The Best Well-acted Movies to Watch on Netflix
Usually, a good movie and great performances go hand-in-hand. If you’re looking to be blown away by acting talent, look no further. Here are the best movies and show featuring great acting.
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Based on the 2011 novella of the same name, Train Dreams depicts the life of Robert Grainier in the first half of the 20th century. It’s a pretty ordinary life. Born without parents, and not quite sociable, Grainier lives a lonely existence, a loneliness that’s interrupted occasionally by talks with his fellow co-workers and the […]
Toxic Town tells the true story of how toxic waste in the steel-making town of Corby, England led a group of affected mothers to pursue justice. Helping them out is pro-bono lawyer Des Collins (Rory Kinnear), while on the other end of the case is Corby’s local government, who (unsurprisingly) are in cahoots with the […]
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A more cynical viewer might be put off by the pity party that happens in the first hour of When Live Gives You Tangerines (although as far as K-dramas go, this one is pretty mild). There is plenty of crying, especially by the child actors who seem forced to do the act. But it’s worth […]
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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. […]
In the Dead Talents Society, ghosts haunting humans are less of a scare, and more a performance that can grant fame and fortune in the underworld. It makes for incredibly charming comedy. It affectionately satirizes East Asian horror in such a fresh way, comparing a ghost being remembered to today’s social media influencers, with views […]
With a film version that didn’t live up to the hype of the original novel, Netflix’s adaptation of One Day released just in time to wreck the fans’ hearts all over again, but this time, it’s a good thing. The expanded runtime allowed Netflix to delve more into the moments in the novel, with each […]
With the success of Narcos, Netflix has created multiple shows about drugs in Latin America to the point that the genre is a tad oversaturated, but with Sofia Vergara heading the miniseries on the real-life cocaine queenpin, Griselda is one that you have to watch. Unlike other depictions of Blanco, Vergara’s series puts her front […]
Saints used to be given divine messages, but in the modern age, what if God, or any higher power, communicated to us through social media? Kübra explores this idea in serious contemplation, with fewer intelligence agencies than Netflix’s 2020 Messiah, and more interest in the chosen messenger himself. The show is surprisingly more meditative than […]
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 […]
To the untrained eye, a TV interview is just that: an interview, a simple (and at times rehearsed) back-to-back between a reporter and their subject. But Scoop is a thrilling reminder of how complex this process can get, beginning with the legwork to the questioning, and even after airing. In the UK, that quest for […]
Messier than Heartstopper, but tamer than Skins, Everything Now has everything you’d expect from a British teen show. Sexuality, vices, and experimentation is what the series shares with other coming-of-age series, but at its heart is Mia Polanco as she tries to get back to her regular life after anorexia recovery. Cutting between her life […]
Bank of Dave is a simple but well-told film that feels utterly satisfying from start to end. Dave is the little guy who only wants to give back to his community, but stopping him from achieving his noble goals are the big guys in suits with vested interests and too narrow a focus to appreciate […]
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, […]
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 […]
There’s a lot happening in Netflix’s first Hindi survival thriller series Kaala Paani. The main plot follows the discovery of a new disease with inky rashes that confounds scientists and policymakers, which would remind viewers of the botched response towards COVID-19, but there are multiple subplots including a love story with a traumatized former nurse, […]
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 […]
The Fall of the House of Usher isn’t an exact one-to-one television adaptation of the titular short story. Instead, the original story from Edgar Allan Poe is used as a frame to introduce a whole Succession-like miniseries, with names and subplots coming from other stories from Poe. Because of this, fans of the author might […]
South African director John Trengove follows-up his debut The Wound with another take on masculinity, this time set in the States. Manodrome stars Jesse Eisenberg and Adrien Brody as a newbie and a veteran in a support group for men who have been emasculated by women and feminism. That’s right, this is a film about […]
COVID-19 raised concerns about sanitation and cleanliness, but in a society that just banned discrimination against “impure” castes seventy years ago, these concerns feel reminiscent of previous caste prejudice. Writer-director Anubhav Sinha presents this social inequity through Bheed, a black-and-white drama set in a fictional checkpoint as the lockdown restricted travel between different Indian states. […]
Inspired by the Spiniak case, Blanquita reimagines the infamous scandal through mirrored interrogations and disorienting viewpoints. Blanquita rewrites the original witness, whose fictional variant, in turn, rewrites the abuse faced by victims as her own. She is transformed from a clueless liar, into someone still a liar, but one that did so when every other […]
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 […]
Remember the creepy blind nun from the Spanish horror film Veronica? While many nun-related horror films have nuns as its horror element, this time it’s the nun that gets spooked in Sister Death. The new release expands on her backstory, taking the story back in history, in her start as a novitiate in the former […]
While we would like to think that we would do all we can to fight against a tyrannical regime, it’s not as easy as we think, and there are plenty of consequences that we wouldn’t foresee, living in relative peace. Diego Vicentini’s debut feature is a portrait of Venezuelan dissidents forced to flee the country, […]
At first glance, Rough Diamonds seems to be a standard Netflix thriller with debts, deaths, and dirty deals. However, this Flemish-Yiddish series happens to also be a compelling family drama, centered around Antwerp’s Haredi Jewish diamond community. The series starts the season strong with the death that puts the family into chaos. It continues the […]
Tragedy can strike at any time, but some instances are preventable, and rare is the instance where people do seek justice for it. After all, after losing so much, it would be awful to fight and lose again. But these instances do still exist, and one such incident is the Uphaar cinema fire. Trial by […]
Child kidnapping is any parent’s nightmare, and it’s the nightmare that drives the events of Spanish crime thriller The Snow Girl. Based on the 2020 novel of the same name, the limited series takes a unique double-pronged approach to the case at hand. The show goes through the regular police investigations we’ve seen previously, but […]
With all the holiday-themed movies and shows that pop up on streaming at this time of year, it’s incredibly refreshing to find one that manages to make a formula work simply by being excellent at its fundamentals. With an eminently likable lead in Katlego Lebogang, Yoh! Christmas (which is based on Netflix’s own 2019 Norwegian […]
When the psychometric powers of the main character are only activated when she touches a butt, you know that Behind Your Touch will be as silly and hilarious as the show’s powers. The K-drama gets into ridiculous moments, oftentimes inspired by other dramas from the action, horror, and romance genres, but done in exaggeration for […]
After being released on BBC in July 2023, Champion made it across the Atlantic and has been recently released globally through Netflix. The family rivalry might be something familiar, but the way they go about it sounds so different, pulling in various genres from Black British music, compiling a striking soundscape that hasn’t been heard […]
Mike Atlas is a former police detective now living on the streets as he reopens a supposedly solved murder case with a rookie prosecutor living in her mother’s shadow. As they dig deeper, they uncover a sinister conspiracy that reaches deep into the core of the police and justice system. The series is well-acted, with […]
Mask Girl is a dark comedic thriller that follows people on the fringes of beauty norms trying to live with their pain and shame. Low self-esteem and a desire for attention are at the center of the drama, making it relatable and easy to empathize with even when everything goes awry. Although Mo-mi, the titular […]
Originally released as a film, War Sailor tells the oft-forgotten tale of the Norwegian merchant sailors who were required by law to take part in the battle against Axis forces. Reluctantly but bravely, they rose to the challenge and became part of a valiant effort that unfortunately went under the radar because of their civilian […]
Diving straight into the mystery, never holding back on the steamy scenes, Fatal Seduction is a quick, addictive melodrama. It’s no exaggeration to call this series an erotic thriller as it follows marriage deteriorated by secrets and miscommunication, with a web of lustful characters caught in the crossfire. But under the flings and affairs is […]
Aspiring boxer Kim Gun-woo (Woo Do-hwan) befriends fellow rookie Hong Woo-jin (Lee Sang-yi) during the heights of Covid-19. After a ruthless loan shark, Kim Myung-gil (Park Sung-woong) cons Gun-woo’s mother into taking a predatory loan, they team up with a moneylender (motivated by his own painful history with Myung-gil) to shut down his schemes for […]
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 […]
