You’d think we get enough drama from news and social media—but honestly, we live for it. Netflix has stories of tortured romance; parental struggles; political victories; and all manner of triumphs and tragedies, whether entirely fictional or inspired by true events. Here’s the best that Netflix currently offers.
The Long Game (2023)
The drama here is quietly understated, though the stakes are very real. Jay Hernandez heads up the cast here to tell the true story of a group of teens from Del Rio, Texas of the 1950s, who set out to play golf at a white country club as the San Felipe Mustangs. They could be caddies, of course—but to actually play?! The kids went on to win the 1957 Texas State High School Golf Championship, with Long Game dramatizing the triumphs, setbacks, and extremely overt racism on the road to that victory.
First Man (2018)
Director Damien Chazelle followed La La Land with this quieter drama starring Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong, astronaut and, later, the first person to walk on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission. Chazelle avoids biopic pitfalls in a couple of significant ways. The movie has a gritty, tactile sense of realism in its visual language, a counterpoint to the grandeur of the story. There’s also the storytelling vehicle: it’s not so much a portrait of Armstrong, but rather a story about the early space program told through the human story of Armstrong. It’s sedate and un-showy, putting it at odds with other space dramas, but the effect is hypnotic.
Society of the Snow (2023)
The true story of the 1972 Uruguayan rugby team lost in the Andes following a plane crash has been the subject of multiple documentaries and two previous dramas (the best known being, almost certainly, Frank Marshall’s cannibalism-heavy Alive from 1993). For all that Andes-crash content, this is the best of all of them: a thoughtful and tasteful take on what’s sometimes been presented as a salacious drama, with director J. A. Bayona emphasizing both the physical perils faced by the team and the spiritual toll of survival.
The Spectacular Now (2013)
Imagine, if you will, a coming-of age drama about 18-year-olds who act, more or less, like 18-year-olds (even if the actors are, of course, a bit older). That’s the core innovation of The Spectacular Now, and it’s no small thing. The plot here is minimal: Sutter Keely (Teller) is a popular senior who mostly parties and drinks. After a breakup, he gets blackout drunk and wakes up on the lawn of nerdy, funny Aimee Finecky (Shailene Woodley), whom he never would interacted with otherwise, even if they do go to the same school. The setup isn’t necessarily an innovation, but the movie feels like a slice of teenage life that’s more real and more compelling than the usual.
Shirley (2024)
A woman president? What’s next?! Academy Award winner John Ridley (screenwriter of 12 Years a Slave) directs this quite necessary biopic of sometimes-forgotten pioneer Shirley Chisholm. The first Black woman elected to Congress (in 1969), Chisolm ran a forcefully progressive campaign for president just three years later. Even if the movie is a bit formulaic, in the ways that these things sometimes are, Regina King (perhaps unsurprisingly) gives a moving, powerhouse performance as the idiosyncratic trailblazer.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (2018)
Charmingly unwieldy name aside, Guernsey is a cute and clever period drama based on the popular novel from Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. Lily James stars as Juliet Ashton (pen name: Izzy Bickerstaff), a writer in 1946 who finds herself entranced by the titular society, formed during the German occupation of the island. Like the book before it, the quirkiness of the story’s characters masks dark undertones related to the horrors of the just-concluded war, lending the film a surprising emotional depth. Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Donnie Brasco) directs.
Anyone but You (2023)
A loose spin on Much Ado About Nothing, Anyone But You stars Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell as a couple who meet, hit it off for about a minute—and then immediately start to get on each other’s nerves. Until, of course, they need wedding dates and find themselves surrounded by scheming friends. As Shakespeare taught us: of such inauspicious beginnings are great romances sometimes born. It’s not wildly out there as rom-com premises go, but the movie is briskly directed and boasts strong chemistry (a must) between Sweeney and Powell.
Downton Abbey (2019)
I’m not sure how well it works if you haven’t seen the series that it follows, but the first movie sequel to the series impressively distills everything that worked about the show, while also avoiding the winding subplots and narrative dead ends that plagued Downton (as they do any TV soap). The big news here is that King George V and Queen Mary are coming to visit, causing all complications for the family at the same time that the sassy Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) is dealing with some concerning medical news, and butler Barrow (Robert James-Collier) gets himself involved in some gay drama with a very 1927 flavor.
Victoria & Abdul (2017)
Speaking of period drama, Victoria & Abdul sees Dame Judi Dench return to the role of Queen Victoria that she’d previously played in Mrs. Brown. This isn’t a sequel, precisely, but it does play well back -o-back with the 1997 film: In that movie, a later-in-life Victoria found herself enamored with rough Scottish groomsman John Brown. Here, we find an even-later-in-life Victoria developing a close friendship with Abdul Karim, a Muslim clerk from Agra whom she finds to be a welcome contrast to her fawning courtiers (true story!) As their relationship develops, and their friendship becomes more casual and intimate, it causes a bit of scandal with the public, and consternation among the royal family who grow increasingly jealous and concerned about Karim’s influence.
Scoop (2024)
The reliably great Gillian Anderson plays real-life British journalist Emily Maitlis, who lead the BBC2 team that secured the disastrous interview with Prince Andrew (Rufus Sewell) that laid bare his associations with sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein—and by “disastrous,” I mean that it was a disaster for the Prince, who couldn’t seem to stop himself from making things worse. A juicy and compelling true story. Keeley Hawes and Billie Piper also star.
Passing (2021)
This gorgeous black-and-white adaptation of the once-controversial 1929 novel explores the dramatized history of some light-skinned African-Americans attempting to pass as white. Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson play old friends who reunite unexpectedly after years apart; one is married to a Black man and living in Harlem while the other is married to an odious, racist white doctor who has no idea his wife isn’t the woman he thinks she is. The fallout both women experience as a result of their chance encounter is an indictment of a society that would place so much value on skin color, yes, but it’s also a challenging consideration of the choices people will make for self-preservation, and it offers no easy answers.
May December (2023)
Todd Haynes directs this insightful, moving, and also deliberately campy story of an actress visiting the woman she’ll be playing in a film. The movie’s deft, and unexpected, blending of tones makes it pretty consistently fascinating, and the lead performances from Natalie Portman, Julianne Moore, and Charles Melton saw them all as Oscar nomination frontrunners, even if no actual nods were forthcoming.
Harriet (2019)
From a woman aided by the Underground Railroad system, Harriet Tubman quickly became one of its most effective conductors, and is now remembered as the most important single name in the entire operation, a leader who approached the quest for freedom with a religious zeal (her religious convictions seemed, indeed, to have a lot to do with her fortitude). Later, she led soldiers in battle during the Civil War before becoming a leader in the suffragist movement. The point being: Hers is one of the most dramatic biographies in American history, and Cynthia Erivo gives a nuanced lead performance, capturing a sense of Tubman’s strength, but also vulnerability. Director Kasi Lemmons directs with an eye toward the action and suspense that were such a constant in Harriet’s life.
Carol (2015)
The chemistry between Rooney Mara’s Therese and Cate Blanchett’s Carol is palpable from the moment their eyes meet across a crowded department store—but it’s the 1950s, and theirs is a love that dare not speak its name, even to one another. That’s just how things were back then (luckily, queerphobia has been entirely eradicated). The women suffer for their love in Todd Haynes’ modern classic, but the tears come less when things are going bad as when it starts to feel like they might just possibly start to go a little right.
Nyad (2023)
Annette Bening stars as the real-life Diana Nyad, who swam from Florida to Cuba in her 60s—powered largely by an unyielding willfulness. The movie succeeds in large part because of the performances from and chemistry between lead Annette Bening and Jodie Foster, both of whom received Oscar nominations for their work here. The movie makes a strong case that age is inevitably a weakness in many ways, but can also be a source of surprising strength.
Room (2015)
A thoroughly deglamourized Brie Larson stars alongside nine-year-old Jacob Tremblay in this appropriately claustrophobic film virtually a two-hander that’s carried along by their performances. Based on the novel from Emma Donoghue, who also wrote the screenplay, Room involves Larson’s Joy Newsome, trapped for seven years in a 10 x 10 room by son Jack’s biological father. In that disturbing setting, Joy tries to create a sense of normalcy for her son, a kid who’s never encountered the outside world in his life.
The Lost Daughter (2021)
Inspired, in part, by ancient Greek mythology, this psychological drama was probably never destined to be a crowd-pleaser—but it’s a genuinely confident, bold debut from writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal. Olivia Colman (who got a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her trouble) plays Leda Caruso, a middle-aged college professor who develops a rather disturbing obsession with a woman and her young daughter while on holiday in Greece. Jessie Buckley also got an Oscar nod for playing a younger version of Leda, and Gyllenhaal picked up a nomination for her screenplay.
Rustin (2023)
Colman Domingo gives a stellar performance (he earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination) as the title’s Bayard Rustin, the gay Civil Rights leader who planned the March on Washington. Domingo is all charm here as a man desperate to advance a movement focused on his skin color but is less certain how to treat his sexuality. Not only is it an intersectional corrective to our very straight-centered vision of the Civil Rights Movement, it’s a stylish and moving biopic in its own right.
Save the Last Dance (2001)
Sara (Julia Stiles) moves from a tiny midwestern town to live with her dad on Chicago’s south side—where the white girl quickly falls for Derek (Sean Patrick Thomas), a Black kid with a past. Scandal! In many ways, it’s a predictable high school romance—but it’s also just a little smarter than many other examples of the form, with great performances from Stiles and Thomas. Especially with its dance numbers, this was a big early-aughts hit for MTV.
The Boys in the Band (2020)
An update of the 1968 play (previously adapted to the screen by William Friedkin in 1970), Boys in the Band keeps its period setting and premise: Michael (Jim Parsons) is hosting a very gay birthday for his friend Harold (Zachary Quinto), joined by their friends Donald (Matt Bomer) and Larry (Andrew Rannells). Everyone’s ready to cut loose without the pressure of having to act straight—until they’re joined unexpectedly by married Alan (Brian Hutchison), and everyone has to decide how far they’re willing to shove themselves back in the closet.
