Remember when Netflix had just one original film? It was called “Beasts of No Nation,” starred Idris Elba and was released in the faraway …
Remember when Netflix had just one original film? It was called “Beasts of No Nation,” starred Idris Elba and was released in the faraway days of 2015. That was it. Six years later, the streaming giant plans to release at least 72 movies in 2021, it announced Tuesday in a surprise teaser trailer. And that huge number doesn’t even factor in additional projects that might pop up — like last year’s “Death to 2020” — or film festival acquisitions, such as “Mucho Mucho Amor,” “The Forty-Year-Old Version” and “His House” that Netflix bought at Sundance in 2020. This year, the streamer promises at least one movie every week. It’s almost like ABC’s dusty old television anthology Movie of the Week, but instead of Ernest Borgnine and Cheryl Ladd, we get Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence. There are other big names, too: Timothée Chalamet, Brad Pitt, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Idris Elba (twice!), Halle Berry, Viola Davis and many more. Here are some of the most promising Netflix films coming to your couch in 2021. The release dates have not yet been announced.21st Century Fox had planned to release this Amy Adams thriller before the famed studio was bought by Disney. Now the film — written by the ferocious, smart Tracy Letts — about a New York psychiatrist whose neighbor goes missing, will head straight to streaming instead. It also stars Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore, Brian Tyree Henry and Anthony Mackie. Joe Wright directs. Marilyn Monroe is an unjustly ignored historical figure. Just kidding! A bunch of actresses have played the Hollywood legend already — Michelle Williams, Ashley Judd and Barbara Niven among them.
