The 15 Best Netflix Movies You Never Knew About

There is too much streaming content these days. Here, I said it. Despite all the excitement about HBO Max canceling this movie or Netflix not giving this series a final season, the influx of new entertainment still outstrips our ability to take it all in. You may already have a huge backlog – and these are just the films that you know. O. Because thanks to an increasingly fragmented media landscape, many of them you’ve never heard of, even if you consider yourself a cinephile.

Netflix in particular has established itself as a leader by spending tons of money to produce or acquire movies and then do absolutely nothing to let you know they exist other than streaming them and leaving them to the mercy of the algorithm. Even films with big stars and experienced directors seem to have vanished into the cloud, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t worthy of rediscovery. Here are 15 unheard Netflix Originals released over the past few years that are definitely worth adding to your queue.

What Happened to Monday (2017)

Tommy Wirkola, director of David Harbor’s recent Christmas-themed action movie Cruel Night and the upcoming Spermageddon, directed this concept sci-fi story about the dangers of overpopulation. In the near future, the one-child policy calls for the cryogenic freezing of spare children until either they become colonists on another planet, or until the Earth finds more resources… whichever comes first. Think of people’s children , but a little dumber. Glenn Close is in charge of enforcing the policy, while Willem Dafoe plays the grandfather of identical septuplets. He comes up with a plan to keep all the kids out of the freezer: they take turns playing the same person (Noomi Rapace, in multiple roles). Ridiculous, but hilarious – and somehow eluded the radar despite its great star power.

Concrete Cowboy (2020)

Idris Elba spearheads this film, based on the real-life Fletcher Street Riding Club, a former Philadelphia institution that has maintained the history of black cowboys for over a century by teaching black youth skills related to horse training and care. Caleb McLaughlin ( Stranger Things ) and Lorraine Toussaint join Elba for an impressively acted and enjoyable tale of father and son reunion.

Willoughby (2020)

The computer animation of The Willougbys , based on the book by Lois Lowry ( “The Giver “), is about the children (Will Forte, Alessia Cara and Sean Cullen playing twins) of a pair of flippant parents (Martin Short and Jane Krakowski) who really couldn’t care less. Luckily, Maya Rudolph is on hand as a quirky nanny who accompanies the kids through a series of adventures in a sometimes dark but mostly very hilarious tale of the value of a found family. The quirky animation style created by the people behind Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 creates a stop-motion feel that really stands out.

Cam (2018)

Director Daniel Goldhaber (the upcoming How to Blow Up a Pipeline ) teamed up with writer Isa Mazzei, who based the Black Mirror- style story partly on her own memoir. Madeleine Brewer ( Orange Is the New Black ) plays online sex worker Alice Ackerman, also known as Lola Lola, who discovers one night that there’s another Lola… a webcam girl who is identical to Alice in appearance and overall but whose willingness to go further puts her ahead in terms of viewers. It’s a horror film that has a lot to say about the dehumanization of sex workers, with Brewer’s great central performance.

Truants (2018)

Through an unconventional lens, the Shirkers deal with the promises and dangers of confronting the past. In 1992, three friends in Singapore (Sandy Tan, Jasmine Ng and Sophia Siddique) made a film called The Deviants with some help from a film teacher who quickly absconded with the finished product and was never heard from again. After the man’s death, the film was returned to Sandy Tan, who used it to make this breathtaking documentary.

Our souls at night (2017)

What is this? Oh, just screen legends Robert Redford and Jane Fonda star in a well-crafted romantic drama from a top-notch director (Ritesh Batra, The Lunch Box and The Sense of the End ). Cute, despite the sinister name, but worthy of its stars. Why haven’t you heard about all this?

I am the beautiful thing that lives in the house (2016)

An animated, frightening and effective gothic horror film starring Ruth Wilson as a nurse who comes to the conclusion that the creaky old house where she works is haunted. Director Osgood Perkins achieved similar success with The Blackcoat’s Daughter and Gretel and Hansel .

I am a mother (2019)

Oscar winners Hillary Swank, Rose Byrne and Clara Rugaard star in this thriller about a young girl named “Daughter” who grows up in a post-apocalyptic bunker under the care of her master robot, Mother. Daughter meets a woman (Swank) from the surface world who makes the young woman question everything her robot mom has ever told her (robots might be less benevolent than we think? This is the first time I’ve heard of this). Think of it as a more overt sci-fi warm-up for M3GAN.

Matilda the Musical (2022)

Roald Dahl has been in the news a lot lately, which does little to detract from the slightly mischievous charm of this dance adaptation of the classic character. Alisha Weir plays Matilda alongside Emma Thompson and Lashana Lynch. This film received more buzz in the UK, where it was widely shown in theaters. In the US, you probably missed it, unless you logged into Netflix the Christmas day it was released. (The streamer was more busy promoting Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio .)

Sea Beast (2022)

Chris Williams, an animator who has either directed or had a hand in some of the best films of the last decade ( Bolt, Big Hero 6, Moana , etc.) about a young woman who hides on the ship of a legendary hunter monsters (Karl City). The film was nominated for an Academy Award, so it may not be all that obscure, but it still feels like it got lost among the big animated releases of last year.

Sun (2020)

Taiwanese film The Sun, which was completely ignored until it made a couple of year-end best-of-the-year lists (and an Oscar shortlist), is a clever tale of two brothers, one of whom is a high-profile student. medical school, and the other is a juvenile delinquent who gradually come to take each other’s place in the minds of their parents. The result is a really touching reflection on the price of expectations.

Half of It (2020)

Writer-director Alice Wu made a splash with her queer classic Save Face back in 2004. Its sequel, the Cyrano de Bergerac- inspired comedy-drama (friendless high school student Ellie Chu must write love letters to her sweetheart Astaire in the name of a soccer player) is better.

Pale Blue Eye (2022)

This brooding mystery didn’t have the luck to come to light after the much more hilarious The Glass Bow , but it’s still a gripping (and convoluted) historical mystery with retired and troubled detective Christian Bale teaming up with young West Point cadet Edgar Allen Poe (Harry Melling , which is great) to solve a case involving dead students and creepy occult significators.

Troll (2022)

This is a movie about a giant troll who wreaks havoc on his way to Oslo. I don’t really know what else you need to know, but there are many ways for something to go wrong. The troll mostly avoids traps, with good special effects and characters good enough not to feel too stupid. It’s a European take on a kaiju movie, and one that’s well done.

Bubble (2022)

From Attack on Titan and Death Note director Tetsuro Araki and the all-star creative team, The Bubble finds Tokyo cut off from the rest of the world as reality-warping bubbles (perhaps shades of Stephen King’s Under the Dome) hit the city. . Anime fans have almost certainly been looking for a great parkour-filled love story, but for anyone who loves animation (or great sci-fi movies in general), this one is worth checking out.