The 25 Best Original Netflix Movies

“Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey” is about a once happy toymaker and inventor who falls on hard times, until a granddaughter he didn’t know he had arrives and helps him turn his fortunes around. Leah Greenblatt of Entertainment Weekly called the film “a sprawling musical extravaganza whose candy-colored, dandily overstuffed revelry spills over with joy and jubilance.”

Critics lauded Carla Gugino’s performance as career-defining in this story about a woman who accidentally kills her husband during a kinky game. Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly opined that “when it works, it’s because of Gugino, the rare performer who can suggest victimized despair and empowered triumph.”

This is a film based on several Shakespeare plays, about the treachery, deceit, and conflict that surround the ascension of Henry V as King of England in the 15th century. “”The King” does a good job reinventing Shakespeare’s characters and using them to offer up a meaningful critique of imperialism and the politics of war,” said critic Keith Garlington.

A widow (Jane Fonda) and widower (Robert Redford) who are neighbors form a relationship that is platonic at first to avoid their shared feelings of loneliness, but develops into a romantic relationship. It was the fourth pairing of Fonda and Redford, who first starred together in “The Chase” in 1966.

This story about friendship and understanding stars Paul Rudd as a writer who retires following a tragedy and becomes the caregiver to a disabled teen. Tristram Fane Saunders of the Daily Telegraph said the movie is “formulaic, sentimental and the cast list includes Selena Gomez. But it’s also one of this summer’s most enjoyable lightweight comedies.”

Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, and Dustin Hoffman star in this story of the reuniting of family members for their father’s career retrospective and the tensions that surface between them. Film Companion said “Noah Baumbach brought his distinctive voice to a story about dysfunctional siblings and their dictatorial father brought to life by stellar performances….“

The rom-com, directed by sitcom showrunner Nahnatchka Khan, stars Ali Wong and Randall Park as former childhood sweethearts who reconnect 15 years after breaking up and find that they are on two distinctly different life tracks. Critic Roxana Hadadi said the movie “relies a bit too much on recognizable genre tropes, but Ali Wong and Randall Park are fantastic.”

“First They Killed My Father” is based on the best-selling memoir from Loung Ung, who as a 5-year-old witnessed the bloody takeover of Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge in 1975. After she is forced from her home, her siblings are sent to a labor camp and she is trained as a child soldier. Angelina Jolie, whose historical film directing credits include “Unbroken,” directed, co-wrote, and co-produced the film. Chuck Bowen of Slant Magazine said the movie is “less interested in global politics than in offering an intensely experiential tapestry of war and invasion as witnessed by a child.”

“The Ballad of Buster Scruggs” is a six-story anthology about the Old West based on stories written by Jack London and featuring Tim Blake Nelson, Liam Neeson, James Franco, Tom Waits, and Tyne Daly. Adama Kempenaar of Filmspotting called the movie “… an unabashedly bleak yet oddly hopeful and entertaining meditation on the Coens’ perennial preoccupations – the folly of human nature and death.”

Distinguished by the performance of Oscar winner Viola Davis as a fiery blues singer of the title, “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” enjoys the highest Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score on our list. John Parham hailed the performances of Chadwick Boseman and Davis as “the most alluring attractions in this talented ensemble, all giving great work for the purpose of, once again, exposing the intricate and distinct tales of the Black experience.”

Thirteen-year-old South Korean actress Seo-hyun Ahn starred in “Okja,” about a girl who will do anything to stop a corporation from abducting her best friend, a large beast. The film was directed by Oscar-winning director Bong Joon Ho and also starred Academy Award winner Tilda Swinton. Critic Richard Crouse said “the way ‘Okja’ veers between action and comedy, horror and social commentary could lead to whiplash but it is never less than audacious.”

“The White Tiger,” based on the New York Times bestseller, is narrated by a young man named Balram who rises from poverty in India to be a servant and driver for a wealthy couple and eventually, and ruthlessly, becomes an entrepreneur after he is betrayed by his former employers. Anupama Chopra of Film Companion called the movie a “kinetic excursion into darkness with Balram as our charismatic guide.

“The Night Comes for Us” is an action-packed, Tarantino-esque story about redemption in the Indonesian underworld and is not for the faint of heart. Critic Brent McKnight said the film was “nothing short of the best action movie of the year, the best action movie in years to be honest. An epic crime saga, a mean-spirited banger, and a story of betrayal and redemption.”

This comedy-drama focuses on a couple’s attempt to keep their marriage together as they navigate the processes of adoption and assisted reproduction. Helmed by a cast that includes Paul Giamatti and Kathryn Hahn, “Private Life” was called by critic Ben Sachs of Chicago Reader an “affecting – and ultimately devastating – work.”

This is a movie based on the characters from the spectacularly successful series “Breaking Bad,” picking up where the series left off. Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus called the movie “entertaining if not essential, El Camino adds a satisfying belated coda to the Breaking Bad story – led by a career-best performance from Aaron Paul.”

“Roma,” an autobiographical film from director Alfonso Cuarón about his youth in Mexico City, won three Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Cinematography Oscars for Cuarón. Nell Minow of AWFJ Women on Film, enthused “Roma will be studied for years as a landmark in cinematic storytelling, made even more meaningful because it pays tribute to a character who is usually in the background.”

“The Half of It” is a different take on the Cyrano de Bergerac story: An introverted girl helps a top athlete romance a girl who, as it turns out, she also desires. A further complication arises – the athlete and the bookish girl develop their own relationship. Christina Newland of Empire Magazine lauded the film for gaining “most of its merit through its sensitive depiction of outsiderdom and self-acceptance.”

In this film, two neighbors strike up a friendship and bond over a game of paddleton, a squash-like sport, after one is afflicted by an incurable cancer. Critic José de Jesús Chávez Martínez said the film is “half-road movie and half-comedy that visually unfolds with a good dose of cinéma vérité…”

“The Trial of the Chicago 7” is about seven people charged by the U.S. government with conspiracy and other charges involving the disruption of the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Robbie Collin of the Daily Telegraph called it “both a courtroom drama for the ages and an urgent shot across the bows.”

Adam Sandler plays a road-weary scout for the Philadelphia 76ers looking for undiscovered talent. His journey takes him to Spain, where he finds a sensational streetball player with a complicated past. Critics on Rotten Tomatoes hailed Sandler’s performance, saying his “everyman charm makes this easy layup fun to watch.”

Noah Baumbach’s film examines the disintegration of a marriage between a director and his wife (Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson). James Berardinelli of ReelViews said “Marriage Story” “pinpoints many of the little talked-about aspects of divorce that seem the least significant but hurt the most.”

Though some have chided Martin Scorsese’s gangster epic as too long, critics hailed the movie for its successful revisiting of gangland themes. Robert De Niro portrays a truck driver/hitman who falls in with a mob family led by Joe Pesci, and in the process is witness to some of the most important organized-crime events following World War II. David Gonzalez of Reel Talk Inc. called “The Irishman” “a modern-day mobster masterpiece from a master of his craft.”

Eddie Murphy plays Rudy Ray Moore in this biopic about a standup comic who develops an alter ego named Dolemite – who becomes an underground sensation and star of a series of blaxploitation films. Victor Pineyro of Seventh Art Studio hailed Murphy’s comeback, saying “his portrayal of rap/comedy legend, ‘Dolemite,’is one for the books. A great homage to blaxploitation.”

“Beasts of No Nation” stars Idris Elba as an warlord who recruits an orphan boy to fight for him in a civil war in an African nation. “Fukunaga’s hurtling camera and taut cutting keep ‘Beasts of No Nation’ only just this side of hallucinatory, and Elba is the kind of titanic actor to kick it to a near-mythic level,” said David Edelstein of New York Magazine.

Animated film featuring the voices of Jason Schwartzman, J.K. Simmons, and Rashida Jones, “Klaus” is about a mail carrier and a reclusive toymaker who form an unlikely friendship and bring happiness to a town desperately in need of joy – in the process, creating the legend of Santa Claus. Bilge Ebiri of New York Magazine said “it’s awkward and weird, and yet all that awkwardness and weirdness give it personality and charm and a freewheeling, nonsensical quality that feels refreshing.”