100 Best Movies on Roku Channel Right Now

There are plenty of films about dreamers, but none as wild and wacky as Fitzcarraldo. The film follows the titular opera-loving foreigner, who’s obsessed with creating an opera house in the middle of a jungle, and tries to get the funding for it throug the rubber business. It’s a pretty wacky premise, and a pretty wacky tale, but it’s the perfect film to challenge famed eccentric auteur Werner Herzog, who got a 320-ton steam boat hauled into the Amazon, had multiple recasts due to illness, and had conflict with leading man Klaus Kinski so tense that assassination was offered by one of the extras, among other troubles. Strangeness aside, Fitzcarraldo proved to be an audacious, operatic epic, garnering numerous nominations for the Palme d’Or, Golden Globes, and the BAFTAs.

The Guard played by Brendan Gleeson is a new character in cinema that appeals to the funny bone inside all of us. A character like this can make any movie lovable. It also features Don Cheadle playing an FBI agent who is in town to solve a crime under Gleeson’s jurisdiction. An overall great movie with great writing. Please note, for those who have a hard time understanding different accents, subtitles are advised.

«When comedians get a bit older they do a movie with “emotions” in it. Here’s mine.» Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement on Twitter. People Places Things is exactly that, a funny yet heartfelt comedy. Will Henry, A New York City graphic novelist walks in on his girlfriend cheating on him at their kids’ birthday party. A year later, Will is struggling to define his new life as a single parent while still getting over his breakup. Smart, honest, and led by Jemaine Clement, this film will strike you in its simplicity but will hold you with its charm.

Snowpiercer is an under-the-rader post-apocalyptic thriller that offers the grittiness that many times only Asian cinema may achieve. South Korean director Joon-ho Bong forces audiences to forget that Chris Evans was ever a Marvel superhero, as he leads a revolt of his fellow “low-class” citizens against the self-appointed gentry in a train that contains all remaining members of the planet. With immersive environments and a layered script, this film melds together social commentary and moral discourse in a visually arresting and vastly entertaining package.

A Danish cargo ship is hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. The pirates demand millions of dollars in ransom and from there on, a psychological drama between the pirates and the ship owner develops, as they negotiate the price for the ship and its crew. A really great thing about this film is the fact that it doesn’t get tangled up in the weepy feelings of the families back home – but instead focuses on the shrinking hope of the ship’s crew and the psychological consequences of the brutal negotiation, that drives the ship owner to the edge of madness. Inspired by a true story. Brilliantly acted.

This is a star-packed movie about two brother assassins played by John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix, and starring Jake Gyllenhaal. You might have read the book of the same name, and it is always hard to make a great film out of a great book but the brilliant director of A Prophet Jacques Audiard has done it (again). He is aided by a superb darkly comic script and fantastic acting from the entire cast. Audiard is French, but his take on the American Western is filled with epic violence but also witty dialogue, brotherly love, and male camaraderie.

Tilda Swinton stars in this gorgeous Italian production by Luca Guadagnino, part of the director’s “Desire Trilogy”, together with Call Me By Your Name and A Bigger Splash.

Swinton learned to speak Italian and some Russian for the movie, where she plays – to absolute perfection – the wife of a Milan textile mogul who starts having an affair with a cook.

It’s an elegant family drama that’s definitely more concerned with aesthetics than substance, but the setting in snowy Northern Italy and lush 35mm film make that very easy to look past.

Antoneta Kastrati’s debut feature film Zana follows Lume, who appears guarded and subdued as she goes about her daily routine: milking the cows, harvesting crops and flowers, hanging laundry out to dry. Part of Lume’s routine also includes visits to the doctor, accompanied by her mother-in-law and husband, who pressure her to conceive.

When conventional medical advice does not yield a viable pregnancy, Lume is brought to a witch doctor, and later a televangelist. The former suggests Lume may be cursed, while the latter insists she is possessed by a supernatural creature called a jinn. Lume appears largely apathetic, at least outwardly. But slowly, she starts to unravel—and with her undoing comes the reveal of the war that traumatized her. 

Kastrati’s family drama has elements of horror, but the real terror here is psychological. It makes for an important exploration of a deeply patriarchal society that is only beginning to heal the collective traumas of a complicated war, and how its violence continues to ripple through time and into domestic life. 

Little England is one of those rare cases in small-nation cinemas, where a film was equally appealing to mainstream and arthouse audiences. Upon its release, it was box office success and 2013’s Oscar submission for Best International Feature. Festival darling Pantelis Voulgaris equipped this interwar romantic drama with the attributes of an epic: it’s two hours and a half long, spans across decades, and is based on a novel of a notable size. Written by renowned author Ioanna Karystiani, who is also Voulgaris’s wife, “Little England” the novel was adapted in a riveting screenplay where love, jealousy, passion, and betrayal sizzle in a dangerous mix. As any good period drama, the emotional range is high, and the beauty in the premise—forbidden love—is a gift that keeps on giving. The film features two stellar lead performances, as Pinelopi Tsilika and Sofia Kokkali make their acting debuts as the two sisters, the latter being the face of a new, even more daring phase of Greek cinema today. 

Don’t be fooled—despite being a three-hour documentary, Hoop Dreams is just as thrilling, heartbreaking, and cinematic as any sports film out there. Unlike them, however, Hoop Dreams is less of an uplifting feel-good story than it is an honest and sobering look at how the education system has failed Black communities. It’s not a complete downer, though, since we follow two hardworking and inspiring boys committed to lifting their families from poverty. While more privileged players can afford to treat basketball as a hobby, to Arthur and William, basketball is a lifeline, a rare chance to enjoy better opportunities and give their families a better life. Imagine carrying that on your shoulders while training, studying, looking for colleges, and surviving teenhood. It’s a lot, but director Steve James weaves it all beautifully. James divides the chapter into freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior years, following Arthur and William as they start on the same footing, diverge and live parallel lives (one in private school, the other in public), and eventually meet again during their final years in school. Their journeys are riveting, not least because we also get to know their families, friends, hopes, and dreams. This is riveting cinema, as socially conscious as it is competitively thrilling.