110 Best Drama Releases on Netflix (Page 3)
The Woman King
SimilarBoys Don't Cry (1999) From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Lost in Translation (2003),
Watch afterBlack Adam (2022),
Gina Prince-Bythewood is indisputably one of the most interesting directors working in Hollywood today. Since breaking out with the hit sports romance Love & Basketball, her work has ranged from intimate family dramas and love stories (The Secret Life of Bees, Beyond the Lights) to action-packed superhero movies (The Old Guard). It took Prince-Bythewood seven years to bring her new film, The Woman King, to the screen. Epic, thrilling, and jam-packed with delightful character beats, The Woman King understandably feels like the culmination of Prince-Bythewood’s work so far. As masterful at shooting stunning fight sequences as she is wringing emotions from intimate dialogue scenes, Prince-Bythewood delivers a crowd-pleaser for the ages. Continue Reading →
Better Call Saul
NetworkAMC+,
SimilarBates Motel, Komi Can't Communicate, Unforgettable,
StarringGiancarlo Esposito,
Better Call Saul is a tragedy. From the beginning, it focused on a rough-edged, yet decent man whom the audience knows will one day become an unrepentant merchant of death and destruction. What makes it so tragic, beyond the known destination, is that the series is riddled with missed exits. Time and again, Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk) faced situations where -- if he’d just pulled back from the brink, if he’d only taken his lumps instead of wriggling out of them, if he’d simply chosen not to push things too far -- all of this could have been avoided. Continue Reading →
Stranger Things
The one thing that no one can deny is Stranger Things Season 4 remains aggressively itself right up to the end. Its final two episodes, feature-length films onto themselves, serve everything that one could enjoy about the first seven episodes with a side of everything that frustrates and annoys. The good news is that the bad bits remain a side dish, not the main course. The better news is that ratio tips even further in favor of what’s enjoyable. Continue Reading →
Elvis
SimilarBrubaker (1980), Freedom Writers (2007), Mississippi Burning (1988), Raging Bull (1980), The Pursuit of Happyness (2006),
Watch afterThor: Love and Thunder (2022), Top Gun: Maverick (2022),
In the opening seconds of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, viewers are blasted with the sight of the Warner Bros. logo – a variant glowing in gold and crimson, practically exploding with flair and moving parts – accompanied on the soundtrack by a remix of “Suspicious Minds.” Within the first few minutes, sweeping shots of Las Vegas clash with Ocean’s 11-style split screens, and the editing juggles between slowmo and cranked-up fast motion, in classic Luhrmann fashion. Continue Reading →
Hustle
SimilarAnnie Hall (1977), The Big Blue (1988),
Watch afterDoctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022),
Adam Sandler doesn’t need to earn any good karma. With a comedy career spanning 25 years and a dramatic career consisting of two decades worth, though more sparingly, of working with auteur filmmakers, the Sandman has been given the green light around Hollywood. And more importantly, he’s been given a blank(ish) check by Netflix, the service most associated with streaming despite its recent struggles. Continue Reading →
Father Stu
If the new Mark Wahlberg movie Father Stu were a person, it would have to stay in a confessional for a whole year to list its endless shortcomings. Continue Reading →
Metal Lords
SimilarBring It On (2000), Freedom Writers (2007),
There is a movie about metalheads. But not just any devotees to metal music, oh no. This is a film about two musicians in a metal band that love this craft and each other but are struggling to get the fame that’s constantly eluded them. This pair of pals often fight and disagree over where to take their artistic pursuit, but at the end of the day, they’ve got each other and a love for those loud and rebellious melodies. Watching this film, you can’t help but get swept up in the camaraderie and dedication to this craft, even if you don’t know Avenged Sevenfold from Slipknot. Continue Reading →
Bridgerton
SimilarAround the World in 80 Days, Helltown, My Holo Love, No Escape, Santa Evita, The Summer I Turned Pretty,
Bridgerton is back this week, and yes, there will be bodices ripped, smelling salts fetched, and pearls definitely clutched. But before getting into all of that, let’s do a little housekeeping. While you’re not going to find a bigger romance fan than this reviewer, that doesn't mean this review will overlook Netflix using actors of color to bolster what are mainly white characters and storylines. Continue Reading →
To Leslie
Andrea Riseborough and Marc Maron shine in a study of a one-time lottery winner years after her life has gone bust.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 South by Southwest Festival)
To Leslie tells a story of painful loss and possible redemption as familiar as the ones recounted in the country songs born out of its West Texas setting. In the case of Michael Morris’s feature debut, familiarity does not breed contempt. What To Leslie lacks in originality, it more than makes up for in terms of its craft and very impressive central performances from Andrea Riseborough and Marc Maron. Continue Reading →
Windfall
SimilarCrouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000),
Watch afterNightmare Alley (2021),
Without any awareness of the Hitchcockian tag—impossible, what with it being The Point in the marketing, but let’s try—Windfall is the best advert yet for Ojai, California. Right from the get-go, director and co-writer Charlie McDowell serenely guides viewers around a gorgeous hacienda with an Eden of Pixie tangerines and the Topatopa within eyeshot. In short, this is a fetching property, easily bearing a price tag in the millions. It’s an item someone in the style of our unofficial tour guide (Jason Segel), a daring blend of off-duty Sheriff Hopper and the designer-disheveled-ism of modern tech bros, would possess. Or maybe host the Roys if they are to reattempt family therapy. Continue Reading →
Home Team
SimilarAnnie Hall (1977), JFK (1991), The Big Blue (1988),
The 2012 Bountygate scandal pushed New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton toward his son, as he spent the season he was suspended from the NFL on the sidelines of a sixth-grade football team. Briefly: “Bountygate” sprung out of a system that Payton, his assistant Head Coach, the Saints’ former defensive coordinator, and the team’s General Manager put into practice that paid players bonuses for injuring key members of opposing teams on the field. Unfortunately, this is the true story at the heart of Home Team, a trite Kevin James vehicle depicting the public suspension of Payton just two years after the Saints victory at Super Bowl XLIV. This isn’t a rise and fall story. It’s a continuous landslide, 95 minutes that reaffirm Payton as an unsupportive father, a way-too-intense football coach, and an all-around negative person to be around. Continue Reading →
Ozark
SimilarBrimstone, Broadchurch, Jack the Ripper, Kidnapped, Tientsin Mystic,
StudioMRC,
Previous seasons of Netflix’s Ozark followed Martin and Wendy Byrde’s (Jason Bateman and Laura Linney) quest to survive death and prove their family’s worth to the cartel and their violent rivals. Now, in the fourth and final season, the Byrdes must figure out if they can survive without their dark, criminal lives. They sacrificed a lot to get to the top—but what would they sacrifice to stay there? Thanks to this ask and its answers, Ozark Season 4 Part 1 is slow-burn suspense at its finest, with the Byrde’s maneuvering to stay on top, no matter the personal costs. Continue Reading →
Brazen
SimilarCape Fear (1991), Chicago (2002), Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995), Live Free or Die Hard (2007),
Primal Fear (1996) Rope (1948), Secret Window (2004),
With the meteoric popularity of Yellowjackets, a new installment of the Scream franchise, and the revival of shows like Saved by the Bell and The Babysitters Club, 90’s nostalgia is in full swing. It was only a matter of time before the true entertainment staple of the era made a comeback as well. I’m talking of course about the humble made-for-tv movie. The original TV movies of the 80’s and 90’s came in four basic flavors: teen morality play, hardboiled sleaze, young women being kidnapped/stalked/unalived, and Stephen King. The very best made-for-tv movies had overlap between the categories, with classics like Cyber Seduction, A Friend To Die For: Death of a Cheerleader, and No One Would Tell fueling the Monday morning water cooler roundups. Continue Reading →
The Lost Daughter
Watch afterDon't Look Up (2021), The Power of the Dog (2021), tick tick... BOOM! (2021), West Side Story (2021),
StarringDagmara Domińczyk,
StudioEndeavor Content,
Much to the Republican Party’s dismay, the birth rate in the United States has been gradually on the decline, hitting an all-time low in 2020. Couples are not only waiting longer to have children, they’re having less of them, with an average of 1.6 per family. While climate change and cost of living expenses are the primary factors in the decision to have fewer children (or none at all), a small part of it can also be attributed to more people accepting a difficult truth: that raising children can be an incredibly hard and thankless task. Maggie Gyllenhaal makes an assured debut as a writer and director in her adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s The Lost Daughter, a complicated and strangely moving psychological drama/thriller about two women who bond over this truth. Continue Reading →
Cobra Kai
When Cobra Kai first premiered on YouTube Red, it seemed just like a fun tribute to The Karate Kid, but it soon revealed itself to be impressively complex. In its first two seasons, Cobra Kai reflected on the dichotomy of good vs. evil. Then, in season three, it became a story about how nostalgia can curdle into something toxic. While Cobra Kai’s fourth season continues to explore these topics while remaining funny and badass, the show’s seams are beginning to show, and its scripts are starting to run out of new ideas. Continue Reading →
Emily in Paris
Similar3rd Rock from the Sun, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Komi Can't Communicate, Madan Senki Ryukendo, That '70s Show,
StudioMTV Entertainment Studios,
Full disclosure: I was going to start this review with a Peloton joke given show creator Darren Star’s recent track record. Then out of nowhere, there was an actual Peloton knock-off storyline in this season of Emily in Paris. So my joke told itself. Points to you, Emily in Paris. Continue Reading →
The Power of the Dog
Contains spoilers about The Power of the Dog (read our spoiler-free review here) Continue Reading →
National Champions
SimilarMatch Point (2005), Raging Bull (1980),
If you haven’t been keeping up with college sports lately, you might have missed some of the recent headlines about the fight for student-athletes to get paid. The argument boils down to this: what right do we have to insist college ball is for amateurs when it’s morphed into a multi-billion-dollar business? Is it fair to deny those actually doing the work a piece of the pie? National Champions doesn’t just aim to explore that question, it makes a firm case that players should unionize. As a primer on the issues, it’s excellent. As a movie, it fails. Continue Reading →
The Witcher
SimilarBuffy the Vampire Slayer, In the Land of Leadale,
Planet of the Apes Ressha Sentai ToQger, Sám vojak v poli, The Dawn of the Witch, The Munsters,
Everyone’s favorite silver-haired, monster-killing hunk is back, and this time you can call him Daddy. After a ponderous first season that took the long way to find its footing, TheWitcher’s second season boasts both a more assured stride and a more ambitious scope. Thankfully dispensing with the non-linear timelines, we catch up with Geralt of Rivia and company right where ‘Much More’ left off. But while season one was a witty, delightfully horny romp, season two takes on a gloomier tone and delves into stories with uncertain outcomes. Continue Reading →