For as many streaming services as there is currently are, Netflix remains possibly the premiere platform to watch movies and television shows. The first mainstream streaming service there was, it’s a platform that continues to boast some of the finest and most noteworthy movies you’ll find anywhere.
With a streaming catalog mixed between Netflix original movies and endless amounts of well-known movies I Know What You Did Last Summer, Minions, and The Lord of the Rings, there’s no shortage of potential viewing options when it comes to Netflix’s impressive lineup of movies.
Here are some of the movies you can currently find streaming on Netflix that we’d recommend checking out.
Updated: February 11.
Family: Minions: The Rise of Gru
Over the past decade, the Despicable Me franchise has become one of the most popular family-friendly film series in recent memory. After a string of fairly enjoyable sequels, those lovable, wide-eyed Minions return with The Rise of Gru, which fittingly sees the return of Steve Carrell’s Gru.
In the 1970s, the 12-year-old Gru (Carrell) aspires to be the greatest villain in the world, finding serious competition in the form of an infamous supervillain organization known as the Vicious 6.
Seven years after the previous film in the series, The Rise of Gru traces the eponymous Minions’ first encounter with Gru, providing details on how their sinister partnership started in the first place.
Mystery: Side Effects
There’s a disturbing mystery at the heart of Side Effects, a disquieting thriller from the prolific and capable director, Steven Soderbergh. Developing a central story that rapidly changes as time goes on, you never know for certain what exactly is going on in Side Effects, leaving plenty of room for unexpected surprises along the way.
When her husband (Channing Tatum) is released from prison, the depressed Emily (Rooney Mara) is prescribed experimental medication, leaving her with serious side effects like sleepwalking.
Positively compared to the films of Alfred Hitchcock and Brian De Palma, Side Effects is a whirlwind of a mystery movie that routinely veers left just when you expect it to turn right. The script is remarkable, as are the principal actors (Jude Law and Catherine Zeta-Jones), but Mara steals the show as the morally ambiguous lead character.
Fantasy: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
It’s not often you see a series of films where every installment is of genuinely fantastic quality. Alongside other notable franchises like Star Wars (the original trilogy, anyway) or Harry Potter, there’s the beloved fantasy epic, The Lord of the Rings, with its 2002 sequel, The Two Towers, every bit as remarkable as The Fellowship of the Ring or The Return of the King.
With the Fellowship officially disbanded, Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), and Legolas (Orlando Bloom) track the Orcs who kidnapped Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Bill Boyd) as Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) continue their perilous journey to Mount Doom.
It’s up to individual preferences whether The Two Towers is the best entry in the trilogy or not, but there’s no question this movie widened the scope of LOTR’s previous film. Introducing larger action sequences, smoother CGI, and a heightened focus on the lead characters, it perfectly raised the stakes just in time for Return of the King one year later.
Comedy: Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein
Within a few years of his breakout role on Stranger Things, David Harbour quickly managed to secure a foothold in Hollywood. Showing his wide range of talents as a comedic and serious actor, Harbour went on to star in a variety of projects at the close of the 2010s, the most criminally overlooked of which is his Netflix exclusive, Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein.
Happening across footage from his father’s (Harbour) passion project, David Harbour III (also Harbour) provides a documentary looking at his dad’s failed attempt to produce a theatrical version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
There may be other actors present in this short film, but Frankenstein’s Monster’s Monster, Frankenstein is practically a one-man show on Harbour’s part. In his two roles as father and son, Harbour excels at playing both the straight man and the unhinged, difficult-to-work-with prima donna, a satirical combination of Orson Welles, Klaus Kinski, and Stanley Kubrick.
Horror: I Know What You Did Last Summer
With the mainstream success of Scream, the late 1990s saw a small resurgence in slashers, ushering in several remakes of beloved horror films like Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Friday the 13th, and A Nightmare On Elm Street by the 2000s. Apart from these remakes was a movie like I Know What You Did Last Summer, an original slasher penned by Kevin Williamson (the same writer behind Scream).
One year after covering up an accidental hit-and-run, four teenage friends (Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ryan Phillippe, and Freddie Prinze Jr.) are menaced by a hook-handed killer who is apparently aware of their past crime.
I Know What You Did Last Summer doesn’t come anywhere close to matching the quality and humor found in Scream, relying on many of the same genre tropes that Scream spends so much time openly making fun of. Still, it's a generally decent slasher compared to most others.
Thriller: Nocturnal Animals
Who would’ve thought Tom Ford could be an excellent fashion designer and a gifted director? Though he has only two films under his belt, each of Ford’s films — the character study, A Serious Man, and the neo-noir thriller, Nocturnal Animals — are exemplary works of filmmaking, showing Ford’s obvious abilities to craft a complex narrative just as easily as he can design an award-winning dress.
Two decades after their separation, a wealthy but vain art dealer (Amy Adams) is sent the debut novel of her ex-husband (Jake Gyllenhaal), which she believes reflects their failed marriage together.
Alternating between two separate stories (Adams’ character’s current marriage as well as the fictional novel she spends a majority of the movie reading), Nocturnal Animals never feels confusing or too evenly dispersed. Each of the two narratives compliments the other nicely, thematically linked by the underlying toxic relationship maintained by Adams and Gyllenhaal’s characters.
Romance: You People
A film starring comedic titans Eddie Murphy and Jonah Hill is not something anyone expected to ever see. But boy, are we oh so happy to actually get it in the form of the romantic comedy, You People.
Ezra (Hill) is an accountant who enters an interracial relationship with fashion designer Amira (Lauren London). As their relationship grows more serious, the two plan to meet each other’s parents (David Duchovny and Julia Louis-Dreyfus; Murphy and Nia Long).
A film that analyzes the differences between people from different cultures and backgrounds, You People is weighed down by a lot of inherent messages that tend to wither away rather than affect audience members. In terms of its comedic elements and ensemble cast, though, it’s a more than satisfying film, headlined by some fantastic chemistry between Murphy and Hill.
Biopic: True Spirit
Over the course of eight months, Australian sixteen-year-old Jessie Watson (Teagan Croft) becomes the youngest person to successfully complete a solo voyage around the world.
No matter how often it might happen nowadays, circumnavigating the globe never ceases to be a subject that amazes, terrifies, and inspires people all at once. Such is especially true if the person embarking on said journey is just a teenager, completing the voyage on her own.
Adapted from Watson’s memoir, True Spirit: The Aussie Girl Who Took On The World, True Spirit is as delightful a film to watch as it is truly inspirational. Never dramatizing Watson’s journey for the sake of entertainment, the movie’s grounded approach to its subject material is more than enough to amaze viewers, documenting Watson’s voyage with clarity and authenticity.
Documentary: No Direction Home
For many fans across the globe, Bob Dylan essentially is folk music. Often named the greatest singer-songwriter of his time, Dylan was the physical embodiment of an entire generation of music, his words summing up the thoughts and feelings of millions of people around the world.
Examining the life and times of Dylan, as well as his indelible influence on the music industry and social landscape of the ‘60s and ‘70s, is Martin Scorsese’s 2005 documentary, No Direction Home.
Beginning with Dylan’s arrival to New York in the early 1960s to his brief retirement from touring in 1966, No Direction Home is a comprehensive documentary ideal for longtime fans of Dylan, as well as those new to his music.
Underrated: Even the Rain
Inspired by the social upheaval centered around the Cochabamba Water War, Even the Rain is a fascinating look at how closely tied our problematic history is to real-world events forever happening all around us.
Shooting a movie in Bolivia about Columbus’s arrival to the New World, a Spanish film director (Gael García Bernal) faces a moral and professional crisis when his lead actor (Juan Carlos Aduviri) becomes embroiled in a local protest movement.
Juxtaposing Columbus’s conquest of South America with injustices faced by Bolivian civilians in the late 1990s, Even the Rain challenges viewers not to be a passive bystander to historical events. As seen in the film, we have the ability to make a difference whenever possible, creating an indelible mark on historical chronology whenever we witness violations of basic human rights.
This article was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.
source https://wealthofgeeks.com/movies-on-netflix-now/
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