The 55 Best Netflix Original Movies

Think about the best movie you've seen in the last few years. The Power of the Dog, Roma, Beyoncé's Homecoming. Yeah, they're all Netflix Original films. It's wild to think that Netflix only just got into the filmmaking game in 2015 with Beasts of No Nation. It feels as though it's been here since Ilsa walked into Rick's gin joint all those years ago. Okay, maybe not that long ago, but you get the idea. For about seven years, the streaming giant has showed zero signs of slowing down, elevating its slate of buzzy originals every year, with accolades getting super serious in 2019 when Roma, Marriage Story, The Irishman, and more saw legit runs on the awards circuit, culminating in Oscar nominations and wins. Which brings us to our superlative list: the best Original Netflix movies. Because the streamer has more than 1,500 Originals to peruse, we thought we'd do the curation work for you. From animated allegories and innovative horror to profound dramas and crowd-pleasing comedies, we've got the goods ahead. Keep scrolling for 55 of the very best Netflix Originals with quick links to watch each of them stat.

By now, you’re aware of the recent rom-com renaissance. A resurgence of the romantic comedy (and a time period we’re still actually kind of living in -> Marry Me, I Want You Back), the rebirth saw not just the genre make a comeback, but also reinventions and even innovative takes on the classic. Always Be My Maybe is precisely one of those elevated gems. Starring Ali Wong and Randall Park as Sasha and Marcus, the narrative follows two old friends as they think about maybe taking their friendship to new places.

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The shocking and vile USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal that rocked the world is explored in depth in this award-winning documentary film. The directors follow the lead of the Indianapolis Star reporters who broke the news that Larry Nassar had been sexually abusing gymnasts for two decades, explores the coverup at the highest levels, and hears from the victims, including Maggie Nichols, Rachael Denhollander, and Jessica Howard.

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A supernatural refugee story wrapped in a coming-of-age romance, Atlantics is a gorgeous masterpiece from French-Senegalese director Mati Diop. The story unfolds around Ada and Souleiman, lovers who are kept apart by uncontrollable forces. When Souleiman jumps a ship for Spain to leave his small coastal suburb in Dakar for a better future, Ada is crushed. That is, until she feels his ghost all around her.

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Netflix began its movie-making journey with this wartime drama about a West African boy forced into mercenary fighting. The platform recruited big names for its inaugural undertaking, too, with Cary Fukunaga taking the wheel, Idris Elba starring, and future Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos producing. Making his feature debut, Abraham Atta, then 14 years old, doesn’t flinch while playing child soldier Agu, his emotionally demanding performance earning critical praise and film awards alike.

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Despite the unfortunate (and dangerous) TikTok challenge the film inspired, Bird Box remains one of the best (and best-performing) originals produced by the Netflix studio. Directed by Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier, the postapocalyptic horror story watches Bullock’s Malorie and two children flee some unknown global killer—an evil that when seen causes the onlooker to commit some form of brutal suicide (hence the necessary blindfolds). Beyond the scares, Bier’s film is propelled by themes of humanity, emotion, and the disconnect both can cause.

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Inside his guest house during peak pandemic days, comedian-actor-musician-wonderboy Bo Burnham crafted one of the strangest, coolest, funniest musical docs you'll ever see. The contents of the film take place over the year 2020—you remember that one; it's when we all had to stay inside every single day for fear of spreading a certain virus—and Burnham's self-produced songs cover everything from white women on Instagram to FaceTimeing with his mom.

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The second documentary spawned from Netflix's partnership with the Obamas' production company, Higher Ground, Crip Camp set out to do for the disability rights movement what The Times of Harvey Milk did for gay rights. And hopefully, they'll acheive their goal. Told through archival footage, interviews, and a groovy soundtrack, the doc introduces you to the trailblazers who challenged the status quo and ignited a revolutionary movement.

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Spike Lee explores the Black Vietnam vet's experience in his latest joint. Recruiting a stellar cast including Jonathan Majors, Delroy Lindo, and Clarke Peters, Lee's film jumps around in time, as his core cast returns to the site of the war to retreive the remains of their squad leader. In true Lee form, the script doesn't flinch, attacking race, agony, and the effects of war head-on.

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Get ready to cry. Hardly the morbid watch its title might suggest, Kirsten Johnson's highly personal documentary is actually a cinematic celebration of life, and death, in particular that of her father, Richard Johnson. Instructed by his daughter, Dick enacts fantastical, sometimes brutal, ways in which he could die. Funny, thoughtful, whimsical, the documentary is the creative outlet Kirsten uses to process her father's real-life dementia. So, like we said, get ready to shed some big fat tears.

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Laverne Cox, whose role in Orange Is the New Black catapulted her to fame, gives her fellow trans actors the spotlight with Disclosure. Chronicling 100 years of trans representation onscreen, the doc is the brainchild of Cox, Mj Rodriguez, Lilly Wachowski, Chaz Bono, and others, and tracks the evolution of trans stories in film and television. No matter your pronouns, this one is essential viewing for our modern times.

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Eddie Murphy makes a triumphant return to movies with Dolemite, a raucous biopic about the man, the myth, the legend who is Rudy Ray Moore. Just a refresher: Moore reinvented himself as Dolemite, a kung fu-fighting pimp who left an indelible mark on the Blaxploitation film industry. Directed by Hustle & Flow's Craig Brewer and costarring Wesley Snipes, Keegan-Michael Key, and others, the movie gives Murphy the stage to flex every fiber of his acting chops: Enjoy.

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Adam McKay is no stranger to provocative comedies—he has The Big Short’s Margot Robbie explaining mortgage-backed bonds from a bubble bath, after all—so a doomsday satire that holds a mirror up to our current sociopolitical climate is no doubt right up his alley. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence steer the ship here as astronomers who have spotted a comet heading straight for Earth. It’s a discovery some take seriously, and one that others see as just, well, fake news.

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Jennifer Aniston teams up with rising star Danielle Macdonald (Patti Cakes, Bird Box, Unbelievable) for a Southern-fried pageant comedy that flips the antiquated tradition on its perfectly coiffed head. Macdonald plays Willadean (a.k.a. Dumplin'), the daughter of Aniston's Rosie, a former beauty queen, and armed with the tunes of Dolly Parton and the advice from some fairy godmother drag queens, she enters a beauty pageant as a protest.

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You didn't think Jesse was just going to ride off into the night, never to be heard from again, did you? Breaking Bad fans—especially those partial to Pinkman—will be delighted to know that the story doesn't end with the fifth season finale. In El Camino, the story picks up with Jesse on the run, hoping to get a new life courtesy of a very peculiar Hoover vacuum salesman, recommended by none other than Saul Goodman.

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The classic Sherlock Holmes movies get an updated installment in the form of a fast-paced action flick with a feminsit bent. Millie Bobby Brown of Stranger Things fame takes the lead, with Henry Cavill, a.k.a. Superman, riding shotgun. The two play siblings Enola and Sherlock Holmes, with Enola setting out on a mission to find their missing mother, outwitting every dangerous encounter along the way.

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A single viewing of this Will Ferrell-Rachel McAdams musical gem is simply not enough. Ferrell and McAdams play Lars and Sigrit, two Iceland singing hopefuls whose band, Fire Saga, has just been chosen to represent their country at Eurovision, a global song competition that celebrates diversity. A stellar soundtrack from Reykjavík rockers Sigur Rós and glorious cameos from real-life Eurovision alums, this one just has so much to love and celebrate.

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The first one. No, the third one! Good luck deciding which installment of the hit Fear Street trilogy is best. Because achieving the nearly impossible feat, all three films of this trio are great. They begin with our Shadyside crew, led by Kiana Madeira as Deena, fighting to survive a witch and end in 1666 exploring the origin of the curse, all while elevating R.L. Stein's original content with the socio-political commentary fit for today.

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If you're a fan of the streaming platform's Haunting franchise, then don't miss out on this Mike Flanagan gem. A two-hander that stars Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood, it starts out like all Flanagan stories: benign and serene, with feelings of horror simmering just below the surface. Of course, if you're a seasoned fan, you know he's laying the groundwork for a narrative packed with twists, turns, and surprises. Such is Gerald's Game.

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One of the best horror movies you'll find on digital shelves, His House is a refugee story shrouded in a haunted house tale. You have Sudanese couple Bol and Rial, who survived the treacherous journey to England from war-torn Sudan and are trying to start a new life. Interrupting their adjustment: ghosts, demons, and past regrets. Remi Weekes's ambitious debut is everything you want in a late-night chiller, and more.

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Leave it to Queen Bey to keep us entirely enthralled for two-plus hours. Way more than your conventional concert doc, Homecoming, directed by the superstar herself, along with the award-winning Ed Burke, charts Beyoncé's journey to Coachella 2018, when she became the first Black woman to headline the fest, and is a sexy, powerful, furious, euphoric tribute to Black excellence. All hail the queen.

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We never saw Rose Byrne and Hilary Swank joining forces for a space thriller coming, but by all means, put us down for that—and the sequel (should the Netflix gods grace us with one). Set in a world devoid of human life, this subtle chamber piece unravels via Daughter (Clara Rugaard), a teenage girl who is raised by a robot named Mother (voiced by Byrne). All is good until an unwelcome visitor (Swank) shows up, challenging everything Daughter thinks she knows.

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Told from the point of view of a severed hand (don't worry, it's not gory), this French gem is essentially a comment on life after tragedy. Yes, it is animated, but it's crafted with mature imagery and poignant narratives, so much so you might consider it the most adult film you've seen in a long time. Story-wise, a hand sets out to find its owner, while a guy tries to woo a girl. Both stories are connected, but you have to wait until the final 10 minutes or so to find out exactly how.

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There's no two ways around it: The works of Charlie Kaufman are a challenge. And his latest, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, a surreal and snowy trek through the mind of a woman who wants to ditch her boyfriend, is no exception. But when you have Jesse Plemmons and Jessie Buckley in the driver's seat, it makes the director's enigmatic head-scratcher go down a bit easier.

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A quiet sleeper hit you may have missed when it premiered in 2018, Lionheart is a Nigerian crowd-pleaser about a woman who challenges the status quo in a male-dominated world. It's directed by Nollywood icon Genevieve Nnaji, who also stars as Adaeze. When Adaeze's father steps down from running the family business, she steps up to the plate. The result is a comforting, funny, and full-of-heart film.

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Watching Viola Davis deliver a sweaty, swaggering performance as blues legend Ma Rainey in George C. Wolf's single-set film is an experience in itself. She's gritty, she's mesmerizing, she's Viola Davis. Amazingly, however, the film delivers not one but several outstanding performances, specifically the brash and transformative trumpeter played by Chadwick Boseman. The brilliant piece of acting would also be his last, as he died from cancer shortly after filming.

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The movie industry definitely felt the pains of the pandemic, but certain films found a way to work with the constraints, and even excelled in the process. Sam Levinson's Malcolm & Marie is one of those films. It stars Zendaya and John David Washington as a couple who spend a night fighting, making up, and then fighting some more. And beyond some stunning formalwear worn by Zendaya, we're treated to two actors blossoming in their craft right before our very eyes.

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David Fincher puts his trademark psychological thriller on the back burner, and this time gives the dramedy biopic a go with Mank. Starring Gary Oldman, Lily Collins, and Amanda Seyfried, the film is essentially a dedication to the writer of Citizen Kane, a brilliant yet erratic man who suffered from alcoholism, but, really, the movie is just an excuse to let the stellar cast do what they do best.

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Even though the tears will probably flow while watching Adam Driver’s Charlie and Scarlett Johansson’s Nicole go through the stages of marriage and divorce, you will actually find yourself laughing a lot too. Noah Baumbach’s Oscar-nominated script, which is loosely based on his own split from fellow actor Jennifer Jason Leigh, takes a look at the dissolution of a relationship not through a “conscious uncoupling” lens, but rather a very real and very raw human one. The results are at once devastating and hilarious.

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If you don't know her by name yet, let's change that now. Dee Rees is one of cinema's most masterful voices, with works like Pariah and Bessie demanding attention. Here, with Mudbound, Rees tells another compelling story: Two men—one white, one Black—return home to Mississippi from WWII only to find a race war being waged at their feet.

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Sometimes a woman need say nothing at all but let out a long, deep sigh. We hear you, Manana, clear as a bell. Overworked, overstressed, and mentally strained, 52-year-old Manana is over it: She's done waiting on her husband and children, she's beyond tolerating her parents, and she's exhausted from carrying the weight put on her by her multigenerational Georgian family. So she leaves. And self-discovery begins.

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It's not every day you fall in love with an octopus. But just a few minutes spent with Craig Foster and his little tentacled wonder will no doubt do you in. Set over the course of one year, the award-winning nature documentary sheds light on the unlikely friendship Foster nurtures with the wild creature living in a South African kelp forest. And it's exactly the soother we all need right now.

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Jake Gyllenhaal is one of the best character actors working today. And as zoologist Johnny Wilcox in South Korea’s Okja, he gives us another bonkers character to dissect. But he’s not even the best part of this adventure film. That honor goes to Mija (An Seo Hyun), a little girl determined to free her pet superpig, named Okja, from the clutches of a villainous livestock company, led by self-obsessed CEO Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton).

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A vibrant celebration of Chinese culture, Over the Moon tells the story of a little girl named Fei Fei who sets out to prove that the goddess in the moon, Chinese deity Cheng E, really does exist. Fueled by the mythical stories her late mother told her, Fei Fei builds her very own rocket ship and blasts off on a journey filled with music, fantasy, and even romance. An easygoing watch, this one is also a visual achievement that caught the attention of the Academy last year.

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Rebecca Hall, whose own mother passed as white when she was growing up, makes her directorial debut with this black-and-white adaptation of the same-name 1929 novel by Nella Larson. It stars Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson as Clare and Irene, respectively, mixed-race childhood friends whose adulthood reunion threatens to shatter the lives they’ve both built. And it snagged several BAFTA nominations, including Outstanding Debut by a British filmmaker.

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If Kathryn Hahn is in it, we're watching it. A talented comedian who can find the hilarity in truths as sobering as infertility, she stars in the latest gloomy comedy from Tamara Jenkins (The Savages, Slums of Beverly Hills) alongside Paul Giamatti. The two play a couple going through in vitro fertilization in an effort to get pregnant, all the while stretching the boundaries of their relationship.

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A gorgeously shot love letter to “all the women who raised him,” Alfonso Cuarón’s autobiographical Roma chronicles one family’s experience living in Colonia Roma, Mexico City, in the year 1970 when the country was experiencing strong economic growth, a time dubbed the Mexican Miracle. Most of the film unfolds through the family’s domestic worker, Cleo—her ebbs, her flows, her harsh realities. It will make you smile, it will make you cry, it will make you want to call your mother.

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Another solid contribution to the rom-com renaissance, Claire Scanlon's Set It Up sees Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell play Harper and Charlie, two assistants who set up their miserable workaholic bosses (played by Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs, respectively), hoping that the love fog that comes with a new relationship will ease their workplace woes. Side note: Mr. Buzzyworthy, Pete Davidson, makes a cameo.

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Don’t judge a movie by its title: This isn’t the home-invasion thriller of yesteryear. There’s no battered babysitter, no psycho stalker, no trope-y ’80s clichés in sight—except for those being completely slashed and reimagined by their director. Instead, what we have here is a genre-blending good time about a diabolical beauty (Samara Weaving) who will stop at nothing to keep her Satan-worshipping cult from getting found out.

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Black, white, and powerful all over, Rhada Blank's Sundance-winning debut employs biting satire to tell the story of a woman whose ambitions and badassery only get better with age. Of course, Rhada doesn't always see it that way. A less-than-fortunate playwright, she makes the midlife shift to hip-hop, hoping to finally make it big. Trying yet triumphant, the journey sees Rhada find her voice.

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Cyrano de Bergerac, a 19th-century French play about a talented poet who has zero confidence in his appearance and instead hides behind his love letters, gets the modern rom-com treatment in Netflix’s The Half of It. This version, a quietly revolutionary take on queer romance and odd couplings written and directed by Alice Wu, is set in high school—a straight-A student, an athlete, and the girl they both love serving as its main players.

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It's the film that launched Jay-Z's Instagram account. But beyond that, the film, produced by the rapper-mogul, directed by Jeymes Samuel, and starring a dynamite cast including Regina King, Jonathan Majors, Zazie Beetz, and Idris Elba, is one of very few Black-led Westerns in a genre saturated with John Wayne look-alikes. So saddle up for a visionary ride through the wild west that gives history's real Black cowboys the spotlight they deserve.

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One of the platform's earlier productions, The Incredible Jessica James stars Jessica Williams (2 Dope Queens) and Chris O'Dowd (Bridesmaids) as two New Yorkers looking for love in a social media obsessed world. But the real star here, as the film's title would suggest, is Williams. The actress, who cut her teeth as a Daily Show correspondent, is bold, she's assertive, she's—in her own words—dope.

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In true Scorsese form, the director recruited his favorite actors for a stacked cast led by Robert De Niro, who plays hitman Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran. The narrative is based on I Heard You Paint Houses, the true-crime novel by former homicide prosecutor Charles Brandt, and it offers a theory as to who killed Jimmy Hoffa (played here by Al Pacino). No matter what the movie gets right or wrong, the result is a visionary masterpiece that scored 10 Oscar nominations.

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The tension in Sara Colangelo's Sundance stunner is more nerve-racking than worrying about getting your name on the board in preschool. It's palpable and doesn't let up until the credits roll. Of course, we have Maggie Gyllenhaal to thank for that. She deftly plays a kindergarten teacher enamored with a student prodigy. Fearful his father isn't nurturing the budding Mozart well enough, she kidnaps him.

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Maggie Gyllenhaal makes her directorial debut with a sophisticated drama that explores the complexities of being a mother. Starring Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley as a woman named Leda during different stages of her life and parenthood, the film sees Leda on a beach vacation in sunwashed Greece, where her dark past just keeps bubbling up to the surface.

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It's the end of the world as we know it, and the Mitchells are not fine. A dysfunctional funky bunch, this family of four (plus pup) sets out to bond on a road trip but get detoured when an apocalyptic robot takeover threatens to end the very existence of humanity. Strapped with two friendly bots, the Mitchells hatch a plan to win the techno-war, bonding on every nondigital level along the way.

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Charlize Theron follows up her savage Atomic Blonde performance with another badass role: Andy in Gina Prince-Bythewood's high-octane action flick, The Old Guard. The story actually unfolds through KiKi Layne's Nile, the most recent member of Andy's group of covert immortal mercenaries who will stop at nothing to keep their identities under wraps.

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Nominated for a whopping 12 Oscars, Jane Campion’s Power of the Dog is a slow-burn boiler that’s robed in foreboding tension, ominous to even its final scene. It follows the habits of a mercurial rancher named Phil and those walking on eggshells around him, in particular a shy, young man named Peter. As the two spend the days investigating each other, Phil begins to open up, loosening the reins on his secrets and torment, giving way to the possibility of getting bitten.

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Careful what you swipe for! The women in Netflix's gripping docudrama were all duped by the same con-man posing as the heir to an Israeli diamond fortune. Charading online as Simon Leviev, the fake son of real billionaire Lev Leviev, Shimon Hayut conned an estimated $10 million out of women he met online. And even though the doc doesn't really deliver the Gotcha! blow that you want, it's more than thrilling to watch three women confront Shimon as the filthy liar he is.

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Aaron Sorkin goes easy on his trademark breakneck dialogue for his directorial debut. But only slightly. Sorkin's all-star cast including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Sacha Baron Cohen, still exchange cutting lines and whipsmart discourse like pros, as they take us behind the scenes of the 1968 DNC riot that turned violent in Chicago.

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Based on true events, this Netflix Original meanders through a meeting between the conservative Pope Benedict XVI and the more liberal Cardinal Bergoglio, known to all today as Pope Francis, as the future of the Catholic church hangs in the balance. Traveling to Rome to ask Pope Benedict for his blessing to retire, Bergoglio is met with an entirely different proposition. We think you know how it turns out.

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A story of transformative ambition, The White Tiger offers a grim look at the Indian caste system—but it does so with white-knuckle action, comedic wit, and an engrossing narrative. About a cunning yet incredibly likeable cab driver who sees a way out of lifelong poverty, the film is based on the same-name New York Times best seller; stars one of its producers, Priyanka Chopra Jonas; and sat atop the Netflix Top 10 in 64 countries.

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Is there anything Andrew Garfield can't do? Be it scaling the walls with spidery finess, praying to Jesus as a fraudulent televangelist, or waging social war with his best friend over a tech company, the actor is a screen chameleon. In Lin-Manuel Miranda's stage-to-reel production, Garfield transforms again—this time into a theater composer on the verge of creating his most iconic piece of work yet: a little play called Rent.

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Subdued yet purposeful, Alan Yang's feature debut is a must-see. About a Taiwanese factory worker who leaves his home and the love of his life for a better future in the States, Tigertail is an ode to the immigrant experience. Loosely based on his own story as a child of immigrant parents, Yang's film illustrates that the journey is not without its loss and regret, but with time, hopefully the rewards outweigh all that was lost.

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We have nothing but XOXO’s for Lara Jean and Peter, who now own permanent real estate in our hearts thanks to Netflix’s rom-com trilogy starring Lana Condor and Noah Centineo. Based on the book series from Jenny Han, the three installments chart the high schoolers’ relationship, from acquaintances to friends to soul mates, all of which begins when LJ’s secret love letters are mysteriously mailed to their rightful heartthrobs.

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