The past two weeks have seen the biggest blockbuster arrivals struggle to make their desired impact at the box office. Supergirl, the second installment of James Gunn and Peter Safran‘s DC Universe, opened to huge disappointment before dropping by another 77% in its second weekend. Then came Illumination‘s Minions & Monsters, which opened to the lowest first weekend haul in franchise history. The live-action Moana movie hopes to turn that trend around this weekend, but it will need to fight against not just tough theatrical competition but the best of streaming, too. With that in mind, and with plenty to enjoy from the comfort of your own couch, here’s a list of three movies you should stream this weekend on Netflix.
Disclaimer: These titles are available on US Netflix.
1
‘Gone Girl’ (2014)
Rotten Tomatoes: 88% | IMDb: 8.1/10
After a tough working week, you might want to fall under the spell of a twisting mystery this weekend. Thankfully, Netflix currently hosts one of the very best of its kind in the form of Gone Girl, director David Fincher‘s adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel. The film follows Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) as he struggles under the pressure of a media frenzy and widespread suspicion in the wake of his wife’s (Rosamund Pike) disappearance.
Some of the best work in Pike and Affleck’s careers so far, Gone Girl is a masterclass in blending performances with direction to craft an unmissable story. The film won over critics in 2014, scoring an Academy Award nomination for Pike’s brilliant lead turn, as well as being dubbed one of the best movies of the year by many. Twelve years on, and that is no different, with this a film that should sit gladly atop your watchlist.
Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country
Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.
🪜Parasite
🌀Everything Everywhere
☢️Oppenheimer
🐦Birdman
🪙No Country for Old Men
01
What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don’t just entertain — they leave something behind.
02
Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What’s yours?
03
How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.
04
What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?
05
What do you want from a film’s ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?
06
Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what’s even possible.
07
What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.
08
What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.
09
How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.
10
What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?
The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…
Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.
Parasite
You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it’s ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn’t want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it’s about.
Oppenheimer
You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.
Birdman
You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it’s about. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor’s ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn’t be possible. Michael Keaton’s performance and Emmanuel Lubezki’s restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.
No Country for Old Men
You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers’ No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.
2
‘Moneyball’ (2011)
Rotten Tomatoes: 94% | IMDb: 7.6/10
All the best sports movies are based on a true story, and director Bennett Miller‘s Moneyball is no different. The film follows Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) as he attempts to defy the odds and win the World Series. To gain an advantage, he recruits recent Yale grad Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), who pioneers computer-generated analysis to acquire new players.
Also starring Robin Wright (Forrest Gump), this brilliant 2011 sports movie is one of the best of its kind. Steve Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin, and Stan Chervin‘s script is tone-perfect, as they adapt the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. But the highlight of Moneyball is Pitt’s lead performance, for which he earned an Academy Award nomination, one of six for the film.
3
‘Zola’ (2021)
Rotten Tomatoes: 88% | IMDb: 6.4/10
One of the best movies of 2021 was incredibly based on a viral Twitter thread, which was then turned into an article titled “Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted.” The film in question is Janicza Bravo‘s Zola, one of A24’s biggest hidden gems, following the titular stripper (TaylourPaige) as she begins a whirlwind adventure to Florida, hoping to earn riches dancing.
Featuring a delicately assembled cast, which also includes Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun, and Colman Domingo, Zola manages to take this stranger-than-fiction story and craft it into an utterly immersive and visually captivating black comedy. Unusual in all the best ways, Zola is a hidden gem you’ll want to uncover this weekend.
