The Best R Movies to Watch on Netflix

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 […]

Will and Harper’s premise is simple: two friends journey from one end of the States to another and, amid pit stops and bar hops, sunsets and beers, they talk about life, from its biggest concepts down to its tiniest details. The only difference in this case is that Will and Harper are navigating their friendship […]

Mountain Queen isn’t just a movie about a professional mountain climber, although Lhakpa Sherpa is certainly impressive as she trudges through the deathly terrain of Everest (and at 50 years old at that!). It’s also the heartbreaking story of a broken family in repair. Sherpa reveals shocking details about her abusive husband, fellow climber Gheorghe […]

We’re familiar with dick jokes from stand-up comedians, especially male stand-up, but Jacqueline Novak’s 90-minute show about the blow job feels completely new. Get on Your Knees feels like casual storytelling from someone experienced yet distant enough to be a cool authority on it (say, your best friend’s older sister’s best friend), but funnier. It’s […]

A good biography remains fully faithful to the actual history, but a great one understands what their life story means as a whole, on a larger scale. Number 24 could have been one of many World War II biopics. It could have just celebrated Norwegian resistance fighter Gunnar Sønsteby and his numerous deeds. By simply […]

Frybread Face and Me is a little indie gem: though rough around the edges, it’s full of charm and heart. Drawn from its director’s own childhood experiences, the movie charts a formative moment in the life of Benny, a city boy of Navajo, Hopi, and Laguna Pueblo heritage who’s carted off to his grandmother’s ranch […]

With Netflix producing countless true crime documentaries, you’d be forgiven for dismissing How to Rob a Bank as usual, forgettable fare. But the documentary ever so slightly curbs cliches by focusing on a theme—in this case Hollywood, in honor of Scurlock’s pseudonym and love of movies—without losing sight of the bigger picture. Which is to […]

Far from a typical documentary, Skywalkers is as relentless and fast-paced as the climbers it follows. As Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus illegally scale towers and skyscrapers with little more than the clothes on their back, Director Jeff Zimbalist throws viewers into the next thrilling scenario whether they’re ready to or not. It’s amazing how […]

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 […]

As host Hannah Gadsby explains at the beginning of this stand-up showcase, Netflix only really gave her and these other queer comedians this special after Gadsby sent a strongly worded message to the streaming service first. So as expected from a move that feels more like a business decision than a sincere gesture, Hannah Gadsby’s […]

More than anything, Netflix’s 116-minute Menendez Brothers documentary feels like a PR shield to protect the streamer against the onslaught of criticism its dramatized series (Ryan Murhphy’s Monsters) received. Netflix wants to have its cake and eat it too. If Monsters painted the brothers as evil and spoiled, The Menendez Brothers takes a more humane […]

It’s hard to botch a documentary about Martha Stewart, she who lived so many lives (she was a model, a stockbroker, a convict, a homemaker, and now a TikTok darling) and she who came back from one of the hardest celebrity downfalls stronger than ever. Her life is a roller coaster ride and watching the […]

Many movies try to be nostalgic, but few have come as close as Between the Temples. Directed by Nathan Silver, it channels classics like The Graduate, Harold and Maude, and early Woody Allen dramedies without trying too hard. It has the grain, patina, and camera movements of 60s and 70s movies, and its central love […]

It’s What Inside can seem like another obnoxious movie about adults acting like teens, edited with enough neon glare and social media cuts to make it palatable to a younger crowd. But the horror comedy is more than just streaming fodder; it’s fun, funny, and clever, unfolding like a game night gone terribly wrong. There […]

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 […]

Documentaries about musicians — or anyone famous, for that matter — are often mythologizing puff pieces, essentially feature-length airings of PR material. But Against All Odds has more to it than flattery. It chronicles the rise of Australia’s first drill rappers, five young men of Samoan origin who soared to fame from their disadvantaged Sydney […]

After Jackie and Spencer, the dark satire El Conde is a surprise new entry in Pablo Larraín’s stacked filmography. Already, the film has prominent differences– it’s shot in black and white, starting with narration from an unseen and posh Englishwoman that makes the film’s events feel like entries in Bridgerton’s scandalous newsletter. The subject is […]

Fast and funny with surprisingly tender moments in between, Mixed by Erry doubles as a fascinating period piece and a heartfelt family comedy. On a larger scale, it tracks the rise of musical piracy, which Erry and his brothers accidentally stumble onto with their cassette-copying business, Mixed by Erry. But what starts out as an […]

The mythology surrounding Sylvester Stallone: the action hero is so big and successful that many people, including myself, often forget about Sylvester Stallone: the prolific writer. He failed to bag roles as a young actor in the 1970s, so he whipped out a script (in a span of three days!) that became the iconic film […]

Appropriately for its literary focus, The Lesson feels, in places, like the gripping adaptation of a bestselling psychological thriller. Unfortunately, though, its initial cleverness peters out in a contrived ending that ironically feels like it belongs to the pulpy airport fiction that one character accuses another of writing. The Lesson’s early chapters (another way the […]

There’s not much to analyze in The Wrath of Becky, which might sound like a jab, but for grindhouse thrillers such as this, it comes as a compliment. The story is lean, the action is on point, and the dialogue is whipsmart. There is little to distract from the main attraction, which is the creatively […]

It’s slower and talkier than you’d expect from a semi-erotic film, but Ehnegard lives up to its title well enough to satisfy. It’s titillating, but in a cheeky rather than provocative way. The dialogues are lengthy, but they’re alternately witty and poetic, so despite the pace they never actually bore. Ehnegard’s real delight, however, is […]

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 […]

They Cloned Tyrone is a genre-bending gem. It combines Deep State conspiracy theories with sci-fi and social commentary, all while looking like a futuristic 1970s Blaxploitation film. It’s outrageous good fun and pleasing to look at (here is a film that knows how to properly light Black actors), but there are times when it feels […]

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 […]

As sexy and intriguing as Rosa Peral’s case sounds, this documentary suggests that it’s just another instance of the public’s wild if harmful imagination. Both the media and prosecutors made Peral out to be a promiscuous woman out for blood, with tabloids calling her a “go-go dancer” and a “stripper,” despite being neither, and public […]

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 […]

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, […]

You could take away a lot of parts in Reptile, and it would still make sense. It’s the kind of film that leans on sound and style to justify overlong takes and teeth-grittingly predictable scenes. But all is forgiven when del Toro, who also co-writes and co-produces the film, appears on screen. He has a […]

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 […]

Disclosure is a patient and articulate study of the ways movies have physically conditioned us to respond to certain expressions of queerness with fear, disgust, or laughter. But it also serves as a reminder that trans bodies have been represented on screen for as long as movies have existed—making it all the more unacceptable 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 […]

Romantically pairing up AI with humans is hardly new, and I’m Your Man is aware of that. Instead of spending way too much time explaining the advanced tech that makes the perfect mate possible, the movie zeroes in on its charismatic leads Tom the robot (Dan Stevens) and Alma the indifferent academic (Maren Eggert). Tom […]

The journey of transitioning can be tough, but it’s not likely to be as wild as the journey undertaken by the titular rich mob boss of the crime thriller romance musical Emilia Pérez. It’s pretty surprising, with the incredibly stylish and totally unpredictable ways the plot unfolds, all made possible by the ridiculous all-or-nothing methods […]

The sooner you accept that Bottoms is not, in fact, rooted in reality in any way, the easier it should become to get on its wavelength for its uniquely absurd brand of comedy. This is ostensibly a satire, though it isn’t totally clear what exactly the film is trying to comment on. And its loosely […]

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 […]

Adam Sandler rarely plays a role straight, but when he does, you know it’s good. In Hustle, Sandler is Stanley Sugarman, a basketball scout stuck in the long game, waiting for his chance to finally coach an NBA team. On a recruitment trip to Spain, Stan discovers a talented but unknown player named Bo Cruz. They […]