What if I told you the best Netflix movies of the year haven’t even been released yet? Keep hold of that subscription, because you’re not going to want to miss them.
It’s not like the streamer has been having a bad year up to this point, though. Night Always Comes, The Thursday Murder Club and Steve are just some of the original movies we’ve already seen, with epic TV shows such as Squid Game season 3 and Wednesday season 2 returning as well.
And that’s all before we get to Stranger Things season 5, which is basically the equivalent of releasing eight feature-length movies in a row over the festive period.
But none of this is what excites me the most. I’ve been at London Film Festival 2025 and have had the chance to watch five upcoming Netflix movies that haven’t even been released yet. I’m not exaggerating when I say they’re the best of the year, so check them out as soon as you can stream them.
Frankenstein
Director: Guillermo Del Toro
Cast: Oscar Isaac, Jacob Elordi, Mia Goth, Christoph Waltz
Rating: R
Runtime: 149 minutes
Netflix release date: November 7
If there’s one movie the TechRadar team can all agree that they’re hyped for, it’s Guillermo Del Toro’s Frankenstein. Following on from his previous Netflix release Pinocchio, Del Toro is committed to the same level of artistry and craftsmanship, meaning everything you see is physical, not CGI.
This in itself is astonishing enough in this day and age, but the ensemble cast and tenderness weaved into Del Toro’s retelling of the classic Mary Shelley story produce something so powerfully intimate, it’s hard to know how to gather your thoughts.
I won’t be surprised if Isaac and Elordi get Academy Award nominations for their portrayals of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature, but it remains Del Toro’s world that we all live in, and they all work towards. Frankly, I think we’re beyond lucky to have such direct access to a piece of art defiantly protesting digitalization in the name of love.
Train Dreams
Director: Clint Bentley
Cast: Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon, Clifton Collins Jr.
Rating: R
Runtime: 102 minutes
Netflix release date: November 21
Train Dreams is the new Netflix movie that’s the least likely to be on your radar, but I could not recommend it enough. In my review, I talk about how its quiet poignancy sits with you for weeks after watching, with the story following the life and death of fictional lumberjack Robert Grainier.
Clint Bentley’s direction transports us to somewhere we want to remain forever, alone with our thoughts, but it’s Joel Edgerton’s portrayal of what masculinity means that really moved me. Robert embodies everything it means to be a man’s man in his professional life, yet never shies away from feeling or communicating his emotions, treating his wife and daughter with as much equality as any person can give another.
This brooding, deeply personal portrait of a man trying his best to get rid of a guilty conscience taps into socio-political dynamics we know all too well (namely, that people can be terrible). It’s a breathtaking piece of cinema, and a complete surprise one at that.
Jay Kelly
Director: Noah Baumbach
Cast: George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Riley Keough
Rating: R
Runtime: 132 minutes
Release date: December 5
Where Train Dreams is modest, Jay Kelly is self-indulgent. Director Noah Baumbach has thinly hidden a tribute to George Clooney’s life in the rise and fall of Jay Kelly, an actor who can no longer make sense of the life he’s chosen to live.
This shouldn’t work – or, at least, should be incredibly insufferable to sit through – yet it does. Clooney is the perfect choice for Kelly, transmuting the qualities of Old Hollywood he naturally embodies into something bigger than just him, yet remaining totally personal. Kelly must examine his career choices, his relationship with his two daughters and the transactional friendships around him.
Baumbach’s meditations on parent-child relationships were what I found I took the most from, but it can’t be denied that Clooney does a brilliant job with Kelly’s refusal to change or make himself accountable. It’s a beautifully frustrating watch, and thanks to the emotional final scene, you’ll likely be left in tears.
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Director: Rian Johnson
Cast: Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Kerry Washington, Jeremy Renner
Rating: PG-13
Runtime: 140 minutes
Netflix release date: December 12
Now for my favorite entry. I didn’t rate the original Knives Out movie, and only grew to enjoy Glass Onion the more times I watched it, but Wake Up Dead Man is a different beast, and is absolutely the best Knives Out installment we’ve had to date.
Why? The answer is simple. Rian Johnson has deftly taken inspiration from the best crime capers ever written (think Agatha Christie’s Murder in the Vicarage) and shrewdly adapted it for the 2020s. It all gels together a lot better than the first two entries, and it’s the self-assurance of Wake Up Dead Man that really sells it.
Set in upstate New York, its setting informs playful nudges at culture, society and politics, all the while never taking itself too seriously. Well, all but Glenn Close, who gives a performance worthy of Don’t Look Now or The Exorcist.
Daniel Craig’s accent hasn’t changed (so sorry if you’re not a fan), but it’s Josh O’Connor who steals the spotlight as a preacher man with a troubled past. The best part? I bet you can’t guess whodunnit… it’s a complicated one.
Cover-Up
Director: Laura Poitras, Mark Obenhaus
Cast: Seymour Hersh
Rating: R
Runtime: 117 minutes
Netflix release date: 2025
Our last entry in the best Netflix movies list is one I especially want to highlight because I didn’t even realize the streamer was the distributor. There’s no official release date yet outside of sometime later this year, but it’s a welcome change in documentary pace… and a powerful one at that.
Cover-Up follows the life and works of reporter Seymour Hersh, who broke stories on some of biggest political stories in America, including the My Lai massacre of 1968 and the torture and prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in 2004.
It’s a tough watch, but a special one. Directors Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus have been trying to make this film for 20 years, with Hersh only agreeing to do so within the last year. It’s a window into a form of journalism and first-person reporting that can no longer be replicated, with frequent link backs to what’s happening in the world today (we see Hersh working on stories with an anonymous source in Gaza).
Hersh ends the documentary by answering why he still continues to do the work that made him the enemy of America’s political elite. “Because we can’t live in a country that lets this happen. That turns a blind eye,” is his answer. It’s a powerful reminder to us all, and the sheet authenticity and honesty in Cover-Up possibly makes it Netflix’s best (and smartest) documentary in years.
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jasmine.valentine@futurenet.com (Jasmine Valentine)
