ByBrian Tallerico,
a film critic with over 20 years of experience covering movies and TV.He is the president of the Chicago Film Critics Association, the co-producer of the Chicago Critics Film Festival, and managing editor of RogerEbert.com.
Rebel Ridge.Photo: Netflix
This article will be updated as great new original titles arrive on Netflix. *New additions are indicated with an asterisk.
The Netflix Original movie has become a genre unto itself, winning Oscars, launching careers, and producing films with budgets that would make the Hollywood studios think twice. It feels like there’s a new Netflix Original film every week — sometimes more — and so it’s become difficult to know which ones are really worth watching. This list of the 20 best films to sport the Netflix Original logo will be updated as warranted with new entries. We’ve tallied the best horror, comedy, family and overall movies on Netflix; these are the best titles out of the company’s own filmmaking machine.
Year: 2016 Runtime: 1 hour 40 minutes Director: Ava DuVernay
The director of Selma helmed the first truly great Netflix documentary in this searing examination of the mass incarceration industry in this country. Named after the amendment that abolished slavery, the film examines how elements of servitude that were allegedly eliminated merely transitioned into the systems of policing and imprisonment. It was nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary. It should have won.
The first major critical darling Netflix film is still one of the service’s best. Based on the novel of the same name by Uzodinma Iweala, this is the tale of a child who becomes a soldier in his country as it undergoes a brutal civil war. Moving and unforgiving, it features one of the career-best performances from Idris Elba.
Year: 2017 Runtime: 1h 43m Director: Mike Flanagan
Before he helmed The Haunting of Hill House, Mike Flanagan co-wrote and directed one of the best Netflix Original horror films in this adaptation of Stephen King’s 1992 novel of the same name. Carla Gugino is phenomenal as a woman who gets handcuffed to her bed by her toxic husband…and then he has a heart attack. As she tries to figure out how she will survive, she accesses the trauma of her past.
The writer/director of Knives Out returned in late 2022 with a sequel to that smash hit, exclusively on Netflix. Daniel Craig returns as Benoit Blanc, the casual crime solver who finds himself on a billionaire’s island in this latest comedy/mystery. Once again, Johnson assembles a murderer’s row of talent, including Kate Hudson, Janelle Monae, Ed Norton, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., and more. It’s smart, funny, and thoroughly entertaining.
Year: 2020 Runtime: 2h 14m Director: Charlie Kaufman
The Oscar-winning writer of Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind delivered one of his most creative films in this adaptation of the novel of the same name by Iain Reid. Jessie Buckley is incredible as a young woman who goes with her mediocre boyfriend (Jesse Plemons) to meet his parents (played by Toni Collette and David Thewlis). Or does she? A film that starts to fracture narratively becomes more of a commentary on gender roles and storytelling than anything straightforward.
Year: 2019 Runtime: 3h 29m Director: Martin Scorsese
Also known as I Heard You Paint Houses, this epic drama is one of the most ambitious and impressive films in the career of arguably the best American filmmaker. Scorsese and Steven Zaillian adapted the nonfiction book by Charles Brandt about a modest, ordinary truck driver named Frank (Robert De Niro, giving his best late-career performance) who gets embroiled in the mob in the era of Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino). A moving tapestry of the criminal underworld in the 20th century, it’s a monumental achievement in filmmaking.
A little movie that could, this animated Christmas adventure was so critically beloved that it competed with giants like Pixar and DreamWorks for the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. It’s a delightful little fable about a postman who ends up stationed so far to the north that he meets a reclusive toymaker there named Klaus. Yes, it’s a Santa Claus origin story. With lovely, old-fashioned style, this is the kind of joyous film that the whole family can watch any time of year.
The actress Maggie Gyllenhaal made a confident and remarkable directorial debut with this adaptation of the novel of the same name by Elena Ferrante, which earned two of its stars — Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley — Oscar nominations for their performances. Colman does career-best work as a woman who encounters an extended family while on a Grecian vacation. The young mother (an excellent Dakota Johnson) reminds her of herself, leading to flashbacks about a time in her life when she may have not really wanted to be a parent. A smart drama for adults, this is exactly the kind of film that people complain doesn’t really get made anymore.
The director of The Squid and the Whale and While We’re Young delivered one of his most personal films in this drama that would become his most successful film to date. Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver do some of the best work of their careers as a couple going through an increasingly messy divorce. Laura Dern won her first Oscar for her work in a film that was also nominated for Best Picture, Actor, and Actress. It’s a film that feels so true that it hurts.
Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman star in the latest from Carol and Far from Heaven director Todd Haynes, a stunning character study of an actress who discovers that some people are impossible to figure out. Portman plays a star who tries to get under the skin of Moore’s character, a woman who raped a child when she was a teacher, and later married that young man. Charles Melton is phenomenal as the now-grown victim, stuck in perpetual adolescence.
Year: 2021 Runtime: 1h 53m Directors: Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe
Originally planned for a theatrical release by Sony (with the much-worse title Connected), the studio sold this off to Netflix during the pandemic … and probably regretted that decision. One of the most critically and commercially beloved animated films of 2021, this is an incredibly smart and sweet family vacation movie, a comedy that’s as much about a tender relationship between a father and daughter as is the fact that they end up having to save the world together.
Before he won all those awards for Parasite, the great Korean director Bong Joon-ho helmed the quirkiest film of his career in this story of a super pig named Okja. After the massive creature is pulled from the safety of his homelife and thrust into the nefarious world of the meat industry, his best friend has to go on a mission to save him. Featuring some of the craziest performances from Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal, this is an underrated comedy that has personality to spare. It’s certainly like nothing else on Netflix.
Year: 2022 Runtime: 1h 56m Directors: Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson
The Oscar-winning director took his visionary skills to stop-motion animation with this instant classic, a retelling of the beloved fairy tale about the wooden boy who longed to be real. With spectacular voice work, this version reimagines Pinocchio during the period before World War II, allowing del Toro to explore his themes of innocence and violence again. It’s a deeply personal, beautiful film.
The film that finally won an Oscar for Jane Campion for directing is one of the most acclaimed in the history of the streaming giant. Campion helmed this adaptation of the novel of the same name by Thomas Savage, the story of a vicious landowner (Benedict Cumberbatch) who torments the new wife (Kirsten Dunst) of his brother (Jesse Plemons). A drama that plays like a thriller, this gorgeously rendered period piece unpacks themes of toxic masculinity and manipulation in a way that makes it impossible to turn away. It’s not just one of the best Netflix Original films, it’s one of the best, period, of the 2020s so far.
Year: 2021 Runtime: 1h 56m Director: Robert Greene
The fantastic documentarian behind Kate Plays Christine directed his best work to date in this 2021 story of a group of abuse survivors who stage theatrical performances related to their trauma. It’s not an easy watch, but it’s actually an empowering one in the way Greene captures how much these men end up collaborating and supporting each other. Art takes teamwork, and Greene proves that recovery can also require a shoulder to lean on.
Year: 2024 Runtime: 2h 11m Director: Jeremy Saulnier
Future superstar Aaron Pierre stars in the latest from the phenomenal director behind Blue Ruin and Green Room, proving again that he is one of the best at tight action filmmaking. Wasting no time, Rebel Ridge opens with Pierre’s character essentially robbed by smalltown cops while he’s trying to take bail money to his cousin. The former military specialist doesn’t take that well.
Year: 2018 Runtime: 2h 15m Director: Alfonso Cuarón
A multiple Oscar winner (including Cinematography and Director), this personal drama might be the most acclaimed film in the history of the Netflix Original pipeline. Also nominated for Best Picture, Actress, and Supporting Actress, among others, it’s a story of a Mexican family in the Colonia Roma neighborhood of Mexico City in the early ‘70s, seen through the eyes of their housekeeper (Yalitza Aparicio). Short in gorgeous black and white, it’s an unforgettably moving motion picture.
Year: 2022 Runtime: 2h 15m Director: Sally El Hosaini
This Netflix original follows the true story of Yusra and Sarah Mardini, who became refugees from Syria after war broke out in their own country, making their way to Germany. The first half of the film is a terrifying dramatic thriller about survival under the most extreme conditions, while the second details how Yusra became a part of the Refugee Olympic Team, competing in the Rio Olympics. It’s a bit too long but it’s also undeniably moving.
Year: 2019 Runtime: 2h 5m Director: Fernando Meirelles
The director of City of God adapted the play The Pope by Anthony McCarten into this two-hander showcase for the great Sir Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce. Hopkins plays Pope Benedict XVI as he tries to convince Pryce’s Cardinal Bergoglio to take the throne as the most important figure in the Catholic faith. What follows is a sharply written study of faith and friendship, elevated by a pair of all-time great actors.
Living legend Viola Davis stars in this retelling of the all-female warriors of the kingdom of Dahomey in the 19th century. She plays General Nansica, who trains young women to follow in her footsteps, and leads a rock star ensemble of future stars that includes Thuso Mbedu, Lashana Lynch, and Sheila Atim. You’ll know all their names soon enough.
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