Best Movies On Netflix You Haven’t Yet Seen

Best Movies On Netflix You Haven’t Yet Seen

February 5, 2024

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As great as Netflix is, finding good movies you haven’t yet seen can be a chore. You may have even started believing that you’ve already seen them all. Rest assured, there is very little chance you have. A Good Movie to Watch suggests movies you haven’t seen, but you should. To do this, we only recommend movies that have received a 6.7 rating on IMDB and a 60% Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes. This means that these movies have been appreciated by both critics and viewers, so you can trust that they’re awesome. We also try to specialize in movies that didn’t make a huge splash at the box office or which didn’t get the attention they deserved, so there is little chance you have already seen them.  Below we count down our most favorite movies among those available to stream on Netflix Instant USA. For all the little-known, highly-rated movies ready to stream on Netflix, click here.

1. System Crasher (2019)

best

9.0

Country

Germany

Director

Female director, Nora Fingscheidt

Actors

Albrecht Schuch, Axel Werner, Barbara Philipp, Bärbel Schwarz

Moods

Intense, Thought-provoking

While quite testing for viewers, this is one of the craziest, most high-energy movies you’ll ever watch. In this incredible German drama, child actor Helena Zengel plays Bernadette aka Benni, a traumatized 9-year-old child who tends to lash out and has been repeatedly suspended from every school she went to. Benni is a so-called “Systemsprenger” (which is the original German title). A system crasher is a child so uncontrollable and aggressive that, over time, she falls through the grid of special schools, foster care, and social work facilities. Despite the best efforts of her designated social worker, Frau Bafané, played by Gabriela Maria Schmeide, she is turned down by everyone, testing the patience of her surroundings, wherever she goes. A trip with Micha (Albrecht Schuch), a tough boxer and anger-management trainer, turns out to be the last resort. Directed by Nora Fingscheidt, System Crasher is intense, punky, and wild with an almost eerie sense of authenticity. Its devastating effect is helped along by its unique, hyperactive camerawork. Much like the social workers themselves, you might have a hard time keeping professional distance to all this. This intense drama will stay with you for a long time.

2. Athlete A (2020)

8.4

Country

United States of America

Director

Bonni Cohen, Female director

Actors

Géza Poszar, Gina Nichols, Jen Sey, John Nichols

Moods

Discussion-sparking, True-crime

This groundbreaking documentary follows the USA Olympics sexual abuse case that made headlines in 2015. Through interviews with Olympians, their families, and investigative reporters, it’s also a documentary on the overall culture of abuse in gymnastics: sexual, physical, and emotional.

In one scene from the 1996 Olympics, gold medalist Kerri Strug has to run, vault, and land – all with a severe foot injury that was covered up by her coaches. She does this twice, limping between attempts and crawling off the mat on the second, crying. Meanwhile, her family, her coaches, the spectators – the World – is celebrating.

When she’s carried off, it’s Larry Nassar, the pedophile at the center of the documentary, who carries her.

Athlete A is groundbreaking exactly because it illustrates that the problem is not only with one doctor, or the 54 coaches who were also found guilty of sexual abuse, or the morally bankrupt leadership of USA Gymastics; it’s also about what went so wrong with society to see the abuse of young girls as cause for celebration.

3. The Forty-Year-Old Version (2020)

best

8.2

Country

United States of America

Director

Female director, Radha Blank

Actors

Antonio Ortiz, Ashlee Brian, Haskiri Velazquez, Imani Lewis

Moods

Feel-Good, Funny, Uplifting

This fun comedy-drama is about a New York playwright called Radha who never hit big. When she turns 40, she decides to reinvent herself as RadhaMUSPrime, a rapper.

And it’s all a personal affair: Radha Blank plays the main character (named after herself) and is also the writer, director, and producer.

The story is about rap and theater, but being so connected to reality, it feels like it’s about Blank making the movie itself. Its very existence feels like a triumph against the pressure of age, the misunderstanding of others, and the weight of unreached goals.

4. The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020)

8.1

Country

India, UK, United Kingdom

Director

Aaron Sorkin

Actors

Alan Metoskie, Alex Henderson, Alex Sharp, Alice Kremelberg

From Aaron Sorkin, the creator of every liberal’s favorite 2000s political drama, The West Wing, The Social Network, and the master of the “walk and talk”, comes the dramatization of a sadly true American story from the mid-last century. In 1968, different groups from all over the country travelled to Chicago to protest the Vietnam War at the Democratic National Convention. The Chicago police greeted them in full riot gear, purposely attacking the peaceful protesters. Five months later, eight of them (charges against Black Panther leader Bobby Seale were dismissed) were arrested for inciting riot. As the title suggests, the film details the trials that followed, which highlight the still ongoing battles within American society and politics: racism, ineptness, corruption, complacency, you name it. On a lighter note, while you wouldn’t necessarily call this an ensemble cast, the number of unlikely familiar faces in this film is off the charts: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Sascha Baron Cohen, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eddie Redmayne. It also features some of the greatest supporting actors in American TV history like John Carrol Lynch, Frank Langella, and the amazing John Doman aka Bill Rawls from The Wire.

5. The Social Dilemma (2020)

8.0

Country

United States of America

Director

Jeff Orlowski

Actors

Catalina Garayoa, Chris Grundy, Gavin White, Kara Hayward

This new documentary is about the exact scale to which social media is harming us, as testified to by people from the industry: ex-executives at Google, Instagram, Facebook, and even the ex-President of Pinterest. All have left their companies for (incredibly valid) ethical concerns that they share here.

It’s a blend of interview footage and a fiction film that follows a family who feels more distant because of social media. This allows to see the implications of what the interviewees are saying in real life but quite frankly it also serves as a welcome break from the intensity of their words. How intense? One of them predicts civil war within 20 years.

6. Dick Johnson Is Dead (2020)

7.9

Country

United States of America

Director

Female director, Kirsten Johnson

Actors

Brett Eidman, Ira Sachs, Kevin Loreque, Kirsten Johnson

Moods

Funny, Grown-up Comedy, Mind-blowing

Dick Johnson Is Dead is a heartfelt and unconventional portrait of how one can live life to the fullest even in their darkest days. Kristen Johnson’s follow-up to the highly acclaimed documentary Cameraperson, Johnson shows that her skills are no fluke as she crafts a witty film where she masterfully balances surreal tonal shifts to create a compelling experience. While it does have a repetitive nature, the final thirty minutes are heartbreakingly comedic, and make this one worth a watch!

7. I’m no Longer Here (2019)

7.7

Country

Mexico, United States of America

Director

Fernando Frias, Luis Fernando Frías de la Parra

Actors

Fanny Tovar, Juan Daniel Garcia Treviño, Luis Leonardo Zapata, Xueming Angelina Chen

This Mexican movie set between Queens, New York, and Monterrey, Mexico is a stunning and profound work of art.

Ulises is the leader of a street dancing group that loves Cumbia, an Afro-Colombian style of music. Dancing is an alternative to being sucked in into gang life, which Ulises and his bandmates have ties to.

Ulises is good, and his town starts noticing. But just when his community is flourishing and his dancing is becoming famous, a wrong-time/wrong-place situation has a gang force him to leave everything behind and immigrate to the U.S. He suddenly finds himself lonely and living a life of undocumented existence.

But that is not the progression of I’m no Longer Here, which intertwines scenes of Ulises thriving in Monterrey and alone in New York. The difference is stark and depressing, but the camerawork and great performances are a constant source of cinematic brilliance.

8. Dolemite Is My Name (2019)

7.3

Country

United States of America

Director

Craig Brewer

Actors

A.J. Tannen, Aaron Craven, Akono Dixon, Aleksandar Filimonović

Moods

Easy, Funny, True-story-based

This Eddie Murphy comedy had all the ingredients to be both a famous movie and an award-winner, but neither happened. It tells the true story of Rudy Ray Moore, a comedian who became famous for creating a character called Dolemite, a pimp, and who later attempted to make his own movie based on the same character. Murphy plays Rudy, but there are also other recognizable faces in supporting roles: Chris Rock, Wesley Snipes, Keegan-Michael Key, Snoop Dogg, and many others. It’s above all a funny movie, but being Eddie Murphy’s first R-rated movie since 1999, it’s also a realistic portrayal of both 1970s L.A. and the struggles of being a black filmmaker at the time.

9. The Endless Trench (2019)

7.3

Country

Canada, France, Spain

Director

Aitor Arregi, Jon Garaño

Actors

Aitor Arregi, Antonio de la Torre, Antonio Romero, Belén Cuesta

Moods

Challenging, Character-driven

This historical drama opens with one of the most thrilling chase scenes in recent memory, as Higinio Blanco, the man at the center of the story, escapes government forces during the Spanish Civil War.

He goes into hiding that, without him realizing, would last 33 years. He would only emerge in a government amnesty in 1969, as would many like him across Spain.

Themes of love (Higinio was confined with his newlywed wife), solitude and fear are at the center of a story that remains thrilling even when it goes through the isolation years.

10. The Half of It (2020)

7.3

Country

United States of America

Director

Alice Wu, Female director

Actors

Abigail Donaghy, Alec Tincher, Alexandre Bagot, Alexxis Lemire

Moods

Easy, Feel-Good, Slice-of-Life

This lovely romance is about Ellie, a straight-A student who takes money from a classmate, Paul, to write love letters for him. Ellie does this to help with the household bills but there is one big problem: the girl Paul is in love with is also the girl Ellie has a crush on.

This might seem like the set-up for a standard Netflix comedy (and if you’re thinking Bergerac, you’re right, it is based on the famous play) but as the introduction of the film reads: “This is not a love story … not one where anyone gets what they want.”

It is in fact, personal work from a brilliant and quality-focused director, Alice Wu. Her last movie, Saving Face, a pioneering lesbian romance set in an Asian American context, was released a long 15 years ago.

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no horror movies?

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