Best movies to stream on Netflix, according to audiences

- Director: Richard Curtis
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.81
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 55
- Runtime: 123 min

From the creator of “Love, Actually” comes this quirky blend of sci-fi and romantic comedy. Gifted with the powers of time travel, a young man (Domhnall Gleeson) repeatedly tries to win the girl of his dreams (Rachel McAdams). Even with the unlimited opportunities, he manages to screw it up.

- Director: Alejandro Doria
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.81
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 94 min

The title pretty much says it all for this Argentine comedy from 1985. It finds various members of the same family arguing over who should take care of their elderly matriarch. Overlooked upon its initial release, the film has over time attracted a larger following.

- Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.82
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 79
- Runtime: 137 min

Netflix veered into surprisingly noncommercial territory with its first official film. Set in the midst of an African civil war, it follows a young child warrior into battle. Director Cary Joji Fukunaga went on to helm the upcoming James Bond film “No Time to Die.”

- Director: Bryan Fogel
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.82
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 68
- Runtime: 120 min

“Icarus” takes viewers on a journey into the shady world of athletic doping in cycling and the Olympics. It’s a path many documentarians have walked before and since, but few films have probed as deeply as this one, which focuses on Russia’s illicit and secret doping program. It’s also heralded for being well rounded enough to attract and retain audiences that aren’t necessarily interested in the subject matter—or even in sports at all.

- Directors: Kathleen Hepburn, Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.83
- IMDb user rating: 6.8
- Metascore: 87
- Runtime: 105 min

The Los Angeles Times’ Gary Goldstein wrote of this jarring and painful drama, “Don’t let its florid, mouthful of a title mislead you: ‘The Body Remembers When the World Broke Open’ is a film that’s as urgent and unpretentious as it is remarkable.” The film offers a dark but authentic look into domestic violence, race, class, poverty, and the legacy of historical injustice as told through the lens of two indigenous women in British Columbia.

- Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.83
- IMDb user rating: 7.0
- Metascore: 82
- Runtime: 106 min

“A Serious Man” earned an Oscar nod for Best Picture, and Michael Stuhlbarg received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor. Like so many Coen brothers films, it’s a complex drama peppered with dark comedy that focuses on a man who is being crushed under the weight of personal and professional crises—this time, he’s in search of religious affirmation in his Jewish faith.

- Director: Yeon Sang-ho
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.83
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Metascore: 72
- Runtime: 118 min

By 2016, it was already difficult to put a fresh spin on the zombie genre—there had simply been too many chefs serving the same dish for too long. “Train to Busan,” however, found a way by stuffing an entire zombie movie into a fast-moving subway train. The twists and turns are many—both literally and figuratively—the action is thrilling, and the gore is plenty. But Yeon Sang-ho never uses blood as a substitute for actual scares.

- Director: Naoko Yamada
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.83
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 110 min

“K-On! The Movie” should certainly be a contender for anyone whose default setting is early 2010s four-panel comic-strip anime. Based on a series from a few years prior, the nearly two-hour saga follows a Japanese high school music club as they realize their dreams when they get to perform in London.

- Director: John Ridley
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.83
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 92
- Runtime: 144 min

The Rodney King beating was the immediate catalyst for the 1992 L.A. Riots, but it was by no means the beginning of the city’s destruction. John Ridley’s “Let it Fall” travels back a decade to the dawn of the unraveling of an American city. It’s a well-rounded, multiperspective retelling of a spiral of events that made the worst riot in American history possible—or perhaps inevitable.

- Director: Quentin Tarantino
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.83
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 68
- Runtime: 168 min

“The Hateful Eight” is vintage Tarantino—complex and interconnected plotlines, captivating dialogue, top performances from great actors, biting dark humor, and cartoonish orgies of graphic violence. Coincidentally, it’s the director’s eighth film, and thanks to sweeping cinematography and a postcard-winter-western-landscape setting, it’s also an aesthetically beautiful movie.

- Director: Billy Bob Thornton
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.83
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 84
- Runtime: 135 min

Billy Bob Thornton won an Oscar for writing the screenplay for “Sling Blade” and was nominated for Best Actor—but the movie was also perhaps the best big-screen performance of John Ritter’s career. The dark but charming tale of an intellectually disabled man who befriends a young boy after spending most of his life in a mental hospital ranks among the greatest dramas of the ’90s. The L.A. Times’ Kevin Thomas called it, “A mesmerizing parable of good and evil and a splendid example of Southern storytelling at its most poetic and imaginative.”

- Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.83
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 81
- Runtime: 117 min

“Dallas Buyers Club” won three Oscars and was nominated for three more. It’s based on the true story of an early AIDS patient in Texas who bypassed the establishment to create an illegal alternative-medicine ring that doled out medications from countries around the world. Matthew McConaughey (Best Actor Oscar) was widely praised for his performance in the film—as were Jared Leto (Supporting Actor) and Jennifer Garner—as well as for his radical physical transformation.

- Director: Jeff Orlowski
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.83
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: 86
- Runtime: 93 min

“Chasing Coral” is a documentary that serves two purposes: Visually, it’s a breathtaking, high-definition showcasing of the coral reefs that represent the nucleus of all marine life—intellectually, it’s a warning about the consequences of their rapid man-made destruction. Spectrum Culture’s Kristen Lopez wrote, “A story of passionate pioneers who love reefs becomes a clarion call for change and one of the year's most essential movies.”

- Director: Alessio Cremonini
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.84
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 100 min

The 2009 beating death of Stefano Cucchi by officers from a militarized Italian police unit shocked Italy and the world. A highly publicized photograph of his emaciated and battered body a week after a minor drug arrest stoked a global conversation about police brutality. This hard-hitting dramatization tells the story of the incident, its aftermath, and the brick wall of silence his family encountered during their pursuit of justice.

- Director: Nattawut Poonpiriya
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.84
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 130 min

This Thai caper thriller tells the story of a criminal enterprise that begins as a fairly innocent school-cheating scheme and grows into an international crime ring. More than just a tightly wound suspense flick, the film also serves as a commentary on class inequality in Thailand.

- Director: Hayao Miyazaki
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.84
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 71
- Runtime: 102 min

Although it wouldn’t find its way to American audiences for more than a decade after it was originally released, this animated Japanese classic was produced when anime was still called Japanimation. The debut work of Hayao Miyazaki, it tells the tale of a princess in distress, an evil count, and a bold thief and his gang of bandits.

- Director: Oriol Paulo
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.84
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 106 min

Audiences loved Spanish mystery thriller “The Invisible Guest” more than critics. The movie follows the saga of a businessman accused of murder and chronicles the twists and turns of his ever-deepening problems. It spawned several remakes filmed in different languages.

- Director: Robert Eggers
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.85
- IMDb user rating: 6.9
- Metascore: 83
- Runtime: 92 min

Set among the backdrop of 17th-century New England—a spooky world under the best of circumstances—“The Witch” puts a new spin on the age-old horror themes of dark magic and witchcraft during the time of superstition-fueled Puritan religious paranoia. The plot makes a God-fearing farmer wish that his church hadn’t banished him to a remote plot of land on the edge of a creepy forest in the decades leading up to the Salem Witch Trials. It makes all but the steeliest Netflix audiences wish they had chosen to watch a comedy before bed, instead.

- Director: Ruben Östlund
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.85
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Metascore: 73
- Runtime: 151 min

“The Square” is a smart, cynical comedy/drama that serves as a statement on not just the art world, but on human nature and modern society. Tom Long of the Detroit News wrote, “An examination of social context, elitism, cultural bubbles and more, ‘The Square’ is—to put it precisely—absolutely bonkers. But purposefully bonkers.”

- Director: Ron Davis
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.85
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 84 min

Unlike so many animal-themed documentaries designed to repulse and enrage for the purpose of stoking cultural change, “Life in the Doghouse” is just plain fun. Fuzzy and uplifting, it chronicles the lives of two men who have rescued 10,000 dogs over 10 years—every single one of which has lived in their home until they were adopted. At the time the movie was filmed, they were sharing a house with 71 rescues.

- Director: Tom Ford
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.87
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: 77
- Runtime: 99 min

The debut film work of fashion designer Tom Ford, “A Single Man” tells the story of a man who finds solace in female friendship while struggling with the loss of his longtime partner. Not only does Ford prove to be a worthy crossover artist with this drama set in 1962 Los Angeles, but Colin Firth and Julianne Moore bring their A-games.

- Directors: Daniel Lindsay, T.J. Martin
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.87
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 71
- Runtime: 113 min

Although “Undefeated” is a sports documentary based on a high school football team that has never won a playoff game in its century-plus history, it reaches out to audiences well beyond only those interested in amateur athletics. As an unlikely hero arrives to change the destiny of a team of perennial doormats, it becomes instantly clear that it’s really a documentary about hope, determination, and resilience as much as it is about the gridiron.

- Director: Madeleine Gavin
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.88
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 74 min

“City of Joy” chronicles the opening of a one-of-a-kind women’s center for survivors of unthinkable torture and abuse in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo. The women who seek refuge there come away with new bonds, an extended family, and the ability to channel their suffering into empowerment. The audience comes away with a 74-minute testament to courage, resilience, and the power of the human spirit.

- Director: Alice Rohrwacher
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.88
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: 87
- Runtime: 128 min

This Italian drama was in competition for the prestigious Palme d'Or at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and won for Best Screenplay. Critics seem to agree that the movie’s labored pace could be off-putting to some modern audiences, but that those who stick with it will be rewarded for their patience with a charming story unique to its culture. Steven Sheehan of The Digital Fix wrote, “This slow, but well-paced drama unexpectedly unfolds as a slice of traditional folklore, sitting somewhere between classic Italian neorealism and fantastical storytelling.”

- Director: Sunao Katabuchi
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.88
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 73
- Runtime: 129 min

This animated feature, based on the graphic novel series of the same name, follows an innocent girl who loves to draw in Hiroshima, Japan, in the years preceding the atomic bomb attacks. It’s been heralded as much for its beautiful, hand-drawn animation as for its rich story. Paul Byrnes of the Sydney Morning Herald wrote, “It has jaw-droppingly gorgeous settings, in which all the buildings are depicted with full accuracy, as are the homes of the peasant families who live on a mountain slope, overlooking the (largely wooden) city.”

- Director: Duncan Jones
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.88
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 67
- Runtime: 97 min

Sci-fi fans should check out “Moon,” a scary and intense thriller that follows a man (Sam Rockwell) working on the moon for an Earth-bound energy exploration company whose sinister plans are revealed only after he’s stuck hundreds of thousands of miles from home. It did lousy at the box office but later won widespread critical acclaim, as did Rockwell for his lead performance.

- Director: Jon Alpert
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.88
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 82
- Runtime: 113 min

Journalist Jon Alpert documented the evolution of Cuba over the course of 45 years—and this documentary encapsulates that nearly half-century of history in under 90 minutes. IndieWire’s David Ehrlich stated: “The film's lifeblood can be found in its connective tissue, as Alpert continually revisits the same memorable assortment of Cuban peasants and city folk.”

- Director: Alê Abreu
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.89
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: 80
- Runtime: 80 min

An Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature helped introduce “Boy and the World” to mainstream audiences. Told through the eyes of a boy wandering far from home for the first time, this Brazilian adventure movie has almost no dialogue.

- Directors: Ken Loach, Laura Obiols
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.89
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 78
- Runtime: 100 min

A tale of class struggle in Great Britain, “I, Daniel Blake” took home the Palme d'Or from Cannes in 2016. The international drama chronicles the plight of a tradesman who is deemed medically unfit to work, but is denied support and assistance from his government.

- Director: Harold Ramis
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.89
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 72
- Runtime: 101 min

This beloved Bill Murray/Andie MacDowell classic is such a part of the American consciousness that the phrase “Groundhog Day” has become a synonym for any form of situational repetition. Critics liked but didn’t necessarily love the tale of a man whose life is caught in a loop that repeats every day the same. Upon its release in 1993, Desson Howe of the Washington Post wrote, “‘Groundhog’ will never be designated a national film treasure by the Library of Congress”—in 2006, he ate his words.

- Director: Orlando von Einsiedel
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.89
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 100 min

This intense and anger-provoking documentary profiles a tiny but passionate group of conservationists struggling to maintain the world’s last mountain gorillas in the Congo’s Virunga National Park as a bloody war rages around them. It was nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar.

- Director: Edgar Wright
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.90
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Metascore: 69
- Runtime: 112 min

Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth Winstead shine in this action-comedy, which pits an aspiring musician in a battle against his girlfriend’s exes. Although it’s an impressive visual work of art, critics warn that the movie’s writing can be slightly juvenile.

- Director: Jerrold Tarog
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.90
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: 58
- Runtime: 118 min

This Filipino biopic tells the tale of a great revolutionary general leading his people against their colonial oppressors during the Philippine-American War. The New York Times’ Ken Jaworowski simplified the experience with this: “Really, when a film works this hard to rouse you, there's no shame in just giving in.”

- Director: Randall Lobb
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.90
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 82 min

Fans of the iconic ’80s fantasy blockbuster “The Dark Crystal” were thrilled to learn that Netflix was producing an update on the beloved film with a prequel series—and that series opened to widespread acclaim in 2019. Now, they can take a deep dive into how the series was made with this behind-the-scenes documentary.

- Director: David Fincher
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.90
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 95
- Runtime: 120 min

Widely acclaimed as one of the best movies of the 21st century, “The Social Network” won three of the eight Academy Awards for which it was nominated. Part expose, part drama, part biopic, the movie highlights the ambition, creativity, genius, and backstabbing that led to the creation of what the world knows today as Facebook.

- Director: Asif Kapadia
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.90
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 85
- Runtime: 128 min

Although she released only two albums in her short life, Amy Winehouse is revered as one of the greatest musical talents in the history of Great Britain—or anywhere. This sad, intimate, and powerful documentary offers a rare glimpse into her life and world while chronicling an all-too-familiar story of personal demons, insatiable appetites, and ultimately fatal addictions that have spelled the end for so many of her fellow creative geniuses.

- Director: David Gelb
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.90
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 77
- Runtime: 81 min

On its face, this is a documentary about a world-renowned sushi chef. Beneath the surface, however, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” is a portrait of a man who achieved serenity in finding something that so many people spend their whole lives searching for: the one true passion that drives his entire existence.

- Director: Sandi Tan
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.92
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Metascore: 88
- Runtime: 97 min

In 2018, Sandi Tan became the second Singapore native to leave Sundance with the World Cinema Documentary Directing Award. “Shirkers” is, in the eloquent words of the L.A. Times’ Justin Chang, “A knotty detective yarn, a funny valentine to Singapore and one of the year's most ardent expressions of movie love, it tells a story of cinematic theft, and in the process, becomes an entrancing feat of cinematic reclamation.”

- Director: John Hughes
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.92
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 61
- Runtime: 103 min

For anyone who came of age when “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” was big, it’s a masterpiece of culture and comedy—or at least the greatest movie about playing hooky ever made. A larger audience, however, is likely to believe that John Hughes has done better work, despite the Ferris character being the springboard for Matthew Broderick’s rise to stardom.

- Director: Cristi Puiu
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.92
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 86
- Runtime: 153 min

This dark comedy/drama embraces absurdity while serving as an indictment of the Bucharest health-care system. It tells the sad tale of a man shuffled from misdiagnosis to misdiagnosis in Romania. Audiences should be warned, however; it requires a commitment of more than two-and-a-half hours.

- Directors: Bob Hercules, Rita Coburn Whack
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.92
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 66
- Runtime: 114 min

It’s hard to imagine that anyone could say anything about Maya Angelou that Maya Angelou couldn’t say better herself. This powerful documentary about the woman who inspired generations of writers, activists, artists, and humanitarians allows her to do exactly that. Although it’s complemented with videos, photographs, interviews, and firsthand accounts, the film’s real power comes from its autobiographical core.

- Director: Thiagarajan Kumararaja
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.92
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 176 min

A bizarre and intense Indian-Tamil thriller/dark comedy, “Super Deluxe” might feel alien to domestic audiences, but a closer look reveals familiar themes and devices. According to Nora Lee Mandel of Maven’s Nest, “Like in entertaining [Judd] Apatow movies, within madcap and even life-threatening situations, each character learns to work on primary relationships, thanks to forgiving females.”

- Directors: Andres Clariond, Gabriel Nuncio
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.93
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 72 min

Set in 1970s Mexico City, “Roma” cleaned up at the 2019 Academy Awards, winning three Oscars out of the 10 for which it was nominated. “Road to Roma” explores the movie’s history and the creative process of director Alfonso Cuarón.

- Director: Nora Twomey
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.93
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 78
- Runtime: 94 min

“The Breadwinner” was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Angelina Jolie served as an executive producer for this film, which received as much acclaim for its impressive visuals as it did for its poignant story of a little girl who pushes the boundaries of the cultural norms in her homeland of Afghanistan.

- Director: Malik Bendjelloul
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.93
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 79
- Runtime: 86 min

This wild and warm documentary tells the story of Rodriguez, a musician so prophetic that his label signed him in the 1960s believing he would go on to define the ’70s. His only album bombed, however, and he vanished into obscurity. This story, which is essentially an optimistic one rooted in the importance of never letting a dream die, chronicles his late-life resurgence after his music was discovered years later in another country.

- Director: Noah Baumbach
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.94
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Metascore: 82
- Runtime: 86 min

This black-and-white dramedy depicting a young woman’s struggle to make it in New York City captivated critics mostly for its quirky authenticity—and for the amazing performance turned in by Greta Gerwig. Philippa Hawker of The Age wrote, “Frances Ha—both the movie and its heroine—is graceful, awkward, luminous and hilarious.”

- Director: Liu Chia-Liang
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.94
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 116 min

The famous training sequences have always defined this martial arts classic, considered by many to be the greatest kung fu flick of all time. Beyond the fabled gauntlet of the Temple’s 35 chambers, however, is an enduring tale of loss and revenge.

- Director: Evgeny Afineevsky
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.94
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Metascore: 79
- Runtime: 102 min

Most critics agree this is a perfect, complete documentary. “Winter on Fire” can serve, however, as an excellent jumping-off point for entry into the subject matter of the modern civil rights movement in Ukraine. It earned a nomination for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars.

- Directors: Sam Dunn, Scot McFadyen
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.94
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 107 min

A rock-doc with a human appeal that’s palatable even to those who don’t adore Rush, this movie traces the Canadian band’s evolution from their early days in Toronto to their rise to cult stardom. Critic Cole Smithey wrote, “The great thing about ‘Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage’ is that the documentary enables a new-found respect and regard for an incredibly energetic and creative band that recognize their strength as the sum of their talented parts.”

- Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.94
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Metascore: 68
- Runtime: 149 min

“Marvel Cinematic Universe” is the biggest movie franchise in history with $22.59 billion in worldwide box office receipts—more than double the total haul for #2 “Star Wars.” The “Avengers” series is a big reason for that success. “Infinity War” is the fifth-highest-grossing movie of all time, while the top spot goes to “Avengers: Endgame.”

- Director: Francis Lee
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.95
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 85
- Runtime: 104 min

Francis Lee’s directorial debut won critics over with a simple story about isolation and intimacy. “God’s Own Country” is a gritty and authentic portrayal of two men who find solace in each other while toiling on a remote country farm.

- Directors: Tom Jennings, David Tillman
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.95
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 112 min

Princess Diana was one of the most famous and documented women in history, and there is certainly no shortage of films dedicated to her life and death. This documentary, however, stands out for using only archival footage overlayed with Diana’s own words in her own voice.

- Director: Terry Jones
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.96
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: 77
- Runtime: 94 min

One of the foundational pillars of not just the Monty Python movement, but British comedy in general, “Life of Brian” remains one of cinema’s great farcical satires. Its outrageous take on ancient history and modern beliefs was highly controversial for its time, and its irreverent disregard for religious sensibilities inspired a generation of comedians and filmmakers.

- Directors: Josh Lowell, Peter Mortimer
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.96
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: 81
- Runtime: 100 min

Before “Free Solo” there was “The Dawn Wall,” a vertigo-inducing documentary buoyed by nail-biting climbing sequences and soaring cinematography. Beyond the incredible physical and mental feats performed by the movie’s daring climbers, however, is a story about overcoming social and personal obstacles as big as any rock face.

- Director: Spike Lee
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.98
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 72
- Runtime: 202 min

Al Pacino’s role in “Scent of a Woman” won him the Oscar for Best Actor at the 1993 Academy Awards, a maddening moment for many Denzel Washington fans who believed—correctly—that his transformation into the title character in “Malcolm X” was one of the greatest performances in movie history. Film4’s Jon Fortgang wrote, “Visually and dramatically, Lee pulls out all the stops, but it's Washington's performance that really energizes the film, and he's an exhilarating presence throughout.”

- Director: Sandra Restrepo
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.98
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 76 min

The more than 38 million people who viewed Dr. Brené Brown’s now-famous TED Talk had their voices heard when Netflix announced the production of a one-hour special. This time, fans of the best-selling author, speaker, and research professor get a feature-length presentation on the concept of courage.

- Director: Nora Fingscheidt
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.98
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 90
- Runtime: 125 min

“System Crasher” is a German drama about a wild child who relentlessly rebels in the hopes of being reunited with her mother until one child services worker begins to break through her defenses. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw called it, “A grisly, gripping watch.”

- Director: Mike Mills
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.99
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Metascore: 83
- Runtime: 119 min

A strong lead by Annette Bening powers this dramedy, which follows a young boy being raised by his mother and two other women in Southern California in 1979. Its screenplay received an Oscar nomination and it was nominated for two Golden Globes: Best Picture (Musical or Comedy) and Best Actress.

- Directors: Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.99
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Metascore: 80
- Runtime: 102 min

This crime drama portrays a man (Robert Pattinson) on an obsessive mission to spring his bank-robber brother from prison, and his increasingly frantic choices lead him on a downward spiral through New York City’s criminal underworld. James Berardinelli wrote for ReelViews, “This isn't conventional Hollywood-horror/thriller ’suspense’ but something more primal.”

- Directors: Sergio Pablos, Carlos Martínez López
- Letterboxd user rating: 3.99
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 65
- Runtime: 96 min

Hand-drawn and heartwarming, “Klaus” is an animated story about the travels of a subpar postal academy cadet whose exile to an Arctic outpost turns out to be a saving grace. New York Magazine/Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri wrote, “It’s awkward and weird, and yet all that awkwardness and weirdness give it personality and charm and a freewheeling, nonsensical quality that feels refreshing.”

- Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.0
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Metascore: 86
- Runtime: 138 min

One of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last great films, “The Master” also featured powerful performances by Joaquin Phoenix and Amy Adams. Phoenix and Hoffman were nominated for Best Actor and Supporting Actor Academy Awards and Adams was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. A tale about a man swept up in a religious movement while trying to adjust to life after World War II, it is a long and serious movie that requires a commitment in both time and concentration.

- Director: Alex Garland
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.0
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 78
- Runtime: 108 min

Psychological science-fiction thriller “Ex Machina” is highly regarded for its stunning imagery—the film won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. The acting (Oscar Isaac and Domhnall Gleeson) and plotlines in the suspenseful, AI-based thriller, however, are the real meat of the movie.

- Directors: James Lebrecht, Nicole Newnham
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.01
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 86
- Runtime: 106 min

Disabled teenagers in the 1970s had generally bleak prospects, but one camp broke the mold by creating a blissful retreat where lifelong friendships were formed, childhoods were realized, and lives were lived in full. “Crip Camp” tells the story of that wonderful place—and the cultural revolution it sparked for the disabled community.

- Director: Claude Barras
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.01
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 85
- Runtime: 70 min

This Swiss-French stop-motion dramedy was nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Animated Feature film. A big story filled with sorrow and loss as well as friendship and hope, it follows a boy who loses his mother and must learn to adapt to the harsh reality of orphanage life.

- Director: Lee Chang-dong
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.02
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Metascore: 90
- Runtime: 148 min

This South Korean psychological mystery drama wowed critics and audiences alike with its intertwining plotlines revolving around a complicated love triangle. It also makes a statement on social status in the country. Anton Bitel of VODzilla.co wrote, “Lee Chang-dong's masterful pantomime thriller explores treacherously ambiguous borderlands of class and gender.”

- Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.02
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Metascore: 78
- Runtime: 100 min

Intense, supremely violent, and arthouse-style, audiences in the mood for something fast and brutal should consider taking “Drive” out for a spin. Ryan Gosling portrays a stunt-driver-turned-getaway-driver who falls for the wrong woman—she happens to be married to the wrong man mixed up with a group of criminals.

- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.02
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 209 min

There was no shortage of naysayers eager to counter the limitless hype surrounding Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman.” Detractors chided everything from the “Goodfellas”/“Casino” character redundancy to the controversial but undeniably innovative age-defying CGI. But is an epic gangster tale directed and performed by the greatest acting/directing team in the genre’s modern history that earns its three hours and 20 minutes, despite being completely shut out at the Golden Globes, SAG Awards, and Oscars.

- Director: Steven Spielberg
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.03
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 65
- Runtime: 127 min

The third installment of the four-part “Indiana Jones” franchise gave fans a comedically refreshing departure from the dark and graphic “Temple of Doom” that preceded it. “The Last Crusade” also tossed Sean Connery in the mix for a dose of funny father-son bickering that peppers the entire film. Anyone looking for a classic, pre-“Crystal Skull” throwback Indy episode, select this movie and you will have chosen wisely.

- Director: Naoko Yamada
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.04
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 78
- Runtime: 130 min

“A Silent Voice” is an animated Japanese coming-of-age movie based on a hearing-impaired girl who faces bullying in a new school. The heart of the story, however, comes later when the bully realizes the error of his ways and tries to earn redemption.

- Director: Alfonso Cuarón
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.05
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: 88
- Runtime: 106 min

Sex, drama, and comedy collide in “Y Tu Mamá También,” a tale about two boys who come of age during a road trip with an older woman. The Chicago Tribune’s Mark Caro took the time to list all the appropriate adjectives with this review: “Raunchy, smart, ebullient, melancholy, insightful, surprising, funny, frank and sexy as all get-out.”

- Director: Kleber Mendonça Filho
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.06
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Metascore: 88
- Runtime: 146 min

This French-Brazilian drama, which chronicles hostilities between developers and a tenant who refuses to sell her apartment, stirred passions in Brazil as its subject matter dealt directly with a political crisis sweeping the country at the time of its release. Tom Long of the Detroit News wrote, “This isn't a movie about a situation; it's a movie about a fully formed, red-blooded character dealing with a situation while also dealing with everything else.”

- Director: Petra Costa
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.06
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: 81
- Runtime: 80 min

This Russian noir thriller weaves a complex web of family drama, class conflict, and a plot to secure a threatened inheritance for a desperate woman in a precarious situation. Many critics have referenced Alfred Hitchcock in describing its pace, plotlines, and devices.

- Director: Lenny Abrahamson
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.06
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: 86
- Runtime: 118 min

A drama laced with feminist underpinnings, “Room” benefits from outsized performances by especially Brie Larson, but also her young co-star Jacob Tremblay. Both suspenseful and emotional, the plot follows a captive boy and his abducted mother who learn to experience and explore the world together despite their confinement.

- Director: Alberto Saúl Arnaut Estrada
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.06
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 105 min

“Armed to the Teeth” is an eye-opening documentary that captures the brutality, corruption, and violence of modern Mexico’s crime epidemic in a single story. It chronicles the fates of two students who were framed and murdered by the Mexican military.

- Director: Noah Baumbach
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.09
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 93
- Runtime: 137 min

A bruising, cross-continent divorce between two creative types is the basis of this real and unrefined drama. Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson turn in among their best career performances and the cast is rounded out by the likes of Ray Liotta, Alan Alda, Julie Hagerty, and Laura Dern.

- Director: Spike Jonze
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.09
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 90
- Runtime: 126 min

This man-loves-a-computer, sort-of-sci-fi rom-dram generates real emotion and real laughs while also putting a spotlight on relationships in the digital age. “Her” stands on the shoulders of not just a commanding performance by Joaquin Phoenix, but a cast that includes Amy Adams, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Pratt, Olivia Wilde, and Rooney Mara.

- Director: George Stevens
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.09
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 59 min

Netflix describes this documentary’s “shocking footage” of Nazi concentration camps after liberation. According to C-SPAN, it was the official documentary report “used as trial evidence” of Nazi war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials. The U.S. Army created the film from an order by Gen. Dwight Eisenhower.

- Director: Quentin Tarantino
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.09
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Metascore: 81
- Runtime: 165 min

Tarantino put his first spin on the Western genre with this sprawling adventure tale. Joined by a bounty hunting dentist (Christoph Waltz), former slave Django (Jamie Foxx) embarks on a dangerous rescue mission. The film won two Academy Awards, including Best Screenplay.

- Director: Asif Kapadia
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.09
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Metascore: 79
- Runtime: 106 min

Like all the great sports documentaries, “Senna” is able to lure audiences that have no particular affinity for the sport that it covers. Based on the life and on-track death of Brazilian Formula One legend Ayrton Senna da Silva, the movie is fast, insightful, and nerve-wracking.

- Director: Sean Baker
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.10
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Metascore: 92
- Runtime: 111 min

“The Florida Project” is a sad but ultimately hopeful tale about a little girl living with her struggling mother in a hotel that’s close enough to actually see the bright lights of nearby Disney World, but also a million miles away. Willem Dafoe was nominated for Best Supporting Actor not only by the Academy Awards, but also the SAG Awards, and Golden Globes.

- Directors: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.11
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 93
- Runtime: 91 min

Although “And Now For Something Completely Different” preceded it by four years, “Holy Grail” represents the real genesis of Monty Python as a game-changing force for big-screen comedy. It’s considered by many to be the greatest British comedy film of all time, and by some as the greatest, period. An outrageous lampoon of the legend of King Arthur, it’s an endlessly quotable and seemingly ageless cult classic.

- Directors: Daniel Lindsay, T.J. Martin
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.11
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 66
- Runtime: 114 min

Several documentarians revisited the L.A. Riots when the event reached its 25th anniversary, though most merely retreaded old footage and repackaged previously told stories. “LA 92,” however, unearthed truly rare archival material and found fresh perspectives to explore.

- Director: Alfonso Cuarón
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.13
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Metascore: 96
- Runtime: 135 min

“Roma” is the defining project of Alfonso Cuarón’s career—and he’s got the Academy Awards to prove it. One of the most celebrated foreign-language films in history, it’s a semi-autobiographical story of family, social hierarchy, and political upheaval that takes place in the writer-director’s childhood home of early 1970s Mexico City.

- Director: Ava DuVernay
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.13
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 84
- Runtime: 100 min

“13th” is a powerful documentary that explores the intersection of America’s racial history and its criminal justice system. It approaches the subject matter from the angle of the Thirteenth Amendment, whose authors essentially guaranteed slavery would never be abolished—only hidden under the cover of law, with this single sentence: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

- Directors: Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.13
- IMDb user rating: 8.7
- Metascore: 73
- Runtime: 136 min

“The Matrix” grossed more than $460 million at the worldwide box office, won four Academy Awards, and ushered the sci-fi genre into the modern era. Its innovatively choreographed action sequences were so groundbreaking that they’re still parroted and parodied in everything from sketch comedies to TV commercials today. The dystopian future, beware-the-machines, action/adventure epic remains among the finest work of both Laurence Fishburne and Keanu Reeves.

- Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.15
- IMDb user rating: 8.0
- Metascore: 77
- Runtime: 188 min

More of a series of loosely connected but independent short stories than a coherent movie, “Magnolia” winds the painful experiences of several characters into a single thread. In order to do that, its ensemble cast went well beyond just Tom Cruise, who was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. The movie’s very deep bench included, but certainly wasn’t limited to, Julianne Moore, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, John C. Reilly, and Jason Robards.

- Director: Guillermo del Toro
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.17
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 98
- Runtime: 118 min

“Pan's Labyrinth” combines fairytale parable with political and historical intrigue. The winner of three Academy Awards, the movie takes place in post-civil war Spain. The Associated Press’ David Germain wrote, “Guillermo del Toro has crafted a masterpiece, a terrifying, visually wondrous fairy tale for adults that blends fantasy and gloomy drama into one of the most magical films to come along in years.”

- Director: Christopher Nolan
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.18
- IMDb user rating: 8.8
- Metascore: 74
- Runtime: 148 min

Leonardo DiCaprio and Ken Watanabe topped the cast of “Inception,” which also included Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Tom Hardy. The psychological sci-fi caper epic won high acclaim—including four Academy Awards—particularly for its sweeping and surreal dreamscape visuals.

- Director: Barry Jenkins
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.19
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Metascore: 99
- Runtime: 111 min

“Moonlight” is a complex coming-of-age drama that takes place in three parts: the protagonist as a youth, a teen, and a young adult. Widely hailed as one of the best movies of the 21st century, it was lifted by great writing and a dynamic cast. Paul Byrnes of the Sydney Morning Herald wrote, “Moonlight is hard to classify; even harder to describe, in terms of its considerable achievements.”

- Director: Roman Polanski
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.19
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Metascore: 85
- Runtime: 150 min

One of the greatest and most gripping Holocaust movies ever made, “The Pianist” captures the horror of the Nazi invasion of Poland, the ghettoization of its Jews, and finally, the liquidation of those ghettos and the survivors crammed inside. The story is told through the eyes of a musician who managed to slip away from a death train only to embark on an increasingly painful struggle to survive among the ruins.

- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.22
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 89
- Runtime: 129 min

Bleak, brutal, and brilliant, “Raging Bull” tells the story of Jake LaMotta, a championship boxer who found glory in the ring that was eventually overshadowed by the violence, rage, jealousy, and paranoia that swamped his relationships with his family and friends and eventually left him broke and alone. It’s widely considered to be one of Robert De Niro’s greatest performances—he won an Oscar for Best Actor for the role.

- Director: Steven Spielberg
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.22
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Metascore: 85
- Runtime: 115 min

The archaeological adventure movie that started a box-office and merchandising juggernaut, “Raiders of the Lost Ark” is the first installment of the famed “Indiana Jones” franchise. Harrison Ford turns in some of his finest work battling Nazis in pursuit of mythological treasure in a film that is now regarded as one of history’s great adventure movies and a jewel in Steven Spielberg’s crown.

- Director: Quentin Tarantino
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.25
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Metascore: 69
- Runtime: 153 min

World War II revenge fantasy “Inglourious Basterds” represents Quentin Tarantino at his finest. As with so many times before, he draws the very best out of an already stellar cast—particularly Christoph Waltz, who plays a charming but diabolical Nazi—and threads together several complex plotlines that unfold independently. As with all his greatest films, the movie is anchored in brilliant dialogue, memorable characters, and outrageous violence.

- Directors: Beyoncé, Ed Burke
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.26
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 137 min

Fans of Queen Bey can get up close and personal with Beyonce herself in this self-directed documentary that takes viewers behind the scenes with one of the brightest stars in music. The film chronicles Bey’s 2018 Coachella performance from creative conceptualization to owning the stage.

- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.28
- IMDb user rating: 8.3
- Metascore: 94
- Runtime: 114 min

Just like “Raging Bull,” “Taxi Driver” is almost universally listed among the greatest collaborations between Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese. A dark and gritty tale about a cabbie on the brink of mental breakdown, the movie is set in a crime-infested and culturally deteriorating post-Vietnam New York City. The vigilante anti-hero that De Niro brings to life (“You talking to me?”) goes on a mission to clean it all up single-handedly.

- Directors: Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.32
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Metascore: data not available
- Runtime: 87 min

A wild animated psychological science-fiction movie out of Japan, this visually impressive anime feature picks up where its television series predecessor left off. More than 20 years after its release, it remains a giant of the genre. John G. Nettles of PopMatters wrote, “This may be, if not the greatest, certainly one of the most harrowing anime experiences ever made.”

- Director: Sergio Leone
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.32
- IMDb user rating: 8.5
- Metascore: 80
- Runtime: 165 min

This long and long-adored spaghetti Western will go down as Sergio Leone’s defining work. The epic story involves revenge, romance, greed, and ambition—and stands out for casting Henry Fonda as the villain. David Parkinson of Radio Times called it, “an operatic masterpiece.”

- Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.39
- IMDb user rating: 8.2
- Metascore: 93
- Runtime: 158 min

Based on Upton Sinclair’s “Oil!,” “There Will Be Blood” puts Daniel Day-Lewis’ considerable talent on full display as a murderously ambitious early oil baron. Time Magazine’s Richard Schickel called this study of man’s obsession with power, “One of the most wholly original American movies ever made.”

- Director: Sergio Leone
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.41
- IMDb user rating: 8.8
- Metascore: 90
- Runtime: 178 min

Before there was “Once Upon a Time in the West,” there was “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” another spaghetti Western that defined not only the career of Sergio Leone, but also the entire genre of film. It’s even longer than “Once Upon a Time” and has also been immortalized on the basis of its cast (Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach), its story, its score, and its soaring cinematography.

- Directors: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman
- Letterboxd user rating: 4.44
- IMDb user rating: 8.4
- Metascore: 87
- Runtime: 117 min

There’s no shortage of action and adventure in this animated feature of the iconic “Spider-Man” franchise. Add the unique character of Miles Morales, a Brooklyn teenager with an African American/Puerto Rican background. In the word of Ben Sachs of the Chicago Reader, it “actually captures the sensation of getting absorbed in a comic book.”