There are some brilliant award-winning, genre-changing, thought-provoking movies streaming right now on Netflix – UPDATED

But don’t worry: there are plenty of brilliant cult favourites and award-winning movies starring Hollywood’s great and good hidden on Netflix. You just need to know where to look.
Check out our guide to the best movies on Netflix available right now. And if you want to find out what’s coming soon, check out the video below for the best new Netflix releases coming this April.
Triple Frontier
Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac and Charlie Hunnam lead this thought-provoking action-drama about a group of ex-soldiers who hatch a plan to steal from a drug baron in South America. Things get a little bit messy… Watch on Netflix
Roma
Believe the hype. Gravity director Alfonso Cuaron’s film about a maid working for an upper-middle-class family in Mexico City in the 1970s is visually stunning, deeply moving and perhaps the finest film to be released in 2018 – and it is here on Netflix for everyone to enjoy. Watch on Netflix
Crazy Stupid Love
Before La La Land, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling stole our hearts with this grade A romantic comedy. It also stars the brilliant Steve Carrell, and it’s equal parts touching and hilarious. Watch on Netflix

Full Metal Jacket

Stanley Kubrick’s penultimate film is a harrowing, foul-mouthed and violent Vietnam War drama. But, unlike the rainforest horrors of Apocalypse Now or Platoon, Kubrick’s film begins with a long training camp sequence in America before moving to a bombed-out Vietnamese city. While its message is simple – innocent young Americans are taught to be machine-like killers – its technique is extraordinary. Watch on Netflix
Bird Box

The most successful Netflix original film to date, this eerie post-apocalyptic thriller from the director of The Night Manager follows Sandra Bullock as she shields her eyes from an unseen terror… Watch on Netflix
Nocturnal Animals

Fashion designer Tom Ford’s is one of the most brutal and intelligent nerve-jangling thrillers of the past few years. Based on Austin Wright’s 1993 novel Tony and Susan, it is effectively two films in one, as bored art gallery owner Susan (Amy Adams) takes delivery of the debut novel – also called Nocturnal Animals – by her ex, Edward (Jake Gyllenhaal). As Susan reads, Ford takes us into her mind, imagining Edward as the story’s hero: a mild-mannered, bookish husband who is forced into the role of avenging vigilante after his wife and daughter are kidnapped. Watch on Netflix
To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before
A sweet, precisely executed romcom, which serves as a homage to the best films of the genre from the 1980s and 90s. Lana Condor stars as Laura Jean Covey, a Korean-American high-schooler whose world is turned upside down when a box of private love letters that she penned to her crushes is distributed to its intended recipients. Watch out for a breakout performance from mini Mark Ruffalo, Noah Centineo (Peter Kavinsky). Watch on Netflix
Mudbound

Netflix continues to try to discover original movies that breakthrough during awards season. Period drama Mudbound deserves to. Directed by Dee Rees and featuring a beautifully balanced ensemble cast from Carey Mulligan to Mary J Blige, this is a bittersweet story of racial tensions and family bonds in post-World War II America. The movie has been nominated for four Oscars, including Best Supporting Actress for Mary J Blige. Watch on Netflix
The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

It was meant to be a mini-series, but when you get movie legends the Coen brothers you kinda have to see where they take you. The result is this, an elegant anthology of frontier tales that celebrates the Western in inimitable style. Watch on Netflix
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Emma Watson tries her hand at an American accent as a wild and free teenager in this sweet coming-of-age tale. Watch on Netflix
Dallas Buyers Club

Matthew McConaughey’s painful transformation into AIDS sufferer and illegal meds dealer Ron Woodruff won him an Oscar in 2014. Jared Leto’s performance is arguably even more tortuously engrossing. Watch on Netflix
Loving Vincent

A labour of love in every sense. Seven years in the making and composed of some 65,000 frames produced by 120-odd artists, this film touts itself as the world’s first fully painted film. Watch on Netflix
Apostle

Dan Stevens tries to save his sister from a sinister cult (led by Michael Sheen’s prophet Malcolm Howe) on a remote Welsh island in the early 20th century. Watch on Netflix
Beasts of No Nation

An intense and extraordinary war story from the director of the first season of HBO’s True Detective and starring Idris Elba. Watch on Netflix
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Neatly structured and full of genuine warmth for its characters, Richard Curtis’s Oscar-nominated screenplay is superbly observed and well served by Mike Newell’s deft direction. But more important to the film’s enduring appeal is the individuality of the performances. Simon Callow and the Bafta-winning Kristin Scott Thomas are outstanding alongside star Hugh Grant, who became an overnight sensation as the tousled serial ditherer haplessly pursuing his star-crossed passion for enigmatic American Andie MacDowell. Watch on Netflix
Gone Girl
Whether or not you’ve read Gillian Flynn’s bestseller, you’re definitely in for a treat here. David Fincher directs this unsettling thriller, which revolves around the hunt for missing Amy Dunne (Rosamund Pike), the perfect blonde wife of perfect hunk Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck). Watch on Netflix
Magic Mike
Channing Tatum’s semi-autobiographical story about a male stripper features a lot of semi-naked men writing about. It’s quite fun aside from that, too… Catch it before the musical version comes to London later this year. Watch on Netflix
Some Like It Hot (1959)

Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon are ideally matched in this crackling cross-dressing comedy, as the 1920s musicians who join an all-girl band to escape the Mob after witnessing the St Valentine’s Day Massacre. Oh, and then there’s Marilyn Monroe… Watch on Netflix
The Hurt Locker
Kathryn Bigelow’s 2004-set account of the lives of a US Army bomb-disposal squad in Iraq focuses on the men who voluntarily put themselves next to deadly IEDs (improvised explosive devices), as well as re-creating the terrifying, chaotic Baghdad in which they work. Watch on Netflix
The best biopics on Netflix
Denial (2016)

A call to arms against Fake News everywhere, this drama follows historian Deborah Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) as she is pursued libel through the UK courts by Holocaust denier David Irving (Timothy Spall). Written by screenwriter David Hare, the narrative becomes, essentially, about whether Lipstadt can prove that Irving had lied and deliberately distorted history in his work on the Holocaust. Watch on Netflix
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
This period thriller features great performances and terrific Cold War detail, as retired spy George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is brought back to the secret service after the death of a colleague (John Hurt), who claimed to have evidence of a deep-cover Russian agent. But who is it? Watch on Netflix
Fargo (1996)
Joel and Ethan Coen wrote and directed this black crime comedy about a pregnant Minnesota police chief (Frances McDormand) investigating roadside homicides, for which McDormand won Best Actress at the 69th Academy Awards. Watch on Netflix
My Best Friend’s Wedding
This sparkling comedy proved to be a career-resurrecting movie for Julia Roberts, and for once she plays someone who may not get the guy. When she hears her best friend and former lover (Dermot Mulroney) is getting married to Cameron Diaz, Roberts realises she wants to be more than just friends after all. Watch on Netflix
Howards End
Anthony Hopkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter lead a sumptuous adaptation of the novel by EM Forster. Watch on Netflix
Annihilation (2018)

It arguably deserved a cinema release, but this brilliant sci-fi starring Natalie Portman instead arrived straight to Netflix in the UK. Brave storytelling and bewitching cinematography. Watch on Netflix
The Notebook
The epic romance that introduced the world to Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams is endlessly re-watchable. Watch on Netflix
Madagascar

With a voice cast to die for and enough family fun to spawn a whole franchise of movies, Madagascar is the ideal idle weekend flick. Watch on Netflix
The best sci-fi movies on Netflix
Carol
Trapped in a marriage of convenience, uptown, worldly Carol (Cate Blanchett) begins an affair with naive, besotted shop girl Therese (Rooney Mara). This exquisite romance is both chic and chilly in correct proportion before it explodes in tear-jerking emotional transparency. Watch on Netflix
The Lady in the Van

Maggie Smith has a whale of a time in this true story of an eccentric old lady who takes up residence outside writer Alan Bennett’s house. A breezy joy. Watch on Netflix
How To Train Your Dragon
Cressida Cowell’s successful children’s book – about a Viking teenager who befriends a young dragon -gets an exciting animated adaptation here from co-writers/directors Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois (Lilo & Stitch). Watch on Netflix
The Wolf of Wall Street
Leonardo DiCaprio puts in a majestic performance as Wall Street conman-turned-public-speaker Jordan Belfort in this three-hour-long epic from Martin Scorsese. Watch on Netflix
American Psycho
Dark satire following psychopathic businessman Patrick Bateman’s murderous descent into insanity. Those eggshell business cards, though… Watch on Netflix
Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool
This beautifully made romance tells the story of fading Hollywood starlet Gloria Grahame’s passionate affair with jobbing Liverpudlian actor Peter Turner in 1970s Britain. Stars Annette Bening, Jamie Bell and Julie Walters. Watch on Netflix
13th

The title of this potent film refers to the 13th Amendment: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” ‘Punishment for crime’ is the key qualifier here, as the documentary explores the injustices at the heart of America’s penal system. Watch on Netflix
Cargo

Thriller set in the Australian outback during a zombie epidemic. Martin Freeman stars as a father who must safeguard his young daughter’s passage after her mother becomes flesh-hungry. Watch on Netflix
The Big Lebowski
The Coen brothers’ goofy tribute to Raymond Chandler and film noir (particularly The Big Sleep) comes gift-wrapped with good lines, ingenious plot twists and eccentric characters to satisfy their dedicated army of fans. Watch on Netflix
Good Will Hunting
Gus Van Sant’s touching drama may have bagged an Oscar for its young screenwriters Ben Affleck and Matt Damon – but Robin Williams is the real star here as a caring psychologist who seeks to aid emotionally troubled mathematical genius Will (Damon). Watch on Netflix
The best TV shows on Netflix
Set It Up

This new romcom starring Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell (alongside Lucy Liu and Tye Diggs) is being lauded for harking back to the days when Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan led the genre – and it’s creating quite a buzz on Twitter. Watch on Netflix
Superbad
Superbad stands out from the standard teen-movie crowd with its slacker dialogue, universally funny performances and an unexpected sweetness in the friendship between the sex-crazed Seth and the slightly more diffident Eric. For those with a high tolerance for exuberant crudity, belly laughs are guaranteed.. Watch on Netflix
What happened, Miss Simone? (2015)
A Netflix Original, this biographical documentary film about Nina Simone, featuring interviews and previously unseen footage, was recently nominated for an Academy Award. Watch on Netflix
For a Few Dollars More
Hands down the most influential Western of the 20th century, the second instalment in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy is a classic, with Clint Eastwood at his snarling best. Watch on Netflix
Black Hawk Down
Ridley Scott’s noisy, gung-ho modern war movie, based on the disastrous 1993 “Battle of Mogadishu” in Somalia. Watch on Netflix
Mean Streets (1973)

Gangster drama from Martin Scorsese starring Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro as small-time crooks in New York. Watch on Netflix
A Star is Born (1976)
No, not the Lady Gaga Bradley Cooper leviathan: Netflix has cannily acquired the rights to the 1976 version starring Barbra Streisand. Compare and contrast… Watch on Netflix
When Harry Met Sally
A Nora Ephron classic. Essentially concerned with the several meetings and partings of two college graduates over a decade or so, as life and love take their toll, this romantic comedy argues the question of whether men and women can ever have a friendship without sex. Watch on Netflix
I Love You, Man
After a stand-out turn alongside Seann William Scott in hit comedy Role Models, Paul Rudd is finally front and centre for this surprisingly charming yarn about male friendships. Watch on Netflix
Kill Bill vol 1
Quentin Tarantino marshals a bewildering number of multi-genre references into a hypnotically entertaining whole in this violent martial arts revenge drama. . Watch on Netflix
The Final Year (2017)

(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza, © 2017 Home Box Office, Inc.)This extraordinary documentary is about much more than securing President Barack Obama’s legacy. With incredible access, filmmaker Greg Barker charts the former president’s final efforts before he leaves the office. Watch on Netflix
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Ralph Fiennes stars as Hotelier M Gustav, the comedy keystone in writer/director Wes Anderson’s weird and wonderful crime story. Watch on Netflix
Adventureland
Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart and Ryan Reynolds star in this gently brilliant coming of age comedy from Superbad’s Greg Mottola. Watch on Netflix
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