Over the course of 20+ years, Netflix has gone from one of the most successful disc rental companies to a juggernaut that produces is own in-house entertainment. It releases dozens of shows monthly, some of which have gone so far as to inform the zeitgeist for any given moment, making binge-watching into a beloved pastime. Even if there have been noteworthy competitors out there, notably Amazon and Hulu, they remain the premiere source when discussing the shift to streaming culture, managing to gain enough of a high profile that they work with some of the most prestigious authors, leading to hundreds (hundreds!) of Emmy and Oscar nominations.
In the world of film, they have recently released the Spike Lee film Da 5 Bloods (2020), which is already being considered one of the first serious contenders for next year’s Oscar season. With a powerful story about the impacts of the Vietnam War on Black veterans, it creates provocative art that draws you in, making you curious by what will happen next. It’s also the latest collaboration between Netflix and a stable of high caliber directors that have included Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuaron, Stephen Soderbergh, Noah Baumbach, The Coen Brothers, and even Orson Welles.
When everyone wants to work with you, it’s easy to see it as a major shift in how cinema is made. While there are hundreds of films released annually that range in quality, they have become known for producing one or two genuine hits regularly, making you grateful that you can press replay immediately, revisiting the moments that you love the most. Netflix isn’t just producing content to be consumed senselessly, they’re redefining our connection to art and the value of having it at our fingertips.
The following is a rundown of films that I have personally loved from Netflix, managing to linger in my memory long after the credits rolled. It should be noted that this isn’t movies that have appeared on their service, but ones personally sanctioned by them. It’s one where their “Netflix Original” banner appears before. This also doesn’t include any nonfiction specials such as stand-up or documentaries, which are worthy of their own list. With those guidelines in place, here’s my list.
Feel free to leave your own Top 5 in the comments.
1. Marriage Story (2020)
There are few people who understand the complicated relationships of life better than director Noah Baumbach. Over the course of his career, he has taken everyday struggles and made them into this excellent balance of humor and drama, reflecting how dynamics can influence our personal decisions, making us see desire where there probably wasn’t any. Over the course of the 2010s, he hit a hot streak with an impressive run of films that included another Netflix film with The Meyerowitz Stories (2017) that explored a dysfunctional family in some of the strangest and most endearing ways imaginable.
For his next film, he returned to the world of divorce for the first time since The Squid and the Whale (2005), showing divorce now from a more mature perspective. This time around he draws from his own personal experiences, filling the average scene with minor details that bring humor to this melancholic experience. As a result, there is a deeper empathy for every party involved, finding personal struggles not only in loving each other but dealing with shady divorce lawyers who are playing with vicious strategies. They take small mistakes and blow them up into blackmail, proving each other too negligent to raise a son.
At the center are incredible performances by Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson, who must come to terms with their changing feelings. While Baumbach is more in tune with Driver’s perspective, he does plenty to reflect Johansson’s own struggle to understand if she was ever happy, or if she was manipulated into believing that her joy was organic. To watch these long takes, close-up on her face is to witness acting at its finest as small facial tics give more weight than full-on tantrums. It’s the revelations of insecurity that make this film more than another divorce saga.
Marriage Story is an accomplishment not only in its powerful story, where central fights teeter on fragile word choice but in how well it captures the idea of modern romance. In a time where culture has become busier than ever, drawing this family to different coastlines, it becomes tragic to experience the feeling of burnout, that nothing could be as simple as it once was. While there is a sense of optimism that finishes the film, the road to that acceptance is one packed with battle scars, likely driven from Baumbach’s own experience. It’s the Kramers vs. Kramer (1979) for the 21st century and a more empathetic and even-weighted one at that.
2. The Irishman (2019)
If there was any stamp of approval that Netflix could be something greater than a theatrical alternative, it was this collaboration with Martin Scorsese. Clocking in at 3.5 hours, it’s an epic that takes the filmmaker down memory road as he creates a moratorium on the gangster movie genre. Even under controversial de-aging make-up, it’s easy to see the presence of elder statesmen Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci as essential to the narrative, reflecting on decades of personal experience exploring the morality of this genre.
Could the film be shorter? Sure, but that’s to ignore the achievement that’s on display. The film needs to be this sprawling, reflective of a life where “it is what it is” means something horrific, finding families being pulled apart out of fear as De Niro gives into mob loyalty. He believes that he’s loved, but he keeps wandering through life, unable to be satisfied by more than the next hit. By the end, the film needs to be lengthier to reflect De Niro’s ability to leave the life, not go down this road. As we watch the minutes rack up, we find a man who writes his own tragedy, making it tougher to buy his atonement that defines the narrative structure.
Few filmmakers could make this movie and have it means as much as Scorsese did. It’s also evident that few studios would be willing to give him budgets that big to make this story work. Even if you see this more as a bragging right for Netflix, it is a masterpiece of growing old and having every careless decision you make come back to hurt you. Even as the world around De Niro dies, he’s left with so many demons, unable to deal with them as more than a helpless old man just waiting to die himself, and finally leave the misery behind.
3. Da 5 Bloods (2020)
Following a career resurgence with the Oscar-winning BlacKkKlansman (2018), director Spike Lee really feels like he’s back on a hot streak. Here he brings another story so ripe with purpose and intent that you are drawn into every frame, seeing a story of Black Vietnam War veterans returning to the country that took so much away from them for a treasure hunt. It’s a narrative that sounds simple on its surface but comes to embody a pain decades in the making. It’s of a society that has been forgotten by America more than the other veterans, unable to feel appreciated as their own activists like Martin Luther King Jr. are slain for peaceful protesting.
The film is erratic, making up for a lost time as Lee mixes hard-hitting drama with painful history and wild action. It’s clear that these are fantasies that he’s had for every genre that has been overlooking Black culture, creating as much fantasy that comments on film representation as it does their place in modern American society. Their own war hasn’t ended. It’s just shifted perspective.
For all of its chaotic tone shifts (it is a Spike Lee movie after all), it has so much on its mind that it needs to be heard and thought about. Along with a stellar performance by Delroy Lindo, it’s somehow a side of a war that has been done to death yet hasn’t been seen before. As a result, it feels vital, urgent, and one whose reputation is only starting to be formed. This may be one of Lee’s most disjointed joints, but it works in reflecting the mentality of his characters, unsure of their own future as they wander the jungles, looking for closure from whatever lies inside.
4. Roma (2018)
This may be the most controversial movie that Netflix ever released not because of its story, but because of its release strategy. Given that they were months away from their first Best Picture contender (and Best Director win for Alfonso Cuaron), it made sense that they wanted to play their cards right. In the process, this film inspired them to redesign their theatrical release model, leading the likes of Steven Spielberg to demand conversation over whether streaming movies should be taken seriously. Also, was Roma better at home like every other Netflix movie, or did it need to be experienced in a big auditorium?
The Federico Fellini-inspired story of a Mexican housemaid is a story that finds Cuaron working at his most quietly innovative. If you didn’t get to see this on the big screen, you missed out thanks to breathtaking cinematography and an opening that is intentionally drawling to help shift the audience into a more dreamlike view of the past. There’s not a lot that’s necessarily exceptional about it, but the presentation is tender, allowing for something beautiful to be found in the mundanity of her life.
While it’s silly to think that Roma was ever going to win Best Picture (it’s a story about a mundane life after all), it was a big breakthrough for Netflix in terms of reputation, getting them into corners that they hadn’t in so long. It also set the standard for their Oscar campaign, allowing them to build off of this for 2019’s even greater line-up of contenders. With that said, Roma was a film deserving of the big-screen treatment, able to be seen as more than disposable. It was beautiful, self-reflective, and a technical achievement that proved how essential a director Cuaron continues to be.
5. High Flying Bird (2019)
There is something tragic about Netflix choosing to back the inferior The Laundromat (2019) for its Stephen Soderbergh Oscar campaign. Whereas his Panama Papers drama was a scattered mess, his ode to the NBA lockout was a nonstop thrill ride, finding his technique given its greatest rejuvenation since he left retirement. Here he found ways to make a film entirely shot on iPhones into an innovative story, full of otherwise unobtainable corners, as he captures the struggles of careers that hung in the balance, eagerly waiting for some payoff to happen as people negotiate in high-rise conference rooms, looking down on their subjects like ants below.
It’s not the most conventional of sports dramas, but one that brings in the economic side of things in ways that are interesting. You may not understand every word that Soderbergh uses in these negotiation scenes, but it all goes down smoothly, making you appreciate a master working to his fullest capabilities. If nothing else, this deserves to be watched as the pinnacle of how cinema has evolved, able to be shot on iPhones, and still have decent cinematography. Don’t let anyone know Soderbergh’s secret. Once it gets out, nobody will want to buy a conventional camera when something more portable does the trick just as well.
BONUS
The Other Side of the Wind (2017)
This is probably the goofiest film that Netflix has ever released, but one that feels indicative of what the streaming service could do for film. By restoring this fabled Orson Welles movie, they proved that anything was possible. It may still seem goofy to know that a director as obtuse as Welles could ever be on a streaming service with a new film, but that only makes this whole exercise a miracle. It may be an imperfect achievement, not fully reflective of the genuine vision, but it’s one that deserves to exist as more than a footnote in their transition into film distribution.
It’s a crazy film about a filmmaker in his final days, making something crude and explicit, reflective of something antagonistic in Welles’ aging and cynical view of the Hollywood system. It’s one that is a whirlwind of the past, not fully easy to comprehend until well into its manic editing structure that mixes New Hollywood ethos with pseudo-documentary technique. Even in its final form, it’s funny to see frames missing, proving that just like in life, nobody could get the full picture of Welles. This may be a film only appreciated by the arthouse crowd, but one that showed how versatile the Citizen Kane (1941) mastermind was by the time things were winding down.
What are your favorite films released by Netflix?
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