a seventeen-year-old from the U.S. underclass who has to deal with an unplanned pregnancy. Autumn is creative, reserved, and quiet, but those are not qualities that her environment in rural Pennsylvania seems to value. On the opposite, she is surrounded by threats, including disturbing step-father and boss characters.
Dangers escalate as Autumn decides to travel to New York to have an abortion. Never Rarely Sometimes Always is about unplanned pregnancies as much as it is about just how dangerous it is to be a teenage girl living in America.
The first Norwegian series made by HBO is a crazy and fun detective thriller. People from three different centuries start washing up at our time in the Oslo bay: from the Stone Age, the Viking Age, and the 19th century. Before you know it, downtown Oslo is full of people drying up hunted animals and camping in the gardens of official buildings. And seven years later, one woman, from the Viking Age, becomes the first modern-day “multi-temporal” cop. Together with a modern-day detective, they try to solve new crimes which involve people from different time periods.
If all of this sounds silly, don’t worry: Beforeigners pulls it all off. All the multi-century premise does is bring originality to the otherwise over-exploited buddy-cop show genre. It hits the perfect balance between familiar and different.
A sweet and romantic German movie about two Berliners who meet randomly and go on a road trip to the south of Europe. It might seem like a silly premise but it’s actually a philosophical movie, one that feels very realistic. The two characters debate human nature, politics, relationships, etc; almost throughout their trip. And they’re played by excellent newcomers who ooze charisma and make the question of what will happen between them incredibly thrilling.





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