The five best movies to watch on Netflix on a Sunday
Once upon a time, Sunday marathons on Netflix were considered a backup when outdoor plans took a backseat at the last minute. But now? They’ve evolved into a full-blown tradition that subscribers look forward to after a tiring workweek.
And when the audience takes the Sunday watchlist so seriously, you cannot help but step up with the best of what Netflix has to offer.
While last Sunday, Netflix brought cinematic fireworks on its coattails, the current one promises to continue the show with some of the most underrated titles you may have overlooked.
So, if you’re yet to queue up on your Sunday roster, here are the five best movies to binge on Netflix.
The five best movies to stream on Netflix this Sunday
Uncut Gems (Josh and Benny Safdie, 2019)
The deeper you dig in the Netflix library, the more likely you’re to find uncut gems. While fans are used to seeing Adam Sandler’s funny side way too often, Uncut Gems on Netflix brings out a rare, intense side of him in a tense, high-anxiety crime thriller. The Happy Gilmore actor stars as Howard Ratner, a diamond district dealer and compulsive gambler, who always has a lot on his plate – family life, a mistress, loan sharks, and relentless business risks.
Although anyone else would probably crack under the pressure of mounting debts, the charismatic New York City jeweller gets his hands on a rare, uncut black opal smuggled from Ethiopia and convinces himself that the sale is the solution to all his financial problems. Uncut Gems is a high-stakes, character-driven drama that doubles as an unfiltered representation of obsession, in which the thrill of the chase almost always overrides basic rationality and survival.
Disappear Completely (Luis Javier Henaine, 2022)
Pumpkin season is approaching, which means Sundays should now come with their fair share of horror stories. So, kicking off the spooky Sunday series is the Mexican supernatural horror, Disappear Completely, which follows a tabloid crime photographer, Santiago, in Mexico City, who has grown increasingly insensitive and ruthless to climb the corporate ladder, so much so that he pays cops to let him take graphic pictures of the crime scene for the local press.
His brutal ambitions leave no room for sympathy for the victims or their families. But it turns out, Santiago also fails to validate his girlfriend’s emotions, who is pregnant, by the way. However, his obsession to grow without paying heed to morality or ethics meets a disastrous consequence when he sneaks into a crime scene involving a dead politician, taking pictures he shouldn’t have taken. Disappear Completely revolves around Santiago’s unravelling after he gets cursed with a mysterious affliction.
A Day and a Half (Fares Fares, 2023)
Directed by Fares Fares in his directorial debut, A Day and a Half is a Swedish thriller that will bring the adrenaline kick to your Sunday watch party. The film doesn’t waste time building the anxiety, opening in a medical clinic where an armed man, identified as Artan, raids in, quickly taking a woman named Louise hostage, who is revealed to be his estranged wife. Cornered by the police, Artan demands a car and a driver to reach her parents’ house in what looks like a desperate bid to reunite with his daughter.
As an officer steps in to drive them, embarking on a tense day-and-a-half journey through rural Sweden to reach their destination, viewers are finally filled in on the piece of the puzzle unravelling so far. A Day and a Half transitions from a high-stakes hostage drama into a complex family drama as viewers are introduced to their history, allowing them to join the dots of what led to this.
Stolen (Elle Márjá Eira, 2024)
Directed by Elle Márjá Eira in her feature directorial debut, Stolen is yet another underrated Swedish drama, based on Ann-Helén Laestadius’s eponymous novel. The powerful movie follows Elsa, a nine-year-old Sámi girl, who witnesses her reindeer being poached. Upon raising her voice, she’s subsequently frightened into silence. With the police turning a blind eye to the hate crimes, Elsa vows revenge against the poacher.
Driven by the fire to avenge the murder of her reindeer, Elsa confronts a ruthless man, Robert Isaksson, ten years later, who threatens her community’s livelihood. Stolen revolves around Elsa’s resilient fight to protect her heritage amid systemic xenophobia and climate threats, as she eventually goes on to preach her culture to ensure her traditions don’t go extinct in the generations to follow.
True Things (Harry Wootliff, 2021)
Not a Netflix Original, but definitely available on the platform this September, which makes True Things a must-watch this Sunday. Adapted from Deborah Kay Davies’ 2010 novel True Things About Me, the psychological drama centres on Kate, who lives a mundane life, working a dead-end job at a benefits office in a coastal English town. But an unexpected encounter with a charismatic stranger soon pulls her out of her boring routine, not for better, but for worse.
What starts as a fleeting affair evolves into an all-consuming, emotionally volatile obsession, and before she knows it, she loses her sense of self-protection. True Things pieces together an unglamorous and unhealthy puzzle of obsession and low self-worth, where the fatigue of the mundane overshadows the thrill of toxicity, disguising danger as adventure before everything falls apart.