The 30 Best Netflix Original Movies Right Now (February 2024)

Netflix’s streaming service is a content library filled with blockbusters and indie darlings, but a good amount of those come courtesy of the streaming giant itself. Netflix’s original films are stacked with sci-fi action epics and sports comedies, and Oscar-winning aueteur entries. So, to whittle down the smorgasbord of choices, we’ve rounded up the best Netflix feature-length creations that deserve to be added to your queue.

You can see the full list of the best Netflix original movies below:

Last updated on January 30, 2024.

Year: 2023

Cast: Idris Elba, Cynthia Erivo, Andy Serkis

Genre: Crime, Drama

Rating: R

Runtime: 129 minutes

Director: Jamie Payne

Trailer: Watch here

Idris Elba returns as the brilliant but troubled copper, John Luther, in this thrilling mystery from Netflix. Would it help to know Luther’s disgraced-detective origins via the BBC drama Sure. But just jumping straight into this cat-and-mouse game between the on-the-run anti-hero and Andy Serkis’ twisted serial killer might also be a hell of a lot of fun.

Year: 2018

Cast: Glen Powell, Zoey Deutch

Genre: Comedy, Romance

Rating: TV-14

Runtime: 105 minutes

Director: Claire Scanlon

Trailer: Watch here

Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell star in this office rom-com with a bit of a twist. Instead of the two young co-stars falling in love, it’s Deutch and Powell who try to set up their overbearing, workaholic bosses with each other so that they can get a break from their demanding jobs. Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs play the employers from hell, and Deutch and Powell put themselves through the paces to make the pair fall in love, and to make us laugh. It’s superficial, it’s cute, and it’s proof that Glen Powell has always been charming.

Year: 2022

Cast: Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Don Cheadle, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Andre Benjamin

Genre:Absurdist Comedy, Drama

Rating: R

Runtime: 136 minutes

Director: Noah Baumbach

Trailer: Watch here

What could be more perfect than a story about the uncertainty of the modern world As a public service announcement, please do not watch this film if you’re already feeling queasy about climate change and emerging fascism. Based on the masterful Don DeLillo novel, Baumbach delivers a stirring contemplation of modern worry with a family that has more than enough reasons to panic. Jack is a professor of Hitler Studies, Babette is secretly takes a drug that curbs her fear of death, and their children have to be raised by an expert in Hitler Studies and a woman overwhelmed by life. Plus, they all have to quarantine at a creepy government encampment after being exposed to toxic chemicals following a train derailment. The comedy is black, and the need for anti-anxiety medication is real.

Year: 2023

Cast: Carlo Adamo, Hannah Mae Beatty, David Glatzel

Genre: Documentary

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 81 minutes

Director: Chris Holt

Trailer: Watch here

A wild true crime story that served as the inspiration for one of The Conjuring films, this doc recounts the trial of Arne Cheyenne Johnson — the first and only murder suspect to use “demonic possession” as a defense. Johnson stabbed his girlfriend’s boss to death in 1981, claiming an evil spirit made him do the deed. The doc — filled with fascinating anecdotes and some surprising twists — attempts to understand how an entire family could believe they were plagued by spirits, and how one man could be driven to kill because of it.

Year: 2020

Cast: Rachel McAdams, Will Ferrell, Dan Stevens

Genre: Comedy, Musical

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 123 minutes

Director: David Dobkin

Trailer: Watch here

Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams take on the planet’s most-watched singing competition with this campy comedy about an Icelandic duo named Fire Saga, who are set on achieving glory on the world’s biggest stage. Ferrell and McAdams play Lars Erickssong and Sigrit Ericksdottir, artists chosen to represent their nation in the Eurovision Song Contest, a real competition that features musicians from all over the world, who are often performing in wild get-ups. Dan Stevens almost steals the show while Pierce Brosnan and Demi Lovato make appearances. We’re calling it now: “Volcano Man” is going to be a bop for the ages.

Year: 2022

Cast: Ewan McGregor, David Bradley, Gregory Mann, Cate Blanchett

Genre: Animation, Family

Rating: PG

Runtime: 117 minutes

Director: Guillermo del Toro, Mark Gustafson

Trailer: Watch here

Guillermo del Toro’s trademark whimsy and love for dark fantasy make for a wonderful balancing act in this adaptation of a beloved childhood fairytale – told this time in stop-motion animation form. Of the two retellings fans were given this year, Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio is undoubtedly the superior work, rehashing the familiar plotline – a wooden puppet brought to life as the son of his carver – and setting it amidst the backdrop of Fascist Italy before and during the Second World War. It’s grim and mesmerizing and surprisingly moving, even if you can predict most of the animated film’s trajectory.

Year: 2022

Cast: Florence Pugh, Tom Burke, Kila Lord Cassidy

Genre: Mystery, Thriller

Rating: R

Runtime: 108 minutes

Director: Sebastián Lelio

Trailer: Watch here

Florence Pugh delivers a devastating-yet-subtle performance in this period drama that deep dives into the superstition and oppression that surrounds religion in a small hamlet in the Irish Midlands. Pugh plays Lib, a young nurse with a dark past who’s hired to investigate whether a young girl who claims to be touched by God is a miracle or a fraud. It’s a tense, slow-plotting thriller, one that gives Pugh ample space to show off her skills amidst a gorgeous backdrop of rainy, rolling hills.

Year: 2022

Cast: Maya Hawke, Camila Mendes, Austin Abrams

Genre: Comedy

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 118 minutes

Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

Trailer: Watch here

Maya Hawke and Camila Mendes star in this teen comedy filled with cheeky winks to the genre’s early aughts classics. Mendes plays Drea, a popular student at an elite private school whose reputation is trashed after her boyfriend (Euphoria’s Austin Abrams) leaks an intimate video of her. She seeks revenge and enlists the help of the school’s new girl Eleanor (Hawke) who undergoes a makeover to infiltrate the popular clique Drea once belonged to and destroy them from the inside. Come for the “Glenn-ergy” of it all, stay for the plot twist near the film’s end.

Year: 2022

Cast: Joel Edgerton, Sean Harris

Genre: Crime, Thriller

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 117 minutes

Director: Thomas M. Wright

Trailer: Watch here

Joel Edgerton and Sean Harris lead this tense, slow-burn thriller about a criminal on the run and a man determined to get justice. Edgerton plays an undercover cop named Mark Frame who befriends Harris’ Henry Teague in order to elicit a confession related to the kidnapping and disappearance of a young teen. As Mark draws Henry deeper into a faux world of organized crime, their bond becomes twisted by Henry’s sexual interest in Mark and the cop’s struggles as a single father.

Year: 2023

Cast: Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Andy Garcia, Catherine O’Hara

Genre: Crime, Drama

Rating: R

Runtime: 143 minutes

Director: David Yates

Trailer: Watch here

Between Hulu’s Dopesick and Netflix’s Painkillers, audiences are well-versed in the beginnings of the opioid epidemic — at least, on screen. But this account, based on another true story of a pharma company gone corrupt boasts a spectacular performance by Emily Blunt that excuses its predictable ending. Blunt plays a struggling single mom who’s offered a drug rep job by Evans’ smarmy pharmaceutical exec. The two are so good at peddling their bullsh*t, that they’re able to convince doctors to write enough prescriptions for a new fast-acting opioid that ends up saving the company and making them rich. But when people start dying and her bosses start cutting corners, Blunt’s Liza Drake becomes so disillusioned with the get-rich-quick scheme, that she decides to burn it down from the inside.

Year: 2019

Cast: Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson, Laura Dern, Alan Alda, Ray Liotta, Julie Hagerty, and Merritt Weaver

Genre:Drama

Rating: R

Runtime: 137 minutes

Director: Noah Baumbach

Trailer: Watch here

Driver and Johansson give commanding performances as a married couple navigating the impossible labyrinth of divorce while trying to shield their son from the worst of it. Charlie is a renowned theatre director with a MacArthur Genius Grant, and Nicole is an actress and newly-minted TV star who feels unfulfilled. Initially, they agree they want to part amicably, but that doesn’t last long, and soon lawyers and backbiting enter the picture, fogging it up so badly that it’s nearly impossible to see why they loved each other in the first place. Fortunately, Baumbach handles each landmine with humaneness and generosity, resulting in a brutal story told with tenderness.

Year: 2022

Cast: Jesse Plemons, Jason Segel, Lily Collins

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Rating: R

Runtime: 92 minutes

Director: Charlie McDowell

Trailer: Watch here

Jason Segel plays a bumbling burglar in this twisty thriller starring Lily Collins and Jesse Plemons. Plemons plays a wealthy tech CEO, Collins his unhappy wife. The two make a last-minute trip to their vacation home where they encounter Segel’s character who’s in the process of robbing it. He decides to hold them for ransom and, while waiting for the money to be delivered, extracts harsh truths from both. It’s a ridiculous, tense ride that hinges on Plemons being totally unlikable (he is here) and Collins being the unexpected MVP of the story.

Year: 2019

Cast: Ivan Massagué, Zorion Eguileor, Antonia San Juan

Genre: Horror, Sci-Fi

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 94 minutes

Director: Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia

Trailer: Watch here

This Spanish-language sci-fi flick is all kinds of f*cked up, but in the best way. The film is set in a large, tower-style “Vertical Self-Management Center” where the residents, who are periodically switched at random between floors, are fed by a platform, initially filled with food, that gradually descends through the levels. Conflicts arise when inmates at the top begin eating all the food, leaving the people lower down to fight for survival.

Year: 2017

Cast: Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood

Genre: Thriller

Rating: R

Runtime: 103 minutes

Director: Mike Flanagan

Trailer: Watch here

Stephen King’s 1992 novel transpires mostly in one isolated lake house’s bedroom where its protagonist, Jessie, lies bound to a bed after her husband dies in the midst of a sex game. That makes it a tough story to film, which may explain why it took 25 years to get turned into a movie. But the wait was worth it: director Mike Flanagan delivers a resourceful, disturbing adaptation anchored by a great Carla Gugino performance (with some fine supporting work from Bruce Greenwood). Forced to find a way out of her situation, while confronting her own past, Gugino’s Jessie is made to go to extremes, which leads to, among other things, one of the squirmiest scenes in recent memory.

Year: 2020

Cast: Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, Sebastian Stan,

Genre: Crime, Thriller

Rating: R

Runtime: 138 minutes

Director: Antonio Campos

Trailer: Watch here

This time-hopping drama set in the backwoods of West Virginia is basically an excuse for director Antonio Campos to assemble his own Avengers-style squad of Hollywood A-listers. Seriously, everyone’s in this movie: Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Bill Skarsgård, Eliza Scanlen, Sebastian Stan, Mia Wasikowska, Riley Keough, Jason Clarke, Haley Bennett, that kid who played Dudley in the Harry Potter franchise. The whole gang’s living in shacks and picking up hitchhikers, only to murder them later and speaking in tongues and falling victim to generational trauma. It’s a heavy watch, and there’s not really a happy ending, but boy does Pattinson deliver a batsh*t crazy turn as a perverted preacher.

Year: 2023

Cast: Alden Ehrenreich, Phoebe Dynevor

Genre: Thriller

Rating: R

Runtime: 113 minutes

Director: Chloe Domont

Trailer: Watch here

Director Chloe Domont revives the long-dead erotic thriller with this drama starring Bridgerton breakout Phoebe Dynevor and Solo star Alden Ehrenreich. The two play a secretly engaged couple working for a hedge fund where inner-office romances are strictly forbidden. When Dynevor’s Emily gets the promotion Ehrenreich’s Luke was hoping for, it strains their already tense relationship, pushing them to their breaking point — but not before a series of sexy HR violations can occur.

Year: 2023

Cast: Nopachai Chaiyanam, Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying, Gunn Svasti Na Ayudhya

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 146 minutes

Director: Sitisiri Mongkolsiri

Trailer: Watch here

Thai filmmaker Sitisiri Mongkolsiri gives us his version of The Menu with this deliciously tense, inexplicably-eerie restaurant thriller. Chutimon Chuengcharoensukying plays Ayo, a young woman working at her family’s noodle shop who dreams of more. She gets it after scoring a job with a dictator-like food auteur in Nopachai Chaiyanam’s Chef Paul. Paul is uncompromising and abusive and Ayo subjects herself to that abuse in order to climb an imaginary ladder but, once she reaches the top, the view looks grim.

Year: 2017

Cast: Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Jake Gyllenhaal

Genre: Adventure, Drama

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 120 minutes

Director: Bong Joon Ho

Trailer: Watch here

Bong Joon-Ho’s send-up of corporate farming and environmental abuses isn’t subtle. Tilda Swinton goes all-out as the CEO of an evil corporation only to be outdone by Jake Gyllenhaal’s broad turn as an unstable TV host. But its tale of an endearing, genetically modified “super pig” and the girl who loves him is effective and contains both some terrific action set pieces and the most affecting child/strange beast relationship this side of E.T.

Year: 2022

Cast: Adam Sandler, Queen Latifah, Ben Foster, Juancho Hernangómez

Genre: Sports, Comedy

Rating: R

Runtime: 117 minutes

Director: Jeremiah Zagar

Trailer: Watch here

Adam Sandler has plenty of comedy favorites housed on Netflix, but we’re highlighting this one because Sandler gets to channel his everyman charm in a sports story that lets his comedic sensibilities control the game. He plays Stanley Sugerman, an aging 76ers scout, who discovers a potential NBA star during a pick-up game in Spain. Stanley risks his career and his family’s future to back the unknown player, eventually squaring off against his old boss and confronting his own troubled past to help someone else achieve their dreams on the court.

Year: 2021

Cast: Timothee Chalamet, Joel Edgerton, Robert Pattinson

Genre: Historical, Drama

Rating: R

Runtime: 140 minutes

Director: Joel Edgerton

Trailer: Watch here

Timothee Chalamet is everywhere right now so really, are you that surprised he’s playing a boyish, rebellious King Henry V in this big-budget Shakespeare adaptation from Joel Edgerton Chalamet and his bowl-cut bring Hal to life, the wayward prince forced to assume the throne after his father’s death. Hal has to grow up quickly to lead his men into battle against a bloodthirsty French foe (Robert Pattinson having too much fun with his overdramatic accent) and preserve England’s reign. It’s all medieval warfare and political intrigue and it’s held up by Chalamet who stands out — even amongst a stellar supporting cast.

Year: 2020

Cast: Jessie Buckley, Jesse Plemons, David Thewlis, Toni Collette

Genre: Drama, Thriller

Rating: R

Runtime: 134 minutes

Director: Charlie Kaufman

Trailer: Watch here

Charlie Kaufman’s latest film is based on a book of the same name and stars Chernobyl’s Jessie Buckley as a young woman meeting her boyfriend’s parents for the first time — which normally would be a happy event except she’s secretly been planning to break up the with the guy. That guy is Jesse Plemons, who seems to be in everything these days, and along with Toni Collette and David Thewlis who play his parents, they make for hellish dinner mates. There’s a sinister vibe permeating everything about this straightforward plot so if you think you know how this ends, let us be the first to tell you: You don’t have a clue.

Year: 2021

Cast: Bo Burnham

Genre: Comedy, Music

Rating: TV-MA

Runtime: 86 minutes

Director: Bo Burnham

Trailer: Watch here

Bo Burnham distills our collective quarantined experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, writing, directing, starring in, composing, and editing this bleak-yet-hilarious bit of performance art that might be the most exciting, inventive thing we’ve seen yet. Is it a movie, a stand-up routine, or a comedy special We really don’t know, but it’s damn funny so we’re putting it on this list. The self-deprecating humor and catchy tunes are here of course, but Burnham goes darker, crafting complete bangers about everything from the white savior complex to cancel culture, toxic masculinity, depression, and global economic inequality.

Year: 2019

Cast: Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Pedro Pascal, Charlie Hunnam

Genre: Action, Crime

Rating: R

Runtime: 125 minutes

Director: J.C. Chandor

Trailer: Watch here

This Netflix original heist thriller stars a whos-who of Hollywood hunks. Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund, and Pedro Pascal play a group of former special ops bros who reunite to take down an infamous cartel kingpin and steal his profits in the process. Isaac and Affleck look to be the leaders of the team, two men fed up with risking their necks for a country that doesn’t look after them once they’re back on home soil, and Isaac’s A Most Violent Year director J.C. Chandor is at the helm, which means a couple of plot twists and some high stakes action are in store.

Year: 2015

Cast: Idris Elba, Abraham Attah, Ama K. Abebrese, Kurt Egyiawan, Jude Akuwudike, Emmanual “King King” Nii, and Adom Quaye

Genre:War Drama

Rating: R

Runtime: 138 minutes

Director: Cary Joji Fukunaga

Trailer: Watch here

One of the best original movies on Netflix and one of the first, Elba and the entire cast shine in a challenging drama set in the throes of a West African civil war. With shattered innocence, Agu is adopted into a guerilla army where he loses his childhood entirely to gunfire, drug use, and nearly zero hope of living out the year (let alone eventually living a normal life). Vivid and desolate, Fukunaga’s film provides a deeply moving exploration of the plight of child soldiers and the unfathomable cost of war.

Year: 2020

Cast: Delroy Lindo, Chadwick Boseman, Jonathan Majors

Genre: War, Drama

Rating: R

Runtime: 154 minutes

Director: Spike Lee

Trailer: Watch here

Any Spike Lee joint is worth a watch, but this genre-bending thriller about a group of black Vietnam War vets returning to the battlefield decades later feels especially timely. That’s because Lee manages to shed light on a little-known part of our shared history: the way our country treated Black soldiers returning from the war, but he also raises the stakes with a subplot that includes a buried treasure hunt and a heartwrenching mission to retrieve the remains of a fallen comrade. The cast, which includes Black Panther’s Chadwick Boseman in one of his final roles, is brilliant, the story is gripping, and the direction is top notch.

Year: 2023

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Adam Bessa, Golshifteh Farahani

Genre: Action, Thriller

Rating: R

Runtime: 122 minutes

Director: Sam Hargrave

Trailer: Watch here

Chris Hemsworth returns as retired mercenary Tyler Rake in this sequel that ramps up the action to unbelievable — and frankly, dangerous — new levels. After barely surviving his last mission, Rake is tasked with extracting the sister of his ex-wife, along with her two children, from a high-security prison. Things go awry, naturally, leading to violent mob showdowns and explosions and helicopters landing on top of high-speed trains. It’s nerve-frying stuff and it all proves that Hemsworth really is the best action hero of his generation.

Year: 2018

Cast: Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey

Genre: Drama

Rating: R

Runtime: 135 minutes

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Trailer: Watch here

Academy Award-winning writer/director Alfonso Cuaron delivers what may be his most personal film to date. The stunningly-shot black-and-white film is an ode to Cuaron’s childhood and a love letter to the women who raised him. Following the journey of a domestic worker in 1970s Mexico City named Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), the movie interweaves tales of personal tragedy and triumph amidst a backdrop of political upheaval and unrest.

Year: 2022

Cast: Daniel Craig, Kathryn Hahn, Janelle Monae, Dave Bautista, Edward Norton

Genre: Comedy, Mystery, Crime

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 140 minutes

Director: Rian Johnson

Trailer: Watch here

Rian Johnson delivers a deliriously fun follow-up to his breakout 2019 murder mystery with Daniel Craig returning to play famed detective Benoit Blanc. This time around, Blanc, equipped with a colorful new wardrobe and his same slow, Southern drawl, heads to Greece to investigate a murder amongst a group of friends reuniting for an island holiday. Most of the culprits are out-of-touch elites — to the nth degree — with stars like Kate Hudson, Dave Bautista, Kathryn Hahn, and Edward Norton playing supermodels, Twitch streamers, politicians, and tech moguls who are as ridiculous as they are corrupt.

Year: 2019

Cast: Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci

Genre: Biography, Crime

Rating: R

Runtime: 209 minutes

Director: Martin Scorsese

Trailer: Watch here

Martin Scorsese delivers another cinematic triumph, this time for Netflix and with the help of some familiar faces. Robert De Niro and Al Pacino team up (again) for this crime drama mostly based on a true story. De Niro plays Frank Sheeran a World War II vet who finds work as a hitman for the mob. Pacino plays notorious Teamster Jimmy Hoffa, a man who frequently found himself on the wrong side of the law and the criminals he worked with. The film charts the pair’s partnership over the years while injecting some historical milestones for context. It’s heavy and impressively cast and everything you’d expect a Scorsese passion project to be, with some interesting de-aging CGI that does its best to show the scope of Scorsese’s storytelling.

Year: 2022

Cast: Daniel Brühl, Felix Kammerer, Albrecht Schuch

Genre: War, Drama

Rating: R

Runtime: 148 minutes

Director: Edward Berger

Trailer: Watch here

Sometimes the best argument against war is to show it fully, in all its brutality and heartbreak, and inevitable devastation. That’s what this film does well, following the story of a young, idealistic German boy who enlists to serve his country during World War I — and its nine Oscar nominations are proof of that. Instead of finding glory and honor on the battlefield, he and his friends witness unimaginable horrors while struggling to survive in a wasteland created by man’s greed and insatiable appetite for violence.