The best feelgood movies on Netflix to watch right now

Directors: Maggie Kang, Chris Appelhans

Voice cast: Arden Cho, Ahn Hyo-seop, May Hong

Who could have guessed that a colourful, anime-inspired cartoon about a Korean girl group defending Earth from an evil shapeshifting boy-band, full of catchy songs and exciting action, would become a huge hit? Similar to A Minecraft Movie, older observers should have seen the cultural domination coming, but studios continue to underestimate the purchase power of gens Alpha and Z. Probably not for much longer, though – this thing really did take over the world, from streaming numbers to the pop charts, and it’s truly a blast from start to finish.

Directors: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman

Voice cast: Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld

No matter how exhausted you are by superhero movies, the creative rush of this animated, multiverse-hopping origin story is sure to get your spidey senses tingling again. Miles Morales is a regular Brooklyn teenager until, one day, he gets bitten by a radioactive arachnid, transforming him into a web-slinging saviour. So far, so Spider-Man, right? Think again – it’s at once a total reinvention and a celebration of everything fans love about the character and its lore… and we do mean everything.

Director: Danny DeVito

Cast: Mara Wilson, Danny DeVito, Pam Ferris

Danny DeVito's snappy, kinetic visual adaptation of this Roald Dahl classic fits the cartoon feel of the source material, and the cast is great. It’s a modern-day pantomime about childhood solidarity and self-empowerment: the real joy here is the view of generational war, the children’s assumption of zero tolerance for injustices inflicted by absurd adults, and the recognition that the big meanies should be punished, by fair means or foul.

Director: Dougal Wilson

Cast: Ben Whishaw (voice), Hugh Bonneville, Emily Mortimer

The first two live-action Paddington movies are some of the best family films of all-time. The third is a slight step down from those heights, but it’s still a warm, fuzzy good time. In this chapter, everyone’s favourite marmalade-loving ursine, along with his adopted British family, returns home to the jungles of Peru in search of his Aunt Lucy. Also, the always great Olivia Colman plays a Julie Andrews-ish nun. Delightful!

Director: Claire Scanlon

Cast: Zoey Deutch, Glen Powell, Taye Diggs, Lucy Liu

Director Claire Scanlon resurrects that tragically neglected genre, the romcom, with this amiable caper. The premise – two put-upon assistants (Glen Powell and Zoey Deutch) try to trick their bosses-from-hell as payback for their own stresses – is relatively well-trodden territory, but it’s executed deftly and boasts no little heart. There are even a few genuine laugh-out-loud moments sprinkled among the romantic fare, with Lucy Liu proving that when it comes to comedy she knows how to deliver.

Director: Laura Piani

Cast: Camille Rutherford, Pablo Pauly, Charlie Anson

Art imitates life imitating art in this French romcom, in which an aspiring romance novelist and Jane Austen acolyte attends a writing retreat dedicated to the English author and falls into a very familiar sort of love triangle involving a handsome jerk and her nice-guy best friend. It’s a literary fantasy about the lie of literary fantasies that Austen herself would nonetheless appreciate.

Directors: Nick Bruno, Troy Quane

Voice cast: Chloë Grace Moretz, Riz Ahmed

Abandoned by Disney following its acquisition of 21st Century Fox – allegedly for including a same-sex kiss – this sci-fi adventure was eventually rescued by Netflix. And thank goodness, because its themes of LGBTQ+ acceptance deserve to be seen by young audiences. And beyond its message, it’s really just a great animated thrill ride, telling the story of a shapeshifter (Moretz) who joins up with the knight (Ahmed) sworn to kill her to take down the system that oppresses them both.

Director: Susan Johnson

Cast: Lana Condor, Noah Centineo

To deal with her intense crushes, Lara Jean (Lana Condor) writes secret love letters to the boys she lusts after, which no one is ever meant to see. Of course, these letters end up being sent out and Lara Jean must deal with her feelings, and the implications of the letters, head on. The sequel to the sequel –To All the Boys: Always and Forever – landed on Netflix earlier this year. The romcom is officially back, baby.

Director: Chiwetel Ejiofor

Cast: Maxwell Simba, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Felix Lemburo

It would take a truly hard heart not to feel inspired by this true-life story of a young boy from Malawi attempting to build a windmill that may save his poor farming village in the midst of a devastating drought. Ejiofor, in his directorial debut, also acts, but the standout is 13-year-old Maxwell Simba as William Kamkwamba, who overcomes multiple obstacles in his quest to make a difference for his community. It’s passionate, heartfelt and the very definition of feelgood.

Directors: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

Voice cast: Chris Pratt, Will Ferrell, Morgan Freeman 

In some ways, this animation, from future Project Hail Mary duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, was the proto-Barbie: a movie based on an iconic toy that turned out to be much sharper, more irreverent and funny than anyone could have guessed. Adults will indeed enjoy the meta-jabs at corporate culture and A-list voice cast, while kids will thrill to the action-packed story of an ordinary construction worker (Pratt) tasked to save the Lego Universe from destruction – as well as the superhero cameos.

Directors: Kirk DeMicco, Brandon Jeffords

Voice cast: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ynairaly Simo, Zoe Saldana

With a colour palette seemingly syphoned from a literal rainbow and a slate of catchy songs courtesy of Lin-Manuel Miranda, this lively animated musical will brighten the mood of even the crankiest curmudgeon. The emotional storyline helps, too: after an elderly Cuban musician passes away, his talking pet kinkajou (Miranda) teams up with a spunky young girl (voiced by Zoë Saldana) to deliver a final song to his long-lost love.

Director: John Carney

Cast: Lucy Boynton, Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Aidan Gillen

Why do boys start bands? Everyone knows the answer, but that doesn’t make Once director John Carney’s New Wave coming-of-age musical any less charming and heartfelt. In 1980s Dublin, young musician Conor (Walsh-Peelo) decides to take his songs out of the bedroom in order to impress a punky aspiring model named Raphina – and maybe, possibly escape to London. As he did with Once, Carney proves he understands the romance of music – and the music of romance – better than most.

Director: Bong Joon-ho

Cast: Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Seo-hyun Ahn

Like his international breakthrough The Host, Bong Joon-ho’s precursor to Parasite is an allegory for capitalism’s globally destructive force, only with a much cuter giant beast at its center: a genetically modified pig the size of an elephant. When the docile animal is abducted by a multinational corporation that plans to sell its meat, a young South Korean girl (Ahn Seo-hyun) travels to America to save it. The movie is a bit of a jumble tonally, but it ultimately strikes a more hopeful note than many of Bong’s films.

Director: Valerie Weiss

Cast: Gemma Brooke Allen, Julie Bowen, Audrey Hsieh

Depending on when you were born, ‘feel-old movie’ might be the more appropriate category for this late ’90s period piece about a tween girl learning about the parents she never knew through the music they shared with each other. On the plus side, it’s spunky and heartfelt and has a legit great soundtrack, so it might momentarily shock your creaky bones back to life.

Director: Kitao Sakura

Cast: Eric André, Lil Rel Howery, Tiffany Haddish

Bad Trip takes its cues from prank movies Bad Grandpa and Borat in telling the story of a lovestruck loser (Eric André) road-tripping across the American south in pursuit of true love. But something truly unexpected happens amid the gushes of blood and vomit André unleashes on unsuspecting bystanders who have no idea they’re in a movie: he finds genuine compassion. Unlike Sacha Baron Cohen, André doesn’t end up exposing the creeps lurking in America’s dark underbelly. He unearths kindness and helping hands in even the most ludicrous set-ups. 

Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

Cast: Gina Rodriguez, Brittany Snow, DeWanda Wise

This romcom might not be the most original or groundbreaking addition to the genre, but sometimes if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Instead, focus on friendship and the chemistry that this film’s three female leads have in abundance. 

Director: Lin-Manuel Miranda

Cast: Andrew Garfield, Alexandra Shipp, Robin de Jesus, Vanessa Hudgens

Any sceptic looking for an entry point to modern musicals could do worse than this adaptation of late Rent scribe Jonathan Larson’s semi-autobiographical play about his early career struggles. Miranda, in his directorial debut, scales down the song-and-dance numbers, emphasising narrative over flash, and the focus remains squarely on the characters – particularly Garfield’s spirited portrayal of Larson, who battles against his own insecurity as he tries to get his first production off the ground.

Director: Peter Hastings

Voice cast: Pete Davidson, Lil Rel Howery, Isla Fisher

A cop and his canine partner are fused together after an accident, creating the greatest half-human crime fighter since RoboCop, in this spinoff of the popular Captain Underpants kids book series. His first assignment: take down ‘the world’s most evilest cat’, an orange tabby named Petey (Davidson). If you don’t mind exposing your kids to some light copaganda, the animation is lively, and there are enough winking jokes to keep parents entertained.

Director: Chris Columbus

Cast: Robin Williams, Sally Field, Pierce Brosnan

A divorced dad disguises himself as an old English nanny to evade a court order and spend more time with the kids he’d previously neglected. Sure, it sounds borderline deranged now, but in the 1980s, ’90s and early 2000s, deceptive crossdressing was the quickest way to circumvent rules and conventions and possibly attain greater self-knowledge (see also: Tootsie, Just One of the Guys, She’s the Man etc). Anyway, Robin Williams elevates a psychotic premise into a family classic the way he usually does – through a mix of frenetic physicality and fatherly warmth.

Director: Roger Kumble

Cast: Christina Milian, Adam Demos, Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman

The concept of this film is preposterous: an American woman loses everything but then happens to win a New Zealand inn (?!) which she attempts to renovate and flip with the help of her hunky contractor. Naturally, their relationship gets complicated. Essentially it’s a hit of sugar and who can complain about that? 

Director: John Lee

Cast: Paul Reubens, Joe Manganiello

Three decades after his last feature film, everyone’s favourite wacky manchild returns, older but no less naive – nor wacky. On paper, it’s a pretty straightforward story: Pee-wee Herman (Paul Reubens) travels across the country to celebrate the birthday of his friend, actor Joe Manganiello playing himself, and as he is wont to do, gets himself in and out of a lot of trouble along the way. But as always with Pee-wee, there’s a lot of winking subversion going on beneath the silly surface.

Director: Nahnatchka Khan

Cast: Ali Wong, Randall Park

Netflix continues its romcom reign with this touching and funny film about childhood friends Sasha and Marcus (played by Ali Wong and Randall Park) who have a falling out and don’t speak for 15 years. Brought back together when Sasha, now a celebrity chef, returns to her hometown of San Francisco to open a new restaurant, she finds her former friend to be a happily complacent musician still living at home and working for his dad. Naturally, things become complicated... especially when an unexpected actor makes one of the best cameos of the 21st century.

Directors: Michael Rianda

Voice cast: Abbi Jacobson, Olivia Colman, Maya Rudolph 

It’s Vacation meets The Terminator in this mega-fun, high-energy animated comedy. The titular Mitchell family is on a grudging road trip that’s interrupted by a robot uprising – and as we all know, nothing brings a quarrelling brood together like navigating a digital apocalypse. It’s one of the best family movies on Netflix, with an all-star voice cast that’s somehow even more impressive than it sounds.

Director: David Dobkin

Cast: Will Ferrell, Rachel McAdams, Dan Stevens

This is one of those films that on paper really should not work. And, depending on your taste, you might feel that Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga is, in fact, a disaster. If you’re able to take it at face value, though, then this very sweet musical about two aspiring musicians from Iceland whose life-long dream is to represent their country at the Eurovision Song Contest is a real delight. It features cameos from previous Eurovision contestants, and the songs are genuinely good. Don’t believe us? Play ‘Jaja Ding Dong’!

Director Harry Bradbeer

Cast Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, Helena Bonham Carter

Do we need another film set in the world of Sherlock Holmes? Is it weird for Sherlock to take a back seat in it? Is Millie Bobby Brown a movie star? This light-footed caper answers all those questions – yes, no and hell yes – over two hours of giddying, female-led crime-solving. It’s an action-packed, super-sleuthing rush.