Like a lot of people, I have felt unmoored this year partly because of how I now experience time. Up until March, it was also instrumental to how I understand time, its shape, texture and demands: moviegoing dictated what I did day and night, including the many hours I clocked driving to and from screenings. Moviegoing was my thing, a way of seeing and of being. But going to the movies was one of my first adventures in sovereignty, one of the first ways that I experienced navigating ordinary life without parental supervision. I grew up in New York in the 1970s watching as many films as I could, including on TV. (They’re still closed.) The tears of critics are tiny, but moviegoing is who I am.
When movie theaters closed in Los Angeles in March, I cried. I know which theater and studio in Los Angeles (where I live) has the biggest screen, the best sound, sightlines and seats - me, I like to sit in the middle of the theater, perfectly centered. A big-screen fundamentalist, I love going out to the movies, to first- and second-run cinemas as well as to art houses, museums and cinémathèques. But in thinking about my favorites of the year and all the many new and old titles I’ve seen, I also thought a lot about how I watched movies and, well, just watched. The point of a top 10 list is to share our preferred movies. I didn’t, I just needed to stop watching, but I couldn’t put down my phone, which tethered me to the larger world that I greatly missed. It’s no wonder that my eyes had begun to regularly ache and sometimes sting, prompting me to worry that I needed a new prescription for my glasses. I read the news, doomscrolled Twitter, did puzzles, checked my email and kept scrolling. On one lost day not long ago, I spent a horrifying (embarrassing!) 11 hours and 15 minutes on my phone. It was a year of watching obsessively yet indiscriminately, a year of small and smaller screens.
So when you’re done binge-watching Bridgerton and Firefly Lane, why not put on a movie to liven things up? Here are the best movies on Netflix right now.įor a more in-depth look into our favorite titles available to stream by genre, check out The Best TV Shows on Netflix, The Best Movies on Hulu, The Best HBO Series, The Best Shows on Amazon Prime, and The Best Movies to See Before You Die.Manohla Dargis I Watched Until My Eyes Bled Of course, due to streaming rights, movies are always being removed on Netflix, but recent additions like Malcolm & Marie and To All The Boys: Always and Forever keep the level of quality films on Netflix at a premium. The diversity in genre is unparalleled, ranging from true crime documentaries like Abducted in Plain Sight and American Murder: The Family Next Door, to award-winning dramas like Marriage Story and Roma, to laugh-out-loud comedies like Eurovision and The Lovebirds. Their movie selection is constantly dynamic and features numerous titles that are sure to entice you. Thanks to a constantly updating library of originals and acquired titles, there’s always something new to watch on Netflix. Well, we’re here to tell you that’s not true. Not just their numerous original TV shows, but every single movie that’s on there. Some days it feels like you’ve watched everything on Netflix.