As the legend is told from Reed Hastings himself, a $40 late fee from Blockbuster for renting Apollo 13 compelled him to create the company Netflix. Today, Netflix is one š»of the biggest and most powerful film and TV streaming services in the world, with many of its own "Netflix Original" movies actually must-see movies. But what might be some of the greatest Netflix Original movies of all time?
After successfully launching as a movāie rental service where subscribers borrowed and returned DVDs (remember those?) via snail mail, Netflix found the capital and clout to begin an online streaming service circa 2007. This venture was wildly popular, especially for anyone who loved The Office and were desperate to šcatch up on Lost.
By 2012, Netflix got into the business of making its own TV shows, first with the wildly successful House of Cards. (Although Netflix had a hand in the Norwegian gangster drama Lilyhammer, which premiered on Netflix in 2012.) Soon enough Netflix began acquiring movies for its exclusive exhibition. Fast forward to today, and Netflix is one of the biggest Hollywood players alongside Amazon, Apple, and legacy entities like Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Disney.
With a library of original movies, some of which have competed for Oscars, Netflix haās no shortage of movies that seriously warrant everyone with an account to check out. Below, we rank 35 must-see Netflix origāinal movies.
35. Extraction 2 (2023)
Expectations for Extraction 2 were mighty low, considering the middling film that is its 2020 predecessor. But the sequel, released in 2023, surprised a lot of critics and even skeptical audiences with its razor-sharp execution and explosive precision. Chris Hemsworth ršeturns as freelance mercenary Tyler Rake, who is still licking his wounds from his mission in Bangladesh when he gets hired by a ruthless Georgian gangster to rescue his family. Impossibly so much better than it has any right to be, Extraction 2 from diārector Sam Hargrave sure gets the job done.
33. Horse Girl (2020)
For the first time in his career, writer/director Jeff Baena walks on the darker side of life with his psychological drama Horse Girl. Community's Alison Brie stars as a lonely and shy twee woman with a penchant for horses and supernatural television shows. Out of nowhere, her lucidš dreams start bleeding into her waking world, making it impossible for her to distinguish between fantasy and reality. In a fresh turn from his usual flavors of black comedies, Baena exhibš¦©its serious muscle as a director in the style of David Lynch and Charlie Kaufman.
25. Our Souls at Night (2017)
In their fourth movie together as leads, screeāØn icons Robert Redford and Jane Fonda - who also starred together in The Chase, Barefoot in the Park, and The Electric Horseman - play lonely seniors who attempt to find a spark of youthful romance in each other. Based on the novel by Kent Haruf and directed by Ritesh Batra, Our Souls at Night is a tender and warm film, and one of the precious few to authentically explore the bittersweet highs and lows of old romance. To borrow from Fonda's Addie Moore, it isn't a gaudy and careless movie about elderly sex, but simply "about getting through the night."
