The five best movies to watch on Netflix on a Sunday
Is it just us, or does Netflix indeed seem to have slowed down all of a sudden after an eventful start to the month? In any case, the mystery-solving can wait, but the Sunday night movie tradition certainly cannot.
Thankfully, Netflix’s streaming library is neither short on quality nor quantity. Plus, if we were to look at the bright side, this week brings a rather rare opportunity to shortlist and queue up the underrated gems hidden in plain sight.
That said, if you’re worried about your Sunday night ending up a flop, gulp them away one popcorn at a time.
But make sure to keep some refills handy because the five best movies to binge on Netflix this Sunday will leave you pushing one another to go and get one from the kitchen.
The five best movies to stream on Netflix this Sunday
The Dig (Simon Stone, 2021)
Set on the eve of World War II, The Dig is a dramatised historical movie inspired by John Preston’s critically acclaimed 2007 novel that follows the 1939 excavation of a massive Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo, Suffolk. The story centres on wealthy widow Edith Pretty, who hires self-taught local excavator Basil Brown to investigate the mysterious burial mounds on her rural estate, and what he unearths leaves everyone shocked.
Despite scepticism from the academic archaeological community, who dismiss him, citing his lack of formal training and suspecting the site of minor value, The Dig captures Brown’s persistence and fight for a cause, showcasing how his intuition is rewarded with a groundbreaking discovery, serving as a slap to naysayers.
Twisters (Lee Isaac Chung, 2024)
Acting as a standalone sequel to Jan de Bont’s 1996 disaster movie Twister, Twisters follows storm chaser Kate Cooper, who is forced out of retirement by her former teammate Javi to return to central Oklahoma to test his company’s game-changing 3D tornado scanning system. Although Cooper retired from storm chasing years ago after a traumatising event, she eventually relocated to New York to study weather patterns.
While Cooper arrives unsuspectingly to test the tracking system, a deadly tornado breaks out, and her expert skills in reading weather patterns become key to survival. She joins forces with reckless social media superstar Tyler Owens, despite her initial dislike towards him, as they race to survive and confront the terrifying disaster, ultimately uncovering a jaw-dropping conspiracy that sets Twisters apart.
The Kitchen (Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya, 2023)
Since we’re busy riding the waves of blockbusters on Netflix, we simply cannot skip The Kitchen. The 2023 dystopian sci-fi drama set in near-future London, unfolds in a society where social housing has been completely chucked out to widen the gap between the rich and the poor. As a result, the marginalised working-class has been cornered to the city’s outskirts where they live in massive, overcrowded housing projects called “The Kitchen.”
The residents face constant threats of violent eviction and police raids as the government grows more and more adamant about ripping apart the community entirely. The Kitchen follows Izi, a solitary resident of that near-extinct community, as he navigates the brutality of city life and gradually develops a bond with an orphaned 12-year-old named Benji.
Nowhere (Albert Pintó, 2023)
Set in a dystopian Spain where the totalitarian government have begun eliminating children and pregnant women, Nowhere is a page-turner of a Spanish thriller centring on Mia, a pregnant woman, who attempts to smuggle herself and her husband, Nico, to Ireland in a maritime container. But when military forces unexpectedly intervene in the loading process, their plan to flee the resource-starved regime momentarily falls apart as they end up being separated.
Away from Nico and alone in the container, Mia now has no option but to survive on her own. Just in case you think it cannot get worse, well, it does. Soon after, a violent storm causes the ship’s cargo to shift and containers to fall into the ocean. Unsurprisingly, her container is soon breached, with water levels rising rapidly. Trapped inside with scarce resources, Nowhere follows Mia’s desperate attempts at survival as she’s forced to give birth by herself and battle impossible conditions.
Leave the World Behind (Sam Esmail, 2023)
Lastly, to end the Sunday marathon, we recommend an apocalyptic psychological thriller, Leave the World Behind. The Netflix thriller follows the wealthy Sandfords, who rent a luxurious, secluded house in Long Island for a weekend getaway with their teenage children, seeking some quality family time. But their peaceful vacation is abruptly interrupted when the property owners and their daughter arrive unannounced in the middle of the night.
Turns out, they haven’t come alone; they’ve also brought bad news. Apparently, there’s been a massive blackout in Manhattan that requires everyone to stay indoors, which immediately raises the Sanfords’ eyebrows. However, as a series of logic-defying, unsettling events begins to unfold, the families at the centre of Leave the World Behind are forced to coexist, navigating mistrust, danger, panic, and the fear of the unknown.