You’re wasting your money on Netflix if you haven’t watched these 10 films. While Netflix is often the go-to platform to binge the latest series that everyone on the planet seems to be hooked on, the streaming giant’s film collection can often be derided. Questionable new releases can storm up the charts, racking up millions of views along the way, leaving a lot of subscribers to lose faith in its movie offering. However, Netflix is home to Oscar-winning titles, hidden gems and old classics that may have fallen into the shadows, too. Here’s 10 films that you have to watch if you haven’t already… (Picture: Chesnot/Getty Images)
Past Lives
When two childhood friends reconnect decades later, they are forced to confront the deep feelings between them that struggle cannot co-exist with their current situations, leaving them to choose between then and now. It boasts a 95% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with one critic writing: ‘It is a heartbreaking film that is so masterfully made and profoundly sincere that you want to stay in its world regardless of the emotional cost’ (Picture: AP)
Society Of The Snow
This one is a harrowing retelling of the true story of a Uruguayan rugby team’s experience in 1972 after their flight crashed in the Andes mountains, leaving them to become each other’s best hope of survival. It scooped up handfuls of awards and fans have expressed their anger that it didn’t land an Oscar (Picture: Netflix)
Parasite
From a film that didn’t bag an Oscar to one that cleaned up at the awards. It’s unlikely you haven’t already seen – or at least heard about – Parasite, but for newcomers or repeat watchers, it’s always worth experiencing. It follows the struggling Kim family, who identify an opportunity for themselves when their son gets a job working in a wealthy home. They each manage to create a new role for themselves, while pretending not to know one another, but everything changes when they discover a dark secret within the household that employs them (Picture: Curzon)
Submarine
A quirky watch that may have sailed a little under the radar, Submarine can be considered as one for Netflix’s ‘hidden gem’ list. It carries a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 88% and is brilliantly summed up by one critic who wrote: ‘While emotionally powerful and incredibly affecting, Submarine doesn’t lack for laughs, even, if at times, you’ll not be ready for them.’ It’s a coming-of-age tale, following 15-year-old Oliver Tate, who is determined to make his own love life a success while simultaneously destroying his mother’s chances with an ex flame (Picture: STUDIOCANAL LIMITED)
All Quiet on the Western Front
Based on the world renowned bestseller of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front flips the usual perspective, telling the story of a young German soldier during World War I. We watch as his initial euphoria and excitement at becoming a war hero turns to desperation and fear as reality of life on the front line turns out to be very different from the promises made. It won four Academy Awards, making it the most-awarded foreign language film in the Oscars’ history alongside three other films – including Parasite (Picture: NETFLIX)
Four Lions
This dark-comedy, British satire film directed by Chris Morris follows a group of young Muslim men who hatch an inept plan to carry out a terrorist attack, including a disastrous visit to a training camp and a failed attempt to teach birds to carry bombs. It’s been branded a work of ‘satirical brilliance’ with one critic writing: ‘I laughed out loud a lot, and by the time the plot catches up to the plotters and people start dying, there’s genuine poignancy amid the ridicule’
My Neighbour Totoro
In a change of pace, this animated tale follows two sisters who move to live in a country house with their father while their mother recovers from an illness, only to encounter playful spirits in the home and nearby forest. It’s rated at 94% by Rotten Tomatoes critics and is perfect if you’re on the lookout for something a little more relaxing, with one critic’s verdict reading: ‘A magic that, from the beginning of the action to the end, delivers [a] sublime 86 minutes of footage whose charm is impossible to resist’ (Picture: Studio Ghibli/Elysian Film Group Distribution)
Nightcrawler
No list is ever complete without a few thrillers, and Jake Gyllenhaal’s Nightcrawler from 2014 is one that may have passed you by. His character, Louis Bloom, finds a new career as a cameraman, using police scanners to document grisly crime scenes across Los Angeles. When his work is noticed by a news director, she becomes reliant on it to raise her struggling ratings. But as both become increasingly hooked on finding the next big story, the line between fact and fiction begins to warp in their relentless pursuit of viral fame (Picture: AP)
Emily the Criminal
Okay, so the title might make it sound like a daytime kids’ TV show but it’s far from it. We’re in LA again as Emily finds herself spiraling into debt and unable to land a job, before a co-worked points her in the direction of a credit card scam to make a quick buck. Emily (now a criminal – see it’s a clever title really) finds herself descending deeper and deeper into the underworld as she begins to be shaped and hardened by her new career (Picture: Universal Studios)
