Netflix Original movies: from the sublime to the ridiculous.
When Netflix first launched as a mail-order DVD rental service, making movies was not part of the plan – and why would it have been? In the early 21st century, going direct-to-video was considered the kiss of death for a film, and few self-respecting Hollywood stars would voluntarily make the move away from the big screen.
Times have changed, however, and these days there’s no shame in making films for a streaming platform – in fact, it’s something Hollywood’s biggest players have embraced wholesale. Regularly throwing blockbuster-sized budgets at its movies, Netflix attracts some of the biggest names in cinema to work on its original movies, with the A-list likes of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver all making films under the Netflix banner.
Now that movies like The Irishman, Roma and Marriage Story have become major contenders in awards season conversations, Netflix has taken its seat at Hollywood’s top table. While it’s quite the success story, however, its movies don’t always get it right…
So we’ve put together a list of 10 of the best Netflix Original movies you can watch right now – and, for balance, we’ve also picked out 5 of the worst you might want to avoid, which you’ll find at the bottom of this page.
Yes, the CG technology used to turn Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci into younger men is a game-changer, but if that’s all you take away from The Irishman you’re missing the point. Martin Scorsese’s return to the gangster genre that made his name undoubtedly lacks the energy of the genre-defining Goodfellas and Casino, and at three-and-a-half hours gets perilously close to overstaying its welcome. Nonetheless, the leisurely pacing feels appropriate in a movie that’s as much about ageing as it is offing your rivals. Proof that some of the most important movies in Hollywood are now being made by Netflix.
Marriage Story scrapped with The Irishman on this year’s awards circuit – indeed, with Laura Dern picking up an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress, it was arguably more successful. The Squid and the Whale/Frances Ha writer-director Noah Baumbach crafts the perfect falling-out-of-love story, an anti-romance that charts the painful divorce of a couple of New Yorkers. It’s sometimes excruciating to watch, but Baumbach latches onto the humanity of his characters to find the tenderness in their story, with stars Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver both on mesmerizing form.
With this decade seeing wins for Alejandro Iñárritu (Birdman, The Revenant), Guillermo del Toro (The Shape of Water) and Alfonso Cuarón himself (Gravity), Mexican filmmakers had already made their mark on the best director Academy Award by the time Cuarón helmed the brilliant Roma. Even so, this semi-autobiographical story about growing up in 1970s Mexico City still managed to break new ground as one of the first Netflix movies to hit big at the Oscars. Shot in gorgeous black-and-white, it’s a heartfelt, low-key masterpiece that would have been a much more deserving recipient of the big prize than eventual victor Green Book.
Despite an eclectic career that’s seen them dabbling in film noir, screwball comedy and the Dude, the closest the Coen brothers had previously come to the small screen was the superlative Fargo TV spin-off (which they didn’t make).
