Credit: Netflix

When it comes to those long-awaited weekends, nothing really beats a cosy movie night. So, if you’re guilt-tripping about cancelling your outdoor plans last-minute to take refuge on your couch for the Netflix marathon, you’re doing it wrong.

Instead of lamenting what’s already done, get ready to unwind with a weekend watchlist that puts every big-budget outing to shame.

While you cannot exactly put a cork stopper on your friends’ verbal fireworks for ditching at the eleventh hour, you can certainly extend a courteous and lifesaving invite.

And when everything falls into place, dim the lights and let the five best movies to binge on Netflix this weekend take care of the rest.

The five best movies to stream on Netflix this weekend

Hurricane Season (Elisa Miller, 2023)

Good storytelling knows no language barrier. So, to kick-start the marathon, we have a Mexican drama based on Fernanda Melchor’s 2017 novel, Hurricane Season. Set in the impoverished, sweltering Mexican village of La Matosa, the plot starts with a gruesome discovery by a group of local teenagers who stumble upon a rotting corpse near an irrigation canal, whom they immediately identify as the local “Witch,” an outcast believed to have dealt in curses and cures.

Constructed in a dark, non-linear pattern, Hurricane Season follows the mystery of her murder through a series of layered, overlapping perspectives from the townsfolk. Rather than a traditional whodunit, the Netflix adaptation approaches the investigation as a psychological character study, exploring themes of machismo and intergenerational trauma that mutates into contemporary hatred and acts of violence.

The Lost Daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal, 2021)

Directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal in her feature directorial debut, The Lost Daughter, based on Elena Ferrante’s 2006 novel, tells the story of Leda Caruso, a middle-aged academic enjoying her solitary summer holiday on a Greek island, whose peaceful vacation is upended by a loud family. As she becomes fixated on the boisterous unit, especially the young mother Nina, who appears visibly exhausted and overwhelmed, Nina’s young daughter goes missing.

While Leda helps the kid reunite with her family, strengthening an unforeseen bond between herself and Nina, this act of kindness makes the latter eventually confide in her marital struggles. As they both discuss the pressure of motherhood, The Lost Daughter spotlights Leda, who is suddenly taken back in time and haunted by the flashbacks of her own youth when a similar situation made her do the unthinkable: abandon her young ones.

22 July (Paul Greengrass, 2018)

Based on Åsne Seierstad’s book One of Us: The Story of a Massacre in Norway – and Its Aftermath, 22July recounts the horrific 2011 Norway terrorist attacks in three distinct parts, covering the attacks, the aftermath, and the trial. The plot details the attacks on the government buildings in Oslo, which were followed by the tragic bloodshed of dozens of teenagers at a political summer camp.

22 July captures the survivors’ recoveries, the legal proceedings against the attackers and the nation’s response amidst an environment of tension, uproar, and quest for justice. The groundbreaking movie highlights how Norway found its way to uphold the rule of law and democratic values rather than surrendering to violence, delivering the much-needed justice that the onlookers hoped for.

Your Son (Miguel Ángel Vivas, 2018)

Next up on our weekend watchlist is a gritty psychological thriller, Your Son, that follows Jaime, a dedicated surgeon whose life is shattered when his teenage son, Marcos, is found ruthlessly beaten up outside a nightclub and left in a coma. Driven by grief and frustration with the investigation, the desperate father decides to take matters into his own hands, launching his own probe.

Your Son revolves around Jaime’s relentless pursuit of the truth, and most importantly, what he does with the truth, making a harsh commentary on toxic family loyalty and denial. Because what he actually discovers turns the entire dynamic upside down, pushing him down a road that captures the extreme extent one would go to protect their loved ones, even if it means shielding a perpetrator.

The Plagues of Breslau (Patryk Vega, 2018)

To wrap up the weekend marathon, we have The Plagues of Breslau to call it a night. The Polish whodunit follows depressed but uncompromising detective Helena Rus, who embarks on a cat-and-mouse chase to catch a serial killer terrorising the town of Wroclaw in Poland. The movie opens with the discovery of a tortured corpse, with “degenerate” branded on its skin, setting an eerie tone right from the outset.

But The Plagues of Breslau gets even darker when another body turns up the following day. As an intense investigation is launched, the police realise that the serial killings seem to have links with the “Week of Plagues,” a fictional historical event from the 1740s where the town was purged of six societal sins, including corruption, degeneration, slander, oppression, treachery, and thievery. While the first discovery is a cue and the second a confirmation, the detectives must find the killer before the count goes up.