Best movies to stream on Netflix, according to critics

- Director: Eva Trobisch
- Metascore: 80
- IMDb user rating: 6.4
- Runtime: 90 min

This German drama film sees a woman coping with her sexual assault at the hands of her boss’ new brother-in-law, as she attempts to remain ambivalent about the situation in order to move on. Unfortunately, avoiding the problem has consequences of its own, and the film paints an interesting perspective of one kind of coping mechanism. It won the Best Director award at the 2018 Stockholm Film Festival.

- Directors: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead
- Metascore: 80
- IMDb user rating: 6.5
- Runtime: 111 min

Since escaping from a cult many years ago, two brothers deign to return after receiving a mailed video cassette from one of the current members. Unable to agree on their version of events from when they belonged there, they agree to visit for just one day but discover just exactly what the cult was hiding all along. Though low budget, the film is an engrossing cosmic horror, and was considered by horror novelist Brian Keene to be “a true horror masterpiece.”

- Director: Peter Nicks
- Metascore: 80
- IMDb user rating: 6.7
- Runtime: 92 min

This documentary revolves around the Oakland Police Department, and depicts two years spent attempting to implement reforms during a post-Ferguson time with growing demands for police accountability. Highlighting the varying, conflicting voices at the heart of law enforcement pushback, the film won the Documentary Directing Award at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival.

- Director: Rachel Lears
- Metascore: 80
- IMDb user rating: 6.9
- Runtime: 87 min

Surrounding four progressive, female political figures and their primary runs during the 2018 United States elections, this documentary examines their radical, new voices, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The film offers a hopeful and inspiring look at those who wish to challenge the powers that be.

- Directors: Christina Clusiau, Shaul Schwarz
- Metascore: 80
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Runtime: 108 min

An Emmy-nominated nature documentary, the film is an often harrowing look into the complicated big-game hunting and conservation industries in both the United States and Africa. It depicts not only the act of big-game hunting itself through an active, lifelong participant, but the little-known way that it feeds into animal conservation.

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

The Safdie brothers’ anxiety-ridden roller coaster takes the concept of a long night and injects it with 50 shots of adrenaline. Following brothers Connie and Nick who become separated following a bank robbery, Connie will stop at nothing to get his brother out of jail and descends into an endless labyrinth of poor choices spanning one night. A commanding performance for Robert Pattinson, David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter compared him to Al Pacino in “Dog Day Afternoon.”

- Director: Jérémy Clapin
- Metascore: 80
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Runtime: 81 min

This French-animated fantasy drama is the story of a boy who’s in love with a girl—and also a severed hand that escapes from a laboratory looking for its lost body. A unique portrait of loss, the film is touching if not macabre, and was nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards.

- Director: Brad Bird
- Metascore: 80
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Runtime: 118 min

The sequel to the beloved Disney-Pixar film follows Mr. Incredible as he struggles to adjust to full-time fatherhood, while Elastigirl becomes the positive face of the resurrected superhero image. As energetic, dynamic, and funny as the first film (and featuring all the original voices), it became the 18th highest-grossing film of all time.

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

After his father leaves for the big city, a boy ventures out of his village and discovers a bizarre world inhabited by strange creatures and machines in this Brazilian animated film featuring a variety of different animation styles. A resonating look at the world through a child’s eyes, the film has very little dialogue, and when it appears is actually Portuguese spoken backward.

- Director: Jennifer Brea
- Metascore: 80
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Runtime: 98 min

Surrounding the director's own life, this documentary film looks into Jennifer Brea's mysterious illness that strikes her just before her marriage. The film raises awareness for a primarily unknown disease and is a touching exploration of life when the one previously known changes forever. It premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award For Editing.

- Director: Joshua Z Weinstein
- Metascore: 81
- IMDb user rating: 6.5
- Runtime: 82 min

From a perspective within Brooklyn’s ultra-secretive Hasidic Jewish community, a recent widower battles his own traditions to fight for custody of his son. The film is spoken almost entirely in Yiddish and offers a look into a culture that remains mostly unfamiliar to the general population. It was based on lead actor Menashe Lustig’s own life.

- Director: Zhang Yimou
- Metascore: 81
- IMDb user rating: 7
- Runtime: 116 min

This Chinese period film tells the story of a brilliant general with a lookalike he must utilize in order to take over a rival kingdom—a battle that his young, unruly king does not want. The film was screened at the Venice International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, and BFI London Film Festival. Its visual style took inspiration from traditional ink-brush paintings and the yin-yang symbol.

- Director: Steven Knight
- Metascore: 81
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- Runtime: 85 min

Starring Tom Hardy as the titular Ivan Locke, the film follows a man who leaves his worksite on the eve of an important job to be present for the birth of his child—conceived during a one-night stand—and he sees his tightly wound life begin to unravel. Hardy plays the only role seen on screen, while a variety of other actors such as Olivia Colman and Tom Holland have speaking roles. Hardy’s performance received a Best Actor Award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

- Director: Petra Costa
- Metascore: 81
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- Runtime: 121 min

Following Brazil’s sociopolitical crisis of 2014, the Brazilian documentary film analyzes director Petra Costa’s political past through the context of the rise and fall of Presidents Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff. The film serves as a cautionary tale of how a democratic crisis can fall toward populism, and it was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars.

- Director: Derek Cianfrance
- Metascore: 81
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Runtime: 112 min

This romantic drama film stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as a couple in a tumultuous relationship, the nonlinear narrative shifting back and forth in time between their courtship and the eventual crumbling of their marriage. The film is a portrait of love in all its raw, uncompromising beauty. Both actors received Best Actor nominations at the Golden Globes, and Williams received a Best Actress nominee at the Academy Awards.

- Director: David Mackenzie
- Metascore: 81
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Runtime: 106 min

A violent teenager in juvenile detention is prematurely transferred to the same prison as his equally destructive, estranged father, and must survive life in prison as his behavior sets to make enemies in both the other inmates and his father. The film is written by Jonathan Asser and based on his real-life experiences as a volunteer therapist in a prison with some of Britain’s most violent criminals.

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

Leaving behind her life spent under the thumb of military dictatorship, a young Brazilian woman moves to New York with the dream of becoming an actress. She also leaves behind a little sister, who goes off to search for her older sibling two decades later. A story of love and loss, the film is based on the director’s own real-life experiences with her older sister.

- Director: Lonny Price
- Metascore: 81
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Runtime: 95 min

A theatrical documentary film about the production of the Broadway show “Merrily We Roll Along,” the film depicts interviews with the original cast and creators and features behind-the-scenes footage of the now-beloved, classic show. It’s a bittersweet tribute to the once-reviled musical, and the transformation the cast members went through by enduring its initial blowback.

- Director: David O. Russell
- Metascore: 81
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Runtime: 122 min

Director David O. Russell followed up 2010’s “The Fighter” with this idiosyncratic dramedy. Upon moving back in with his parents, a troubled man (Bradley Cooper) tries to put the pieces of his life back together. Co-star Jennifer Lawrence won an Academy Award for the role of Tiffany, an outspoken woman with problems of her own.

- Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
- Metascore: 81
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Runtime: 117 min

Matthew McConaughey stars as a promiscuous, prejudiced man in the mid-1980s who is diagnosed with AIDS, and who begins smuggling unapproved pharmaceutical drugs to other patients to help treat their symptoms. Based loosely on the real-life story of Ron Woodroof, McConaughey and co-star Jared Leto both won Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor Oscars.

- Director: Pablo Larraín
- Metascore: 82
- IMDb user rating: 6.9
- Runtime: 107 min

This biographical drama film depicts the suppression of Communists in Chile in 1948, and follows a police inspector on the hunt for politician and poet Pablo Neruda after he’s forced to go into hiding. Successfully mixing fact and fiction, the film was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.

- Directors: Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
- Metascore: 82
- IMDb user rating: 7
- Runtime: 106 min

The Coen brothers’ existential comedy follows a bumbling, Jewish professor on the cusp of tenure, whose personal and professional life begins to unravel before his son’s bar mitzvah and which forces him to question his faith. The film received a Best Picture Oscar nomination and was placed on both the American Film Institute’s and National Board of Review’s Top 10 Film Lists of 2009.

- Director: James Ponsoldt
- Metascore: 82
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- Runtime: 95 min

When a popular teenage party guy (Miles Teller) wakes up on the front lawn of an introverted girl (Shailene Woodley) he doesn’t know, the two form an unlikely friendship that eventually leads to romance, as the two balance complicated personal lives and uncertain futures after high school. Based on the 2008 novel of the same name, the film was one of the last reviewed by Roger Ebert, which he awarded four stars.

- Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
- Metascore: 82
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Runtime: 119 min

In this dystopian black comedy, single people are sent to a hotel where they have 45 days to find a mate or they will be turned into the animal of their choosing. The film stars Colin Farrell as he is sent to the hotel after his wife leaves him for another man. He makes friends and attempts to form a connection with a short-sighted woman like him. It was nominated for a slew of accolades, and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

- Director: Danny Boyle
- Metascore: 82
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Runtime: 122 min

Danny Boyle's biographical drama spanning 14 years of Steve Jobs' life during three separate product launches, depicts the legendary tech mogul as the complicated, often unlikeable, but exceedingly brilliant man that he was. Though the film received mixed reception in regards to the accuracy of its real-life portrayals, it also received praise for its unorthodox approach to adapting a true story.

- Director: Jennifer Peedom
- Metascore: 82
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Runtime: 74 min

Narrated by actor Willem Dafoe, this documentary film focuses on humans’ relationships with mountains and other natural wonders, examining our fascination with scaling and conquering high places. It features a soundtrack collaboration with the Australian Family Orchestra and held its premiere at the Sydney Opera House.

- Director: James Ponsoldt
- Metascore: 82
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Runtime: 106 min

In the first cinematic depiction of acclaimed author David Foster Wallace, the film chronicles journalist David Lipsky interviewing Wallace over the course of five days, shortly after the publication of his novel “Infinite Jest” in 1996. The film is based on Lipsky’s best-selling memoir “Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself,” and received much acclaim, with Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers calling it “extraordinary.”

- Director: Noah Baumbach
- Metascore: 82
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Runtime: 81 min

Noah Baumbach’s semi-autobiographical comedy-drama tells the story of two boys dealing with their parents’ divorce in mid-1980s Brooklyn. Shot mostly using a handheld camera on Super 16mm film, the screenplay was voted the year’s best by The New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the National Board of Review.

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

A 20-something dancer struggles to make her way in New York amidst a tenuous career, flaky friends, and low monetary prospects, all while still falling in love over and over with the overwhelming city. Co-written with star Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach’s film was shot in black and white, and the style has been compared to Woody Allen, Jim Jarmusch, and François Truffaut.

- Director: Mike Birbiglia
- Metascore: 83
- IMDb user rating: 6.7
- Runtime: 92 min

Directed by comedian Mike Birbiglia, this comedy-drama follows an improv group who begins to unravel when only one of their members makes it big on a popular sketch show. The film is both funny and genuinely moving, and is Birbiglia's second venture into film directing following 2012's well-received "Sleepwalk with Me."

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

Director Robert Eggers’ debut feature tells the New England folk tale of a teenage girl on the cusp of womanhood in the 1630s who is accused by her family of being a witch, after her baby brother vanishes while under her care. A supernatural horror, the film was also the debut for lead actress Anya Taylor-Joy, who received critical acclaim for her performance.

- Director: Jeremiah Zagar
- Metascore: 83
- IMDb user rating: 6.9
- Runtime: 94 min

A coming-of-age film based on the 2011 novel of the same name, the story follows a young boy and his volatile, working-class family in upstate New York, as he struggles to face his burgeoning homosexuality. Shot on grainy 16mm and filmed frequently from a child’s height to create a sense of intimacy with the lead characters, the film also includes a series of animated sequences utilizing colored pencil drawings.

- Director: Nancy Schwartzman
- Metascore: 83
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Runtime: 80 min

Surrounding the infamous Steubenville High School rape case of 2012, this documentary takes a look at the case itself, the aftermath, and features true crime blogger Alexandria Goddard’s investigation of the crime through her own blog. A look at the ways social media, high school sports, machismo, and denial all play into the case and rape culture at large, the film has been described as “a tough but essential watch,” by the New York Times’ Jeannette Catsoulis.

- Director: Zachary Heinzerling
- Metascore: 83
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Runtime: 82 min

A documentary following the tumultuous 40-year marriage between two Japanese artists: boxing painter Ushio Shinohara and his wife, Noriko, the latter of whom is searching for her own identity after years of being her famed husband’s assistant. Director Zachary Heinzerling won the Best Director Award at Sundance, and the film was nominated for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar.

- Director: Tamara Jenkins
- Metascore: 83
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Runtime: 123 min

This intimate look at a dysfunctional, middle-aged couple struggling to conceive a child in New York City delves into the rarely dramatized world of assisted reproduction and domestic adoption. The film was Tamara Jenkins' first feature in nine years, and was described by the Washington Post's Michael O'Sullivan as "unflinchingly honest" with "achingly vulnerable performances" from lead actors Kathryn Hahn and Paul Giamatti.

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- Directors: Tim Burton, Mike Johnson
- Metascore: 83
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Runtime: 77 min

Tim Burton’s stop-motion animated film follows a young man in a 19th-century European village who runs away from his family’s arranged marriage, and by doing so is incidentally dragged to the underworld to wed an undead bride. The film is the first of Burton’s stop-motion projects to be directed by him, and was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards.

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

A portrait of three women of varying ages during a time of major social and cultural change in the late 1970s, Annette Bening stars as a mom struggling to raise her teenage son alone as he begins to rebel. Based partly on director Mike Mills’ own experiences while growing up, the film received almost universal acclaim, garnering over 50 awards nominations and winning six.

- Director: Tim Burton
- Metascore: 83
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Runtime: 116 min

Tim Burton brought in frequent collaborator Johnny Depp for this colorful adaptation of a Stephen Sondheim musical. Seeking revenge on those who betrayed him, a murderous barber (Depp) cuts through more than just hair. Helena Bonham Carter stars as a widowed baker, who adds her own devious touch to the scheme.

- Directors: Noah Baumbach, Jake Paltrow
- Metascore: 83
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Runtime: 110 min

A look at the life and work of Brian De Palma, Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s documentary chronicles the famed director’s 55-year career. Through conversations with other filmmakers and collaborators, archival footage, and a look at De Palma’s filmmaking process, the film paints an intimate portrait of the sometimes controversial director and screenwriter. It was described by The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw as “highly engaging.”

- Director: Morgan Neville
- Metascore: 83
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Runtime: 91 min

This documentary shines a light on the untold stories of backup singers, such as Darlene Love, Judith Hill, and Merry Clayton, whose lives have always existed just out of the spotlight. Featuring interviews with stars such as Mick Jagger and Bruce Springsteen, the film won the award for Best Documentary Feature at the 86th Academy Awards.

- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Metascore: 83
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Runtime: 126 min

Martin Scorsese’s family-friendly love letter to cinema follows an orphan boy living in a Parisian train station in 1931, on his quest to solve the mystery of the automaton left to him by his late father. The film was Scorsese’s first ever shot in 3D and received critical acclaim, including 11 Academy Award nominations, of which it won five.

- Director: David Lowery
- Metascore: 84
- IMDb user rating: 6.8
- Runtime: 92 min

In this meditation on love, loss, and mortality, a recently deceased man returns to his home to console his grieving wife in the form of an unseen, white-sheeted specter, but becomes stuck there, watching his former home evolve through the passage of time. Entertained by the idea of adding gravity to an otherwise comical figure (a white-sheet ghost), the film was brought about by director David Lowery’s own existential crisis.

- Director: Babak Anvari
- Metascore: 84
- IMDb user rating: 6.9
- Runtime: 84 min

Taking place during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, a woman in Tehran becomes convinced supernatural forces from a cursed missile mean to possess her daughter, in this Persian-language horror film. The film was writer-director Babak Anvari’s directorial debut, and was named by The Guardian’s Mark Kermode as one of the best films of 2016.

- Director: Bong Joon Ho
- Metascore: 84
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- Runtime: 126 min

Academy Award-winning director Bong Joon-ho’s dystopian film follows an endlessly running, globe-spanning train carrying the survivors of Earth’s second Ice Age, the train’s compartments sequestering people between rich and poor. A commentary on class divide, the film was the South Korean director’s English-language debut, and was the most expensive Korean film production of all time.

- Director: Clint Eastwood
- Metascore: 84
- IMDb user rating: 7.9
- Runtime: 138 min

When the daughter of an ex-con is murdered, his two childhood friends end up involved in the case—one of them was the last person to have seen her alive, the other is a homicide detective in charge of her case. This neo-noir from Clint Eastwood was nominated for six Academy Awards and won two, for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, making it the first film at the time since 1959's "Ben-Hur."

- Director: Billy Bob Thornton
- Metascore: 84
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Runtime: 135 min

Written and directed by star Billy Bob Thornton, the film follows a mentally disabled man after he’s released from a psychiatric hospital, where he’d lived since he killed his mother and her lover when he was 12 years old. Adapted both from Thornton’s own one-man show and short film, the film kick-started Thornton’s career and won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Oscars.

- Director: Ridley Scott
- Metascore: 84
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Runtime: 117 min

Set in a dystopic version of Los Angeles in the far-off year of 2019, this classic sci-fi neo noir follows a burnt-out cop tasked with hunting down a fugitive group of synthetic humans known as “replicants.” The film is loosely based on Philip K. Dick’s novel “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and is now widely considered one of the greatest science fiction films of all time.

- Director: Ashutosh Gowariker
- Metascore: 84
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Runtime: 224 min

This Hindi-language sports film takes place in 1890s India, surrounding a highly taxed village that engages in a cricket match with an arrogant officer as a bet in order to end the taxes. The third Indian film to ever be nominated for a Best Foreign Language Academy Award, it was praised by Roger Ebert as “a well-crafted, hugely entertaining epic.”

- Director: Jehane Noujaim
- Metascore: 84
- IMDb user rating: 8.1
- Runtime: 95 min

The Square” lets anyone with a Netflix membership experience the reality of a revolution as lived by the people caught up in the chaos, hope, and brutality they inspire. “No revolution has ever been filmed from the inside with such intimate detail and breathtaking scope,” one critic said of the film, which chronicles the unfolding drama of the Egyptian Revolution.

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

Named in reference to the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery in 1865, Ava DuVernay's documentary explores the United States prison industrial complex, and how the system continues to perpetuate racial inequality and even slavery to this day. The film was nominated for dozens of awards and took home 22, including Best Documentary at the BAFTAs and a Primetime Emmy award for Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special.

- Director: Mati Diop
- Metascore: 85
- IMDb user rating: 6.8
- Runtime: 106 min

This dual Wolof- and French-language film set in a suburb of Dakar follows a young woman named Ada promised to a man who is not her lover, the latter of whom leaves the country in hopes of a better future. But when her lover returns, a mysterious fever begins to take hold of the country and a fire ruins her wedding. Grappling a number of themes such as the refugee crisis, grief, and class struggle, the film was named by Barack Obama as one of his favorite films of 2019.

- Director: Tomas Alfredson
- Metascore: 85
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- Runtime: 122 min

Set during the Cold War, an espionage veteran played by Gary Oldman is forced out of retirement to seek out a Soviet double-agent who has infiltrated MI6. Based upon the 1974 novel of the same name, it was the highest-grossing British film for three straight weeks and was nominated for three Academy Awards.

- Directors: Christian Desmares, Franck Ekinci
- Metascore: 85
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Runtime: 105 min

This animated science-fiction adventure film tells the story of a girl searching for her missing scientist parents, in a steampunk version of France in the 19th century. A French, Belgian, and Canadian production, the film is hand-animated, its style having been compared to 1973’s “Fantastic Planet.” It’s direct inspiration, however, was drawn from French cartoonist Jacques Tardi.

- Director: Dee Rees
- Metascore: 85
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Runtime: 134 min

A historical drama film based on the novel of the same name, the story follows two World War II veterans, one white and one black, who return home to the South and must grapple with racism and PTSD. It was nominated for awards at both the Golden Globes and Oscars, and Mary J. Blige became the first person ever nominated for both an acting and song award at the Oscars in the same year for her work.

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

In director Francis Lee's directorial debut, two men, a young sheep farmer in rural Yorkshire and a Romanian migrant worker, meet one another and the former's life is set on a new, better path. Compared by Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian to "Brokeback Mountain," the film took home 24 awards.

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

This intimate look at a young talent gone too soon follows the rise to stardom of Amy Winehouse, an immensely gifted singer-songwriter who died in 2011 following a downward spiral in drugs and alcoholism. It’s a tragic, tender movie that aptly captures Amy’s spirit and musical prowess, and won 30 awards.

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

The first film in the classic “Indiana Jones” franchise follows the professor and archaeologist as he is tasked with uncovering a legendary artifact called the Ark of the Covenant, but must battle a group of Nazis on his quest. It is considered by many to be among the greatest films ever made.

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

Based on an autobiographical novel, this Oscar-winning drama follows a Jewish musician as he struggles to survive during WWII. Most of the action takes place in the Warsaw ghetto, where death and despair lurk around every corner. Peering through the persistent bleakness are glimmers of hope.

- Director: Yance Ford
- Metascore: 86
- IMDb user rating: 6.4
- Runtime: 107 min

Centered on the 1992 murder of the director’s own brother, the film examines the prejudiced judicial system that let the killer go free. Interrogating racial bias within the United States while uncovering the truth about his brother’s death, Yance Ford’s film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, making him the first transgender director ever nominated for an Oscar.

- Director: Alfonso Arau
- Metascore: 86
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- Runtime: 105 min

Based on the popular novel of the same name, this Mexican magical realism film surrounds a woman who can transfer her emotions to her cooking, discovered after her intense heartbreak over the love of her life marrying her sister. Playing with ideas about gender and tradition, at the time, the film was the highest-grossing Spanish-language film ever released in the United States

- Director: Trey Edward Shults
- Metascore: 86
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Runtime: 83 min

The titular Krisha returns to her estranged family for Thanksgiving, where tensions mount as she must face the loved ones she abandoned years prior. Starring Trey Edward Shults’ real-life aunt Krisha Fairchild and adapted from his short film of the same name, it marked his feature-length directorial debut.

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

L. Ron Hubbard and the Church of Scientology provide an inspirational backdrop to this period drama from Paul Thomas Anderson. It follows a former Naval officer (Freddie Quell) as he falls in with a science-based religious cult. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the cult’s charismatic leader and Amy Adams his wife.

- Directors: Nana Ekvtimishvili, Simon Groß
- Metascore: 86
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Runtime: 120 min

In 2016 Georgia, a family spanning three generations and living under one roof is shaken when 52-year-old Manana decides to set out and live on her own, leaving her husband as well. The film received critical acclaim and was compared to a “minor Greek comic-tragedy” by The Hollywood Reporter’s Jordan Mintzer.

- Directors: Steven Bognar, Julia Reichert
- Metascore: 86
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Runtime: 110 min

This documentary follows a Chinese billionaire who opens a factory in a shuttered General Motors plant in Ohio, and the resultant clashes between the blue-collar American workers and Chinese tech and industry. It was the first film produced by Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company Higher Ground Productions, and won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

- Directors: Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne
- Metascore: 86
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Runtime: 99 min

The next film from the lauded Belgian brother duo after "Rosetta" took home the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1999, this early aughts triumph is a small, quiet tale about radical forgiveness that follows a father who apprentices the teen that murdered his son. Roger Ebert named it the seventh best film of the decade.

- Director: Martin Scorsese
- Metascore: 86
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Runtime: 142 min

Mixing fact and fiction, this dual documentary and concert film chronicles Bob Dylan’s 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour. It features outtakes from tour footage, contemporary interviews with members of the tour, and fictionalized interviews of actors portraying people who were not actually on tour. Attempting to capture this troubled period in America and how Dylan’s music fit into it, the film is Scorsese’s second documentary on Bob Dylan.

- Directors: James Lebrecht, Nicole Newnham
- Metascore: 86
- IMDb user rating: 7.8
- Runtime: 106 min

Produced by Michelle and Barack Obama, this heralded Netflix documentary welcomes viewers into Camp Jened. From the early 1970s onward, the summer camp provided people with disabilities with a liberating and transformative experience. As former attendees recall their journey, the film gives way to a broader message about equality and revolution.

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

An old man is sent from hospital to hospital over the course of one night as doctors continue refusing to treat him, unable to figure out what’s wrong with him and impeded by a major traffic accident. The Romanian dark comedy film is planned to be the first in a series entitled “Six Stories from the Outskirts of Bucharest,” and was named by The New York Times as the fifth best film of the 21st century.

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

Having been born in captivity and only knowing one room, a five-year-old boy finally experiences the world for the first time when he and his mom, trapped by a kidnapper seven years prior, escape. Based on screenwriter Emma Donoghue’s 2010 novel of the same name, the film was nominated for a total of 131 awards and won 62 of them.

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

Premiering at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, this documentary follows a team of divers, scientists, and photographers who document the decline of the world's coral reefs due to carbon emissions causing a phenomenon called "coral bleaching." At the festival, the film won the Audience Award for U.S. Documentary, and composer Dan Romer co-wrote an original song for the film featuring actress Kristen Bell.

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

In this Canadian drama film, two Native women from very different backgrounds come together by happenstance when one escapes her abusive boyfriend. The film is shot to look like one long, continuous take, though there are actually 12 hidden cut points in the film. Difficult at first due to using 16mm film, it was achieved using a system that cinematographer Norm Li dubbed the “Real-Time Transitioning.”

- Directors: Linda Saffire, Adam Schlesinger
- Metascore: 87
- IMDb user rating: 7.1
- Runtime: 90 min

This documentary surrounds long-time ballet dancer Wendy Whelan through her collaborative dance project, “Restless Creature,” and follows her through its creation, her final years at the New York City Ballet, and her recovery from a hip surgery. The film was described by The Los Angeles Times’ Sheri Linden as “intimate and engaging.”

- Director: Robin Hardy
- Metascore: 87
- IMDb user rating: 7.5
- Runtime: 88 min

A police sergeant visits a rural island in Europe called Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a missing girl, but discovers the island’s inhabitants are a part of a cult of Celtic paganism with more sinister motives than he realized. Described by film magazine Cinefantastique as “the ‘Citizen Kane’ of horror movies,” the film has been considered not only one of the greatest horror films of all time, but one of the greatest films of all time in general.

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

In 1977, a kind-hearted teenager named Lazzaro works on a vast estate as a sharecropper in the estate’s tobacco farm, but his life changes when he forms an unexpected friendship with the marquise of the estate’s son. It premiered at Cannes, competed for the Palme d’Or, and won Best Screenplay.

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

In this computer-animated feature film, teenager Miles Morales juggles high school while secretly being the friendly, neighborhood webbed superhero. When villain Wilson "Kingpin" Fisk uses a device to transport other Spider-Men from alternate universes into Miles' own universe, they must come together to stop Fisk. The film combines computer animation with traditional, hand-drawn comic book techniques, and won an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.

- Director: Armando Iannucci
- Metascore: 88
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Runtime: 107 min

A satirical black comedy surrounding the death of the titular dictator and the aftermath that followed suit, the former leader of the Soviet Union and his cronies are parodied in the latter’s struggle to overtake his empty seat. The film received critical acclaim but was banned in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, for its mocking portrayal of the countries’ past.

- Director: Camilla Nielsson
- Metascore: 88
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Runtime: 100 min

This documentary about the politics in Zimbabwe follows the country’s 2008 election as it veered away from authoritarianism closer to democracy, and the effort to rewrite the county’s constitution. It was dubbed an “outstanding, unsettling documentary” by the New York Times’ Glenn Kenny, and he made it a NYT Critics’ Pick.

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

When director Sandi Tan was a teenager, she set out to make a movie with her friends in Singapore in 1992—until her older American collaborator disappeared with her film. When the film is finally recovered 20 years later, Tan sets off on a quest to discover what happened to the mysterious thief. The film won the award for Best Documentary Film from the Los Angeles Critics association, and was described by Nick Allen for RogerEbert.com as “vibrant” and “unbelievable.”

- Director: Sydney Pollack
- Metascore: 88
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Runtime: 116 min

An out-of-work actor (Dustin Hoffman) struggling to find gigs due to his bad reputation decides to take on the identity of a woman, in order to land a part in a daytime soap opera. It was the second-most profitable film of 1982 and was nominated for Best Picture. The film was also adapted into a musical in 2018, and opened on Broadway in 2019.

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

The last resident of a building called Aquarius—a wealthy 65-year-old retired music critic refuses to leave to make way for a construction company. The film was released at the height of Brazil's political crisis and caused controversy due to its political connotations, but was still nominated for several awards and ended up on multiple best films lists.

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

This coming-of-age story set in Mexico in 1999 follows two teenage boys on a road trip with an older woman, with the reality of Mexico’s political and economic state at the time. The film received harsh censorship due to its depictions of sex and drugs. However, it was nominated for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar and Best Foreign Language Golden Globe.

- Director: David Mackenzie
- Metascore: 88
- IMDb user rating: 7.6
- Runtime: 102 min

Two bank robbers trying to save their family ranch are pursued by two Texas Rangers, in this neo-western film and character study. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards—Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Film Editing and Best Original Screenplay.

- Director: Abdellatif Kechiche
- Metascore: 88
- IMDb user rating: 7.7
- Runtime: 180 min

Based on the graphic novel of the same name, this French romance film follows a teenager whose life changes when she meets an aspiring female painter, and how she evolves over the years of knowing and loving her. The film unanimously received the Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, and was the first film to win the award for both the director and lead actresses.

- Director: Tom Hooper
- Metascore: 88
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Runtime: 118 min

In the early 20th century, pre-World War II, future King George VI's brother abdicates the throne. The new king must reluctantly take his place and lead England into war. Considered to be unfit to rule, the king looks to an unorthodox speech therapist to help him get over his stutter, and the two form a friendship as they work together. The film won Best Picture at the 83rd Academy Awards.

- Director: James Ivory
- Metascore: 89
- IMDb user rating: 7.4
- Runtime: 142 min

Set in Edwardian Britain, sisters Margaret and Helen become involved with two couples, one wealthy and one working-class, in a story that chronicles class relations during a time of massive cultural change in England. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won three.

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

Adapted from Jake LaMotta’s memoir, the film stars Robert de Niro as LaMotta himself—a self-destructive but successful American middleweight boxer who has ultimately ruined his marriage and family due to his unwieldy behavior. Though initially met with mixed reception despite multiple Academy Award nominations, the film has gone on to be seen as one of the best films of all time.

- Director: Neil Jordan
- Metascore: 90
- IMDb user rating: 7.2
- Runtime: 112 min

A unit of the Ireland Republican Army, headed by a man named Fergus, holds a British soldier prisoner. Fergus forms an unexpected bond with the prisoner, Jody, and forms an even more unexpected romantic relationship with Jody’s girlfriend in London, whom Fergus promised to protect. Tackling themes such as race, nationality, sexuality, and gender, the film received critical acclaim and was nominated for six Academy Awards, winning Best Original Screenplay.

- Director: Kasper Collin
- Metascore: 90
- IMDb user rating: 7.3
- Runtime: 92 min

This Swedish-produced documentary tells the tragic story of talented jazz trumpeter Lee Morgan and his common-law wife, Helen, who murdered him in 1972, featuring archival footage and recent interviews with other musicians. The Los Angeles Times’ Kenneth Turan described the film as “artistic, obsessive, and intoxicating.”

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

A deliveryman is asked by a girl who once lived in his neighborhood if he could watch her cat while she’s away, but when she returns, she’s accompanied by a mysterious, handsome man whom she bonded with during a crisis. This South Korean psychological mystery film became the first Korean film to make it to the final nine-film shortlist for Best Foreign Language Film nomination at the 91st Academy Awards, though it was not nominated.

- Director: Spike Jonze
- Metascore: 90
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Runtime: 126 min

In a near-future version of Los Angeles, a lonely writer purchases a new artificially intelligent operating system with whom he unexpectedly falls in love. Exploring ideas about love and our relationship to technology, the film was director Spike Jonze's solo screenwriting debut and was conceived in the early 2000s, after making a short film called "I'm Here," touching on similar themes.

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

A six-year-old girl lives with her reckless single mother just outside of Walt Disney World in Florida, where she goes on adventures with her friends while their parents all struggle to make ends meet. It was supporting actress Bria Vinaite’s breakout role, and the film was nominated for more than 100 awards, winning over 30.

- Director: Noah Baumbach
- Metascore: 93
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Runtime: 137 min

Noah Baumbach’s acclaimed family drama follows a couple going through a messy divorce while living on both coasts, and was loosely based on Baumbach’s real-life divorce from actress Jennifer Jason Leigh. The film was nominated for a plethora of awards, with supporting actress Laura Dern taking home the Best Supporting Actress from the Oscars, Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the BAFTAs.

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

Ruthless oilman Daniel Plainview is on a quest for wealth during Southern California’s oil boom in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and uses his adopted son to create a false image of family values in order to con landowners out of their property. Things change, however, when he meets a zealous preacher who suspects his ulterior motives. The film was loosely based on the novel “Oil!” by Upton Sinclair, and was picked by Rolling Stone’s Peter Travers as the best film of the decade.

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

Following the real-life story of mobster Frank Sheeran, this epic crime film follows his indoctrination as a hitman into Russell Bufalino’s crime family, and his time working for powerful Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa. Joe Pesci as Bufalino was the actor’s first big role since going into unofficial retirement in 1999, and was both the most expensive and longest film of director Martin Scorsese’s career.

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

One of Martin Scorsese's earliest masterpieces tells the story of Vietnam war veteran Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro). As he drives around New York City in a taxi, his mounting disgust takes on violent dimensions. The movies themes of alienation and madness haven't aged a day.

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

Before he was one of the world’s richest men, Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) was a crafty college kid with a great idea. Or was it someone else’s idea? This Oscar-winning drama lays everything bare and leaves no sordid detail behind.

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

A semi-autobiographical account of director Alfonso Cuarón’s upbringing in Mexico City, the film surrounds a live-in housekeeper for a middle-class mother of four in the 1970s while her husband is away. The film was shot in black-and-white and was lead actress Yalitza Aparicio’s first acting role, which earned her critical acclaim and a nomination for Best Actress at the Academy Awards.

- Director: Roman Polanski
- Metascore: 96
- IMDb user rating: 8
- Runtime: 137 min

When a young couple moves into an old apartment building in New York City, they find it has an unsavory past, and soon pregnant wife Rosemary Woodhouse begins to suspect that her friendly, older neighbors have diabolical plans set in motion for her unborn baby. The film is considered by many to be one of the best horror films of all time, and Ruth Gordon received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Rosemary’s nosy neighbor, Minnie Castevet.

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

Guillermo del Toro strikes the perfect balance between various genres in this award-winning classic. It takes place in 1944 Spain and follows young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), who flees from her dreary reality into a mythical realm. While the film is rife with imaginary creatures, a sadistic captain (Sergi López) remains its true monster.

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

Winner of Best Picture at the 2017 Academy Awards, this landmark drama spans three eras in the life of a young Black man. What begins as a struggle in poverty gives way to complicated themes of sexual identity and one's place in the world. The performances and cinematography are both in a class all their own.