The best movies to watch on Netflix (November 2022)

What’s the best movie I can watch on Netflix? We’ve all asked ourselves this question only to spend the next 15 minutes scrolling through the streaming service’s oddly specific genre menus and getting overwhelmed by the constantly shifting trend menus. Netflix’s huge catalog of movies continues to expand day by day, week by week, month by month; making the challenge of keeping up to date with best the service has to offer, let alone finding something the best of what to watch after a long day, a task that feels herculean at best and impossible at worst for someone not plugged into its inscrutable rhythms.

That’s where we’re here to help. For those suffering from choice paralysis in November, we’ve narrowed down your options to not only our favorite current movies on the platform, but the best movies Netflix has to offer.

If you’re looking for a specific genre, we’ve got the best action movies on Netflix, the best horror movies on Netflix, the best thrillers on Netflix, and the best comedy movies on Netflix ready for you.

We’ll be updating this list monthly as Netflix cycles movies in and out of its library, so be sure to check back next time you’re stuck in front of the Netflix home screen. Our latest update has added The Metamorphosis of Birds as an editor’s pick.

Editor’s pick

The Metamorphosis of Birds

Image: Primeira Idade

Genre: Documentary/drama
Run time: 1h 41m
Director: Catarina Vasconcelos
Cast: Manuel Rosa, Ana Vasconcelos, Henrique Vasconcelos

Catarina Vasconcelos’ 2020 feature debut is a difficult one to sum up in a trailer, let alone in words, and therein ultimately lies its appeal. Essentially an avant-garde documentary drama, The Metamorphosis of Birds chronicles the director’s own family history: the meeting and love affair between her grandparents, the childhood of their children growing up in the absence of their mariner father, and the fatal tragedy that rends their lives asunder and haunts them to this day like a lingering ghost.

Every shot and sequence of Vasconcelos’ experimental 16mm opus is beatific in its Magritte-like strangeness. It’s a series of images and sounds accompanied by the narration of letters and conversations between the members of the family that coalesce into a cinematic tableau of uncanny beauty and heart-wrenching tenderness. True to the spirit of its title, The Metamorphosis of Birds is a truly transformative work of emotional storytelling, one which beckons the audience to stare deeply into the intimate, unspoken corners of another family’s decades-long process of turning pain into wisdom and thereby gleaning a deeper insight into their own lives. Turn off your phone, find the largest screen possible, and give yourself over to this film. You’ll be thankful you did. —Toussaint Egan

Atlantics

Image: Netflix

Genre: Romance
Run time: 1h 45m
Director: Mati Diop
Cast: Ibrahima Traoré, Mame Bineta Sane, Amadou Mbow

It’s hard to talk too much about Atlantics without giving away what makes the experience of watching it so special. It’s a beautiful, haunting love story with a tangibly beating heart, touching on romance as well as grief, class, labor, and the lingering effects of oppression. Shot gorgeously by director Mati Diop and cinematographer Claire Mathon, it was the first movie directed by a Black woman to be featured in competition in Cannes (it won the Grand Prix award, losing out on the Palme d’Or to Parasite), and is one of the most remarkable feature film debuts for a director in recent memory. —PV

The Baahubali movies

Image: Dharma Productions

Genre: Epic fantasy
Run time: 2h 39m (Baahubali: The Beginning); 2h 47m (Baahubali 2: The Conclusion)
Director: S.S. Rajamouli
Cast: Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Anushka Shetty

In Western terms, this Tollywood production from the future director of RRR, the most expensive Indian film at the time of its release, is like a biblical epic by way of Marvel Studios, with a little Hamlet and Step Up thrown in for good measure. The Beginning chronicles the life of Shivudu, an adventurer with superhuman strength who escapes his provincial life by scaling a skyscraper-sized waterfall, aids and romances a rebel warrior named Avanthika, then teams up with her to rescue a kidnapped queen from an evil emperor. Exploding with hyper-choreographed fight sequences and CG spectacle (not to mention a handful of musical numbers with equal bravura), The Beginning is 159 minutes of mythical excess, going big like only Indian film can and resting on the muscular shoulders of its hero, the single-name actor Prabhas. If you fall hard for it, get pumped — this is only part one. The twist leads into Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, another two-and-a-half-hour epic currently streaming on Netflix. —Matt Patches

Blackhat

Photo: Frank Connor/Legendary Pictures-Universal Pictures

Genre: Crime thriller
Run time: 2h 13m
Director: Michael Mann
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tang Wei, Viola Davis

A sleek and sexy thriller that makes hacking look extremely cool, Michael Mann’s unfairly maligned Blackhat stands tall as a high mark in digital filmmaking. It is peak Mann — if you’re not a fan of the Heat director’s work, your mileage may vary. In the film, Chen Dawai (Wang Leehom), a captain in the PLA’s cyber warfare unit, is tasked with getting to the bottom of a computer attack that melts down a nuclear power plant in Hong Kong. While liaising with the FBI investigation, Chen insists on the aid of his old friend Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth, who has never been hotter or cooler), an imprisoned genius hacker. When Hathaway and Chen’s sister (Tang Wei), a networking engineer also helping with the case, fall for each other, it adds an extra wrinkle to an already high stakes situation. Viola Davis and Holt McCallany feature as FBI agents who aren’t super happy to have to rely on a notorious criminal.

With sharp digital cinematography and unforgettable set pieces, Blackhat explores our changing global relationship to technology. Mann makes tangible the microscopic computer systems that run the world: an extreme close-up of internal wires leading to a motherboard like a vast interconnected highway; a computer fan that sounds like a jet engine. Events that in other films would be shown as a boring stroke of keys are instead depicted as hypnotic processes happening under the surface of the visible world. —PV

The Debt Collector movies

Image: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Genre: Action comedy
Run time: 1h 35m (The Debt Collector); 1h 37m (Debt Collectors aka The Debt Collector 2)
Director: Jesse V. Johnson
Cast: Scott Adkins, Louis Mandylor, Vladimir Kulich

A buddy comedy by way of direct-to-video action specialist Jesse V. Johnson, The Debt Collector is the first of a series of two very good movies starring Scott Adkins (Avengement) and Louis Mandylor (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) as a wise-cracking duo collecting debts for the mob. Adkins plays French, a down-on-his-luck martial arts instructor who turns to debt collecting to pay his own debts off. Mandylor plays a boy named Sue, the veteran debt collector French is paired up with for his first day of work.

As the two get deeper into their work, they discover a scheme that puts a young child at risk, and consider risking it all themselves to help. Adkins and Mandylor have terrific chemistry in the lead roles, bringing this out of the echelon of “solid DTV movies” and into the realm of “great hangout flicks.” Also, Tony Todd (Candyman) plays a mobster named Barbosa. And the sequel rules, too. —PV

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart

Image: Netflix

Genre: Romantic comedy
Run time: 1h 55m
Directors: Johnnie To, Wai Ka-fai
Cast: Louis Koo, Daniel Wu, Gao Yuanyuan

Johnnie To is one of our great modern directors, equally adept in hard-boiled triad crime dramas and light-hearted romantic comedies alike. 2011’s Don’t Go Breaking My Heart falls in the latter category, and is one of the many high marks of the Hong Kong director’s legendary career. Fresh off the end of a long-term relationship, Chi-yan (Gao Yuanyuan) is an analyst for an investment bank who finds herself in the middle of a love triangle. On one side, there’s Sean (Louis Koo), a CEO who works across the street from Chi-yan and yearns for her through the tall corporate glass windows that separate them. On the other, there’s Kevin (the always-dreamy Daniel Wu), an alcoholic former architect who helps Chi-yan move on and is inspired by her to start creating again. What follows is a sincere, funny, and truly charming romantic time. —PV

Fast Color

Image: Lionsgate

Genre: Superhero
Run time: 1h 40m
Director: Julia Hart
Cast: Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Lorraine Toussaint, Saniyya Sidney

Julia Hart’s 2018 superhero drama Fast Color stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Black Mirror, Loki) as Ruth, a homeless wanderer with inexplicable powers who returns to her family home after years of hiding from the police. Reunited with her mother Bo (Lorraine Toussaint) and her young daughter Lila (Saniyya Sidney), who both possess the same powers as her, Ruth attempts to regain control over her abilities and reconcile with Lila, all while eluding the authorities who seek to capture and study her. As we wrote in our review, Fast Color is less a “superhero” film as it is an intimate family drama set in a speculative universe à la 2016’s Midnight Special. The spectacle on display is not the manifestation of Ruth’s powers, but in the masterful trio of performances at its center combining to create a story as poignant as it is exhilarating. —TE

Hustle

Photo: Scott Yamano/Netflix

Genre: Sports comedy
Run time: 1h 58m
Director: Jeremiah Zagar
Cast: Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah, Ben Foster

One of Netflix’s better originals in recent memory is this passion project from the famously basketball-obsessed Adam Sandler, where he plays a down-on-his-luck scout who needs to find the perfect prospect. With an all-star ensemble cast filled with movie stars (Sandler is joined by Queen Latifah, Ben Foster, and Robert Duvall) and NBA players alike (Juancho Hernangómez co-leads with Sandler, while Anthony Edwards, Boban Marjanović, and others give memorable supporting turns), Hustle is an inspiring and thrilling basketball movie made by people who love the game. —PV

The Ip Man movies

Image: Well Go USA Entertainment

Genre: Martial arts drama
Run time: 1h 46m (Ip Man); 1h 48m (Ip Man 2); 1h 45m (Ip Man 3); 1h 45m (Ip Man 4: The Finale)
Director: Wilson Yip
Cast: Donnie Yen, Simon Yam, Lynn Hung

All five movies in the Ip Man series — the four main entries (all on Netflix) and the spinoff Master Z: Ip Man Legacy (not on Netflix, but on Peacock and Tubi, among others) — are terrific martial arts dramas. They’re a great starting place for anyone looking to get into the genre, and also a terrific comfort watch for enthusiasts of martial arts movies.

Donnie Yen completely immerses himself as the stoic Ip Man, the Wing Chun grandmaster who taught Bruce Lee (played by Danny Chan Kwok-kwan in the series), among others. Yen brings a pensiveness to the role to go with his incredible martial arts prowess. All four movies are directed by frequent Yen collaborator Wilson Yip and go from one all-time great action choreographer to another: The first two movies had action by Sammo Hung, and the next two by Yuen Woo-ping. Those are quite possibly the two greatest to ever do it, and if that’s not enough to get you to tune in, I don’t know what is. —PV

Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids

Image: Netflix

Genre: Concert movie
Run time: 1h 30m
Director: Jonathan Demme
Cast: Justin Timberlake

In 1984, director Jonathan Demme made one of the finest concert films of all-time with the Talking Heads in the raucously triumphant Stop Making Sense. A little more than three decades later, Demme’s final feature film was another joyous concert movie.

Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids depicts the final show of a long tour for Timberlake and his excellent backing band at the gigantic MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. In typical Demme fashion, the staging and framing of the energetic pop numbers is electric, but he also takes time to show just how much work goes into setting up and breaking down such a large production.

Demme and Timberlake’s collaboration spurred from a mutual respect — Timberlake, like anyone else with good taste, is a massive fan of Stop Making Sense, and Demme reached out after watching The Social Network. The movie is dedicated to Prince, who died shortly before the movie’s release. —PV

Lagaan

Image: SET Pictures

Genre: Sports drama
Run time: 3h 43m
Director: Ashutosh Gowariker
Cast: Aamir Khan, Gracy Singh, Rachel Shelley

Ashutosh Gowariker’s timeless sports movie classic stars Aamir Khan as Bhuvan, a confident young man from a village that is dealing with both British oppression and a long-standing drought. When the wicked Captain Russell (Paul Blackthorne, who is deliriously good in this) challenges the village to a game of cricket (which they do not know how to play) as a bet, with their owed taxes (which they cannot afford to pay) on the line, Bhuvan takes it upon himself to form a team and learn the game. What follows is a soaring sports drama with humor, heart, and a show-stopping match finale. Lagaan was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 74th Academy Awards. —PV

Leave No Trace

Image: Bleecker Street Media

Genre: Drama
Run time: 1h 49m
Director: Debra Granik
Cast: Ben Foster, Thomasin McKenzie, Jeff Kober

One of the best films of the 2010s, Debra Granik’s meditation on the modern world through two people isolated from it is an extraordinary follow-up for the Winter’s Bone director. From our write-up of the best movies new to streaming in July:

An Iraq War veteran (Ben Foster) lives with PTSD and his 13-year-old daughter (Thomasin McKenzie) in the lush green woods outside of Portland, Oregon. Isolated from the rest of society, they work together to live a life with nature. But when the young girl is seen by a jogger in the woods, she is detained by social services and her father is arrested. A touching story about finding your own place in the world and the comforts and limitations of family, Debra Granik’s 2018 drama is a modern masterpiece.

Lost Bullet 2

Photo: Julien Goldstein/Netflix

Genre: Action thriller
Run time: 1h 38m
Director: Guillaume Pierret
Cast: Alban Lenoir, a bunch of people who punch and/or chase Alban Lenoir

The first Lost Bullet rules, and the second movie — newly released on Netflix in November — ups the ante to another degree.

The chase scenes are even more action-packed – this time our superstar mechanic Lino adds electrified rods to the front of his car, making him a sort of sick-as-hell automotive jouster and/or a mad scientist but for car chases – and the fights are visceral (Alban Lenoir throws so many hard right crosses in this movie, and he receives just as many). It helps to have a lead who just looks like he’s been in a few bar fights in his time, and Lenoir delivers the exact kind of personality you need for this role. Throw in a sense of chaotic joy in making cars blow up in as many exciting ways as possible, and you have Lost Bullet 2. —Pete Volk

Margin Call

Image: Lionsgate Films Home Entertainment

Genre: Wall Street thriller
Run time: 1h 49m
Director: J.C. Chandor
Cast: Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto

J.C. Chandor’s 2011 film Margin Call takes place over the span of 24 hours, following the employees of a prestigious Wall Street investment bank as they struggle to understand and respond to what will eventually be known as the global financial crisis of 2008. While perhaps not as approachable or didactic as Adam McKay’s The Big Short, Chandor’s film nonetheless manages to transform financial esotericism into riveting drama through the strength of its casts’ performances.

Paul Bettany is terrific here, as are Zachary Quinto and Demi Moore, but the standout performance by far is Jeremy Irons, who delivers a remarkable scene during the film’s climax that’s as charismatic as it is disquietingly chilling. —TE

The Nice Guys

Image: Warner Home Video

Genre: Action/comedy
Run time: 1h 56m
Director: Shane Black
Cast: Russell Crowe, Ryan Gosling, Angourie Rice

Shane Black’s other neo-noir, Los Angeles-set action comedy is a worthy spiritual successor to 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and an uproariously hilarious movie in its own right. The story centers on Holland March (Gosling), an alcoholic single father and licensed PI, and Jackson Healy (Crowe), a muscle-for-hire freelancer. The two end up as an odd couple of idiot-genius sleuths whose respective investigations involving a missing girl converge to unveil a much larger and more sinister conspiracy involving Detroit automotive companies, government collusion, and organized crime.

Crowe and Gosling’s on-screen chemistry as two incorrigible, stubborn assholes with secret hearts of gold is terrific, as is Angourie Rice’s performance as March’s whip-smart daughter Holly. The Nice Guys may not surpass the pure comic genius of Black’s aforementioned classic starring Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer, but it confidently ranks as one of the director’s better films in recent memory. —TE

The Night Comes for Us

Photo: Eriekn Juragan/Netflix

Genre: Martial arts thriller
Run time: 2h 1m
Director: Timo Tjahjanto
Cast: Joe Taslim, Iko Uwais, Julie Estelle

The Night Comes for Us just fucking whips, OK? Why waste time on subtlety and preamble; the film certainly doesn’t! Indonesian action thrillers have been enjoying a renaissance period ever since Gareth Evans’ 2011 film The Raid kicked the door down and mollywhopped everything else in sight. Timo Tjahjanto’s 2018 film certainly follows in the footsteps of Evans’ own, with The Raid star Joe Taslim starring here as Ito, a gangland enforcer who betrays his Triad crime family by sparing the life of a child and attempting to flee the country.

Fellow The Raid star Iko Uwais shows up here as Arian, Ito’s childhood friend and fellow enforcer, who is tasked with hunting down Ito and recovering the girl. The action comes fast and frenzied here, with kinetic choreography and dazzling handheld cinematography that makes every punch, fall, and stab count. If you need to get your adrenaline pumping, throw this one on. —TE

Paddington

Image: StudioCanal

Genre: Comedy
Run time: 1h 35m
Director: Paul King
Cast: Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters

2014’s Paddington is as whimsical and earnest as it is inventive and surprising. Ben Whishaw stars as the Peruvian bear cub who stows aboard a lifeboat to London in search of a new home. Granted safe haven by the kindly Brown family, Paddington sets out in search for the explorer who long ago visited his homeland and befriended his family while eluding the many perils and pitfalls of the big city.

Nicole Kidman and Peter Calpadi deliver devilishly charming performances as the film’s antagonists, while Sally Hawkins and Hugh Bonneville are equally noteworthy as the vivacious Mrs. Brown and her stuffy risk-averse husband. Complete with sharp writing, intriguing set pieces, and loads of creative physical comedy, Paddington is an absolute delight. —TE

The Paper Tigers

Image: Well Go USA Entertainment

Genre: Martial arts comedy
Run time: 1h 48m
Director: Bao Tran (Tran Quoc Bao)
Cast: Alain Uy, Ron Yuan, Mykel Shannon Jenkins

Tran Quoc Bao’s kung fu action comedy stars Alain Uy, Ron Yuan (Mulan), and Mykel Shannon Jenkins as the eponymous Paper Tigers: three former martial arts prodigies who, after a lifetime of strenuous training and hard fighting, have grown into beleaguered middle-aged nobodies. But when their master is murdered, the three swear an oath to avenge his memory and bring his killer to justice. If that sounds serious, please know this falls into the Apatowian camp of Dumb Man comedy. —TE

Phantom Thread

Image: Focus Features

Genre: Historical drama
Run time: 2h 10m
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Cast: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville, Vicky Krieps

Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2017 historical drama Phantom Thread follows the story of Reynolds Woodcock (Daniel Day-Lewis), an irascible haute couture dressmaker in 1950s London whose carefully cultivated lifestyle is upset by his ongoing love affair with his muse Alma (Vicky Krieps), a strong-willed woman with ambitions and desires of her own. His final film role to date, Day-Lewis is unsurprisingly masterful in his portrayal of Woodcock as an artist whose capricious infatuations and fastidious inflexibility prove unbearable to all except Alma, who discovers a … let’s say unconventional way of leveling the power dynamic in their relationship. Top that with exquisite score by Jonny Greenwood and beautiful costume designs by Mark Bridges and you’ve got what is undoubtedly one of Anderson’s finest films to date. —TE

RRR

Image: Variance Films

Genre: Historical epic
Run time: 3h 7m
Director: S.S. Rajamouli
Cast: N.T. Rama Rao Jr., Ram Charan, Ajay Devgn

One of our favorite movies of the year, RRR is an epic bromance for the ages filled to the brim with jaw-dropping action sequences, unforgettable music numbers, and two guys just being dudes. If you can, you should consider watching it in the original Telugu language version on Zee5. If you can’t, the Hindi dub on Netflix is still well worth your time. —PV

Space Sweepers

Image: Netflix

Genre: Sci-fi
Run time: 2h 16m
Director: Jo Sung-hee
Cast: Song Joong-ki, Kim Tae-ri, Jin Seon-kyu

Space Sweepers: Set in the year 2092, Jo Sung-hee’s Space Sweepers follows the crew of freelance garbagemen in space who discover a strange child-like robot named Dorothy containing a nuclear device. Hoping to ransom Dorothy in exchange for enough money to escape their poverty-stricken lives, their plan quickly escalates into a chase to stay one step ahead of the military force of a corrupt corporation. Though it’s far from the most original of sci-fi premises, Space Sweepers is still a visually impressive film with great action and a likable cast of dysfunctional characters with great chemistry. —TE

Unfriended

Image: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment

Genre: Horror
Run time: 1h 23m
Director: Levan Gabriadze
Cast: Shelley Hennig, Moses Storm, Renee Olstead

Unfriended is a horror movie with a gimmick. The whole thing takes place on a laptop screen, as the action unfolds over a Skype call between a group of friends. When an unknown (and unseen) participant mysteriously joins the call, friends start to die one by one in a terrifying and captivating series of events. The immersion of Unfriended through the device of the computer screen is masterful, and I highly recommend watching it on a laptop if you can for maximum effect. —PV

From our list of the best horror movies on Netflix:

Levan Gabriadze’s Unfriended pulls the audiences through the screen — almost literally. Viewed entirely from the perspective of a computer desktop, 2014 supernatural horror film centers around a Skype call between a group of high school students who are joined by an unknown presence known only as “billie227.” What at first appears to be a prank swiftly morphs into something much more horrific, as the mysterious stranger begins to reveal terrifying secrets about each of the friends before killing them off one by one. Unfriended is thoroughly gripping extrapolation of our always-online world; a world where vengeful poltergeists and doxxing exist side-by-side and no secret or offense goes undiscovered or unpunished. —TE