7 Must-Watch Netflix Movies You Might Have Missed

We all know that feeling: you’re scrolling endlessly through Netflix’s myriad offerings, passing by the same movies over and over, wondering if this movie is worth watching or if that movie is any good—yeah, it’s tough to choose. While many of those films are hyped by the streaming service or gain moments of traction on social media, the simple reality is that many of them will forever remain unknown. But what if we gave seven of those movies another chance? Seven movies that often fly under the radar, that still haven’t gotten their moment in the sun, that are still waiting to find their audience, sometimes decades after their release? Well, let’s do just that.

This list features seven awesome movies on Netflix that aren’t super popular. I determined this by arranging over 5,000 Netflix movies on Letterboxd, ranked by popularity. I then found movies buried way down on the list that I’ve enjoyed in the past, that offer lots of great insights and image, that I believe will provide some much-needed entertainment next time you need a break on the couch. I chose several different genres and styles to appeal to many different movie watchers, so hopefully you find a brand new favorite in this bunch. Good luck, and happy watching!

7 Must-Watch Netflix Movies You Might Have Missed

Kicking & Screaming (1995)

Noah Baumbach became more of a household name after receiving an Oscar nomination for co-penning the Barbie script alongside wife Greta Gerwig. But he was well-respected by many prior to 2023, with Oscar nominations coming for Marriage Story in 2019 and The Squid and the Whale in 2005 as well. But long before those projects—back in 1995, to be exact—Baumbach released his first feature-length film, one that many consider to be his best: Kicking & Screaming. A dry, talky, sneakily profound comedy about post-college limbo, the film follows a group of friends: Grover (Josh Hamilton), Max (Chris Eigeman), Otis (Carlos Jacott) and Skippy (Jason Wiles). As part of what is a refreshingly meandering story that isn’t driven purely by plot, these four recent graduates hang out at the same bar, argue about literature and wax poetic about their aimlessness, seemingly unable to move on from their responsibility-free university lives. All the while, Grover mourns a breakup with his girlfriend Jane (Olivia d’Abo), who has left for grad school in Prague. With its episodic structure and sharp, hyperverbal dialogue and many great character performances (including one from the forever-great Parker Posey), Kicking and Screaming wears its Gen X malaise on its sleeve, capturing that very specific post-graduate dread where everything feels both possible and pointless at the same time.

The Shadow Strays (2024)

Indonesian filmmaker Timo Tjahjanto enjoyed some notoriety for his participation in two of the popular horror anthologies: The ABCs of Death, V/H/S/2 and V/H/S/94. But he’s found a special audience on Netflix, where he’s released a few of his films—The Night Comes for Us, May the Devil Take You and The Shadow Strays. That final film is the polar opposite of Kicking & Screaming: a ferocious, blood-soaked action film that hits with the velocity of a freight train. But there’s so much more than action to be found in its story. Aurora Ribero plays “13,” a 17-year-old assassin raised by a secret international organization known as the Shadows. After a mission in Japan goes array, her mentor Umbra (Hana Malasan) suspends 13 and sends her to Jakarta for monotonous, numbing psych retraining. There, she forms a protective bond with 11-year-old Monji (Ali Fikri), whose mother was lost to a human trafficking ring. After Monji is abducted, 13’s violent training resurfaces with explosive force, propelling her on a revenge-fueled rampage through the Indonesian capital’s darkest corners. Recalling the unbelievable fight sequences that littered Gareth Evans’ popular Indonesian film The Raid, this work of wonder is stuffed to the brim with Tjahjanto’s signature style: kinetic camerawork and brutal hand-to-hand choreography, relentlessly conveyed through extended set pieces. Yet beneath the spectacle is a story about conscience and guilt—a story of human connection that makes its revenge story all the more enrapturing.

Two Lovers (2008)

Joaquin Phoenix won a well-deserved Oscar for his portrayal of the Joker—an award that almost served as a retrospective honoring of his past work that went unnoticed by the Academy. For while he received nominations for the likes of Gladiator, Walk the Line and The Master, what is perhaps his greatest (and most devastating) performance got nothing—not even a nomination. The romantic drama Two Lovers follows Phoenix’s character Leonard, a man who returns to live with his parents after a broken engagement drives him to attempt to take his own life. With his existence in limbo, Leonard suddenly finds himself torn between two women: the sweet and stable daughter of a business associate, Sandra (Vinessa Shaw), and the fragile, unpredictable neighbor involved with a married man, Michelle (Gwyneth Paltrow). The love triangle that unfolds symbolizes Leonard’s torn psyche: Michelle represents desire, uncertainty, emotional risk, while Sandra embodies love, dependability, future promise. Director and writer James Gray (who also created We Own the Night and The Immigrant) avoids clichés in this transfixing story, using Leonard’s unstable condition to explore several ideas: how bipolar disorder shapes one’s indecision and relational hesitations; how the struggle between passion and pragmatism mirrors a broader search for self; how self-forgiveness and self-acceptance are essential in pointing us in the proper direction.

Facing Nolan (2022)

When baseball nerds describe Nolan Ryan’s career as an MLB pitcher, I’m not sure his dominance can be properly conveyed via stats alone: his 5,714 strikeouts are more than 800 ahead of the second-place Randy Johnson; only Gerrit Cole’s 326 strikeouts come near Ryan’s season-best of 383 strikeouts; he has three more no-hitters (seven) than the next closest, Sandy Koufax; and on top of it all, Ryan was still throwing 95+ mph into his 40s, an accomplishment practically unheard of. So if you want to see such supremacy in action, then watch Facing Nolan. Yes, there’s plenty of information and stories about Ryan’s storied career, which fully detail his reputation as an unstoppable pitcher. But what makes the documentary stand out is how it balances the myth with the relatable, humble man: a Texas rancher, husband and father whose drive was grounded in love and hard work, not just athletic prowess. Featuring interviews with baseball legends like Randy Johnson, Craig Biggio, Roger Clemens, Pete Rose, this documentary from Bradley Jackson not only offers insight into how he achieved such a ferocious fastball (often clocking in over 100 mph), but also how his Texas values—his integrity, his resilience, his loyalty to family and his home—were crucial ingredients for one of the most intimidating figures ever to step on the mound.

The Bad Batch (2016)

Do you love genre-bending post-apocalyptic thrillers? How about when they mix Mad Max-style wastelands with cannibalistic horror and tender romances set in a lawless Texas desert? If that kind of movie sounds too impossible to exist, then you haven’t seen The Bad Batch—and that needs to be fixed immediately. Conceived by director/writer Ana Lily Amirpour (whose first feature, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, was met with critical acclaim) as “Road Warrior meets Pretty in Pink,” this gritty, unapologetically weird slice of body horror showcases the auteur’s ambition to fuse brutal aesthetics with surreal romanticism, employing an evocative, almost hypnotic aesthetic that’s filled with constant tonal shifts, from eerie notes of silence to sudden bursts of violence. The film centers on Arlen (Suki Waterhouse), a young woman literally branded as part of the “bad batch,” who is dropped into the desert and immediately captured by a group of cannibals. After a brutal escape, Arlen drifts through a wasteland populated by scavengers, bodybuilders and misfits—including a mute drifter known only as Miami Man (Jason Momoa) and a hedonistic cult leader called The Dream (Keanu Reeves). These ever-watchable characters make the jagged but immersive world imagined by Amirpour all the more intoxicating, showcasing the director’s world-building talents as she takes a bold, creative leap from her first feature.

Shiva Baby (2020)

If you’re not up on Emma Seligman, the director of Bottoms, then you’re not up on one of the most exciting voices in comedy right now: her ability to turn everyday situations, from family gatherings at funerals to unsure romance amidst high school politics, allows her to craft small worlds that feel huge; her razor-sharp dialogue allows her to turn social anxieties into moments of both hilarity and dread; and her comedic timing is as much about silence, glances and pacing as it is about punchlines. She has such a unique voice, and it was fully on display in her debut feature, Shiva Baby. The film centers on college student Danielle (Rachel Sennott), who attends a shiva with her parents. But little does she expect to run into her sugar daddy, Max (Danny Deferrari), nor her ex-girlfriend, Maya (Molly Gordon), at an event filled with intrusive relatives and nosy family friends. Adapting her own short film with razor-sharp efficiency, Seligman stands out in her debut because of her ability to tell stories from perspectives that rarely get center stage—her protagonists are often queer, complex, and flawed, allowing her comedy to explore identity with nuance rather than stereotypes. Drawing on her own Jewish upbringing and millennial experiences, Seligman crafts characters who feel both highly specific and widely relatable, resulting in an empowering collaboration with Sennott that’s driven by strong, unconventional characters.

The Dead Don’t Die (2019)

Dystopian movies are a dime a dozen (heck, there’s even another one on this list), but using the zombie formula as a deadpan ode to ennui and small-town Americana is definitely a unique approach—one that writer/director Jim Jarmusch utilized nearly 40 years into his legendary career (he also created films like Down by Law, Dead Man and Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai). The result is The Dead Don’t Die, a commentary via absurdity, a film that riffs off zombie godfather George Romero’s anticapitalist undercurrents (think Dawn of the Dead) but also brings that message into the 21st century with MAGA hats, juvenile detention and environmental disaster denial. Set in the sleepy rural town of Centerville, the cast includes Bill Murray as Chief Cliff Robertson, Adam Driver as the stoic Deputy Ronnie Peterson and Tilda Swinton as the town’s Harley-riding mortician, Zelda Winston. When the dead start rising from their graves, the townspeople are caught off guard. And instead of the usual frantic panic, Jarmusch lets the apocalypse unfold with bizarre calmness: Murray and Driver patrol in sloth-like formation, Zelda welds coffins for fun and Jarmusch himself even pops up onscreen as Officer Ronnie’s aging hippie father. The cast is rounded out with so many great actors, from Chloë Sevigny to Steve Buscemi to Danny Glover to Austin Butler to Selena Gomez—seriously, the list goes on. They all come together for a film that treats horror convention with ironic distance: zombies shuffle, characters muse and apathy often feels more dangerous than the undead.