The Best Character-driven Movies to Watch on Netflix

This untamed, high-octane portrait of the Belfast hip-hop trio Kneecap follows real-life members —aliases Móglaí Bap, Mo Chara, and DJ Próvaí, all playing themselves—as they forge a path from lost teens to unlikely cultural icons. Being the first hip-hop act is their native Irish, they’re met with disdain both from their community who think they […]

KPop Demon Hunters is adorable. The supernatural element adds an interesting twist to the familiar band plot, and writer-directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans brilliantly depict K-pop fandom’s good and bad sides through demonic protection and possession. But it’s impressive how the film handles the storytelling, the music, and the animation. They all work in […]

When two young brides are mistakenly swapped on a train, it’s a difficult situation, much more so when the brides in question are both veiled and wearing the same red bridal attire. This seemingly simple swap is the entire plot of Laapataa Ladies, but director Kiran Rao transforms this mishap into a hilarious, yet realistic, […]

Not everybody holds a good relationship with their sisters, but ideally, we get to reunite and repair things in a good time. Unfortunately, for some families, the only time they reunite is due to a parent nearly dying. This is the case in His Three Daughters, where the three sisters meet after years living apart. […]

The key to what makes this apocalyptic thriller from Mr Robot and Homecoming showrunner Sam Esmail so unnerving is how resolute it is about not taking place in an alternate timeline. Making references to memorable events in recent history and namechecking real brands and cultural touchstones (like Tesla and Friends), Leave the World Behind is […]

Real life tragedies, especially one that’s as sensationalized as the Miracle in the Andes, can be tough to depict on screen. On one hand, the film has to keep true to the story but also maintain some form of spectacle to keep people watching. Past depictions of the 1972 crash are preoccupied with the cannibalism […]

We Are the World is a charity single created for African famine relief. It was a smash success– it inspired plenty of other charity singles and already has a TV documentary about it. But The Greatest Night in Pop reveals new behind-the-scenes footage with a home video flair, intercut with interviews from those who were […]

Going to sleep is something we do every day, though, when we were kids, it certainly wasn’t easy. With family-friendly source material and a new (and adorable!) sleepytime ensemble, Orion and the Dark plays with this fact of childhood, but screenwriter Charlie Kaufman transforms it into something more as the title characters journey into literal […]

The Outrun, which follows Rona as she struggles to acknowledge and eventually overcome her alcoholism, is understandably in shambles. It’s non-linear (our only cues are her hair color) and occasionally fractured to show just how messed up Rona’s headspace is. These decisions may or may not feel necessary to the viewer, but what centers the […]

Gangster films have an issue of glorifying organized crime, and in some ways The Pig, The Snake, and The Pigeon does the same. There are excellent, action-packed fight scenes that makes Ethan Juan as Chen Kui-lin look so damn cool, and the journey Chen takes as a stern criminal out for his legacy definitely romanticizes […]

Hit Man is many things—a romance, neo-noir, comedy, and thriller. And though it sometimes feels like it doesn’t quite reach its full potential in all those areas, it’s hard not to be blown away by Powell’s Rolodex of characters and his palpable chemistry with Arjona. The story itself isn’t as sturdy as I hoped it […]

After two adaptations, with the 1982 version considered a Christmastime classic for Polish families, Forgotten Love can seem like a redundant take on the iconic Polish novel. With twenty more minutes, it seems like the new Netflix adaptation could only improve its take through better production design, and sure, it certainly delivers that pre-war aesthetic […]

After winning Oscars for their documentary work, filmmakers Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin make their narrative feature debut with Nyad. The move to narrative fiction isn’t a monumental jump for the director duo, whose cinematic documentaries (among them Free Solo and The Rescue) play like nerve-shredding action thrillers and intense human dramas. Nor does […]

After years of documentaries covering Thailand’s controversial issues, some of which have been temporarily banned by the Ministry of Culture, Nontawat Numbenchapol takes a step into feature film in Doi Boy. The plot covers plenty of the topics he’s previously depicted– immigration, prostitution, and corruption– but it unfolds naturally into a slow-paced, but moving drama […]

Places evoke certain emotions, but even the most rundown, cramped projects feel special when they’re home. We Grown Now is set in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green public housing complex, an area that was notorious for its crime and poverty, but to Malik and Eric, it’s a place where they became friends. The friendship they share leads them […]

2023 was a great year for animation with films like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Nimona, and The Boy and the Heron, but there was another animated gem that flew under the radar and that’s jazz drama Blue Giant. It’s a pleasure to both the eyes and the ears as Dai Miyamoto blows on his saxophone, […]

When your dad is single, and he isn’t in a relationship with someone else, naturally, a kid would wonder about their real biological mother. Hi Nanna is a take on this familiar tale, though Shouryuv’s directorial debut makes it feel brand new by telling the love story in a way a father would tell his […]

This documentary from journalist David Farrier, New Zealand’s answer to Louis Theroux, plays more like an out-and-out horror movie. But don’t be fooled by the serial killer connotations of its title — the real Mister Organ’s crimes are (mostly) psychological and have no obvious motive, making him quite a bit scarier than your usual screen […]

The Swimmers tells the true story of sisters Yusra and Sara Mardini (played by fellow sisters Nathalie and Manal Issa), Syrian swimmers trained to compete at the Olympics. When their athletic goals and overall safety are threatened by the increasing presence of war, the girls decide to take a chance and migrate to Europe, where […]

At the fringes of society, sometimes, all you have is your family. You would do all you can to feed, clothe, and protect them, and your fate hangs in the balance of what they do in return. Abang Adik is centered on two undocumented orphans in Malaysia, and because they only have each other, Abang […]

An all-female action comedy that doesn’t get self-serious about the way it’s subverting the genre — Wingwomen feels like a breath of fresh air. It wisely grasps that plot isn’t paramount for a movie like this, and so it joyously dunks on cerebral scenarios with its unabashedly silly story convolutions, like when its professional thieves […]

Middle-aged romances aren’t really a popular genre. After all, it tends to be predictable, problematic, and it can sometimes feel like seeing your parents have sex. Other films try to spice it up with a great looking location, pretty cinematography, and all the romance tropes, and Croatian-German film Faraway has plenty of that in store. […]

There are a plethora of father-son road trips in film, but rarely portrayed on the path are fathers with their trans sons. That is because most queer stories often focus on the romance, and if not the romance, the coming out process. Runs in the Family does things differently – it’s the connection between trans […]

The Kings of the World is a surreal coming-of-age movie that follows Rá, Culebro, Sere, Winny, and Nano, street kids who are on their way to claim land that’s rightfully theirs. Their one goal is to finally make a home after living without one for so long, but they’re hindered by the inevitable tragedies that […]

I think it’s safe to say you’ve never seen a Pinocchio adaptation quite like Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio. It still largely stays true to the source material, which is to stay it’s still about a father grappling with the loss of his son and a boy figuring out where he figures in the world. But […]

Just like with its predecessor, it can be surprising how sober Street Flow 2 is. You expect stories about street gang life to be of a certain tone, but these films are more interested in the emotional and philosophical struggle to respond to violence and poverty in a just and proper way. This sequel continues […]

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. […]

With its origins as a full-length rock monologue, it’s understandable if Tick, Tick… Boom! comes off as overly concerned with its protagonist’s personal anxieties and not the larger social and health crises happening right outside his door. But while it really doesn’t offer much insight into the AIDS epidemic, or even the art scene of […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

In The Sun, a family of four is dealt with tragedy after tragedy, beginning with the younger sun A-ho’s sudden incarceration. The mother is sympathetic but the father all but shuns him as he chooses to throw all his affection to A-hao, the older brother, and his med school pursuits instead. Themes of crime, punishment, […]

This sensitive and elegantly crafted melodrama recognizes that a death in the family doesn’t have to lead to the same expressions of mourning we expect from movies; there might not be any real sadness at all. But when different family members come together again and bring their own personal conflicts with them, suddenly everyone else’s […]

This adaptation of a tragedy by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson might retain the mostly minimal setting of its source material — two rooms in a Chicago recording studio — but the searing performances at its heart more than warrant the translation to the big screen. A ferocious Viola Davis plays the titular ‘Mother of […]

Based on the 13-episode series of the same name, Violet Evergarden tells the story of Violet, a scribe commissioned to write letters at a time when telephones and computers had yet to exist. Shell-shocked from her time in the war, Violet is exceptionally stoic, except when she remembers Gilbert, her military superior and sometime lover. […]

The movie follows Martha (Vanessa Kirby), a young wife who loses her baby in a failed home birth. She tries her best to trudge through the aftermath of loss, but her coping attempts prove to be near impossible, not least because her husband Sean (Shia LaBeouf) and mother Liz (Ellen Burstyn) continually domineer every aspect […]

This drama is about two friends attempting to rave in 1994 Scotland, after a recent Thatcher-era law banned the act and all music “characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats”. Johnno and Spanner, one living in fear of his older brother and the other of his stepfather, want to turn things around […]

This historical drama opens with one of the most thrilling chase scenes in recent memory, as Higinio Blanco, the man at the center of the story, escapes government forces during the Spanish Civil War. He goes into hiding that, without him realizing, would last 33 years. He would only emerge in a government amnesty in […]

Winner of a Camera d’Or, the debutant’s prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Director Houda Benyamina’s first feature film is fast-paced and full of energy. Deep in the impoverished suburbs of Paris, the infamous banlieues, it tells the story of Dounia (played by Oulaya Amamra), a mouthy teenager who is not content with what society […]

This is the first film directed by actor Macon Blair (so good in both Blue Ruin and Green Room), and while it is shaggy and tonally all over the place, there is a lot to recommend here. First off, I’m a huge fan of the (underrated) Melanie Lynskey, so I was primed to like this […]

Spike Lee burst onto the filmmaking scene with this, his groundbreaking debut feature. Low in budget but high in confidence, She’s Gotta Have It fizzes with unadulterated energy and style, from its kaleidoscopic opening montage of stills depicting life in Brooklyn (where the film is set) to the joyous direct addresses of its credits sequence. […]

Good parents, of course, try to push their children to better outcomes, but abusive parents, under the guise of this idea, turn this into restrictive control, where failure is irredeemable, expectations become orders, and the said child is blamed for everything that goes wrong. Udaan depicts this fraught father-son relationship realistically. It’s a tough watch […]

The fantasy of being able to have the body you once had is impossible in real life, but we can watch it play out in fiction. While previous depictions of this idea rightfully point out ageism and how much worse people treat the old, Miss Granny also celebrates the wisdom and experience that could only […]

You know Anthony Hopkins as the evil Hannibal Lecter, but in this film he gives a warm and heartfelt performance portraying real life New Zealand motorcycle legend Burt Munro who set a land speed record in 1967 on a hand-built 1920 Indian. It’s a story of never giving up on your dream even in the […]

There are some actors you feel you see a lot of until a role comes by that makes you think they are actually underused. That’s Ellen Page’s role as Tallulah, a young girl with seemingly little regard for anyone but herself. Travelling the country while living in a van with her boyfriend; with no one […]

Though Eternal Summer isn’t able to fully engage with its queer characters—maybe due to its being released in the mid-2000s—it still makes for a more interesting character study than you’d expect. This romance between three school friends has more on its mind than simply pitting two romantic pairings against each other. Unrequited feelings, unspoken secrets, […]

Based on true events. One of the most controversial and talked-about films at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. While the story unfolds you can’t help but question if real people could blindly follow instructions, and the sad answer is yes. The story of Sandra (Ann Dowd), an overworked manager at a fast food restaurant, who […]