I created a guide to help you find the perfect Netflix movies available in and outside the U.S. I’ve thumbed through the library and assembled a list of some of the best movies currently available for streaming, from classics to hidden gems to new releases and beyond. This list of the best movies on Netflix is updated regularly with all of my new choices, so be sure to return the next time you’re looking for something great.
For even more curated streaming recommendations, check out my lists: movies to watch on Amazon Prime, and movies to watch on HBO.
Handy, extensive guide of personal picks
The Kalief Browder Story
Directed by: Jenner Furst
This series made a big impression on me. Watch it when you’re ready for it, because this is heavy and cruel stuff. The movie traces the tragic case of Kalief Browder, a teen of color from the Bronx, who spent three horrific years in jail over a backpack he didn’t steal. Browder was never convicted of the crime and the movie paints a cruel reality that a lot people of color will still have to live in by 2021.
Wild Wild Country
Directed by: Maclain Way Chapman Way
Filthy Rich
Directed by: Lisa Bryant
This miniseries of 4 episodes tells the story of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The series includes interviews with several survivors, former staff members and so on. It’s an extraordinary story about sex trafficking, the abuse of power and how the rule of law works in America. For long, it seemed an endless story looking for justice. At the same time, it’s special that these women got the chance to share their story on camera and share it with the world.
Wolf of Wallstreet
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, Jonah Hill.
As mentioned in: The Secret Answer Of Sell Me This Pen
This Netflix movie by Martin Scorsese is one of those movies that stick with you after you’ve seen it. The movie is centered around this penny stock broker called Jordan Belfort. The broker went to prison for 22 months because in the nineties he orchestrated a big financial crime by making a fortune on shady sales of penny stocks. The movie made an big impression on me. Belfort spent a crazy amount of money on drugs, sex and other self-indulgences and the movie is just full of scenes that are just wild. The whole movie builds up to the moment that everything in his life collabs. It’s highly fascinating to me how money, sex and drugs but more importantly power can bring people to unprecedented extremes.
Tell Me Who I Am
Directed by: Ed Perkins
As mentioned in Building a Life After Losing All Your Memories
Tell Me Who I Am opens on a personal tragedy: as an 18-year old, Alex Lewis woke up from a three-month coma after a motorcycle crash in 1982. There was nothing he could remember about his life, except for the face of his twin brother, Marcus. The Lewis brothers initially shared their story in an article for The Times, back in 2013. The new documentary about the brothers, which debuted on Netflix on Oct. 18, gradually unspools and details the consequences of a decision made by Marcus, who has suddenly become the holder of all of his brother’s memories. His brother decided to paint a picture of a happy life—withholding the reality that their mother had abused the boys throughout their childhoods. “It played out like a psychological thriller. And yet it was true,” Ed Perkins, the film’s director of Tell Me Who I Am, tells TIME. “I was fascinated by the themes of brotherhood, the blurring of fact and fiction, memory and the question of who we are if we lose our memory.”
Faces Places
Watch it on Netflix (Only available to watch in the US.)
As mentioned in 5 documentaries that will spark your creativity
This documentary follows Varda and JR traveling around rural France. During their trip, they make portraits of the people they come across. I admire the work of both artists for quite a while now and I love the way they show us how everyone has a tale to tell that can inspire, or that can bring a distant memory to life. Along their journey, they have seen many things – from hard labor in the mines to domestic goats that used to keep their horns. The duo brings the stories and memories to life, placing huge prints of photos at a wide range of locations. But they also share fragments of their own lives through archive material and the telling of their own stories in this testament to transience and the power of the imagination.
