Finding the finest Netflix movies can be challenging, but there will likely always be amazing movies to watch. Whether you're looking for the best action movies, horror movies, comedies, or vintage movies on Netflix, there are many options available. The list has been modified for 2022 to take out exceptional movies that have already passed while honoring underrated masterpieces.

We at Paste have done our best to make it simple for you by regularly updating our list of the Best Movies to Watch on Netflix with both new entries and underrated movies. This saves you time from having to wade through categories in search of the ideal movie to watch.

Here are the 11 best movies streaming on Netflix right now:

The 11 Best Movies on Netflix (December 2022)


1. If Beale Street Could Talk

Year: 2018
Director: Barry Jenkins
Stars: Kiki Layne, Stephan James, Regina King, Brian Tyree Henry, Colman Domingo, Michael Beach, Teyonah Pariss, Aunjanue Ellis
Rating: R
Runtime: 117 minutes

Story Line 

The love narrative between Tish (Kiki Layne) and Fonny (Stephan James) will serve as the rhythm for our elliptical cast of characters. James Baldwin's work is adapted as a oneiric piece of voyeurism in Barry Jenkins' screenplay by Tish, who serves as our narrator. The tone is holy and revelatory when the two finally complete their connection after a lifetime (just two decades) of friendship between them and their families. Has anyone ever had sex like that? God, no, though sometimes we wish we did. And occasionally, we delude ourselves into believing that, with the right partner, we are simply two bodies against the world, in a space—possibly the only space—of our own. The couple's tale is brief and does not: A cop Ed Skrein, who has a grudge against Fonny, uses Emily Rios, a Puerto Rican lady who was sexually assaulted, to choose Fonny out of a lineup despite the fact that his alibi and all other available evidence point to the contrary. Tish visits Fonny in jail in the opening scene of the movie to inform him of her pregnancy. He's overjoyed, and we instantly identify the special fusion of fear and delight that comes with becoming a father. However, we also realize that for a young black couple, the odds are stacked against their relationship succeeding. Tish says, "I pray nobody has ever had to see anybody they love through glass. They aspire? The amazing synchronicity of James and Layne's performances suggests that they must be one flesh with no other choice. As Sharon, a character who can't exactly get what she wants but seems to comprehend that such development may be further than most in her situation, Regina King, who plays Sharon, Tish's mother, maybe better knows the evil of that aspiration. Even in our worry as we watch Tish's belly swell and her hope dwindle, Sharon's presence gives us comfort—not that everything will be okay, but that everything will be. She is the matriarch of the movie, a force of warmth. If Beale Street Could Talk's conclusion is essentially a given (unless your ignorance leads you through this stupid world), but there is still love there, just as there was in the beautiful opening of the movie. That offers some hope, however pitifully tiny. — Dom Sinacola.

2. Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Year: 1975
Directors: Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones
Stars: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Connie Booth
Genre: Comedy
Rating: PG

Story Line

It stinks that the popularity of Holy Grail has diminished part of its brilliance. Nowadays, our first memories of hearing words like "flesh wound," "ni!" or "vast swaths of territory" are frequently of having dumb, obsessed geeks repeat entire sequences to us. Or, in my case, of seeming like a naive, obsessive nerd and reciting entire passages to strangers. However, if you try to put the oversaturation problem aside and watch the movie again a few years later, you'll find new gags that are just as funny and outrageous as the ones we're all familiar with. The most jam-packed comedy in the entire Python canon is Holy Grail. This film contains a lot of jokes, and it's amazing how simply they may be made.Given its reputation, we tend to ignore that. If you've had it with this movie and are completely and irrevocably burned out, watch it again with commentary to obtain a second level of appreciation for the creativity with which it was produced. It doesn't appear to be a movie costing $400,000. It's fun to learn which jokes, like the coconut halves, were developed as a result of having to find creative solutions on a tight budget. The first collaboration between on-screen performer Terry Jones, who only occasionally directed after the breakup of the Pythons, and the lone American Terry Gilliam, who frequently distorted Python's cinematic style into his own distinctive brand of nightmare fantasy, moves with an uncanny efficiency. Craig Techler

3. The Irishman

Year: 2019
Director: Martin Scorsese
Stars: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, Jesse Plemons, Anna Paquin
Genre: Crime, Drama
Rating: R

Story Line

Peggy Sheeran (Lucy Gallina) observes her father Frank (Robert De Niro) packing his bag for a business trip via a door that has been left open. Trousers and shirts are put inside the bag, each one carefully folded and tucked. The brutal tool of Frank's trade, the snubnose revolver, is inserted. He is unaware that his daughter is staring at him because she is naturally silent and has remained so for the most of their adult interactions. He closes the file. She vanishes behind the entrance. Her opinions linger. In the last shot of Martin Scorsese's new movie The Irishman, which is called after Frank's moniker in the criminal underworld, the sequence from the first third of the movie is replayed. Frank is an elderly man who has been abandoned by both his family and friends.Sits on his nursing home bed, having lost all of his mobster pals over the years. He might be waiting for Death, but it's more probable that he's waiting for Peggy, who rejected him and doesn't intend to pardon his transgressions (played as an adult by Anna Paquin). Scorsese's moral compass is Peggy. She is a strict judge. The movie has a negative image on machismo because it's depicted as being masked by the mafia and mugs. When Scorsese's main characters aren't plotting or using violence to carry out their plans, they may be screaming at each other, eating ice cream, or in the most extreme cases, engaging in pathetic slap fights. Brawls between want tobe roughs scared of each other resemble equally pathetic sequences in Akira Kurosawa's Drunken Angel and Rashomon.Bravado on their part compelled them to engage in fighting. Frank worked for the Bufalino crime family, which was headed by Russell, from the 1950s to the early 2000s, according to The Irishman (Joe Pesci, out of retirement and intimidating). Working involves killing some individuals, beating up others, and, when the situation calls for it, even detonating a car or a structure. When not committing acts of gangland terrorism, he can be found at home reading the newspaper, watching the news, or dragging Peggy to the neighborhood grocery store to get beat up for pushing her. The poor doomed bastard adds, "I only did what you should," as Frank takes him outside and crushes his palm against the curb. The Irishman is a historical novel that details Sheeran's life and how it has affected the lives of others.the Bufalinos and their friends, especially those who passed away too soon (that being most of them). It also depicts childhood under the shadow of callous brutality and explores what a young girl must do to stay safe in a world where violence rules. — Andy Crump

4. I Am Not Your Negro

Year: 2017
Director: Raoul Peck
Genre: Documentary
Rating: PG-13

Story Line

James Baldwin's unfinished book Remember This House, which would have honored three of his friends—Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Medgar Evers—is the subject of Raoul Peck's book. Within five years of one another, three black men were all killed, and the movie reveals that Baldwin was not only grieved by these deaths as horrible setbacks for the Civil Rights struggle, but also genuinely worried for the spouses and children of the slain men. The movie is as much about Baldwin's excruciating agony as it is about his intelligence. I Am Not Your Negro is so more than just a picture of an artist; it is also a portrait of mourning, capturing what it is like to lose people and what it feels like to do so.so with everyone present watching (and with so much of America refusing to understand how it happened, and why it will keep happening). I Am Not Your Negro would have most likely still been a hit if Peck had merely given us this impression, putting us directly in Baldwin's presence. His choice to deviate from the typical documentary style, in which esteemed experts offer their opinions on a topic, fosters an intimacy that is rare to achieve in movies of this caliber. It is beautiful to spend time listening to Baldwin's words alone. Baldwin is the only one who can be used as an interpreter; this is how it should be. Shelby M. Houston

5. A Clockwork Orange

Year: 1971
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Stars: Malcolm McDowell, Patrick Magee, Adrienne Corri, Miriam Karlin
Rating: R
Runtime: 136 minutes

Story Line

A Clockwork Orange remixes various elements from Anthony Burgess's book, as with most (well, almost all) of Stanley Kubrick's book-to-screen adaptations, and most likely for the better (at least Alex [a terrifyingly electric Malcolm McDowell] isn't a pedophile in Kubrick's film, for example). It still depicts a society that tolerates violent youth culture and in which current science and psychology are the most effective tools for preventing the Ultra ViolenceTM that men like Alex and his fellow "droogs" conduct. It becomes painfully obvious that evil triumphs as Alex is made out to be the victim by the British Interior Minister (Anthony Sharp). After this nightmare, can any of us ever listen to "Singing in the Rain" the same way again? — Scott Wold

6. Uncut Gems

Year: 2019
Directors: Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie
Stars: Adam Sandler, Julia Fox, Eric Bogosian
Genre: Thriller
Rating: R

Story Line

Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler), the owner of a posh store in New York's diamond district, provides comfortably for himself and his family but can't help but gamble compulsively, owing his brother-in-law Aron (Eric Bogosian, maliciously slimy) a considerable sum as a result. However, Howard also has other concerns to consider. His staff includes Demany (Lakeith Stanfield), a finder of both clients and merchandise, and Julia (Julia Fox), a clerk with whom Howard is having an affair while "keeping" her comfortable in his New York apartment. But in the meantime, he has a special cargo coming from Africa: a black opal, the stone we grew to know well in the movie "Opal," played by the pristinely jaded Idina Menzel.The opening scene of the movie, according to Howard, is worth millions. Then, on the day the opal arrives, Demany just so happens to bring Kevin Garnett (as himself, keyed so perfectly into the Safdie brothers' tone) into the store, sparking a once-in-a-lifetime wager for Howard and a ton of new stuff to sort through. The Safdies, in their sixth film, seem to relish in anxiety, capturing the slowness of Howard's life and of the countless lives colliding with his in all of its full-bodied beauty. It is undoubtedly difficult—really endlessly, achingly stressful. Just before a game, Howard tells Garnett about his elaborate scheme for a large sum of money, emphasizing that Garnett understands it. That men favor them are focused on something bigger and operate at a higher frequency than most, and that this is how they triumph. We've always thought Sandler had it in him, so he may be onto something or he may just be pulling the rug out from under himself. We may have had this in mind all along. — Dom Sinacola

7. She’s Gotta Have It

Year: 1986
Director: Spike Lee
Stars: Tracy Camila Johns, Spike Lee, John Canada Terrell, Tommy Redmond Hicks
Genre: Comedy, Romance

Story Line

She's Gotta Have It, a levelheaded exploration of a young black woman named Nola (Tracy Camilla Johns) trying to choose between her three male lovers while also flirting with her apparent bisexuality in order to, first and foremost, figure out what makes her happy, is an explosively frank feature debut that immediately announced Lee's brave, fresh new voice in American cinema. In a game-changing move for 1986, Lee consistently raises the notion that "none of the above" is a perfectly reasonable response for both Nola and single women. The DIY independent film's gritty black-and-white photography enhances its overt authenticity. — Oktay Ege Kozak

8. The Last Forest

Year: 2022
Director: Luiz Bolognesi
Rating: NR

Story Line

The Last Forest, a 76-minute documentary by director Luiz Bolognesi and co-writer/subject/Yanomami leader Davi Kopenawa, combines engrossing mythological reenactments with slice-of-life footage to create an incisive and insightful look at an Indigenous culture resisting the corrupting influence of capitalistic greed on mind and body due to chemicals and COVID-19. The allure of gold still brings out the worst in foreigners in Brazil's woods. Bolognesi establishes the setting with stunning pictures that are covered in green and yellow before being engulfed in smoke and cacophony. Kopenawa then delivers their story. Their combined techniques result in The Last Forest, a liminal protest that is rhythmic and will quickly captivate you with its deft senses. Despite the movie's occasionally gossamer beauty, Bolognesi's technical skill in depicting motion and process should not be disregarded: Through his lens, it is pleasing and artistic to see a bow draw and release an arrow or a child cuddle into a parent who is lying in a hammock. There is no better way to develop empathy and respect than to feel as though Bolognesi and Kopenawa have allowed you into their lives through that blend of realism and abstraction. Jake Oller

9. Apocalypse Now Redux

Year: 1979
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Stars: Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, Laurence Fishburne
Rating: R
Runtime: 206 minutes

Story Line

It seems appropriate to reference Truffaut in order to evaluate Francis Ford Coppola's disastrous adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness as well as to debate a war movie like Paths of Glory and to think about war movies in general. Perhaps, if we take Truffaut at his word, the act of recreating war as art in Apocalypse Now (and its restored version with 49 more minutes of video that is currently available on Netflix) cannot not but support war. Perhaps that doesn't prevent the movie from expressing Coppola's compelling theses: War is itself hell, a terrifying statement that has become cliché due to vile behavior that transforms men into monsters and sends them on a descent into a primordial, lawless state of mind.overuse from 1979 until the present. The impact of war on its participants' humanity is not sanctioned by the movie, even if it implicitly does so through its depiction of conflict. Apocalypse Now is still regarded as one of the most powerful depictions of the damaging effects that violence sanctioned by the government has on a person's spirit and psyche. It's cute that 40 years later we're okay with referencing this movie in dreadful AT&T ads or using its historical setting to remake King Kong for modern audiences, but there's nothing particularly cute or even particularly quotable about it. Only the most horrific depictions of human depravity can properly stamp themselves in our memories, but Apocalypse Now sears, sickens, and leaves scars. — Andy Crump

10. Bonnie and Clyde

Year: 1967
Director: Arthur Penn
Stars: Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway, Michael J. Pollard, Gene Hackman
Rating: R
Runtime: 111 minutes

Story Line

Before studios realized the lucrative advantages of franchises like Jaws and Star Wars, which could pile sequel upon sequel, rake in merchandise proceeds, and guarantee a steady stream of big money regardless of artistic merit, there was a brief period in American film history just after the general public got sick of the mundane, cloying dramas and comedies of the '60s. Studio bosses had no better ideas during that strange interlude than tossing money at bright directors in the hopes that they would strike it rich. Movies like Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde have a gritty realism that is just as witty and astute as the French New Wave, but they are also infused with the freewheeling American spirit that hasn't yet been muzzled by a political establishment by corporate agenda.

11. A Cop Movie

Year: 2021
Director: Alonso Ruizpalacios
Genre: Documentary
Rating: R
Runtime: 107 minutes

Story Line

The docu-fiction hybrid A Cop Movie features many arresting images, but one in particular perfectly captures the spirit of the director Alonso Ruizpalacios' investigation of Mexico's police force. Police academy student Teresa prepares to jump off a 30-foot diving platform and into a swimming pool after tying her wrist to a long, thin length of rope. The final obstacle she must clear to graduate, "decisiveness," poses a serious threat to her life because she cannot swim, and her likelihood of drowning is callously avoided by keeping her hand tied to the ground. Teresa, in an interesting twist, becomes more of an avatar for Ruizpalacios to examine the civilian perspective of the nation's police.The docu-fiction hybrid A Cop Movie features many arresting images, but one in particular perfectly captures the spirit of the director Alonso Ruizpalacios' investigation of Mexico's police force. Police academy student Teresa prepares to jump off a 30-foot diving platform and into a swimming pool after tying her wrist to a long, thin length of rope. The final obstacle she must clear to graduate, "decisiveness," poses a serious threat to her life because she cannot swim, and her likelihood of drowning is callously avoided by keeping her hand tied to the ground. Teresa, in an interesting twist, becomes more of an avatar for Ruizpalacios to examine the civilian perspective of the nation's police.nothing but the skewed projections of their actual counterparts. A Cop Movie is subtle yet brazen in its critique of police corruption and the individual officers who buy into it—their good intentions be damned. It does this by meticulously creating this illusion and then subtly exposing the hypocrisy behind it. – Natalie Keogan