The five best movies to watch on Netflix this weekend
Crime has really got all over Netflix right now, and people seem to be loving it. We’re talking about the genre, if that wasn’t clear. It has come a long way from your bog-standard cops-and-robbers stories. These days, everyone’s got a motive, and everyone is hiding something.
But the best crime films don’t just ask who did it. They make you wonder why they did it… and whether you’d have done exactly the same. That’s pretty much the vibe this week. Every movie has got crime at its core, but don’t go expecting five versions of the same film, because nah, not a chance.
In these films, crime itself is rarely the most important part. It’s the people. The ones who keep telling themselves they’ve got everything under control right before it all goes spectacularly wrong.
So, if you’re after a weekend binge packed with crime and more than a few catastrophically bad decisions, you’ve come to the right place. Here are five of the best films to stick on Netflix this weekend.
The five best movies to watch on Netflix this weekend
The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)
Who hasn’t watched this one, right? But if you haven’t, don’t go into The Irishman expecting wall-to-wall shootouts; ease off a bit. Martin Scorsese isn’t in any rush, and neither is Frank Sheeran. Played by Robert De Niro, Frank starts out as an ordinary truck driver before one favour, then another, lands him into the world of organised crime. He ends up working for the Bufalino family, rubbing shoulders with union boss Jimmy Hoffa. He starts climbing the ranks as the man who gets the call when a problem needs… sorting. The film skips across decades, showing how loyalty can make a man powerful and completely wreck him at the same time.
Scorsese finally reunited De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci in the same film, despite all three being absolute legends of the gangster genre. It also became famous for its de-ageing technology, letting the actors play younger versions of themselves without recasting. Flashy? Aye! But once you get past the CGI, the film’s story is absolutely bonkers. The Irishman isn’t really about the mob. It’s about getting older and realising every decision eventually comes knocking.
Sniper: No Nation (Claudio Fäh, 2023)
War films generally split everyone into heroes and villains. Sniper: No Nation couldn’t care less about doing that. Instead, it drops you into a conflict where the lines get blurry. The story follows an elite sniper caught up in a mission that goes beyond military orders, forcing him to trust his instincts as political agendas keep piling up.
The galmosrised combat in the film is the key to its success. There is always that feeling that one wrong move could bring the whole operation crashing down. Silence does most of the work in the film rather than explosions. If you’re after non-stop action, this isn’t that sort of film. It’s more interested in the psychological cost of surviving than simply counting bodies.
War Dogs (Todd Phillips, 2016)
You know what’s scarier than some big action villain? Two ordinary men who realise that there is a ridiculous amount of money to be made selling weapons. That’s the absolutely bonkers true story behind War Dogs on Netflix. Miles Teller and Jonah Hill play David Packouz and Efraim Diveroli, childhood friends who stumble into the mad world of Pentagon defence contracts. It starts with little deals and easy money. Then they land a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and suddenly they are miles out of their depth, dealing with international suppliers and dodgy middlemen.
The craziest part is that most of it actually happened. Director Todd Phillips based the film on a Rolling Stone investigation, and the real David Packouz even pops up in a little cameo as a singer. Jonah Hill also bagged a Golden Globe nomination for his unhinged performance. One minute you’re laughing; the next you’re wondering how any of this was ever legal.
The Town (Ben Affleck, 2010)
Bank robberies are ten a penny in films. The Town asks what happens after you pull one off. Ben Affleck stars as Doug MacRay, the leader of a tight-knit crew from Charlestown, Boston, a neighbourhood famous for churning out armed robbers. After a heist goes sideways, Doug forms a connection with Claire, the bank manager his gang briefly took hostage. Bit awkward considering she’s got absolutely no clue who he really is. From there, every decision Doug makes drags him deeper into a tug-of-war between the life he has always known and the one he is desperate to have.
Affleck also directed the film, and loads of Charlestown locals were cast alongside the Hollywood names to make it all feel authentic. Jeremy Renner, meanwhile, bagged himself an Oscar nomination for playing Doug’s loose-cannon best friend, Jem, who is about as subtle as a brick through a window. The action is amazing, but the stars of the show are the relationships.
Where the Crawdads Sing (Olivia Newman, 2022)
Don’t let all that pretty marshland fool you. Where the Crawdads Sing has got murder on its mind from the off. It follows Kya Clark, a young woman who grows up almost completely alone after being abandoned by her family in the North Carolina marshes. Years later, when a well-known local fellow turns up dead, the town wastes no time pointing the finger at Kya.
As the courtroom drama happens, the story jumps between the investigation and her lonely childhood, and reveals how she became the woman everyone was so quick to judge. This Netflix film is based on Delia Owens’ massive bestseller. Reese Witherspoon, who championed the novel through her book club, also produced the adaptation. Strip away the mystery, though, and this is really a story about prejudice and survival.