Now that you’ve made it through Wednesday’s four new episodes or KPop Demon Hunters for the twelfth time, you may be looking for new things to watch on Netflix. Well, “new” doesn’t mean things that just came out, but it can mean things that are new to you, and I’m going to lay out a few options for you across a few different genres I think you might want to check out. For now, these are Netflix originals, not licensed series because those come and go and I don’t know when you’ll be reading this. And of course, many of these may not be new to you personally.
Unbelievable (98% Rotten Tomatoes Score) – Future Emmy winner Kaitlyn Dever stars in this harrowing, maddening tale of a young woman who was raped and actually charged with a crime for reporting it. It’s based on a 2015 news piece and won a number of awards, despite not being widely viewed on Netflix. It’s a miniseries, so no season to find afterward.
Blue Eye Samurai (97% Rotten Tomatoes Score) – Netflix has a surprisingly good number of animated series, many of them based on video games from Arcane to Cyberpunk Edgerunners to Castlevania, but Blue Eye Samurai is up there with the best of them., The most surprising thing here is that this is not an adaptation of anything at all, not a game, not a manga, it’s a wholly original production about a would-be samurai named Mizu hunting down four white men in Japan who wronged her, one of whom she believes is her father. It has some of the best action scenes I’ve seen in the genre. Season 2 of this was eventually greenlit and production just started (It will be a ways off).
Maid (94% Rotten Tomatoes Score) – While Margaret Qualley has rocketed up to the A-list for roles in things like The Substance, what is almost certainly her best performance to date is Maid, where she plays a struggling single mom trying to make ends meet while attempting to stave off homelessness. A powerful, emotional story that should have won her an Emmy (she was nominated, at least).
Midnight Mass (M87% Rotten Tomatoes Score) – Mike Flanagan has become one of the biggest names in horror, now joining the DCU with his Clayface project and adapting The Dark Tower and Carrie for Amazon. But before that he was pumping out amazing Netflix projects. The most high profile of which is The Haunting of Hill House, but Midnight Mass, the story of a priest who arrives at a small island community performing miracles, is easily one of his best. I promise you it’s worth it and has one of the best hard left turns I’ve seen in ages.
All of Us Are Dead
Netflix
All of Us Are Dead (89% Rotten Tomatoes Score) – I have seen many, many zombie projects over the years, and this is probably top five for me. At the very least, top 10 (I mean, I’ve probably seen a hundred). Set in a Korean high school under assault from a zombie invasion, the students must escape while many of them are killed or turn. A basic concept, but one executed incredibly well. It was eventually renewed for season 2, but it’s looking like it’s going to be an absurd four years between seasons, at the very least.
Those are my five for this week, I hope you enjoy them.
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