It’s more than two years since we updated this list, when it focused exclusively on Netflix. That streaming giant is still where we found the biggest, most satisfying selection of movies, but this time around we’ve broadened our selection to include noteworthy features on Apple TV+, Disney+, Paramount+ and Prime Video.
Be prepared for some of these films to disappear before you get a chance to watch them, as streamers’ libraries change frequently. Among the titles that have vanished from our 2022 selection are, confusingly, Netflix theatrical releases such as Passing and The Power of the Dog. And, like most of its competitors, Netflix offers only a smattering of films made before 1990 and has seen certain bigger franchises snatched up by their makers’ dedicated streaming operations.
But there is still a decent array of contemporary films in all genres. Hats off to Lawrence of Arabia for keeping golden-age cinema aloft in this list.
NETFLIX
Arrival
Denis Villeneuve, 2016
Villeneuve arguably hit his sweet spot with this cerebral science-fiction drama starring Amy Adams as a linguist seeking communication with two visiting aliens. Properly peculiar.
Athena
Romain Gavras, 2022
This electrifying, Greek mythology-inspired action movie starts as it means to go on: with a riot and fireworks. A white-knuckle tale of class conflict as fugazied cops fight their way in and out of a Parisian banlieue.
Blackfish
Gabriela Cowperthwaite, 2013
The story of Tilikum, the killer whale that killed several people while in captivity at SeaWorld Orlando, in Florida. Tilikum died in 2017, just before SeaWorld announced the end of all its orca shows.
Bodies, Bodies, Bodies
Halina Reijn, 2022
Reijn sends a classy young cast, including Amandla Stenberg and Maria Bakalova, to a house party for a murder-in-the-dark game. Sharp gags and satirical horror result.
Boyhood
Richard Linklater, 2014
Shot over an astonishing 11 years with its stars Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane, Lorelei Linklater and Ethan Hawke, this epic coming-of-age drama is as emotionally impactful as it is ambitious.
Boyz N the Hood
John Singleton, 1991
Cuba Gooding jnr and Ice Cube star in one of the key African-American dramas of the 1990s. Inspired a generation and began a shift in Hollywood’s priorities.
Casting JonBenet
Kitty Green, 2017
In 1996 the body of six-year-old JonBenét Ramsey was in the basement of her family’s home; she had been strangled. Twenty years on, this riveting project investigates by holding auditions in the community.
The Death of Stalin
Armando Iannucci, 2017
Blackly comic treatment of the paranoia that followed the Soviet leader’s death, from one of the creators of The Thick of It. Starry cast all strong, but Jason Isaac excels as Marshal Zhukov.
Dick Johnson Is Dead
Kirsten Johnson, 2020
As her father, who has dementia, nears the end of his life, cinematographer turned director Kirsten Johnson stages his death in absurd ways as a coping mechanism.
Donnie Brasco
Mike Newell, 1997
Al Pacino delivered one of his best, and certainly most restrained, performances of the 1990s as an ageing mobster opposite Johnny Depp’s undercover fed.
Drive
Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011
Ryan Gosling is near wordless and effortlessly cool as a Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a getaway driver in this much-memed Cannes classic.
Fall
Scott Mann, 2022
Sickeningly effective thriller about two women trapped at the top of a 600m TV tower. Forms a good double-bill with the Netflix doc Skywalkers.
Get Out
Jordan Peele, 2017
Biting social satire in which Daniel Kaluuya finds himself at the centre of a modern slavery racket and, worse, in the horrifying “Sunken Place”.
The Guest
Adam Wingard, 2014
This minor classic in the sinister-houseguest genre casts Dan Stevens, against type, as an apparent veteran who turns up at the home of a slain comrade. But is he what he says?
Godzilla Minus One
Takashi Yamazaki, 2023
The original Godzilla channelled the twin atomic disasters of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. This prequel, similarly, yokes American imperialism, postwar malaise, survivor guilt and weaponised atomic power to produce the best action film in many years.
Halloween
John Carpenter, 1978
Michael Myers slashes up Illinois’s leading babysitters. Carpenter invented, or at least perfected, a horror genre with a film that remains as queasily fresh today as it was when Jimmy Carter was US president.
Into the Inferno
Werner Herzog, 2016
Herzog rhapsodises about the power and violence of volcanoes as the volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer takes the German film-maker around the world’s most dangerous active sites.
The Irishman
Martin Scorsese, 2019
Very different in tone from Goodfellas or Casino – quieter, more mournful – this huge gangster epic feels like the opening notes of a farewell symphony. Jury still out on digital de-ageing
Jaws
Steven Spielberg, 1975
One of the best American films ever made. As good as Spielberg gets. As good as John Williams gets. What more could any person want? Duh, dum. Duh, dum.
Lady Bird
Greta Gerwig, 2017
Saoirse Ronan delivers her best performance – hilarious yet vulnerable – as the director’s alter ego growing up in millennial Sacramento. Her relationship with mom Laurie Metcalfe is heartbreaking.
Lady Macbeth
William Oldroyd, 2016
Alice Birch’s thrilling adaptation of the 1865 novella Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District by Nikolai Leskov casts a compelling Florence Pugh as the young, murderous bride of the title.
Lawrence of Arabia
David Lean, 1962
Heavens! A classic from more than 60 years ago on Netflix. “Nothing is written,” indeed. Peter O’Toole scales the dunes as the enigmatic TE Lawrence. Best watched on a big telly.
Leave No Trace
Debra Granik, 2018
The compromised, increasingly complicated off-grid family life of a damaged former military man (Ben Foster) and his loyal teenage daughter (Thomasin McKenzie).
Living
Oliver Hermanus, 2022
The Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro adapts Akira Kurosawa’s great film Ikiru, about a bureaucrat facing up to mortality. Bill Nighy received a deserved Oscar nomination for his lead turn.
Lost in Translation
Sofia Coppola, 2003
A fading American movie star (Bill Murray) befriends a lonely young American (Scarlett Johansson) on a trip to Tokyo in this timeless Oscar-winner.
Marriage Story
Noah Baumbach, 2019
The laureate of Brooklyn angst hits peak form with an analysis of the poisons that bubble up when marriages go wrong. Funny in even its darkest corners.
Memento
Christopher Nolan, 2000
Nolan has achieved much, but he has never again made a film so tightly structured as this neonoir about a confused amateur sleuth with no short-term memory. Guy Pearce stars.
Monty Python’s Life of Brian
Terry Jones, 1979
The Monty Python team confirmed the breadth of their vision with a film that had as much to do with parodying Hollywood epics as poking religious hypocrisy.
My Friend Dahmer
Marc Meyers, 2017
Adapted from Derf Backderf’s autobiographical graphic novel, this desperately sad portrait of Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer, as “the loneliest kid” at high school stars Alex Wolff.
The Other Guys
Adam McKay, 2010
A few years before McKay won his Oscar for The Big Short, he directed this priceless comedy featuring Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg as differently idiotic cops.
Paprika
Satoshi Kon, 2006
Epic, visually stunning anime about a psychological terrorist who gets hold of a device that can cause the sharing of dreams. Looks to have been a significant influence on Christopher Nolan’s Inception.
Parasite
Bong Joon-ho, 2019
World-conquering South Korean social satire in which a low-income family scheme furiously to “replace” their well-heeled employers.
Past Lives
Celine Song, 2023
Quietly moving variation on the Brief Encounter template that has old friends, separated in Korea decades earlier, meeting up in contemporary New York City. A masterpiece of the unsaid.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Celine Sciamma, 2019
In 1770s France, artist Marianne (Noémie Merlant) travels to a remote island off the Brittany coast, where she is commissioned to paint the portrait of a reluctantly betrothed Héloïse (Adèle Haenel). Their relationship blossoms into friendship and, ultimately, love.
Punch-Drunk Love
Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002
You could read Anderson’s weird comedy as a pondering of how a typical Adam Sandler character might come across in something like real life. Pretty damn scary is the answer.
Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese, 2019
A pseudo-documentary about Dylan’s “populist” 1975 tour, featuring an eclectic mix of talking heads, fictionalised accounts and actors, and contemporaneous footage.
Roma
Alfonso Cuarón, 2018
Netflix’s production department stepped up with this stunningly ambitious monochrome study of 1970s family life in Mexico City.
RRR
SS Rajamouli, 2022
This rare international breakthrough for a Tollywood film turns the Indian fight against British imperialism into a huge, tuneful romp. Good villain work from Irish talent Alison Doody and the late Ray Stevenson.
Rush
Ron Howard, 2013
James Hunt and Niki Lauda, two Formula 1 legends, are embodied by Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl in this thrilling dramatisation of their life-threatening rivalry.
Society of the Snow
JA Bayona, 2023
The tale of the Uruguay rugby team, some of whom, in 1972, turned to cannibalism after their plane crashed in the Andes, has been told before, but never with such unsettling facility.
Spencer
Pablo Larrain, 2021
Daringly impressionistic biopic set over an awful Christmas break with the British royal family at Queen Elizabeth’s Sandringham Estate, Spencer casts Kristen Stewart as Princess Diana, who by 1991 is struggling with an eating disorder, constant surveillance, her husband’s infidelity, and duty.
Spirited Away
Hayao Miyazaki, 2001
Oscar-winning fantasy. Chihiro is travelling to her new home when a detour leaves her stranded in an otherworldly bathhouse. After her parents are transformed into pigs, she encounters many magical beings. One of many Miyazaki films to savour on Netflix.
Stand by Me
Rob Reiner, 1986
Reiner was continuing an incredible run of classics when he embarked on this touching adaptation of a nostalgic Stephen King tale about a group of boys who find a body. River Phoenix is next level.
13th
Ava DuVernay, 2016
An urgent, scholarly dissection of the United States’ prison system. Multinationals and presidents, from Eisenhower to Clinton, do not emerge well.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Tomas Alfredson, 2011
The BBC’s 1979 adaptation of John le Carré's absurdly intricate spy thriller is probably unbeatable, but this starry version ran it close. Check out Gary Oldman eating his hamburger with a knife and fork.
12 Years a Slave
Steve McQueen, 2013
McQueen rightly won the Academy Award for best picture for this harrowing drama based on the 1853 slave memoir by Solomon Northup, an African-American man who was kidnapped in Washington, DC, in 1841 and sold into slavery.
Three Identical Strangers
Tim Wardle, 2018
Breathtaking, sometimes tragic documentary about three men who, decades after their adoption, discover they were triplets separated as part of an experiment. Uncanny connections emerge.
Triangle of Sadness
Ruben Östlund, 2021
Rip-roaring, Cannes-winning satire that aims at the beauty industry and the super-rich as a luxury cruise ship sinks, leaving behind privileged survivors with no skills.
Uncut Gems
Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie, 2019
Adam Sandler plays Howard, a pawnbroker and gambling addict, in a film so stressful that anybody with a heart condition should approach with caution.
Whiplash
Damien Chazelle, 2014
Chazelle’s tale of a jazz drummer and his ruthless teacher takes liberties with pedagogic realities, but it remains a gripping piece of mainstream entertainment. JK Simmons won a deserved Oscar as the tyrant.
PRIME VIDEO
Anatomy of a Fall
Justine Triet, 2023
Did the husband fall or was he pushed? Is his wife guilty or innocent? And what did the dog see? These and other mysteries are unravelled in this Palme d’Or winner.
The Night of the Hunter
Charles Laughton, 1955
Robert Mitchum’s terrifying killer poses as a preacher and pursues two children in the hope of uncovering $10,000 of stolen cash hidden by their late father.
The Long Goodbye
Robert Altman, 1973
A hungry cat kickstarts a series of mysterious and violent events around a never-better Elliott Gould as he shuffles and mumbles through this superior Marlowe adventure.
The Zone of Interest
Jonathan Glazer, 2023
The commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Höss, and his wife, Hedwig, raise a family in a dream house and garden adjacent to the Nazi concentration camp in this chilly Oscar-winner.
DISNEY+
Boys Don’t Cry
Kimberly Peirce, 1999
An unforgettable dramatisation of the true-life story of American trans man Brandon Teena, played by an Oscar-winning Hilary Swank.
Summer of Sam
Spike Lee, 1999
It’s 1977 and the real-life serial killer David Berkowitz, aka Son of Sam, creates fear and panic among a group of fictional residents of an Italian-American Bronx neighbourhood.
Pinocchio
Ben Sharpsteen, Hamilton Luske, 1940
A squadron from Disney’s emerging animation studio toiled on this magical adaptation of Carlo Collodi’s classic story of a wooden puppet brought to life by a blue fairy.
PARAMOUNT+
Chinatown
Roman Polanski, 1974
Polanski’s disturbing noir thriller casts Jack Nicholson as a flawed sleuth unearthing the grubby truth behind Los Angeles’ interwar surge. Robert Towne’s script is untouchable.
The Godfather
Francis Ford Coppola, 1972
Paramount+ has by far the best selection of films from the last century. Prime among them are all three in Coppola’s original untouchable gangster trilogy.
Roman Holiday
William Wyler, 1953
Perfectly judged romantic comedy that sends Audrey Hepburn’s Ruritanian princess into Gregory Peck’s cynical arms during a night adrift in a gorgeously rendered Rome. Sheer heaven.
Sunset Blvd
Billy Wilder, 1950
“I am big. It’s the pictures that got small!” Gloria Swanson’s faded star famously booms. There’s nothing small about Wilder’s anthracite comedy about Hollywood’s amnesiac disregard of its then-recent past.
APPLE TV+
The Tragedy of Macbeth
Joel Coen, 2021
Apple’s feature content consists largely of its own recent productions. You could do worse than Coen’s take – without his brother Ethan’s involvement this time around – on Shakespeare’s fastest-moving tragedy. Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand star.
Wolfwalkers
Tomm Moore, Ross Stewart, 2020
The final and, perhaps, liveliest of Cartoon Saloon’s Irish folklore trilogy that began with The Secret of Kells and continued with Song of the Sea.
