Netflix has been releasing feature-length original films ever since 2015’s Beasts of No Nation, but the streaming service didn’t become truly impressive until 2019, when its slate was stocked with genre gems and big-stakes theatrical releases. In between, the streaming behemoth has unleashed movies that range from cheesy Adam Sandler comedies to harrowing allegories about factory farming, all in an effort to revolutionize the way you watch movies and TV.
Naturally, some Netflix originals are better than others. These are the best movies the platform has to offer (excluding documentaries), a ranking that will change and evolve as Netflix continues its all-out push into original programming in 2020. Once you’ve made your way through these titles, you can also check out our ranking of Netflix’s best original TV shows.
The Last Days of American Crime (2020)
As a final response to terrorism and crime, the U.S. government plans to broadcast a signal making it impossible for anyone to knowingly commit unlawful acts. Graham Bricke (Édgar Ramírez), a career criminal who was never able to hit the big score, teams up with famous gangster progeny Kevin Cash (Michael Pitt), and black market hacker Shelby Dupree (Anna Brewster), to commit the heist of the century and the last crime in American history before the signal goes off. Based on the Radical Publishing graphic novel created by Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini, The Last Days of American Crime is directed by Olivier Megaton, written by Karl Gajdusek, produced by Jesse Berger, p.g.a., Jason Michael Berman, p.g.a., and Barry Levine, with Sharlto Copley also co-starring.
Extraction (2020)
Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) is a fearless black market mercenary with nothing left to lose when his skills are solicited to rescue the kidnapped son of an imprisoned international crime lord. But in the murky underworld of weapons dealers and drug traffickers, an already deadly mission approaches the impossible, forever altering the lives of Rake and the boy.
Tigertail (2020)
Master of None co-creator Alan Yang makes his directorial feature debut with Tigertail, in which he loosely adapts his own father’s life. It’s a tight film that’s nonetheless epic in scale as it follows a man named Pin-Jui from his childhood as a young boy in Taiwan into his middle age in America. Yang jumps back and forth in time, as the present-day Pin-Jui (played in a wonderful, understated performance by Tzi Ma) reflects on his past. It’s a tricky balancing act. The scenes of his life as a young adult as he bonds with his first love are flush with color, which fades as he settles into the rhythms of a passionless marriage in New York. At times Tigertail can feel like a condensed version of a much longer saga, and indeed that was sort of the case as Yang whittled down an over 200 page draft. Still, Yang has crafted a vivid tale about the immigrant experience, regret, and the bonds between generations.
Triple Frontier (2019)
Filmmaker J.C. Chandor, who previously directed the macho, Mamet-lite finance crisis drama Margin Call and the sleepy, Pacino-aping crime thriller A Most Violent Year, directs an outstanding ensemble cast in this action-thriller. The burly squad of ex-military commandos pulled together by Oscar Isaac’s Santiago Garcia, a private contractor overseeing deadly drug enforcement operations in Colombia, is a ragtag team of action movie archetypes: There’s the sad, real-estate-selling divorced dad who looks like he’d rather be vaping (Ben Affleck); the noble, buff warrior stuck giving rote speeches about his past glories (Charlie Hunnam); the taciturn, hat-wearing helicopter pilot the filmmakers didn’t bother outfitting with a backstory (Pedro Pascal); and the other dude (Garrett Hedlund) who does amateur MMA fights. Together, they decide to rob a drug kingpin hiding out in the South American jungle, but obviously things don’t always go according to plan.
6 Underground (2019)
What’s the best part of being dead? It isn’t escaping your boss, your ex, or even erasing your criminal record. The best part about being dead…is the freedom. The freedom to fight the injustice and evil that lurk in our world without anyone or anything to slow you down or tell you “no.” 6 Underground introduces a new kind of action hero. Six individuals from all around the globe, each the very best at what they do, have been chosen not only for their skill, but for a unique desire to delete their pasts to change the future. The team is brought together by an enigmatic leader (Ryan Reynolds), whose sole mission in life is to ensure that, while he and his fellow operatives will never be remembered, their actions damn sure will.
Drive (2019)
Drive stars Jacqueline Fernandez as Tara, the oomph-oozing leader of a car racing gang that carries out heists when not burning up the asphalt. Tara and her posse are eyeing a gold consignment stolen by the mysterious criminal King. The latest entrant to the group, played by Sushant Singh Rajput, comes up with various schemes to get to the metal.
Meanwhile, a corrupt bureaucrat (Vibha Chibber) and her henchman (Pankaj Tripathi) have to co-operate with an investigating officer (Boman Irani), who is also on the trail of King and the gold. The grubby-handed duo have hidden their ill-gotten gains in the basement of Rashtrapati Bhavan (yes, the same one). The convoluted script finds a way to link King’s gold with the Rashtrapati Bhavan trove. As identities are forged and CCTV cameras are hacked, the movie sputters its way to oblivion.
The Irishman (2019)
Opening with a tracking shot through the halls of a drab nursing home, where we meet a feeble old man telling tall tales from his wheelchair, The Irishman delights in undercutting its own grandiosity. All the pageantry a $150 million check from Netflix can buy — the digital de-aging effects, the massive crowd scenes, the shiny rings passed between men — is on full display. Everything looks tremendous. But, like with 2013’s The Wolf of Wall Street, the characters can’t escape the fundamental spiritual emptiness of their pursuits. In telling the story of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), a World War II veteran and truck driver turned mob enforcer and friend to labor leader Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), director Martin Scorsese and screenwriter Steven Zaillian construct an underworld-set counter-narrative of late 20th century American life. With an eye on the clock and a foot in the grave, the movie is profoundly fixated on death, even introducing select side characters with onscreen text that notes the circumstances of their eventual demise. (The Irishman can be darkly, wickedly funny when it’s not devastatingly sad.) That stark awareness of mortality, an understanding that’s cleverly reflected in the film’s quasi-road-movie flashback structure, distinguishes it from Scorsese’s more outwardly frenetic gangster epics like Goodfellas and Casino, which also starred De Niro and Pesci, who gives the movie’s most surprising performance here. Even with a 209 minute runtime, every second counts.
Marriage Story (2019)
Returning to the topic of 2005’s caustic comedy The Squid and the Whale, which tracked the fallout of a divorce from the perspective of children, writer and director Noah Baumbach again finds laughter and pain in the often excruciating personal details of ending a relationship. This time, the bickering couple — a Brooklyn-dwelling actress and a theater director played with tenderness and anger by Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver — takes center stage. Instead of watching the two fall in and out of love, the story opens with the separation already in motion, allowing Baumbach to focus on the soul-sucking, money-draining legal shitstorm that follows. While Driver and Johansson are both excellent in tricky, emotionally demanding roles, some of the sharpest moments come courtesy of their attorneys, collaborators, and extended families. (Laura Dern and Alan Alda have rightfully earned praise for their parts, but I’d watch Ray Liotta’s gruff divorce expert in his own spin-off.) In showing how divorce ripples outward, Marriage Story complicates its own simple premise as it progresses.
High Flying Bird (2019)
High Flying Bird is a basketball film that has little to do with the sport itself, instead focusing on the behind-the-scenes power dynamics playing out during a lockout. At the center of the Steven Soderbergh movie — shot on an iPhone, because that’s what he does now — is André Holland’s Ray Burke, a sports agent trying to protect his client’s interests while also disrupting a corrupt system. It’s not an easy tightrope to walk, and, as you might expect, the conditions of the labor stoppage constantly change the playing field. With his iPhone mirroring the NBA’s social media-heavy culture, and appearances from actual NBA stars lending the narrative heft, Soderbergh experiments with Netflix’s carte blanche and produces a unique film that adds to the streaming service’s growing list of critical hits.
Velvet Buzzsaw (2019)
Netflix’s “ludicrously fun and gory art-world satire” sees director and screenwriter Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler) team up with Jake Gyllenhaal in a thriller that rips apart the effete Los Angeles art world. While pricey auctions and pretentious collectors are relatively low-hanging fruit, Gilroy, Gyllenhaal, and Rene Russo bring a fast-paced humor that makes the plot — an outsider artist’s haunted work starts killing people — more tolerable than you might think. Oh, and names like Morf, Rhodora, and Ventril elevate the film’s self-aware kitschiness, which makes the satire even more cutting.
Bird Box (2018)
When a mysterious force decimates the world’s population, only one thing is certain: if you see it, you take your life. Facing the unknown, Malorie finds love, hope and a new beginning only for it to unravel. Now she must flee with her two children down a treacherous river to the one place left that may offer sanctuary. But to survive, they’ll have to undertake the perilous two-day journey blindfolded. Academy Award winner Sandra Bullock leads an all-star cast that includes Trevante Rhodes, with Sarah Paulson, and John Malkovich in BIRD BOX, a compelling new thriller from Academy Award winner Susanne Bier.
Apostle (2018)
For his follow-up to his two action epics, The Raid and The Raid 2, director Gareth Evans dials back the hand-to-hand combat but still keeps a few buckets of blood handy in this grisly supernatural horror tale. Dan Stevens stars as Thomas Richardson, an early 20th century opium addict traveling to a cloudy island controlled by a secretive cult that’s fallen on hard times. The religious group is led by a bearded scold named Father Malcolm (Michael Sheen) who may or may not be leading his people astray. Beyond a few bursts of kinetic violence and some crank-filled torture sequences, Evans plays this story relatively down-the-middle, allowing the performances, the lofty themes, and the windswept vistas to do the talking. It’s a cult movie that earns your devotion slowly, then all at once.
Roma (2018)
All those billions Netflix spent will likely pay off in the form of several Oscar nominations for Roma, including one for Best Picture. Whether experienced in the hushed reverence of a theater, watched on the glowing screen of a laptop, or, as Netflix executive Ted Sarandos has suggested, binged on the perilous surface of a phone, Alfonso Cuarón’s black-and-white passion project seeks to stun. A technical craftsman of the highest order, the Children of Men and Gravity director has an aesthetic that aims to overwhelm — with the amount of extras, the sense of despair, and the constant whir of exhilaration — and this autobiographical portrait of kind-hearted maid Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) caring for a family in the early 1970s has been staged on a staggering, mind-boggling scale. Cuarón’s artful pans aren’t just layered for the sake of complexity: He’s often placing different emotions, historical concepts, and class distinctions in conversation with each other. What are these different components in the painstakingly composed shots actually saying to each other? That remains harder to parse. Still, there’s an image of Cleo and the family eating ice cream together after a devastating dinner in the foreground while a wedding takes place in the background that you won’t be able to shake. The movie is filled with compositions like that, tinged with careful ambiguity and unresolvable tensions.
Calibre (2018)
More than two men going on a vacation together in a horror film is never a good idea. Calibre, a horror tale that follows two childhood friends on a hunting trip in the Scottish Highlands, is a clever and tense entry in this long tradition of male bonding gone haywire. Father-to-be Vaughn (Jack Lowden) and his gruffer buddy Marcus (Martin McCann) aren’t as close as they used to be, but the trip loosens them up and rekindles their friendship. After a tragic accident occurs in the woods, Marcus makes a decision that the more reserved, contemplative Vaughn regrets. Director Matt Palmer finds psychological nuance in this well-trodden material, making a familiar hike feel like a brand new journey into the unknown.
The Killer (2017)
This Brazilian western (O Matador in Portuguese) tells the story of Cabeleira, a recluse who, after seeking the fate of his gunslinging father, becomes a feared killer in his own right. Written and directed by Marcelo Galvão, The Killer unspools with the same kind of wonder as a fairy tale (with narration to boot). While its characters are very much the stuff of legend, their adventures are much grittier and more soaked in blood than you might anticipate. While some of the movie’s quirks occasionally fall flat, it’d be a mistake to ignore altogether. Thanks to its taut run time and spellbinding story, The Killer makes for the perfect weeknight watch if you’re looking for a discovery that’s a little off the beaten path.
War Machine (2017)
Based on the late Michael Hastings book The Operators, War Machine finds Brad Pitt goofing hard on General Stanley McChrystal, who served as Commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan from June 2009 to June 2010. Pitt’s character, General Glen McMahon, is a tough-as-nails American warlord whose bureaucratic skills echo both Patton and Popeye, but who finds he still can’t make headway in the confusing chaos of Middle Eastern conflict. McMahon makes decisions, occasionally wild ones worth of his yuk-yuk-yuk persona, and they ripple through global politics. Doesn’t matter. As director David Michôd (The Rover, Animal Kingdom) demonstrates through spotty satire and pristine war footage, even the best SEAL team fighters, the highest-ranking strategists, and the support of the President of the United States don’t get you far if no one understood the conflict at hand in the first place.
Okja (2017)
This wild ride, written and directed by Bong Joon-ho (Parasite, Snowpiercer), is part action heist, part Miyazaki-like travelogue, and part scathing satire. It’s fueled by fairy tale whimsy — but the Grimm kind, where there are smiles and spilled blood. Ahn Seo-hyun plays Mija, the young keeper of a “super-pig,” bred by a food manufacturer to be the next step in human-consumption evolution. When the corporate overlords come for her roly-poly pal, Mija hightails it from the farm to the big city to break him out, crossing environmental terrorists, a zany Steve Irwin-type (Jake Gyllenhaal), and the icy psychos at the top of the food chain (including Swinton’s childlike CEO) along the way. Okja won’t pluck your heartstrings like E.T, but there’s grandeur in its frenzy, and the film’s cross-species friendship will strike up every other emotion with its empathetic, eco-friendly, and eccentric observations.
The Ritual (2017)
How many times can four unsuspecting chumps trek through uncharted, shadowy woods before learning that one should never trek through uncharted, shadowy woods? Let’s hope there’s no answer. Director David Bruckner rewires the “cabin in the woods” premise to tell the story of four friends grieving the murder of their fifth, and the Swedish backpacking adventure that shotguns their asses into the mouth of Hell. Overgrown with atmosphere, creepy corpse art, and a monstrous presence well-worth the tapered, Jaws-like reveal, The Ritual questions of faith and fate with a wicked sense of what makes horror brutality so entertaining.
Tallulah (2016)
From Orange Is the New Black writer Sian Heder, Tallulah follows the title character (played by Ellen Page) after she inadvertently “kidnaps” a toddler from an alcoholic rich woman and passes the child off as her own to appeal to her run-out boyfriend’s mother (Allison Janney). A messy knot of familial woes and wayward instincts, Heder’s directorial debut achieves the same kind of balancing act as her hit Netflix series — frank social drama with just the right amount of humorous hijinks. As Tallulah grows into a mother figure, her on-the-lam parenting course only makes her more and more of a criminal in the eyes of… just about everyone. You want to root for her, but that would be too easy.
Barry (2016)
In 1981, Barack Obama touched down in New York City to begin work at Columbia University. As Barry imagines, just days after settling into his civics class, a white classmate confronts the Barry with an argument one will find in the future President’s Twitter @-mentions: “Why does everything always got to be about slavery?” Exaltation is cinematic danger, especially when bringing the life of a sitting President to screen. Barry avoids hagiography by staying in the moment, weighing race issues of a modern age and quieting down for the audience to draw its own conclusions. Terrell is key, steadying his character as smooth-operating, socially active, contemplative fellow stuck in an interracial divide. Barry could be any half-black, half-white kid from the ’80s. But in this case, he’s haunted by past, present, and future.
Sand Storm (2016)
Israeli director Elite Zexer’s debut is a slow-paced reimagining of classic forbidden love stories, set in a Bedouin village in southern Israel. Layla is a young woman whose love interest is outside the tribe, much to her mother Jalila’s consternation. Jalila has enough of her own problems, as her husband, Suliman, has just married a second bride. There’s nothing romantic about love in Sand Storm, however, with most of the action focusing on the grueling everyday existence of Bedouin life: hanging up laundry, restarting a generator, constantly cleaning and cooking and dealing with family drama. What it lacks in action it makes up for in attention to detail.