The 25 Best Oscar-Winning Movies on Netflix Right Now
The Oscars aren’t everything. Sometimes the films that win truly represent the best films of their years; sometimes they reflect a trend or a spirit of the times that, after a while, makes you look back a little; sometimes they are just completely inexplicable .
But let’s focus on the times the Academy has awarded films that are actually quite good, or at least reflective of their era enough to be interesting. Here are the top 25 award winners currently streaming on Netflix (keeping in mind that some of the streamer’s biggest awards contenders—like The Irishman and The Maestro —received multiple nominations but no wins).
Barbie (2023)
The rose-drunk optimism of Barbenheimer’s summer seems impossibly distant at this dark point. It’s winter 2025, so why not recapture some of that magic by revisiting the film that made feminism palatable to the masses for a while (at least until it was rudely shoved back under the bed at the end of 2024). I don’t need to sell you on this: a stellar turn from Margot Robbie as Barbie, a delightfully ego-free supporting turn from Ryan Gosling as her Ken, and a message of female empowerment that seemed a little corny until I realized that a lot of people still apparently haven’t gotten it.
Oscar: Best Original Song
The Miraculous Story of Henry Sugar (2023)
Audiences and critics had mixed reactions to Wes Anderson’s other 2023 film, the feature Asteroid City , but the short, an adaptation of a Roald Dahl story, didn’t cause much controversy, and it finally won Anderson his first Oscar—not that he was there to win it . Benedict Cumberbatch plays the pseudonymous Henry Sugar, a man who uses an inherited fortune to fund his gambling addiction. When he discovers a secret way to win by seeing the situation through the eyes of others, he begins to understand more than he perhaps expected. It’s cute and sweet, and one of Anderson’s most visually inventive works (and that’s saying a lot). And in 40 minutes (actually 39), he never manages to exhaust his greeting. The film also stars Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley and Richard Ayoade.
Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film
Roma (2018)
A departure from the cerebral science fiction of Children of Men and Gravity , Alfonso Cuarón won his second Best Director Oscar for this semi-autobiographical drama inspired by his own childhood in 1970s Mexico City, at the height of Mexico’s long and brutal “Dirty War”. Yalitza Aparicio plays Cleo Gutiérrez, a Mixtec maid living with an upper-middle-class couple with four children whose marriage is slowly falling apart. When husband Antonio leaves with his mistress, wife Sofia and pregnant Cleo are connected by unexpected situations. Cuarón is great at creating a sense of time and place, and his performances are indelible. Roma won Best Foreign Language Film, but was also nominated for Best Picture, and is a much stronger effort than the year’s actual winner, Green Book .
Oscars for: Best Director (Alfonso Cuaron), Best Foreign Language Film (Mexico), Best Cinematography (Alfonso Cuaron).
Marriage Story (2020)
Nominated for six Academy Awards, Noah Baumbach’s sensitive, devastating tale of a crumbling marriage is reminiscent of a modern American version of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage and deserves to be mentioned in the same company. As warring couple Nicole and Charlie Barber, Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver give emotionally raw performances, but the real story is Laura Dern as Nicole’s lawyer Nora Fanshawe; she’s one of our finest actresses with decades of excellent work, and it’s long overdue for her to win her first Oscar. Driver and Johansson were also nominated, as was Baumbach for original screenplay.
Oscar: Best Supporting Actress (Laura Dern)
Pinocchio Guillermo del Toro (2022)
More Oscar love for Guillermo del Toro ( Pan’s Labyrinth, The Shape of Water ). Ho hmm. However, as in the past, it is well deserved. Set in fascist Italy between the world wars, this long-running project from the director boasts stunning stop-motion animation. More importantly, it embraces the darkness inherent in Carlo Collodi’s original fantasy novel: del Toro recognizes that a children’s story should not be cloying or indulgent, and that children, like anyone else, understand that sometimes the only way to light is through darkness. The talented but not distracting voice cast includes Ewan McGregor, Christoph Waltz, Tilda Swinton and Cate Blanchett.
Oscar for: Best Animated Feature Film
Quiet on the Western Front (2022)
Second adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s 1929 anti-war novel. This version didn’t win Best Picture or Best Director like the original 1930 version, but All Quiet still ended up being the second most awarded film on Oscar night in 2023, behind Best Picture winner All Everywhere at Once . While it doesn’t have the same impact as the previous adaptation, it is still a powerful film about the futility of war, set in the trenches of the First World War.
Oscars for: Best International Feature Film (Germany), Best Original Score (Volker Bertelmann), Best Production Design (Christian M. Goldbeck and Ernestine Hipper), Best Cinematography (James Friend).
My Octopus Teacher (2020)
Director Craig Foster spent a year building a relationship with a wild common octopus in a South African forest, transferring some of the lessons he learned to his relationship with his own son. If Foster can establish contact with such an alien intelligence in its own natural (and naturally dangerous) environment, surely there is hope for humanity? May be?
Oscar: Best Documentary Feature
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (2020)
One sweaty, blues-filled afternoon in 1927 Chicago, the great Ma Rainey (Viola Davis) shows up in the studio to record a new album. She has been signed by white promoters and is fully aware that their respect for her is entirely dependent on her profitability as a singer. As the session progresses, tensions rise and conflicts flare, especially between Ma Rainey and Chadwick Boseman’s Livie Green. Davis was nominated for Best Actress and is so good that she practically embodies the carefree blues legend, while Chadwick Boseman was considered a near contender for the posthumous Best Actor award. Unfortunately, the Academy’s notorious stinginess when it comes to black actors appears to have won out: In the awards’ 95 years of existence, there has been exactly one black winner of the Best Actress award (Halle Berry), and only five black winners overall.
Oscar for: Best Costume Design (Ann Roth), Best Makeup and Hairstyling (Sergio Lopez-Rivera, Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson).
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)
While the long-awaited prequel/sequel to Furiosa was an undeserved flop at the box office and among Oscar voters, it in no way tarnished the reputation of this 2015 action masterpiece. In hindsight, director George Miller’s magnum opus would have been a much better choice for Best Picture than the actual winner (when was the last time anyone thought about The Revenant , let alone watched it?), and it’s always a good time to return to the madness on the road with Max, Immortan Joe, the War Boys and, of course, the Warrior Goon himself.
Oscars for: Costume Design (Jenny Beavan), Film Editing (Margaret Sixel), Makeup and Hair (Leslie Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega and Damian Martin), Production Design (Colin Gibson, Lisa Thompson), Sound Editing (Mark Mangini and David White), Sound Mixing (Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff and Ben Osmo).
RRR (2022)
It’s surprising that RRR wasn’t nominated in more categories given its epic scope, sharp commentary and crowd-pleasing style, but taking home India’s first Oscar for an original song was also no small feat, especially with artists like Rihanna and Lady Gaga competing. The film itself is a blockbuster done right, with brilliantly choreographed action scenes and rousing musical numbers that reinforce a strong “fuck colonialism” message. I hope Hollywood has taken note.
Oscar: Best Original Song (“Naatu Naatu”)
Erin Brockovich (2000)
Julia Roberts finally took home an Oscar for her compelling performance as the title character, a feisty small-town legal assistant who manages to bring a huge corporation to its knees with a lawsuit over toxic pollution. Given the rapid dismantling of government agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and an increasingly corporate-friendly court system, it looks like a pretty fairy tale these days, thanks in no small part to the lively direction of Steven Soderbergh (who won an Oscar that same year for directing an entirely different film—and while Traffic is also good, spending time with Erin Brockovich is much more fun).
Oscar: Best Actress (Julia Roberts)
The Power of the Dog (2021)
As with Brokeback Mountain , much of the press surrounding Jane Campion’s film revolved around its queer themes (gay cowboys? what next!?), but its strength lies in Campion’s thoughtful, leisurely direction (a rarity these days), as well as its beautiful cinematography. Benedict Cumberbatch plays one of two very different brothers whose fragile world is shattered by the arrival of newcomers to their Montana ranch circa 1925.
Oscar: Best Director (Jane Campion)
Period. End of sentence. (2018)
The short (about 25 minutes) film follows a group of women from the Indian village of Katikera, about 50 miles from Delhi, as they work to overcome centuries of shame associated with menstruation. After learning that sanitary pads can be made from local materials, local women open a factory to make and sell their own pads, starting a quiet but necessary revolution in menstrual health.
Oscar for Best Short Documentary Film
Last Days (1998)
During the final year of World War II and the Holocaust, the Nazis in occupied Hungary accelerated their program of deportation and extermination, even at the expense of military strategy. The documentary follows five survivors—and naturalized American citizens—as they return to the camps they miraculously escaped.
Oscar: Best Documentary Feature
White Helmets (2016)
It’s easy to overlook documentaries about war and crisis among the many films of this style that have received Oscar nominations and wins, but even among this particular group there are standouts. The White Helmets documents the history of the Syrian Civil Defense, a volunteer group of Syrians that carries out search and rescue missions in response to bombings. The real appeal of this (relatively) short film is in the interludes in which the volunteers discuss their daily lives before and during the war; these moments clearly show the cost of ongoing conflict. Despite seven years, the Syrian civil war tragically continues, as does the work of the CDF.
Oscar: Best Documentary (Short Film)
American Factory (2019)
The first film from Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground Productions, wins an Oscar. The film is about an abandoned GM plant in Ohio that was purchased by a Chinese billionaire for his company, glass manufacturer Fuyao. The plant employed 2,000 American workers, but the complex dynamics between Chinese management and working-class American employers quickly point to potentially insurmountable problems. The film takes a grounded approach, with no narrative other than what we see and hear inside the factory itself; there’s no overriding sense that there are heroes or villains here – just a lot of people trying to figure it all out.
Oscar: Best Documentary Feature
Apollo 13 (1995)
Ron Howard’s star-studded docudrama about astronauts is not only a better film than the one that won best picture of its year ( Braveheart ) but also a better picture than the one for which the director won an Oscar ( A Beautiful Mind ). At once heartbreaking and subdued, the true story of an aborted lunar mission builds tension without overdoing the theatrics.
Oscar for: Best Film Editing (Mike Hill and Daniel Hanley), Best Sound (Rick Dior, Steve Pederson, Scott Millan and David McMillan).
Sting (1973)
It’s very much like the kind of movie that isn’t made anymore, and not just because it’s a Depression-era movie. George Roy Hill, who had directed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid just a few years earlier, reunited Paul Newman and Robert Redford in an equally good-natured caper film. The two play a pair of con artists who have an elaborate plan to take revenge on the crime lord who killed their friend. The period details are as carefully crafted as the film’s basic outline, and ultimately it’s always a crowd pleaser.
Oscars for: Best Picture, Best Director (George Roy Hill), Best Original Screenplay (David S. Ward), Best Art Direction (Henry Bumstead and James W. Payne), Best Costume Design (Edith Head), Best Film Editing (William Reynolds), Best Musical Direction (Marvin Hamlisch).
Dallas Buyers Club (2013)
While it’s not exactly the best example of a trans reporter – casting a trans woman on a cis actor and Jared Leto, no less – a more or less well-intentioned queer story starring big-name stars, including Matthew McConaughey in an Oscar-winning role, seems… something anyway, considering trans people have become a major target of hate over the last decade. This story of a community struggling to survive, set against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis, may even remind you that better times are theoretically possible.
Oscars: Best Actor (Matthew McConaughey), Best Supporting Actor (Jared Leto).
Godzilla Minus One (2023)
Made on a shoestring budget (by blockbuster standards, at least), the thirty-third installment in the venerable Japanese sci-fi franchise (not counting the Hollywood entries) is both a highly entertaining kaiju romp and a moving story about the impact of war on those “lucky enough” to survive it. And special thanks for characterizing Godzilla as a giant evil cat.
Oscar for Best Visual Effects (Takashi Yamazaki, Kiyoko Shibuya, Masaki Takahashi and Tatsuji Nojima)
Parasite (2019)
The 2020 Oscars were handed out just weeks before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, so the Best Picture win went to Parasite—South Korean director Bong Joon-ho’s darkly comic tale of class warfare and the cruel hand of fate—feeling like something of a demarcation between “Then” (a time when a foreign film speaking truth to power could come out on top in Hollywood) and “Now”.
Oscars for: Best Picture, Best Director (Bong Joon Ho), Best Original Screenplay (Bong Joon Ho), Best International Film.
Whiplash (2014)
Miles Teller plays Andrew Neyman, an ambitious and talented jazz musician who is a freshman at the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory in New York. He came to school with big dreams and was quickly noticed by the conservatory’s studio band director, Terence Fletcher (a terrifying J.K. Simmons). Fletcher is obsessive and cruel, which only fuels Neyman’s overwhelming desire to succeed.
Oscars for: Best Supporting Actor (J.K. Simmons), Best Film Editing (Tom Cross), Best Sound Mixing (Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins and Thomas Curley).
Schindler’s List (1993)
Steven Spielberg sheds his reputation as a creator of popcorn entertainment with this sobering true story of a German factory owner (Liam Neeson) who risked his own safety to protect his Jewish workers during the darkest days of the Holocaust. It’s not exactly an “entertaining” choice, but again, it’s always good to have something to point to when you need a reminder that yes, fascism is bad. And the Nazis? Nothing good.
Oscar Awards: Best Picture, Best Director (Steven Spielberg), Best Adapted Screenplay (Steve Zaillian), Best Cinematography (Janusz Kaminski), Best Art Direction (Allan Starsky, Eva Braun), Best Film Editing (Michael Kahn), Best Original Score (John Williams).
Mank (2020)
David Fincher’s film about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) and the development of Citizen Kane is impressively dramatic, even harrowing at times. It also performed slightly better at the Oscars than the film it dramatizes, with Kane receiving nine nominations and one win, while Mank received 10 nominations and won two of them.
Oscar for: Best Cinematography (Eric Messerschmidt), Best Production Design (Donald Graham Burt and Jan Pascal).
If Anything Happens, I Love You (2020)
A very short (less than 15 minutes) film with a fairly simple animation style is able to evoke more emotion than many films many times its length. The film follows two parents mourning the death of their daughter in a school shooting, and afterward they find themselves at odds with each other.
Oscar: Best Animated Short Film