The 46 best movies on Netflix right now

What’s the best movie I can watch on Netflix? We’ve all asked ourselves this question, only to spend the next 15 minutes scrolling through the streaming service’s oddly specific genre menus and getting overwhelmed by the constantly shifting trend menus. Netflix’s huge catalog of movies continues to expand day by day, week by week, month by month. This makes the challenge of keeping up to date with best the service has to offer — let alone finding something the best of what to watch after a long day — a task that feels herculean at best and impossible at worst for someone not plugged into its inscrutable rhythms.

We’re here to help. For those suffering from choice paralysis in September, we’ve narrowed down your options to not only our favorite current movies on the platform, but the best movies Netflix has to offer.

If you’re looking for a specific genre, we’ve got the best action movies on Netflix, the best horror movies on Netflix, the best thrillers on Netflix, and the best comedy movies on Netflix ready for you. And for our readers across the pond, we have a list of the best movies on Netflix U.K.

We’ll be updating this list weekly as Netflix cycles movies in and out of its library, so be sure to check back next time you’re stuck in front of the app’s home screen. Our latest update added Barbie as our editor’s pick.

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This week’s editor’s pick: Barbie

Director: Greta Gerwig
Cast: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera

Greta Gerwig’s fantasy comedy based on the Mattel line of fashion dolls was the highest-grossing film of 2023, a bright and sprightly pink film that explored what it means to be a woman and the many insidious forms toxic masculinity can take. “Barbenheimer” — the simultaneous theatrical debut of Gerwig’s film alongside Christopher Nolan’s epic biographical drama of J. Robert Oppenheimer — was a bona fide cultural phenomenon the likes of which neither jaded marketing consultants nor armchair pundits could’ve expected, let alone conceived of.

None of that distracts from the plain truth, which is that Barbie is an absolute delight to watch. Margot Robbie’s bubbly effervescence is the purest embodiment of the character one could ask for, and Ryan Gosling’s portrayal of Barbie’s would-be beau Ken (“Just Ken”) is one of the actor’s finest comedic turns. But if you’re reading this right now, you probably already know this from having watched it. Barbie is one of the best movies on any streaming service it happens to be on, full stop, so it’s no surprise that it should find its way onto this list. —Toussaint Egan

How we pick the best movies on Netflix

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1917

Director: Sam Mendes
Cast: George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman, Benedict Cumberbatch

If you haven’t seen Sam Mendes’ 2019 World War 1 epic, there’s a chance that the only thing you know about it is its gimmick: It’s made up entirely of extremely long takes carefully stitched together with nearly invisible editing to make it seem like one unbroken shot. While this is certainly an interesting feature of the movie, and clearly a marvelous technical feat, it’s the effect that the gimmick has on the movie that really makes it special.

The movie follows two lowly soldiers (George MacKay, Dean-Charles Chapman) in the first World War, tasked with delivering a message from one spot on the front lines to another in hopes of saving more than a thousand English soldiers. This is a harrowing and extraordinarily dangerous assignment that takes the pair through terrifying battlefields and through horrific burnt down cities, as the characters stumble their way from one incredible set piece to the next.

When the movie is at its best, the one-take style is barely noticeable, instead transporting you to the shoulder of the characters, letting you feel the walls of the battlefield close in around the both of you as bullets and explosions rock the scene. It’s marvelous technique (except for the few times it’s distracting) that makes for a fascinatingly unique way to view the singular horrors of the world’s first fully modern war. —Austen Goslin

Aftersun

Director: Charlotte Wells
Cast: Paul Mescal, Frankie Corio, Celia Rowlson-Hall

Aftersun is not exactly the easiest film to watch on Netflix, but it’s definitely one of the most rewarding. Through Charlotte Wells’ careful eye (all the more extraordinary, considering this is her first feature), Aftersun is framed as a complicated look back on a single father-daughter vacation. Scattered between camcorder footage and emotional differences, Sophie (Frankie Corio) struggles to connect with her father, Calum (Paul Mescal), while they both sink into their own turmoil on the eve of his 31st birthday.

Aftersun’s success comes from the way it so artfully untangles them from each other at the same time it snarls them up together. The story circles scenes and ideas as spirals, building and twirling around its vibes with the click of a shutter. Through the lens of Aftersun, everything is a little more bittersweet, and a little more lovely for it. —Zosha Millman

Alone

Director: John Hyams
Cast: Jules Willcox, Marc Menchaca, Anthony Heald

A taut spine-chiller from John Hyams (Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning), Alone is your classic woman-on-the-run thriller. Jessica (Jules Willcox), a recent widow, is in the midst of moving. If that wasn’t enough stress, a creepy man (Marc Menchaca) appears to be following her on the road. After he slashes her tires, she crashes and wakes up in his basement. What follows is a tightly crafted thriller with great performances, outstanding direction, and enough tension to keep your heart pounding throughout the 98-minute running time. —Pete Volk

American Psycho

Director: Mary Harron
Cast: Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Jared Leto

With Luca Guadagnino (Call Me by Your Name, Challengers) set to adapt Bret Easton Ellis’ novel American Psycho as his next film, now’s as perfect a time as any to revisit Mary Harron’s iconic adaptation. 2000’s American Psycho lodged itself into the zeitgeist in a way few other films of its era have managed, and that is attributable in no small part to Christian Bale’s indelible turn as the ruthless and psychotic investment banker Patrick Bateman.

As much a trenchant exploration of the sociopathic and misogynistic underpinnings of American society as it is an incisive critique of the greed and depravity of high finance “yuppie” culture, American Psycho is a horror satire that — nearly 25 years since its release — has lost absolutely none of its luster. —TE

Athena

Director: Romain Gavras
Cast: Dali Benssalah, Sami Slimane, Anthony Bajon

One of the very best movies of 2022, Athena is an intense action thriller about the uprising of a French banlieue after repeated police harassment and violence. Told through the eyes of three brothers with very different perspectives on the conflict and how it should be resolved, Athena is a powerful story. But where it really shines is in its technical acumen. Music video director Romain Gavras, making his feature debut, brings breathtaking tracking shots, intricately choreographed blocking, and an absolutely electric energy. I have qualms with the ending, but I’ll never forget the jaw-dropping experience of watching Gavras cook on this movie. Whatever he does next, I’m there. —PV

Atlantics

Director: Mati Diop
Cast: Ibrahima Traoré, Mame Bineta Sane, Amadou Mbow

It’s hard to talk too much about Atlantics without giving away what makes the experience of watching it so special. It’s a beautiful, haunting love story with a tangibly beating heart, touching on romance as well as grief, class, labor, and the lingering effects of oppression. Shot gorgeously by director Mati Diop and cinematographer Claire Mathon, it was the first movie directed by a Black woman to be featured in competition in Cannes (it won the Grand Prix award, losing out on the Palme d’Or to Parasite), and is one of the most remarkable feature film debuts for a director in recent memory. —PV

Bad Boys II

Director: Michael Bay
Cast: Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Gabrielle Union

I could recommend you watch any (or all) of the Bad Boys movies now that they’re on Netflix, but if you’re only going to watch one, it absolutely has to be this one. Bad Boys II is everyone involved at the height of their power, and is a particular high point in the canon of excessive American action movies. Any one of this movie’s nearly dozen action set pieces would be the absolute highlight of any other movie, but instead they’re just all gloriously rolled up into this one ridiculous, massive action classic. —Austen Goslin

The Birds

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren, Jessica Tandy

The premise of Alfred Hitchcock’s horror classic The Birds is incredible. On paper, it sounds completely ridiculous: What would happen if all the birds in the world suddenly decided they wanted us dead? But in the hands of a horror master, it’s absolutely horrifying.

The good news is, you don’t have to imagine too hard, since Hitchcock realized that nightmare with excellent chaos and clarity already. Despite the fact that The Birds was first released in 1963, it still remains one of the most uniquely terrifying movies ever made. Even in real life, massive flocks of birds have always had a bit of menace to them. In Hitchcock’s vision, that menace turns brutal and deadly, with characters cowering at the sound of flapping wings and hiding indoors, until that’s not enough to save them either. 

All of this is communicated with surprising effectiveness despite the somewhat dated effects, but Hitchcock’s mastery of terror and suspense is as effective here as it is anywhere else in his impressive body of work, with some of the scariest scenes coming when we can’t see the threat at all. And all of that’s before we even get into the ending, which may be among the most bleak and apocalyptic ever put on film. —AG

Blackhat

Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tang Wei, Viola Davis

A sleek and sexy thriller that makes hacking look extremely cool, Michael Mann’s unfairly maligned Blackhat stands tall as a high mark in digital filmmaking. It is peak Mann — if you’re not a fan of the Heat director’s work, your mileage may vary. In the film, Chen Dawai (Wang Leehom), a captain in the PLA’s cyber warfare unit, is tasked with getting to the bottom of a computer attack that melts down a nuclear power plant in Hong Kong. While liaising with the FBI investigation, Chen insists on the aid of his old friend Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth, who has never been hotter or cooler), an imprisoned genius hacker. When Hathaway and Chen’s sister (Tang Wei), a networking engineer also helping with the case, fall for each other, it adds an extra wrinkle to an already high stakes situation. Viola Davis and Holt McCallany feature as FBI agents who aren’t super happy to have to rely on a notorious criminal.

With sharp digital cinematography and unforgettable set pieces, Blackhat explores our changing global relationship to technology. Mann makes tangible the microscopic computer systems that run the world: an extreme close-up of internal wires leading to a motherboard like a vast interconnected highway; a computer fan that sounds like a jet engine. Events that in other films would be shown as a boring stroke of keys are instead depicted as hypnotic processes happening under the surface of the visible world. —PV

Carol

Director: Todd Haynes
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson

Todd Haynes’ most recent movie was the straight-to-Netflix gem May December, one of the best releases of 2023 and another movie on this very list. But this month, one of Haynes’ other masterpieces returns to Netflix after being away from the service for most of the year.

Adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s The Price of Salt, Carol follows an affair between two women at very different points in their lives. Therese (Rooney Mara) is an aspiring photographer who works at a department store, where she meets Carol (Cate Blanchett), a gorgeous older woman going through a difficult divorce. The two fall deeply in love in this lushly drawn, beautifully shot period romance that earned six Oscar nominations and kickstarted a stretch for Haynes of releasing a new movie every other year since. Haynes is an essential part of the New Queer Cinema movement, and Carol is an essential piece of 21st-century queer filmmaking. During this Pride month, or any other, don’t miss it. —PV

Carry-On

Director: Jaume Collet-Serra
Cast: Taron Egerton, Jason Bateman, Danielle Deadwyler

It’s the holiday season, and for many people that means time with the family and an endless hunt for a movie everyone can agree on. Thankfully, this year, Netflix has made the choice easy with its new Christmas-tinged release: Carry-On. It’s an old-school action thriller that’s exactly good enough to get the whole family on board, no matter what their tastes are like. The plot follows Taron Egerton as a TSA agent who gets threatened by a terrorist into letting a dangerous bag through security. Fortunately, he doesn’t take that threat lying down, kicking off a cat-and-mouse game of airport intrigue that’s tense, silly, and extremely entertaining. —AG

Collateral

Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Tom Cruise, Jamie Foxx, Jada Pinkett Smith

Michael Mann’s 2004 neo-noir action thriller Collateral is one of the director’s most successful films, grossing over $220 million worldwide and earning Jamie Foxx an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor (in the same year he won Best Actor for Ray).

Tom Cruise stars as Vincent, a contract killer whose assignment to assassinate five targets across Los Angeles leads him to Max (Foxx), a disgruntled taxi driver, holding the latter hostage to drive him from target to target. As the night wears on and the larger picture of Vincent’s objective and modus operandi becomes more clear, Max will have to decide how far he’s willing to abide his passenger’s whims before it’s too late.

Collateral’s nocturnal lighting and brilliant cinematography courtesy of Dion Beebe and Paul Cameron combine to make for one of the most hypnotic and memorable portraits of LA’s metropolitan sprawl ever committed to film, and Cruise’s performance as Vincent ranks as one of the actor’s best. —Toussaint Egan

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart

Directors: Johnnie To, Wai Ka-fai
Cast: Louis Koo, Daniel Wu, Gao Yuanyuan

Johnnie To is one of our great modern directors, equally adept in hard-boiled triad crime dramas and light-hearted romantic comedies alike. 2011’s Don’t Go Breaking My Heart falls in the latter category, and is one of the many high marks of the Hong Kong director’s legendary career. Fresh off the end of a long-term relationship, Chi-yan (Gao Yuanyuan) is an analyst for an investment bank who finds herself in the middle of a love triangle. On one side, there’s Sean (Louis Koo), a CEO who works across the street from Chi-yan and yearns for her through the tall corporate glass windows that separate them. On the other, there’s Kevin (the always-dreamy Daniel Wu), an alcoholic former architect who helps Chi-yan move on and is inspired by her to start creating again. What follows is a sincere, funny, and truly charming romantic time. —PV

because he knows that all it takes is one right run through of the loop to save the world. It’s Tom Cruise’s movie-making philosophy in miniature, and it’s beautiful, fun, and, of course, incredibly entertaining to watch. —AG

Eega

Director: S.S. Rajamouli
Cast: Sudeepa, Nani, Samantha

Eega is a delightful slapstick romantic comedy from the director of RRR, about a fly and his human girlfriend conspiring to ruin a man’s life and then murder him for vengeance. If that doesn’t sound up your alley, I’m not sure what will.

Eega tells the story of a man who is murdered by a wealthy businessman. After being reincarnated as a fly, he makes it his mission to exact vengeance on the man who killed him. As a fly.

With groundbreaking visual effects that pushes digital filmmaking forward, Rajamouli injects a delightful energy and lighter tone into the genre of “dark revenge thriller,” with thrilling set pieces (stakes include “our hero gets stuck on a tennis ball being used in a cricket match” and “our hero causes a traffic jam by buzzing in the ears of a crossing guard”) and plenty of visual gags inspired by slapstick and screwball comedies alike. It’s all balanced by a compelling romance that sells you on the movie’s emotional stakes in the first half hour, culminating in an experience unlike any other. Rajamouli is just special. —PV

Emily the Criminal

Director: John Patton Ford
Cast: Aubrey Plaza, Theo Rossi, Gina Gershon

One of the smartest movies about the gig economy and our modern money struggles, Emily the Criminal was criminally (ayyy) underappreciated when it came out in 2022. The movie follows a debt-ridden woman (Aubrey Plaza) who gets involved in a credit card scam to pay off her student loans. This pulls her in the orbit of charismatic ringleader Youcef (the reliably handsome Theo Rossi), and also deeper and deeper into the world of crime, as she looks for a way out of her difficult situation.

It’s a career-best performance from Plaza, who is as funny and dry as ever, but Emily the Criminal’s script allows her to use her dramatic chops in ways we’ve rarely seen outside of White Lotus and Ingrid Goes West (and even those are primarily comedies with dramatic elements). Relentlessly paced, constantly tense, and always centered on the terrific leading performance at its core, Emily the Criminal is one of the best American films of the decade, and its potency will only grow as the problems it shines a light on continue to be exacerbated. —PV

own in the parking garage. As strange as it might feel to make an Evil Dead movie in New York City, it turns out an apartment building is a perfect replacement for the series’ signature cabin in the woods. —AG

Ghosts of Sugar Land

Director: Bassam Tariq

Director Bassam Tariq recently got replaced on Marvel’s upcoming Blade movie, and it’s as good a reason as any to catch up with his masterful 2019 short. Best known for the hip-hop drama Mogul Mowgli starring Riz Ahmed, Tariq’s previous movie is an enthralling documentary well worth the 21-minute running time.

Ghosts of Sugar Land is about a young group of friends in the suburbs of Texas, and what happens when one of them becomes radicalized by ISIS. A compelling portrait of an America we don’t often get to see depicted on screen, Tariq offers no easy answers, instead leaning on the shock and despair of the friends left behind, and on the dangers of isolation and loneliness in a country that often seems on the brink of collapse. A winner of multiple festival awards, including the 2019 Sundance Short Film Jury Award, Ghosts of Sugar Land is not to be missed. —PV

Godzilla Minus One

Director: Takashi Yamazaki
Cast: Ryunosuke Kamiki, Minami Hamabe, Hidetaka Yoshioka

This month, one of 2023’s best movies is finally available to stream for Western audiences. Takashi Yamazaki’s Godzilla Minus One takes the franchise back to its roots: the disillusionment of Japan’s postwar era. The King of the Monsters is once again a metaphor for atomic weapons, but where Minus One really makes its mark is with the human characters who strive again annihilation.

Ryunosuke Kamiki plays Kōichi Shikishima, a former kamikaze pilot buried under a mountain of survivor’s guilt, with Minami Hamabe as Noriko, the woman he can’t bring himself to marry. Rounding out the cast are more adventure staples, like the trio of loyal and comedic co-workers, including the older scientist who has the right plan to defeat the monster (Hidetaka Yoshioka). The key to Godzilla Minus One isn’t that the ingredients are unusual, but in Yamazaki’s presentation and execution of this full-throated anti-war, pro-hope, anti-military, throwing-shade-on-America war blockbuster.

Minus One accomplishes the rare feat of making the human drama of a Godzilla movie as compelling as the monster action — and the monster action is really, really good. Godzilla Minus One was the best time many Polygon staffers had in a movie theater in 2023, and now we can finally watch it at home. —Susana Polo

Grave of the Fireflies

Director: Isao Takahata
Cast: Tsutomu Tatsumi, Ayano Shiraishi, Yoshiko Shinohara

Grave of the Fireflies is unlike any other film Studio Ghibli has produced to date. It is a war story, though not in the fantastical sense like Howl’s Moving Castle or The Boy and the Heron: It’s a tragedy about a pair of siblings who labor under the devastation brought about by the conclusion of the Pacific War, and who are faced with the absolute worst that humanity has to offer yet still manage to eke out a few precious, albeit fleeting, moments of happiness and love. It is, without question, one of the most affecting, bittersweet, and beautiful anti-war dramas ever produced, and a bona fide gem in a filmography studded with treasures.

Isao Takahata’s body of work may not be as highly lauded as that of Hayao Miyazaki’s, but his animation is not any less impactful, poignant, or transcendently moving. Grave of the Fireflies is not a film for the faint of heart. It is, however, a movie that I maintain every serious appreciator of the medium of animation, let alone anime, should see at least once in their life, if only for the fact that neither your life nor your understanding of animation will ever be the same after having watched it. —TE

Hit Man

Director: Richard Linklater
Cast: Glen Powell, Adria Arjona, Austin Amelio

Richard Linklater returns with this Netflix Original that is at once one of his most straightforwardly enjoyable and commercial films since School of Rock, and one of his slipperiest. Adapted by Linklater and star Glen Powell from a magazine article about a Texan professor who moonlit for the police as a fake contract killer in a quasi-entrapment scheme, Hit Man takes this unbelievable truth and spins it into a shaggy-dog story that’s at once romantic, hilarious, broad, philosophical, and quietly dark. The film’s as elusive as its shape-shifting subject and will leave you with plenty to think about — but not before you’ve laughed, clapped, and marveled at a showstopping rom-com climax that puts Powell and costar Adria Arjona right at the peak of the genre. —Oli Welsh

Jung_E

Director: Yeon Sang-ho
Cast: Kang Soo-yeon, Kim Hyun-joo, Ryu Kyung-soo

Jung_E premiered on Netflix over a year ago to relatively little fanfare, despite the immense pedigree of talent attached to the production. The latest original sci-fi film from Yeon Sang-ho (Train to Busan, Hellbound, and the new series Parasyte: The Grey),  Jung_E stars Kim Hyun-joo as Yun Jung-yi, a legendary soldier who fought in a bitter war between the Allied Forces of Earth and space-faring Adrian Republic just after the turn of the 21st century. 

Set hundreds of years after Earth has been rendered uninhabitable by climate change, Jung-yi’s daughter Seo-hyun (Kang Soo-yeon), now a roboticist working on behalf of a powerful tech company, successfully clones the mind of her mother in an artificial body. When an unexpected turn threatens to imperil the program, Seo-hyun must choose to help her creation escape or let go of her mother forever.

An affecting sci-fi thriller with an ample proportion of blistering action, emotional drama, and philosophical probing over the nature of indentured labor in a post-human future, Jung_E is a terrific movie that’s more than deserving of appreciation and reappraisal. On a more somber note, it’s also the final feature to star Kang Soo-yeon, who died prior to its release. —TE

Jigarthanda DoubleX

Director: Karthik Subbaraj
Cast: Raghava Lawrence, S.J. Suryah, Nimisha Sajayan

Movies about the Power of Cinema™ can be self-important, saccharine, and worst of all, boring. Jigarthanda DoubleX is none of those things. A sprawling tale of gangsters, movie stars, politicians, and the people caught between them, it’s one of my favorite movies of 2023, and a truly special film.

It’s the 1970s, and a coward who believes it’s his destiny to become a cop gets framed for a quadruple murder. He gets released from prison by a corrupt movie star/politician on the condition that he kills one of the lieutenants of that movie star/politician’s rival. Naturally, our coward poses as a movie director, because his target (a notorious gangster who loves Clint Eastwood) has made it his new mission in life to be the first dark-skinned movie star in India. While making their silly movie (a biopic of the gangster, of course), they fall in love with the magic of cinema and its transformative power on a personal and societal level.

Jigarthanda DoubleX is firing on all cylinders throughout its nearly three-hour run time, with superb direction, complex characters fully embodied by terrific actors, thrilling action sequences, and a surprising amount of emotional depth for a movie with this outlandish of a premise. Don’t miss it. —PV

Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids

Director: Jonathan Demme
Cast: Justin Timberlake

In 1984, director Jonathan Demme made one of the finest concert films of all-time with the Talking Heads in the raucously triumphant Stop Making Sense. A little more than three decades later, Demme’s final feature film was another joyous concert movie.

Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids depicts the final show of a long tour for Timberlake and his excellent backing band at the gigantic MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. In typical Demme fashion, the staging and framing of the energetic pop numbers is electric, but he also takes time to show just how much work goes into setting up and breaking down such a large production.

Demme and Timberlake’s collaboration spurred from a mutual respect — Timberlake, like anyone else with good taste, is a massive fan of Stop Making Sense, and Demme reached out after watching The Social Network. The movie is dedicated to Prince, who died shortly before the movie’s release. —PV

The Killer

Director: David Fincher
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Tilda Swinton, Sala Baker

The Killer is too good to fit into any specific boxes. David Fincher’s latest movie, once again a Netflix-only release like Mank, feels distinctly post-genre. Sure, technically it’s a thriller about an assassin who botches a hit and has to deal with the consequences, which include a price on his head too. But it’s so much more than, like a comedy about one bad day of work, or a tragedy about a guy who loves The Smiths too much. Fincher’s real flex in The Killer is to present all of these seemingly competing genres and styles as one consistent tone where no moment ever feels out of step with another, whether it’s jokes about McDonald’s or bone-crunching fights. 

Aside from Fincher’s technical skills, the other thing that makes The Killer’s dexterity possible is Michael Fassbender’s terrific performance as the assassin at the movie’s center. Fassbender goes from a winding monologues about the requirements of precision in every aspects of one’s life, to lamenting his latest fuck up in a moment’s notice without ever losing his put-on bravado. And it’s hilarious every single time.

This constant snapping between self-serious thriller and parody keeps every second of the movie fresh and makes it one of the best that Netflix has to offer. —AG

Kubo and the Two Strings

Director: Travis Knight
Cast: Art Parkinson, Charlize Theron, Ralph Fiennes

In 2025, Laika is set to release Wildwood, the latest fantasy horror film from director Travis Knight. Over the last two decades, the studio has gained notoriety for its status as one of the biggest film production companies preserving the art and craft of stop-motion animated feature films. Knight has been instrumental in building that reputation with his work at Laika, producing ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls, both of which were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and making his directorial debut with 2016’s Kubo and the Two Strings, yet another masterpiece in Laika’s ever-expanding oeuvre.

Based on a story conceived by production designer Shannon Tindle (Ultraman Rising), the film takes place in feudal Japan and centers on Kubo (Art Parkinson), a one-eyed boy with a love of origami who embarks on a journey to defeat his evil twin aunts and reclaim his left eye from his villainous grandfather, the Moon King (Ralph Fiennes). 

Armed with a magical shamisen (a traditional Japanese stringed instrument) and accompanied by a talking snow monkey (Charlize Theron) and a half-man, half-beetle warrior (Matthew McConaughey), Kubo ventures across a beautiful and hostile world in search of the tools necessary to fulfill his destiny. Kubo and the Two Strings is an extraordinary film, packed with exhilarating action sequences, riveting musical numbers, and jaw-dropping stop-motion animation as only Laika can do. While it’s been over a decade since it was first released, Knight’s film has lost absolutely none of its enduring luster or appeal. —Toussaint Egan

The Lost Bullet movies

Director: Guillaume Pierret
Cast: Alban Lenoir, Stéfi Celma, Nicolas Duvauchelle

Both Lost Bullet movies are pure jolts of adrenaline, filled with vehicular mayhem and explosive action. The first movie is leaner, with a simple premise executed to perfection, while the sequel ramps things up with even more jaw-dropping stunts, led by car stunt coordinator David Julienne, who also worked on the incredible Athena and is the grandson of the great Rémy Julienne. —PV

The Lost City

Director: Aaron Nee, Adam Nee
Cast: Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Brad Pitt

Big-budget studio comedies are rare these days, but it’s even more rare that they’re actually funny; thankfully, The Lost City is both of those things. The movie follows Loretta Sage (Sandra Bullock), an adventure novelist who gets kidnapped and sent to the jungle alongside Dash McMahon (Channing Tatum), the handsome cover model on all her books. The pair are sent there by a strange billionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) who is convinced that Loretta has the key to finding a magical city full of treasure. Bullock and Tatum are fantastic in this and winningly funny, which helps make this a perfect family watch for the Thanksgiving season. —AG

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Director: Guy Ritchie
Cast: Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander

Director Guy Ritchie is experiencing a bit of a renaissance thanks to his Netflix series The Gentleman, which premiered on the platform earlier this year. The Gentleman is a perfect showcase for Ritchie’s talent for writing fast-talking British criminals, but it’s another movie on Netflix that might mark his high-water mark for purely fun film making: The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Loosely adapted from the television series of the same name, the movie follows two competing spies, one an American (Henry Cavill) and another from Russia (played by Armie Hammer), facing off in a clandestine mission in the midst of the Cold War. Of course, as with any great espionage movie, especially an action comedy like this one, there are plenty of wild ruses and ridiculous twists along the way. 

While certain meta-textual elements of the film (namely Armie Hammer’s involvement) have aged somewhat poorly, the movie remains a tremendously fun time, with some of Ritchie’s funniest writing ever bolstered by Cavill and an incredible supporting cast that includes Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, Jared Harris, and Hugh Grant. On top of all that, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. also makes a pretty excellent pairing with Apple TV Plus’ Slow Horses, if you want a double dose of spying. —AG

May December

Director: Todd Haynes
Cast: Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, Charles Melton

The Oscars are this weekend (or, at least, they are when I’m writing this), so I thought it would be fitting to recommend one of the bigger Oscar snubs of the year. Yes, May December got nominated for its (great) screenplay, but it is also one of the best films of 2023 and features three of the most outstanding performances of the year, none of which had room in a stacked nominations list.

The latest film from New Queer Cinema icon Todd Haynes (Carol, Safe) sees the legendary director reunite with frequent collaborator Julianne Moore for one of their most intriguing projects yet. May December follows an actor, Elizabeth (Natalie Portman), who travels to Georgia to prepare for a role based on Gracie (Julianne Moore), a woman who became a focus of national attention after sleeping with (and eventually marrying) Joe, a 13-year-old boy when their relationship first started.

It’s an uncomfortable setting, and Haynes leans into that discomfort, both through the patience of his camera and the excellence of his lead actors. As Gracie and Elizabeth attempt to suss each other out, their identities fluctuating and blending with each other (Haynes has been very vocal about the influence of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona on this film), caught in the middle is Joe. Melton’s performance is haunting, a boy in a man’s body still caught in his teen years, closer in age to his children than to his wife. It’s the kind of adult drama we don’t get enough of anymore, and I’m glad Haynes is still here to make these kind of movies. —PV

The Old Guard

Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood
Cast: Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts

Netflix has a bad habit of burying its original movies shortly after their release, and releasing so many that it’s sometimes hard to remember the movies that were released just a few years ago. With that in mind, there’s a good chance you’ve seen or heard of The Old Guard, the fantastical and fun Netflix action movie from 2020, and an even better chance you should give it another watch.

The movie stars Charlize Theron as the leader of a secret underground team of immortal mercenaries who put their eternal lives to good use by kicking incredible amounts of ass. But when their identity is at risk of exposure, their fight takes on a much more personal angle. One of The Old Guard’s strongest elements as an action movie is its recognition that its story is as silly as it sounds, a ridiculous excuse for some excellent action and a great reason to give audiences plenty of scenes of hand-to-hand brawls and terrific gunfights. It’s light, airy, and a tremendous amount of fun to throw on this weekend whether you’ve seen it before or not. Plus, according to Theron herself, the sequel is still on the way, if somewhat delayed by Netflix. —AG

My Oni Girl

Director: Tomotaka Shibayama
Cast: Kenshô Ono, Miyu Tomita, Shintarô Asanuma

The latest anime movie from the director of the charming 2020 film A Whisker Away (also on Netflix) starts in a place that’s going to seem mighty familiar to longtime anime viewers: A shy, uptight boy has his world upended by a loud, cheerfully demanding girl, and adventures ensue. But My Oni Girl writer-director Tomotaka Shibayama and co-writer Yûko Kakihara (Trapezium, Apothecary Diaries, the 2020s Urusei Yatsura) subvert the usual script pretty quickly, making it a sweet, rewarding surprise.

The film has some fairly fuzzy story logic that may keep viewers guessing or discussing: What the heck is an oni in this movie, anyway? When a girl with purple-pink hair and a single delicate horn drops into the life of Hiiragi Yatsuse, a quiet boy whose schoolmates frequently take advantage of his polite eagerness to please, they end up on an episodic cross-country road trip together to look for her mother.

Along the way, Hiiragi finds out that his tendency to repress and hide his emotions is turning him into an oni, too — though in this world, oni just seem to be people with horns, and there’s no sign that any of the rest of them repress their emotions. The oni girl, Tsumugi, is certainly unrepressed — and a role model for Hiiragi in many ways.

My Oni Girl owes a clear debt to Studio Ghibli — not just in the extended shout-out to Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (which Shibayama worked on as a digital ink-and-paint artist), but in the character dynamics, and some of the spookier supernatural imagery. As Hiiragi supports, saves, and grows fond of his upbeat new friend, they both become targets for creatures they don’t understand, and unraveling what’s going on and what they need to do about turns what starts as a small domestic film into a big, winning adventure. —Tasha Robinson

The Man From Nowhere

Director: Lee Jeong-beom
Cast: Won Bin, Kim Sae-ron, Kim Hee-won

The Man from Nowhere is the epitome of a lean and mean action thriller, supported by the strength of its gripping fight sequences and affecting performances. Selective Korean actor Won Bin stars in his last acting role to date as Cha Tae-sik, a quiet loner who runs a small pawnshop out of a dilapidated apartment complex. Taciturn to a fault, Tae-sik seemingly has no friends or social ties to speak of save for So-mi (Kim Sae-ron), the only child of an opium addicted nightclub dancer, who goes out of her way to be near him.

After her mother attempts to steal a large package of opium from a ruthless drug lord, So-mi’s life is put in danger, and Tae-sik will have to call upon a deadly set of skills from his mysterious past in order to rescue her. Won Bin shines as an action movie protagonist, dispatching foes and tracking down leads with an effortlessly cool demeanor. But the real star is Sae-ron, whose portrayal of a young girl yearning for a sense of companionship and stability in a world teeming with hostility and uncertainty is guaranteed to wrench at your heartstrings until they break. The Man from Nowhere is one of my favorite Korean action movies of all time, and one that I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone looking for an action thriller that has as much emotional staying power as it does blistering gunfire. —TE

The Night Comes for Us

Director: Timo Tjahjanto
Cast: Joe Taslim, Iko Uwais, Julie Estelle

The Night Comes for Us just fucking whips, OK? Why waste time on subtlety and preamble; the film certainly doesn’t! Indonesian action thrillers have been enjoying a renaissance period ever since Gareth Evans’ 2011 film The Raid kicked the door down and mollywhopped everything else in sight. Timo Tjahjanto’s 2018 film certainly follows in the footsteps of Evans’ own, with The Raid star Joe Taslim starring here as Ito, a gangland enforcer who betrays his Triad crime family by sparing the life of a child and attempting to flee the country.

Fellow The Raid star Iko Uwais shows up here as Arian, Ito’s childhood friend and fellow enforcer, who is tasked with hunting down Ito and recovering the girl. The action comes fast and frenzied here, with kinetic choreography and dazzling handheld cinematography that makes every punch, fall, and stab count. If you need to get your adrenaline pumping, throw this one on. —TE

Oblivion

Director: Joseph Kosinski
Cast: Tom Cruise, Morgan Freeman, Olga Kurylenko

Nearly a decade before their work on Top Gun: Maverick, Tom Cruise and director Joseph Kosinski teamed up together for the first time in this post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure. 

Set 60 years after an alien invasion decimated the Earth’s surface, Oblivion stars Cruise as Jack Harper, a technician assigned to oversee the repair and upkeep of massive automated factories dedicated to conserving the planet’s resources. After rescuing a mysterious woman (Olga Kurylenko) from the ruins of an escape pod crash, Jack begins to question whether he’s fighting on the right side of this conflict. As sleek and futuristic in its presentation as Tron: Legacy, Oblivion is a terrific sci-fi action thriller with great performances, imaginative world-building, and jaw-dropping vistas galore. —TE

Phantom Thread

Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville, Vicky Krieps

Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 historical drama Phantom Thread follows the story of Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis), an irascible haute couture dressmaker in 1950s London whose carefully cultivated lifestyle is upset by his ongoing love affair with his muse Alma (Vicky Krieps), a strong-willed woman with ambitions and desires of her own. His final film role to date, Day-Lewis is unsurprisingly masterful in his portrayal of Woodcock as an artist whose capricious infatuations and fastidious inflexibility prove unbearable to all except Alma, who discovers a … let’s say unconventional way of leveling the power dynamic in their relationship. Top that with exquisite score by Jonny Greenwood and beautiful costume designs by Mark Bridges and you’ve got what is undoubtedly one of Anderson’s finest films to date. —TE

RRR

Director: S.S. Rajamouli
Cast: N.T. Rama Rao Jr., Ram Charan, Ajay Devgn

Polygon’s favorite movie of 2022, RRR is an epic bromance for the ages filled to the brim with jaw-dropping action sequences, unforgettable music numbers, and two guys just being dudes. If you can, you should consider watching it in the original Telugu language version on Zee5. If you can’t, the Hindi dub on Netflix is still well worth your time. —PV

The Shadow Strays

Director: Timo Tjahjanto
Cast: Aurora Ribero, Hana Malasan, Taskya Namya

Nearly six years after the release of 2018’s The Night Comes for Us, Timo Tjahjanto has returned with another blistering martial arts crime thriller that confidently reasserts his place as one of his generation’s most prominent action directors. Aurora Ribero stars as “13,” a teenage assassin trained from youth to serve a mysterious organization whose stock and trade is the killing of high-value targets. After failing to complete her latest mission, 13 is put on suspension and sent to Jakarta for psych retraining. After befriending Monji (Ali Fikri), a recently orphaned 11-year-old who is subsequently abducted by a ruthless crime lord, 13 embarks on a mission of vengeance to save the boy and redeem her own conscience.

The Shadow Strays is an excellent spiritual follow-up to The Night Comes for Us, filled with brutal action sequences, dazzling fight choreography, and dark, brooding atmosphere. Here’s hoping that Tjahjanto is given the opportunity to continue carving out his vision for this particular universe, but even barring that, it’s still an exceptional action thriller in and of itself. —TE

Space Sweepers

Director: Jo Sung-hee
Cast: Song Joong-ki, Kim Tae-ri, Jin Seon-kyu

Space Sweepers: Set in the year 2092, Jo Sung-hee’s Space Sweepers follows the crew of freelance garbagemen in space who discover a strange child-like robot named Dorothy containing a nuclear device. Hoping to ransom Dorothy in exchange for enough money to escape their poverty-stricken lives, their plan quickly escalates into a chase to stay one step ahead of the military force of a corrupt corporation. Though it’s far from the most original of sci-fi premises, Space Sweepers is still a visually impressive film with great action and a likable cast of dysfunctional characters with great chemistry. —TE

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Directors: Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson
Cast: Shameik Moore, Hailee Steinfeld, Oscar Isaac

2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was a genuine before-and-after moment in the history of American animation. The film not only introduced a new generation of audiences to Miles Morales, but sent a shockwave through the entire industry through its pioneering approach to CGI animation that drew heavily from the texture and techniques of comic book storytelling. In short, it was a bona fide cultural phenomenon. How exactly do you top that?

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse feels like an answer to that question on several fronts; visually, tonally, and technically. Miles is faced with a personal and moral dilemma in the form of the Spot, a dimension-hopping supervillain whose vendetta against Spider-Man threatens to endanger the entire multiverse. If that weren’t enough, Miles inadvertently runs afoul of Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac), the leader of a group of Spider-People from alternate universes, who believes Miles himself is the source of the problem.

From its spectacular fight sequences to its gorgeous multiversal vistas to its absolutely bangin’ soundtrack, Across the Spider-Verse steps up to the challenge of following up one of most acclaimed American animated films in years and nails it out of the park. It’s a genuine sight to behold. With one more movie on the way, the question circles back: How exactly are they gonna top this? —TE

The Summit of the Gods

Directors: Patrick Imbert
Cast: Lazare Herson-Macarel, Eric Herson-Macarel, Damien Boisseau

This 2021 French-language animated drama centers on Makoto Fukamachi, a tenacious reporter who accidentally stumbles upon the biggest mountaineering story of the century: Proof that George Mallory and Andrew Irvine, not Sir Edmund Hillary, were the first climbers to reach the peak of Mount Everest in 1924. However, his only lead to break the story — an elusive mountain climber known as Habu Joji — has been missing for several years. Poring over the details of Joji’s life in the years preceding his disappearance, Makoto finds himself inadvertently drawn by the very same sense of accomplishment and meaning that has compelled countless climbers to crest Everest themselves.

Based on Jiro Taniguchi’s 2000 manga series, The Summit of the Gods is a gorgeously animated drama about the elusive quest for personal and professional validation and the perils of hubris and selfishness. The backgrounds are spectacular, the character animation is impressive, and the film’s final moments are as exhilarating as they are profoundly edifying. Brace yourself for a film that exemplifies “adult animation,” not as a juvenile display of hyper-violence and superficial titillation, but as a story about what it means to move through the world as an adult and find one’s place and purpose in it. —TE

Transformers

Director: Michael Bay
Cast: Shia LaBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel

Look, it’s easy in the year 2024 to make fun of Michael Bay. We’ve all seen a “but it came out in 2007” mashup video at some point or another, poking fun at the dated (but admittedly kinda hype) Linkin Park needle drop at the end of the first Transformers movie. But when’s the last time you actually sat down to watch the film and actually considered that Bay’s sci-fi action thriller about robots in disguise might actually be fun, if not pretty good? 

Transformers isn’t just a time capsule of post-9/11 culture shock; it’s a surprisingly restrained story about a teenager being thrust into the middle of an international incident with intergalactic stakes. Shia LaBeouf is so charming and unassuming as Sam Witwicky, you’d almost forget we were talking about, yes, that Shia LaBeouf! The choice to cast Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime in the 1980s Transformers cartoon, to reprise his role as the leader of the Autobots was an inspired one, and John Turturro delivers a brief but memorable performance as a frantic secret agent who’s gone on to become a recurring character throughout the franchise. But hey, you don’t have to believe me! Pull up a seat, grab some popcorn, and watch the film for yourself. —TE

Unhinged

Director: Derrick Borte
Cast: Russell Crowe, Caren Pistorius, Gabriel Bateman

Unhinged is a tremendously fun and tremendously mean movie. This car-based thriller follows a young woman (Caren Pistorius) who is having a terrible day. She woke up late and now her whole schedule is behind, including dropping her son (Gabriel Bateman) off at school and trying to get to her job on time. In her harried rush to work, she honks at the driver of a massive pickup truck. Unfortunately for her, the driver of his truck happens to be a very dangerous man (Russell Crowe) who just finished murdering his wife, and he decides he needs to teach her a lesson next. It’s an absolutely terrifying ride that might make you think twice before you honk at a red light. —AG

Upgrade

Director: Leigh Whannell
Cast: Logan Marshall-Green, Betty Gabriel, Harrison Gilbertson

Sci-fi dystopias are rarely as fun as Leigh Whannell’s fiendishly gory cyberpunk film. Set in the not-so-distant future, Upgrade centers on the story of Grey, an auto mechanic who is rendered a quadriplegic after suffering a near-fatal gunshot from a gang of men responsible for murdering his wife. Now, I know what you’re thinking, that doesn’t sound fun at all; it isn’t.

The fun part actually kicks in when Grey is implanted with an experimental AI-assisted prosthesis that, in addition to restoring his ability to walk, also grants him the power to kick some serious ass — though at the expense of granting the AI complete, albeit momentary, control over his body. The real shining quality of Upgrade is not just its production design, with futuristic interior architecture juxtaposed with dilapidated urban environments and abandoned factory floors, but its inventive fight cinematography and camerawork using a smartphone and an ARRI ALEXA Mini camera. It’s certainly not a joyful film by any stretch of the imagination, but Upgrade’s action sequences alone are exhilarating and entertaining enough to make it worth watching the entire film as a whole, which I gotta say, is not bad at all. —TE

Whiplash

Director: Damien Chazelle
Cast: Miles Teller, J.K. Simmons, Paul Reiser

Whiplash follows a gifted jazz drummer, Andrew (Miles Teller), who gets into the college jazz band of his dreams, only to find out that the man running the program demands absolute commitment and perfection from his musicians and is willing to do almost anything to get it. This is one of the best movies ever made about the obsessive drive for greatness. The fine line that J.K. Simmons’ Terence walks between molding Andrew into a truly great musician and destroying him completely is hypnotizing to watch, and gives the film one of the best finales of any movie of the last 10 years. —Austen Goslin

Wingwomen

Director: Mélanie Laurent
Cast: Mélanie Laurent, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Manon Bresch

There’s a place for movies like Alien, where a script written for a male lead character was left unchanged when a woman was cast in the role. But there’s also a place for movies like Wingwomen, an action comedy that thrives in its specificity around its characters and their experiences as women in our world.

In Wingwomen, Carole (director-star Mélanie Laurent of Inglourious Basterds) has a very close and protective relationship with younger Alex (Adèle Exarchopoulos) — a found family situation. They are both caught in the web of crime lord Marraine (Isabelle Adjani) and looking for a way out. When they meet a new member of their team — skilled racer Sam (Manon Bresch) — they see an opportunity for one last score to break away from their life of crime and live peacefully together.

Fun, exciting, and endearing, you will not have more fun at the movies than watching Wingwomen. I wish for 20 more years of Laurent directing and starring in fun genre pictures — especially if they also star Exarchopoulos, who between this and Passages delivered two of the most memorable performances of 2023. —PV