The five best movies to watch on Netflix this weekend
When you actually look at this week’s Netflix movie list, absolutely none of it makes sense at first because what’s the connection here? One film will get you super emotional over somebody’s life choices, and the next film’s got everybody stressed out over a museum. Sounds weird, right? But there’s a catch!
What all these films have in common, and lord, it’s irritating, is… Every single one of them is leaving Netflix next week. So now all the films people kept ignoring for months have suddenly become must-watch material overnight because Netflix loves inventing fake urgency for no reason whatsoever. Netflix will leave stuff in its catalogue there untouched for years. Then, the moment people remember it exists? Gone. Vanished. See ya later.
And what’s making people even more dramatic about it is the fact that loads of these films already have proper loyal fanbases attached to them. You know, the fanbase? The one who has all the dialogues and scenes by heart, and some of these are even comfort movies for the majority.
If you think about it, the mood swings between these picks are ridiculous. They have nothing in common, and that’s exactly what makes this list so special. Because now, you have a variety to choose from. Are you ready for it?
Five best movies to watch on Netflix this weekend
Fifty Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015)
Listen, people can laugh about Fifty Shades of Grey all they want now, but when this film was released in 2015, it caused an absolute scene everywhere. The internet went mad over the scenes and the performances. Most people watched it for one and only one reason; however, if you look at the plot and ignore the unreasonableness of it, the film was decent. Dakota Johnson suddenly became the global crush, and Jamie Dornan became what Henry Cavill is to the world today.
The story follows Anastasia Steele, a literature student who interviews wealthy businessman Christian Grey for her university newspaper after her friend falls ill. Then Ana and Christian start spending more time together and in a blink realise this is not exactly a standard romance situation. Christian introduces Ana to his very controlled lifestyle and his complicated views on relationships, while Ana spends most of the film trying to understand what exactly is going on inside this man’s brain. And then begins the game of emotional and sexual madness, where you don’t know what to feel every five minutes. Yup, time for a rewatch.
Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1995)
Casino came out in 1995, which was only five years after Goodfellas, and the film brought Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci again for another mafia story. But instead of New York streets, this time the story moves into Las Vegas casinos during the 1970s, when organised crime still controlled huge parts of the city’s gambling business. The film was based on Nicholas Pileggi’s non-fiction book ‘Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas’ and took inspiration from real mob figures operating in Vegas at the time.
It starts with Sam “Ace” Rothstein (De Niro), a gambling expert chosen by the Chicago Outfit to run the Tangiers Casino. Ace builds a powerful position inside Las Vegas, but his personal life starts collapsing after marrying Ginger McKenna, played by Sharon Stone, whose addiction problems and connection to her former pimp Lester Diamond keep creating problems around him. At the same time, Ace’s childhood friend Nicky Santoro expands criminal operations across the city through violence. Sharon Stone received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, while the production became famous for its costume design too.
Mrs. Doubtfire (Chris Columbus, 1993)
No other film has emotionally manipulated people harder than Mrs Doubtfire, because why does everybody remember it as a silly comedy first, when half the story is genuinely heartbreaking? All we remember is Robin Williams making everybody laugh in fake teeth and glasses, but how often do we think about the pain caused by divorce and family separation?
William plays Daniel Hillard, a voice actor whose marriage to Miranda (Sally Field) completely falls apart. After losing custody of his children, Daniel disguises himself as an elderly British nanny called Mrs Euphegenia Doubtfire so he can secretly spend time with his family again. Imagine a man pretending to be a Scottish grandma to be with his kids… Now that’s what we call real cinema.
Night at the Museum (Shawn Levy, 2006)
The fact that Night at the Museum managed to convince an entire generation that museums were secretly terrifying after dark. Some people still visit a museum and think dinosaur skeletons might start sprinting around even during the day. The story follows Larry Daley, played by Ben Stiller, a struggling dad who takes a job as a night guard at New York’s Museum of Natural History. Then he discovers the museum exhibits literally come alive every night because of an ancient Egyptian artefact.
So now Larry is running around dealing with tiny Roman soldiers and a giant T-Rex skeleton, and Theodore Roosevelt, played by Robin Williams, is walking around, giving life advice. Completely normal evening shift, obviously. And honestly, the cast in this film is amazing once you actually look at it properly because alongside Ben Stiller and Robin Williams, the movie somehow brought in Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Ricky Gervais and Rami Malek before half of us even realised it.
The Lego Movie (Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, 2014)
Who knew that one day, the world would be a place where people would absolutely kill it to become fans of The Lego Movie? To be honest, it’s not their fault. The film really is that good. Everybody expected a lazy children’s film made to sell toys when it was first announced, and then when it was actually released… People lost it because why was a toy movie making conversations about creativity and growing up? Are you joking?
The story follows Emmet Brickowski (Chris Pratt), an extremely ordinary construction worker living in a Lego world where everybody follows instructions constantly. Then Emmet accidentally becomes connected to a prophecy claiming he’s the “special” destined to stop Lord Business, voiced by Will Ferrell, from freezing the entire Lego universe permanently. So suddenly Emmet’s travelling across different Lego worlds with Wyldstyle, Batman and a bunch of other characters trying to save everything before Lord Business destroys creativity completely. And as bizarre as the idea sounds, it’s actually very deep once you get into it.