The 30 best movies to watch on Netflix UK

Director: Noah Baumbach

Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver

Like ‘Kramer vs Kramer’ vs Kramer from ‘Seinfeld’, this marital-breakdown masterpiece has just enough lols to leaven the tears. And there are plenty of those, with Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson dazzling in Noah Baumbach’s semi-autobiographical tale. 

Director: Edward Zwick

Cast: Denzel Washington, Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman

An American Civil War epic full of conviction, derring-do, cacophonous combat and powerhouse acting (Denzel Washington won his first Oscar as firebrand private Trip), ‘Glory’ tells the true-life story of the Union’s first African-American regiment, the 54th Massachusetts. The climactic battle sequence is the most intense beach scene this side of ‘Saving Private Ryan’.

Director: Chris Kentis

Cast: Blanchard Ryan, Daniel Travis

Boasting the same lo-fi aesthetic as ‘The Blair Witch Project’, this existential anti-thriller about two divers left in a sea of sharks cuts to the bone of a similar shared terror: helplessness in the face of something greater and more implacable than ourselves. Watch both films in close succession and they’ll put you off the countryside and the seaside forever. 

Director: Paul Greengrass

Cast: Tom Hanks, Helena Zengel, Bill Camp

A world-weary Civil War veteran-turned-travelling news reader (Tom Hanks) and a traumatised girl (Helena Zengel) embark on a ‘The Searchers’-like odyssey across Texas in this restrained, poetic Paul Greengrass film. There’s all the shootouts, horse-y havoc and dusty corrals a western fan could wish for – and a lot of soul, too, in its exploration of two wounded people finding comfort in one another.

Director:  Alex Garland

Cast: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Gina Rodriguez, Oscar Isaac

In a rare example of Hollywood sci-fi-horror thoughtfulness, 'Annihilation' has grand concepts in mind, ideas about self-destruction and rebirth. The film follows cellular biologist Lena (Portman) as she ventures to The Shimmer, an anomalous electromagnetic field, to discover the truth about what happened to her husband Kane (Isaac), who visited The Shimmer and returned in poor health and his memory missing. 

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Tom Hanks, Jeremy Davies, Barry Pepper, Tom Sizemore, Giovanni Ribisi

Like The Dirty Dozen with a conscience (provided by Tom Hanks, natch), Spielberg’s vérité war film is a men-on-a-mission movie that finds time to tackle big questions of duty, sacrifice and comradeship. It also finds time to completely reinvent the visual grammar of big-screen combat with two bookending, cacophonous battle sequences seemingly purpose-built to dislodge your eardrums.

Directors: Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie

Cast: Adam Sandler, Lakeith Stanfield, Julia Fox, Idina Menzel

The Safdie Brothers’ electrifying and abrasive drama about the week in the 2012 life of a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants Diamond District dealer is an intense high-stakes triumph.

Director: Tom Harper

Cast: Jessie Buckley, Julie Walters, Sophie Okonedo

Country music is universal in this gripping Brit drama that flaunts the acting and musical talents of Jessie Buckley. The Irish actress plays Rose-Lynn, a single mum and ex-convict scratching out a living as a cleaner in Glasgow and playing country bangers at nightclubs. She dreams of making it all the way to Nashville and finds an ally in the well-to-do woman whose house she cleans (Sophie Okonedo). Look out for a cameo from legendary radio DJ ‘Whispering’ Bob Harris (not whispering here).

Director: Fernando Meirelles

Cast: Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce

The title makes it sound like the world’s most unlikely buddy movie, and that’s essentially what this talky but endlessly likeable and thought-provoking adaptation of Anthony McCarten’s play is – like ‘The Odd Couple’ set in the Vatican. Welsh acting legends Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce share the screen for the first time as Pope Benedict XVI and the more liberal cardinal who might end up replacing him, Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Watching the two of them shooting the shit (our words, not theirs) is a pure pleasure, as their uneasy respect blossoms into an unexpected friendship. 

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci

Martin Scorsese delivers one of the best, if bloated, films of his career. Along with all the gangster gab, it touches on broken trust. self-doubt and regret. Also, unlike the cinema, with Netflix you can break its three-hour runtime into chunks. 

Directors: Julia Reichert, Steven Bognar

2020’s Oscar-winning documentary is a film of two halves: the first records the resurrection of a shuttered Ohio car glass factory by Chinese corporation Fuyao; the second takes us to China to see how the company operates on its own turf. Suffice to say there’s more than an ocean between the two working cultures. Co-directors Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar take a gentle, non-polemical approach to this uneasy partnership, but there’s no shortage of ouchy moments – as when the Chinese workers are caught disparaging their American counterparts’ work ethic or the Americans gamely try to join in on the company song. An essential watch.

Director: Bennett Miller

Cast: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Robin Wright

Like an out-of-form batter, sports films can be hit and miss. Baseball movies, though, are steady performers – and in this case, much better than that. Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane, a journeyman MLB player who became a watchword for the analytics-based innovation that revolutionised not just baseball, but other sports too. Sound dry? There’s barely a spreadsheet in sight, just crackling Steven Zaillian/Aaron Sorkin-scripted dramatics as Beane turns his sport on its head with some help from Jonah Hill’s stats genius.

Director: Rahda Blank

Cast: Rahda Blank, Peter Kim, Oswin Benjamin

This smart, zippy and meaningful comedy about finding a voice, breaking through and being true to yourself comes from the pen – and real-life experiences – of New Yorker Radha Blank. ‘The Forty-Year-Old Version’ feels fearless, letting all the hang ups hang out when it comes to sex, success and hitting your fourth decade.

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen 

Cast: James Franco, Brendan Gleeson, Zoe Kazan, Liam Neeson

Richly entertaining and blackly funny but told with sincerity and heart, the half-dozen western tales packed into ‘The Ballad of Buster Scruggs’ show the Coen brothers loading up their six-shooter and firing barely a dud. Inevitably, some of the stories satisfy more than others. But at roughly 20 minutes each, they’re mini-masterclasses in economy and style.

Director: Sarah Gavron

Cast: Bukky Bakray, Anastasia Dymitrow, Shaneigha-Monik Greyson, Ruby Stokes, Kosar Ali, Tawheda Begum 

This tough, authentic and heart-swelling coming-of-age drama is London’s answer to ‘The 400 Blows’ – only with extra Snapchatting, can-kicking, trash-talking energy. It’s the story of Rocks (newcomer Bukky Bakray), a British-Nigerian teenager whose mum vanishes, leaving her and her adorbs younger brother to make their own way in a daunting city. Luckily, she has resilience and a posse of pals to help her along. One of the best films in cinemas in 2020, it’s now one of the best movies on Netflix too.

Director: Steve McQueen

Cast: Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham

Steve McQueen’s debut drama tells the story of Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender), an IRA prisoner whose hunger strike at Belfast’s notorious Maze made him a cause célèbre in 1981. It’s a deliberate, unblinking depiction of a man trying to wrestle his demons to the floor that’s worth seeing just for its stunning, 17-minute single-take scene between Sands and his priest (Liam Cunningham). Although there’s a lot more to it than that, not least Fassbender’s commanding performance. 

Director: Shola Amoo

Cast: Sam Adewunmi, Denise Black, Nicholas Pinnock, Tai Golding

British-Nigerian filmmaker Shola Amoo chronicled Brixton’s gentrification in his eye-catching debut film ‘A Moving Image’. His follow-up is even better. It’s the kinda-autobiographical story of Femi (Samuel Adewunmi), a teenager moved from his foster home in bucolic Lincolnshire to the edginess of Elephant & Castle. The layering of migration story on migration story lends ‘The Last Tree’ cultural complexities rarely seen in the cinema of London as it tackles questions of identity and belonging that steers it miles away from hoodies-with-handguns clichés. 

Director: Kornél Mundruczó

Cast: Vanessa Kirby, Shia LaBeouf, Ellen Burstyn

Kicking off with an anguished 24-minute labour scene captured in one unblinking take, this portrayal of one woman’s recovery from unthinkable heartbreak is spearheaded by a powerhouse Vanessa Kirby. The British actor is devastating along Shia LaBeouf in charting the fallout of tragic loss. Is it a feelgood classic? Probably not. Will its themes of healing, reconciliation and recovery lift the spirits? Absolutely.

Director: Aaron Sorkin

Cast: Mark Rylance, Sacha Baron Cohen, Eddie Redmayne, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jeremy Strong

Aaron Sorkin’s second directorial drama is a step up in assuredness from the sparky but showy ‘Molly’s Game’. This time he lets the story do the talking – and what a story. The politically pivotal 1969 trial of seven anti-Vietnam protestors and one Black Panther roped in on trumped-up charges could have been a slog of a courtroom drama. Instead, thanks to an on-form cast (MVPs are Sacha Baron Cohen, Jeremy Strong and Mark Rylance) and a firecracker script, the topical events come alive in a blaze of fiery passions and comic tension-breakers.

Director: Harry Bradbeer

Cast: Millie Bobby Brown, Henry Cavill, Helena Bonham Carter, Sam Claflin

Proving that her Eggo-scoffing breakout turn in ‘Stranger Things’ was no flash in the pan, Millie Bobby Brown single-handedly turns this Sherlock Holmes spin-off into a giddying, galloping delight. She’s Enola, the brainy but belittled sister of the great detective (Henry Cavill), who heads off a crime-solving escapade of her own to find her missing mum (Helena Bonham Carter) and demonstrates that strong-willed genius runs in the family. The dame is afoot!

Director: Susanne Bier

Cast: Sandra Bullock, Trevante Rhodes, John Malkovich

A hyper-effective piece of genre fun or a social-media-fuelled slice of sub-'A Quiet Place' hokum? Like Marmite or a badly-conceived referendum, this Sandra Bullock post-apocalypse thriller has divided Netflixers in two. Whatever your views, it's hard to find any fault in Bullock as its blindfolded-but--badass hero, leading two wee'uns through a world of pain.