The best movies to watch on Netflix (November 2022)

What’s the best film I can watch on Netflix? We’ve all requested ourselves this query solely to spend the subsequent quarter-hour scrolling by means of the streaming service’s oddly particular style menus and getting overwhelmed by the continually shifting development menus. Netflix’s big catalog of movies continues to broaden daily, week by week, month by month; making the problem of maintaining to date with best the service has to provide, not to mention discovering one thing the best of what to watch after a protracted day, a process that feels herculean at best and unimaginable at worst for somebody not plugged into its inscrutable rhythms.

That’s the place we’re right here to assist. For these affected by alternative paralysis in November, we’ve narrowed down your choices to not solely our favourite present movies on the platform, however the best movies Netflix has to provide.

If you’re in search of a selected style, we’ve bought the best motion movies on Netflix, the best horror movies on Netflix, the best thrillers on Netflix, and the best comedy movies on Netflix prepared for you.

We’ll be updating this record month-to-month as Netflix cycles movies out and in of its library, so make sure to examine again subsequent time you’re caught in entrance of the Netflix residence display screen. Our newest replace has added The Metamorphosis of Birds as an editor’s choose.

Editor’s choose

The Metamorphosis of Birds

Image: Primeira Idade

Genre: Documentary/drama
Run time: 1h 41m
Director: Catarina Vasconcelos
Cast: Manuel Rosa, Ana Vasconcelos, Henrique Vasconcelos

Catarina Vasconcelos’ 2020 function debut is a tough one to sum up in a trailer, not to mention in phrases, and therein in the end lies its enchantment. Essentially an avant-garde documentary drama, The Metamorphosis of Birds chronicles the director’s family historical past: the assembly and love affair between her grandparents, the childhood of their youngsters rising up within the absence of their mariner father, and the deadly tragedy that rends their lives asunder and haunts them to this present day like a lingering ghost.

Every shot and sequence of Vasconcelos’ experimental 16mm opus is beatific in its Magritte-like strangeness. It’s a collection of pictures and sounds accompanied by the narration of letters and conversations between the family members that coalesce right into a cinematic tableau of uncanny magnificence and heart-wrenching tenderness. True to the spirit of its title, The Metamorphosis of Birds is a very transformative work of emotional storytelling, one which beckons the viewers to stare deeply into the intimate, unstated corners of one other household’s decades-long technique of turning ache into knowledge and thereby gleaning a deeper perception into their very own lives. Turn off your telephone, discover the biggest display screen attainable, and provides your self over to this movie. You’ll be grateful you probably did. —Toussaint Egan

Atlantics

Image: Netflix

Genre: Romance
Run time: 1h 45m
Director: Mati Diop
Cast: Ibrahima Traoré, Mame Bineta Sane, Amadou Mbow

It’s arduous to speak an excessive amount of about Atlantics with out making a gift of what makes the expertise of watching it so particular. It’s a good looking, haunting love story with a tangibly beating coronary heart, touching on romance in addition to grief, class, labor, and the lingering results of oppression. Shot gorgeously by director Mati Diop and cinematographer Claire Mathon, it was the primary film directed by a Black girl to be featured in competitors in Cannes (it received the Grand Prix award, shedding out on the Palme d’Or to Parasite), and is without doubt one of the most outstanding function movie debuts for a director in current reminiscence. —PV

The Baahubali movies

Image: Dharma Productions

Genre: Epic fantasy
Run time: 2h 39m (Baahubali: The Beginning); 2h 47m (Baahubali 2: The Conclusion)
Director: S.S. Rajamouli
Cast: Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty

In Western phrases, this Tollywood manufacturing from the longer term director of RRR, the costliest Indian movie on the time of its launch, is sort of a biblical epic by the use of Marvel Studios, with a bit Hamlet and Step Up thrown in for good measure. The Beginning chronicles the lifetime of Shivudu, an adventurer with superhuman power who escapes his provincial life by scaling a skyscraper-sized waterfall, aids and romances a insurgent warrior named Avanthika, then groups up along with her to rescue a kidnapped queen from an evil emperor. Exploding with hyper-choreographed battle sequences and CG spectacle (not to point out a handful of musical numbers with equal bravura), The Beginning is 159 minutes of legendary extra, going huge like solely Indian movie can and resting on the muscular shoulders of its hero, the single-name actor Prabhas. If you fall arduous for it, get pumped — that is solely half one. The twist leads into Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, one other two-and-a-half-hour epic presently streaming on Netflix. —Matt Patches

Blackhat

Photo: Frank Connor/Legendary Pictures-Universal Pictures

Genre: Crime thriller
Run time: 2h 13m
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tang Wei, Viola Davis

A glossy and attractive thriller that makes hacking look extraordinarily cool, Michael Mann’s unfairly maligned Blackhat stands tall as a excessive mark in digital filmmaking. It is peak Mann — in case you’re not a fan of the Heat director’s work, your mileage could range. In the movie, Chen Dawai (Wang Leehom), a captain within the PLA’s cyber warfare unit, is tasked with getting to the underside of a pc assault that melts down a nuclear energy plant in Hong Kong. While liaising with the FBI investigation, Chen insists on assistance from his outdated pal Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth, who has by no means been hotter or cooler), an imprisoned genius hacker. When Hathaway and Chen’s sister (Tang Wei), a networking engineer additionally serving to with the case, fall for one another, it provides an additional wrinkle to an already excessive stakes state of affairs. Viola Davis and Holt McCallany function as FBI brokers who aren’t tremendous joyful to have to rely on a infamous legal.

With sharp digital cinematography and unforgettable set items, Blackhat explores our altering international relationship to expertise. Mann makes tangible the microscopic laptop programs that run the world: an excessive close-up of inside wires main to a motherboard like an unlimited interconnected freeway; a pc fan that feels like a jet engine. Events that in different movies could be proven as a boring stroke of keys are as a substitute depicted as hypnotic processes taking place beneath the floor of the seen world. —PV

The Debt Collector movies

Image: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Genre: Action comedy
Run time: 1h 35m (The Debt Collector); 1h 37m (Debt Collectors aka The Debt Collector 2)
Director: Jesse V. Johnson
Cast: Scott Adkins, Louis Mandylor, Vladimir Kulich

A buddy comedy by the use of direct-to-video motion specialist Jesse V. Johnson, The Debt Collector is the primary of a collection of two superb movies starring Scott Adkins (Avengement) and Louis Mandylor (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) as a wise-cracking duo amassing money owed for the mob. Adkins performs French, a down-on-his-luck martial arts teacher who turns to debt amassing to pay his personal money owed off. Mandylor performs a boy named Sue, the veteran debt collector French is paired up with for his first day of labor.

As the 2 get deeper into their work, they uncover a scheme that places a younger little one in danger, and take into account risking all of it themselves to assist. Adkins and Mandylor have terrific chemistry within the lead roles, bringing this out of the echelon of “solid DTV movies” and into the realm of “great hangout flicks.” Also, Tony Todd (Candyman) performs a mobster named Barbosa. And the sequel guidelines, too. —PV

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart

Image: Netflix

Genre: Romantic comedy
Run time: 1h 55m
Directors: Johnnie To, Wai Ka-fai
Cast: Louis Koo, Daniel Wu, Gao Yuanyuan

Johnnie To is one in every of our nice fashionable administrators, equally adept in hard-boiled triad crime dramas and light-hearted romantic comedies alike. 2011’s Don’t Go Breaking My Heart falls within the latter class, and is without doubt one of the many excessive marks of the Hong Kong director’s legendary profession. Fresh off the tip of a long-term relationship, Chi-yan (Gao Yuanyuan) is an analyst for an funding financial institution who finds herself in the course of a love triangle. On one facet, there’s Sean (Louis Koo), a CEO who works throughout the road from Chi-yan and yearns for her by means of the tall company glass home windows that separate them. On the opposite, there’s Kevin (the always-dreamy Daniel Wu), an alcoholic former architect who helps Chi-yan transfer on and is impressed by her to begin creating once more. What follows is a honest, humorous, and really charming romantic time. —PV

Fast Color

Image: Lionsgate

Genre: Superhero
Run time: 1h 40m
Director: Julia Hart
Cast: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lorraine Toussaint, Saniyya Sidney

Julia Hart’s 2018 superhero drama Fast Color stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Black Mirror, Loki) as Ruth, a homeless wanderer with inexplicable powers who returns to her household residence after years of hiding from the police. Reunited along with her mom Bo (Lorraine Toussaint) and her younger daughter Lila (Saniyya Sidney), who each possess the identical powers as her, Ruth makes an attempt to regain management over her skills and reconcile with Lila, all whereas eluding the authorities who search to seize and examine her. As we wrote in our assessment, Fast Color is much less a “superhero” movie as it’s an intimate household drama set in a speculative universe à la 2016’s Midnight Special. The spectacle on show is just not the manifestation of Ruth’s powers, however within the masterful trio of performances at its middle combining to create a narrative as poignant as it’s exhilarating. —TE

Hustle

Photo: Scott Yamano/Netflix

Genre: Sports comedy
Run time: 1h 58m
Director: Jeremiah Zagar
Cast: Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah, Ben Foster

One of Netflix’s higher originals in current reminiscence is that this ardour undertaking from the famously basketball-obsessed Adam Sandler, the place he performs a down-on-his-luck scout who wants to discover the proper prospect. With an all-star ensemble solid stuffed with film stars (Sandler is joined by Queen Latifah, Ben Foster, and Robert Duvall) and NBA gamers alike (Juancho Hernangómez co-leads with Sandler, whereas Anthony Edwards, Boban Marjanović, and others give memorable supporting turns), Hustle is an inspiring and thrilling basketball film made by individuals who love the sport. —PV

The Ip Man movies

Image: Well Go USA Entertainment

Genre: Martial arts drama
Run time: 1h 46m (Ip Man); 1h 48m (Ip Man 2); 1h 45m (Ip Man 3); 1h 45m (Ip Man 4: The Finale)
Director: Wilson Yip
Cast: Donnie Yen, Simon Yam, Lynn Hung

All 5 movies within the Ip Man collection — the 4 foremost entries (all on Netflix) and the spinoff Master Z: Ip Man Legacy (not on Netflix, however on Peacock and Tubi, amongst others) — are terrific martial arts dramas. They’re a terrific beginning place for anybody trying to get into the style, and likewise a terrific consolation watch for fanatics of martial arts movies.

Donnie Yen fully immerses himself because the stoic Ip Man, the Wing Chun grandmaster who taught Bruce Lee (performed by Danny Chan Kwok-kwan within the collection), amongst others. Yen brings a pensiveness to the position to go along with his unimaginable martial arts prowess. All 4 movies are directed by frequent Yen collaborator Wilson Yip and go from one all-time nice motion choreographer to one other: The first two movies had motion by Sammo Hung, and the subsequent two by Yuen Woo-ping. Those are fairly probably the 2 best to ever do it, and if that’s not sufficient to get you to tune in, I don’t know what’s. —PV

Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids

Image: Netflix

Genre: Concert film
Run time: 1h 30m
Director: Jonathan Demme
Cast: Justin Timberlake

In 1984, director Jonathan Demme made one of many best live performance movies of all-time with the Talking Heads within the raucously triumphant Stop Making Sense. A little bit greater than three many years later, Demme’s last function movie was one other joyous live performance film.

Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids depicts the ultimate present of a protracted tour for Timberlake and his glorious backing band on the gigantic MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. In typical Demme style, the staging and framing of the energetic pop numbers is electrical, however he additionally takes time to present simply how a lot work goes into organising and breaking down such a big manufacturing.

Demme and Timberlake’s collaboration spurred from a mutual respect — Timberlake, like anybody else with good style, is a large fan of Stop Making Sense, and Demme reached out after watching The Social Network. The film is devoted to Prince, who died shortly earlier than the film’s launch. —PV

Lagaan

Image: SET Pictures

Genre: Sports drama
Run time: 3h 43m
Director: Ashutosh Gowariker
Cast: Aamir Khan, Gracy Singh, Rachel Shelley

Ashutosh Gowariker’s timeless sports activities film traditional stars Aamir Khan as Bhuvan, a assured younger man from a village that’s coping with each British oppression and a long-standing drought. When the depraved Captain Russell (Paul Blackthorne, who’s deliriously good on this) challenges the village to a recreation of cricket (which they have no idea how to play) as a wager, with their owed taxes (which they can not afford to pay) on the road, Bhuvan takes it upon himself to type a workforce and be taught the sport. What follows is a hovering sports activities drama with humor, coronary heart, and a show-stopping match finale. Lagaan was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film on the 74th Academy Awards. —PV

Leave No Trace

Image: Bleecker Street Media

Genre: Drama
Run time: 1h 49m
Director: Debra Granik
Cast: Ben Foster, Thomasin McKenzie, Jeff Kober

One of the best movies of the 2010s, Debra Granik’s meditation on the trendy world by means of two individuals remoted from it’s a unprecedented follow-up for the Winter’s Bone director. From our write-up of the best movies new to streaming in July:

An Iraq War veteran (Ben Foster) lives with PTSD and his 13-year-old daughter (Thomasin McKenzie) within the lush inexperienced woods outdoors of Portland, Oregon. Isolated from the remainder of society, they work collectively to reside a life with nature. But when the younger woman is seen by a jogger within the woods, she is detained by social providers and her father is arrested. A touching story about discovering your personal place on the planet and the comforts and limitations of household, Debra Granik’s 2018 drama is a contemporary masterpiece.

Lost Bullet 2

Photo: Julien Goldstein/Netflix

Genre: Action thriller
Run time: 1h 38m
Director: Guillaume Pierret
Cast: Alban Lenoir, a bunch of people that punch and/or chase Alban Lenoir

The first Lost Bullet guidelines, and the second film — newly launched on Netflix in November — ups the ante to one other diploma.

The chase scenes are much more action-packed – this time our celebrity mechanic Lino provides electrified rods to the entrance of his automotive, making him a kind of sick-as-hell automotive jouster and/or a mad scientist however for automotive chases – and the fights are visceral (Alban Lenoir throws so many arduous proper crosses on this film, and he receives simply as many). It helps to have a lead who simply seems to be like he’s been in a number of bar fights in his time, and Lenoir delivers the precise type of character you want for this position. Throw in a way of chaotic pleasure in making vehicles blow up in as many thrilling methods as attainable, and you’ve got Lost Bullet 2. —Pete Volk

Margin Call

Image: Lionsgate Films Home Entertainment

Genre: Wall Street thriller
Run time: 1h 49m
Director: J.C. Chandor
Cast: Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto

J.C. Chandor’s 2011 movie Margin Call takes place over the span of 24 hours, following the workers of a prestigious Wall Street funding financial institution as they wrestle to perceive and reply to what’s going to ultimately be generally known as the worldwide monetary disaster of 2008. While maybe not as approachable or didactic as Adam McKay’s The Big Short, Chandor’s movie nonetheless manages to remodel monetary esotericism into riveting drama by means of the power of its casts’ performances.

Paul Bettany is terrific right here, as are Zachary Quinto and Demi Moore, however the standout efficiency by far is Jeremy Irons, who delivers a outstanding scene throughout the movie’s climax that’s as charismatic as it’s disquietingly chilling. —TE

The Nice Guys

Image: Warner Home Video

Genre: Action/comedy
Run time: 1h 56m
Director: Shane Black
Cast: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice

Shane Black’s different neo-noir, Los Angeles-set motion comedy is a worthy non secular successor to 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and an uproariously hilarious film in its personal proper. The story facilities on Holland March (Gosling), an alcoholic single father and licensed PI, and Jackson Healy (Crowe), a muscle-for-hire freelancer. The two find yourself as an odd couple of idiot-genius sleuths whose respective investigations involving a lacking woman converge to unveil a a lot bigger and extra sinister conspiracy involving Detroit automotive corporations, authorities collusion, and arranged crime.

Crowe and Gosling’s on-screen chemistry as two incorrigible, cussed assholes with secret hearts of gold is terrific, as is Angourie Rice’s efficiency as March’s whip-smart daughter Holly. The Nice Guys could not surpass the pure comedian genius of Black’s aforementioned traditional starring Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer, but it surely confidently ranks as one of many director’s higher movies in current reminiscence. —TE

The Night Comes for Us

Photo: Eriekn Juragan/Netflix

Genre: Martial arts thriller
Run time: 2h 1m
Director: Timo Tjahjanto
Cast: Joe Taslim, Iko Uwais, Julie Estelle

The Night Comes for Us simply fucking whips, OK? Why waste time on subtlety and preamble; the movie definitely doesn’t! Indonesian motion thrillers have been having fun with a renaissance interval ever since Gareth Evans’ 2011 movie The Raid kicked the door down and mollywhopped every part else in sight. Timo Tjahjanto’s 2018 movie definitely follows within the footsteps of Evans’ personal, with The Raid star Joe Taslim starring right here as Ito, a gangland enforcer who betrays his Triad crime household by sparing the life of a kid and trying to flee the nation.

Fellow The Raid star Iko Uwais exhibits up right here as Arian, Ito’s childhood pal and fellow enforcer, who’s tasked with searching down Ito and recovering the woman. The motion comes quick and frenzied right here, with kinetic choreography and dazzling handheld cinematography that makes each punch, fall, and stab depend. If you want to get your adrenaline pumping, throw this one on. —TE

Paddington

Image: StudioCanal

Genre: Comedy
Run time: 1h 35m
Director: Paul King
Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters

2014’s Paddington is as whimsical and earnest as it’s ingenious and stunning. Ben Whishaw stars because the Peruvian bear cub who stows aboard a lifeboat to London looking for a brand new residence. Granted protected haven by the kindly Brown household, Paddington units out in seek for the explorer who way back visited his homeland and befriended his household whereas eluding the numerous perils and pitfalls of the massive metropolis.

Nicole Kidman and Peter Calpadi ship devilishly charming performances because the movie’s antagonists, whereas Sally Hawkins and Hugh Bonneville are equally noteworthy because the vivacious Mrs. Brown and her stuffy risk-averse husband. Complete with sharp writing, intriguing set items, and a great deal of artistic bodily comedy, Paddington is an absolute delight. —TE

The Paper Tigers

Image: Well Go USA Entertainment

Genre: Martial arts comedy
Run time: 1h 48m
Director: Bao Tran (Tran Quoc Bao)
Cast: Alain Uy, Ron Yuan, Mykel Shannon Jenkins

Tran Quoc Bao’s kung fu motion comedy stars Alain Uy, Ron Yuan (Mulan), and Mykel Shannon Jenkins because the eponymous Paper Tigers: three former martial arts prodigies who, after a lifetime of strenuous coaching and arduous combating, have grown into beleaguered middle-aged nobodies. But when their grasp is murdered, the three swear an oath to avenge his reminiscence and convey his killer to justice. If that sounds severe, please know this falls into the Apatowian camp of Dumb Man comedy. —TE

Phantom Thread

Image: Focus Features

Genre: Historical drama
Run time: 2h 10m
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville, Vicky Krieps

Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 historic drama Phantom Thread follows the story of Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis), an irascible high fashion dressmaker in Nineteen Fifties London whose fastidiously cultivated life-style is upset by his ongoing love affair along with his muse Alma (Vicky Krieps), a strong-willed girl with ambitions and wishes of her personal. His last movie position to date, Day-Lewis is unsurprisingly masterful in his portrayal of Woodcock as an artist whose capricious infatuations and fastidious inflexibility show insufferable to all besides Alma, who discovers a … let’s say unconventional approach of leveling the facility dynamic of their relationship. Top that with beautiful rating by Jonny Greenwood and exquisite costume designs by Mark Bridges and also you’ve bought what’s undoubtedly one in every of Anderson’s best movies to date. —TE

RRR

Image: Variance Films

Genre: Historical epic
Run time: 3h 7m
Director: S.S. Rajamouli
Cast: N.T. Rama Rao Jr., Ram Charan, Ajay Devgn

One of our favourite movies of the yr, RRR is an epic bromance for the ages stuffed to the brim with jaw-dropping motion sequences, unforgettable music numbers, and two guys simply being dudes. If you may, it is best to take into account watching it within the authentic Telugu language model on Zee5. If you may’t, the Hindi dub on Netflix remains to be properly value your time. —PV

Space Sweepers

Image: Netflix

Genre: Sci-fi
Run time: 2h 16m
Director: Jo Sung-hee
Cast: Song Joong-ki, Kim Tae-ri, Jin Seon-kyu

Space Sweepers: Set within the yr 2092, Jo Sung-hee’s Space Sweepers follows the crew of freelance garbagemen in area who uncover an odd child-like robotic named Dorothy containing a nuclear machine. Hoping to ransom Dorothy in trade for sufficient cash to escape their poverty-stricken lives, their plan rapidly escalates right into a chase to keep one step forward of the army power of a corrupt company. Though it’s removed from essentially the most authentic of sci-fi premises, Space Sweepers remains to be a visually spectacular movie with nice motion and a likable solid of dysfunctional characters with nice chemistry. —TE

Unfriended

Image: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

Genre: Horror
Run time: 1h 23m
Director: Levan Gabriadze
Cast: Shelley Hennig, Moses Storm, Renee Olstead

Unfriended is a horror film with a gimmick. The complete factor takes place on a laptop computer display screen, because the motion unfolds over a Skype name between a gaggle of associates. When an unknown (and unseen) participant mysteriously joins the decision, associates begin to die one after the other in a terrifying and charming collection of occasions. The immersion of Unfriended by means of the machine of the pc display screen is masterful, and I extremely advocate watching it on a laptop computer in case you can for max impact. —PV

From our record of the best horror movies on Netflix:

Levan Gabriadze’s Unfriended pulls the audiences by means of the display screen — nearly actually. Viewed solely from the attitude of a pc desktop, 2014 supernatural horror movie facilities round a Skype name between a gaggle of highschool college students who’re joined by an unknown presence identified solely as “billie227.” What at first seems to be a prank swiftly morphs into one thing rather more horrific, because the mysterious stranger begins to reveal terrifying secrets and techniques about every of the buddies earlier than killing them off one after the other. Unfriended is totally gripping extrapolation of our always-online world; a world the place vengeful poltergeists and doxxing exist side-by-side and no secret or offense goes undiscovered or unpunished. —TE