The best movies on Netflix (December 2024): the best Netflix films

Perhaps the greatest animation ever made (it's certainly the best thing by Studio Ghibli), Spirited Away is a masterclass of emotions. Filled with the supernatural and the wonderful you have some to expect from anime, the movie focuses on Chihiro, a 10-year-old girl who is unhappy about moving house. It turns out, though, her new home is near something called The Land of Spirits. Beautiful stuff.

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The Trial of the Chicago 7 is Aaron Sorkin on top form. He writes and directs this true story about the uprising at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. There’s an all-star cast that bolsters the movie but the real star is the dialogue.

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The Dig is fantastic old-school filmmaking. Based on a true story, it tells the tale of one of the most important archeological finds in the UK of all time and the person person whose land in Sutton Hoo is at the centre of it all Edith May Pretty. Carey Mulligan is superb as Pretty (although it does mean that her age is somewhat skewed as a result) and Ralph Fiennes is great as the archeologist hired for the dig.

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"I hear you paint houses?" That line sets the scene for The Irishman, an epic 3.5 hour movie that is everything you want from a Martin Scorsese / Robert DeNiro link-up. This is a film about Frank Sheeran, a hitman and his ties to the mob. It spans decades and while the de-aging doesn't always work, this is a movie that demands to be watched on the biggest screen possible - slightly ironic, given many of you will be giving it a spin on your smartphones first.

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Adam Mckay's satire on environmentalism doesn't hit as hard as it should - boy, we would have loved to have seen someone like Armando Iannucci tackle this one - but there is a lot to like about Don't Look Up. A team of scientists have found that a comet is hurtling to earth and will almost definitely hit the planet. The problem is that the government doesn't want to believe the facts, the general public don't want to believe the facts and everyone is told (literally) 'don't look up'. The all-star cast, including Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, are ace and well worth the watch.

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One of the most stressful movies you will ever watch, Uncut Gems should come with an anxiety warning. But it is worth it as this is one of the best movies of the year, and some of the best work Adam Sandler has done. The plot is slight: a jeweller tries to pull off something that will make him a whole lot of money - unless it goes wrong and then everything is at stake.

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Studio Ghibli classic My Neighbour Totoro is now on Netflix - and will be one of the first of many new Ghibli movies coming to the streaming platform soon. This 1988 animated movie written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki tells the story of two girls (Satsuki and Mei) who befriend wood spirits.

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UK only

It's great to see Eddie Murphy back to his best in this biopic of Rudy Ray Moore, a comedian in the 70s who hits the big time with his rude, crude alter ego - a pimp named Dolemite. Moore made a big-screen version of Dolemite, dipping his toes into the blacksploitation movement at the time but he's also seen as one of the forefathers of rap. This movie brilliantly shows off all of this and more.

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From the geniuses behind Gravity Falls, The Mitchells Vs The Machines is a fun, frantic look at what technology is doing to the world and how if you stick together as a family things might well be okay. A great mix of animation and some stellar voice acting makes this one a must watch.

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Not all Netflix original movies work but we have a soft spot for The Adam Project, an old-school family sci-fi movie that gives its own unique twist to time travel. Ryan Reynolds is a fighter pilot who travels back in time to help save the world with his 12 year old self and late father.

No, it isn't about the rise and fall of the British newspaper but News of the Worldis swooping drama focused on a civil war vet that goes from town to town reading the news to people. Along the way he picks up an abandoned girl and tries to get her back to her relatives. Both Tom Hanks and newcomer Helena Zengel are superb, as is director Paul Greengrass' adept eye.

UK only

The latest adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s anti-war novel from 1928 is both a technical spectacle and a substantive and serious examination of war — which seems not less prescient now than when it was written. It’s a harrowing indictment of nationalism. All Quiet on the Western Front was directed by Edward Berger, largely known for his work in TV, including episodes of the first series of The Terror (2018).

This one needs no introduction. The Gray Man is the most expensive Netflix movie ever made and stars Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans as warring hitmen who are trying to outdo each other after secrets from the CIA are unleashed. It's bombastic and pretty brainless in places but this one is far more fun than the critics make it out to be.

Marriage Story is a devastating but poignant look at a marriage slowly breaking up and the effects it can have when there is a child in the picture. This is Noah Baumbach’s latest, and best, drama and is loosely based on the filmmaker’s own divorce experience. It stars Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson and is a must watch (but bring some tissues).

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Adam Sandler you infuriate us. One minute you are releasing some comedy crap where he has clearly phoned it in. The next minute he is making low-key masterpieces like Hustle. This tale of a down-and-out basketball scout who thinks he has found the next NBA sensation is just brilliant filmmaking - and Sandler is superb in the role.

RRR is a 3-hour fantasy that is like nothing you have seen before. Packed with very impressive CGI, it's an exhaustive look at 1920's India and two revolutionaries who fight against the British Empire. With fight scenes as epic as any Marvel movie (with an inventiveness that goes beyond), RRR is a jaw-dropping spectacle that needs to be seen. It's worth noting that Netflix has the Hindi version of the movie, which was originally shot in Telugu.

An emotional rollercoaster, Tick...Tick...Boom! is the true story of Rent creator Jonathan Larson and his struggle to get a play made that audiences love, all while trying to figure out his own life. It's beautifully told by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Andrew Garfield is utterly mesmerising in the main role. There won't be a dry eye in the house after this one ends.

God it's brainless, man it's an hour too long, but Army of the Dead is also a fun movie that see Zak Snyder creating an amazing world where the dead have taken over Las Vegas and a group of mercs are flown in to raid a vault of all of its money. Even if you just watch the credit sequence on this one, it's well worth your time.

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Alfonso Cuarón directed and wrote this fantastic fable about a housekeeper of a middle class family in Mexico City. The movie, shot in stark black and white won Cuarón another Oscar, which is utterly impressive given the non actors who appear in the film. The movie is a semi autobiographical and has more heart in its two hour run time than most of the movies you can watch on Netflix right now.

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You could watch The Lost Daughter with 10 people and all of you will come out with a different interpretation of what happened - as is the brilliance of the movie. Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal (her debut), it focuses on Olivia Coleman, a college professor who goes on holiday and starts to see similarities in her relationship with her daughter (in the past) with what is happening with another woman in the present. The film isn't afraid to show that unequivocal love doesn't always happen between parents and their children.

Making a sequel to a classic movie with the same actor more than 35 years later shouldn’t work. But it does with Top Gun: Maverick. Is it the Tom Cruise factor? Perhaps, because it’s director Joseph Kosinski’s best film to date. He made Oblivion and Tron: Legacy in the past. Top Gun: Maverick has exceptional action, a real sense of drama and, shock horror, even some believable emotion.

Get Out felt like it ushered in a new era of horror movies, one with a specific sense of social consciousness. It's the first of Jordan Peele's trio of original horror flicks, followed up by Us and Nope. A young black man heads to visit his girlfriend's parents, but something seems off when he realises the house workers are all black folks who seem like they've been transported from the 1950s.

This adaptation of the exceptional novel by Aravind Adiga which won the Man Booker Prize in 2008. The White Tiger centres on Balram Halwai, a village boy who rises from his caste but hides some pretty dark secrets while he does it. As book adaptations go, this is faithful to the text and is a great watch.

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Proving that Netflix can match Disney for animation, The Sea Beast is an epic fantasy based on a time when sea monsters were the norm and brave sea-faring folk would go to war with them. Directed by Chris Williams who has brought us some brilliant Disney movies, including Big Hero 6, this is a family adventure movie that everyone will love

None more British than Wicked Little Letters. Jessie Buckley plays Rose, an Irish woman who moves to the English coast with her daughter. She’s accused of sending obscene letters to people in the local area by Olivia Colman’s Edith. But when she realises it’s not Rose, a deeper mystery surfaces. This is an eccentric comedy, though, not a dark thriller.

Richard Linklater's Hit Man sees Glen Powell play a fake hitman. He's a professor who poses as a hitman in order to help the police. But he ends up falling for one of his would-be hitman clients. Adria Arjona plays a woman looking to get her husband bumped off. The strange bit - this film is roughly based on a true story. It's sharp and funny.

David Fincher is back with another critical smash. The Killer sees a hitman, played by Michael Fassbender, hunt down the people who attacked his partner after a job went wrong. It’s stylish as heck and, as ever, Fassbender is supremely watchable.

Fresh off the success of the Lord of the Rings movies, Viggo Mortensen showed us another side of his acting chops in 2005’s A History of Violence. He plays Tom Stall, a man who saves a diner from a pair of criminals. But in doing so, he attracts the attention of a man who believes him to be a notorious mobster, and tracks him down for retribution. It's one of director David Cronenberg’s best film.

This brilliant movie put the spotlight on South Korean cinema like almost nothing before or since, and went on to win the Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay Oscars. Among loads of other accolades. The Kim family calculate their way into working for the super-rich Park family. It’s about class and inequality, but also works as an engaging thriller with elements of horror. Directed by Bong Joon-ho, who also made The Host, Okja and Snowpiercer.

Green Room and Blue Ruin director Jeremy Saulnier has returned with another slice of high tension action in Rebel Ridge. Aaron Pierre stars as Terry, a former US Marine who finds himself squaring up against corrupt local law enforcement after trying to bail out his cousin. It’s an unrepentant action thriller guided by an unusually deft hand.

Don’t mistake this for Robert Zemeckis’s Pinocchio, also released in 2022. This one is from the mind behind The Shape of Water and Pan’s Labyrinth, Guillermo Del Toro. Stop-motion master director Mark Gustafson co-directs, bringing the actual Pinocchio puppet to life with charm and physicality. War looms over this take on the old tale more than in most Pinocchio adaptations, and it may not be for the youngest of kids. But it’s still a true family hit.

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There have been more than 30 Godzilla films, collating those made in the west and Japan. But 2023's Godzilla Minus One is in contention for the title of the best of the lot, alongside the original. It's a much more human film than those of the Monsterverse, feeling grounded in both its location and society. It's set in the late 1940s and follows a retired Kamikaze pilot who is one of the first people to witness Godzilla in person.

30 years later Pulp Fiction is still a serious contender for the title of best Tarantino film. Even though most would probably struggle to tell you a potted version of the plot. Four stories of crime and violence are loosely weaved together in a cinematic epic that has snuck into the top 10 of the IMDb top 250.

The rare case of a sequel being better than the original. Paddington 2 sees everyone’s favourite Peruvian bear framed for a robbery and sent to prison. And it’s up to his human family to try to prove he didn’t do it. A film full of creativity, joy and humour, and the high point in one of the great family film series.

Sadly this is the final film of Chadwick Boseman, who died of cancer in 2020. But what a film it is, based on the play of the same name by August Wilson. Based on the life of Ma Rainey (Viola Davis), an under-appreciated but hugely influential blues singer. The movie is set, mostly. in the confines of a recording studio but its themes of race and racism echo what was happening in 20s America at the time.

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Pieces of a Woman has a central performance by Vanessa Kirby that's nothing short of Oscar worthy. But, be warned, it's not for the faint hearted as she goes through a traumatic pregnancy that's show in a heart-wrenching 23-minute sequence. The rest of the film shows the aftermath of what happens and is a devastating but compelling watch.

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Netflix has become the home for Studio Ghibli films. The Boy and the Heron is its latest work, as of 2024. A young boy, Mahito Maki, moves to the countryside following his mother’s death. There, a heron tells him his mother is actually still alive, and lures him into a fantastical world in search of her.

This film came, almost out of nowhere, and was instantly recognised as a modern classic of the horror genre. An entity follows its target relentlessly, manifesting as a person forever walking towards them. And if that entity reaches its victim? It’s a bad scene. The only way for someone to free themself of this stalking malevolence is to have sex with someone, which transfers the supernatural debt onto them.

This is the fifth most-watched Netflix movie. And that’s quite an achievement when you hear its unusual premise. Society is collapsing. Technology stops working, which leads to a giant ship ploughing into the shore in Long Island, where Leave the World Behind is set. A family holidaying there have to contend with what looks an awful lot like the end of the world. This one comes from Sam Esmail, the creator of the much-celebrated Mr. Robot TV series.

A survival movie by J. A. Bayona, director of The Impossible and The Orphanage. It’s a dramatisation of a real story. In 1972, Urugyan air force flight 571 came down over the Andes. Players from a Uruguay rugby team were among the survivors of the crash, but to truly survive this ordeal, greater tests were ahead. It’s a horrific story well-handled in this Spansh language thriller.

Brian is a man living out in the middle of nowhere in isolation, so he decides to make a robot to keep him company, Charles. The well-spoken robot learns about the world in this rockumentary style films that’s about as charming and quirky as films come. David Earl stars, and wrote the film alongside Chris Hayward, who voices Charles.

A young woman is marrying into a rich family. But as per tradition, she has to take part in a game to be accepted. To seal the deal. But she makes an unlucky figurative roll of the dice and ends up being hunted down by that same family, in a game of death. This tense but funny horror film is a blast, and packs a lot into its efficient 95-minute runtime.

If you wish there were more new Studio Ghibli films, don’t miss Suzume. It’s a coming of age tale by Makoto Shinkai, known best for 2016’s Your Name. This is a beautiful film in which our 17-year-old hero Suzume must avert catastrophe when mysterious portals start opening across Japan, causing chaos.

This charming animated family film packs a strong message of inclusion and acceptance, through an LGBTQ+ theme. However, it's also just an engaging and charming watch. Riz Ahmned voices Ballister Boldheart, a knight accused of a crime he didn't commit. Teenage Nimona enters the scene to attempt to prove his innocence, played by Chloë Grace Moretz.

A group of teens use a creepy hand to communicate with the dead. It sounds like the stuff of a standard low-rent horror movie. But Talk to Me is something else, an unusually grounded and weighty-feeling film with some stand-out performances and writing. It comes from the Philippou brothers, who have been making short films on YouTube for a decade.

Charlie Kaufman movies are always unconventional and brilliant and I’m Thinking of Ending Things is of no exception. The movie is conventional enough in its plot - a woman (Jessie Buckley) spends time with her boyfriend’s family after the weather turns bad. But what ensues is an exploration of the mind and all the complications that come with this.

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A thrill ride through 30s Hollywood, Mank is David Fincher at his finest, offering up a love letter to the movies and using every inventive trick to make you think that you are in that period. At its heart, the movie is about a bed-ridden, rather obstinate, Herman Mankiewicz, the writer of Citizen Kane. Throughout we see the Hollywood system at work, shot with a deft eye that homages the 30s brilliantly. Fincher here is actually directing his late father's script. He doesn't just do it justice, but has created a classic in the process.

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Spike Lee's latest joint is one of his best movies. Delroy Lindo heads up a fantastic cast, in a film which sees four black army veterans return to Vietnam to find the remains of their squad leader (played by Chadwick Boseman). Shot in differing aspect ratios, with numerous flashbacks, the movie tackles black discontent, both in the Vietnam war and now. Given what's happening in the world at the moment, there is no better time to watch this movie.

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