The five best movies to watch on Netflix this weekend
By Friday night, most of us have had our fill of real-life drama, so watching somebody else make the bad call can be, umm, satisfying. Go ahead, call it a bit insensitive, but you can’t deny it. Lucky for you that Netflix knows the drill too and hence keeps a stash when you want to watch anyone else except for you suffer.
Stay with that for a second, because the fun is not just in watching things go wrong; it is in seeing how one small move can start the whole chain reaction.
The best part is that none of these films takes the same road to disaster, so you are not sitting through five versions of one lousy day dressed up in different clothes. Just like a wild cart.
So keep the snacks close and your sympathy on standby, because these five Netflix movies are not going to make an easy weekend binge.
The five best movies to watch on Netflix this weekend
The Adam Project (Shawn Levy, 2022)
Ryan Reynolds is basically doing what Ryan Reynolds does best here: making jokes while his life is low-key falling apart, except The Adam Project actually gives that whole smart-mouth thing some emotion this time. Adam Reed is older, miserable in ways he would rather not talk about, and using sarcasm like duct tape to keep everything from coming apart.
Then, because apparently his life was not complicated enough, he steals a time jet in 2050, crashes into 2022 and runs straight into himself at 12. Like, imagine meeting the most awkward version of yourself and having to explain how things went. Oof! The real surprise is Mark Ruffalo as Adam’s late father, which is where the movie stops messing around. All that old pain from childhood comes back in the pictures, and you start looking at the jokes differently.
Back in Action (Seth Gordon, 2025)
Cameron Diaz coming back to movies after a decade away already gives Back in Action a bit of an edge, and on top of that, Seth Gordon threw Jamie Foxx in beside her and now has this masterpiece cooking. They play Emily and Matt, who are not just suburban parents with amazing reflexes but former CIA spies who faked their deaths, disappeared for 15 years and built a family life on top of one massive secret. It’s only a matter of time before a viral video blows their cover, and, just like that, the past comes back into their life like a forgotten key.
Can’t imagine how the kids must’ve felt when that penny dropped. Turns out Mum and Dad have not been private about work, but this time, they are hiding one hell of a CV. The perfectly built suburban life goes out the window, and before long they are dodging bullets while trying to explain everything to their kids. Seth Gordon’s idea was basically Jason Bourne with a family, and yep, that is pretty much the movie.
Hit Man (Richard Linklater, 2023)
There is wild, and then there is Hit Man because the guy Glen Powell plays in the movie, Gary Johnson, was a real guy. Technically a college professor who also posed as a contract killer for the police. We’ll let you marinate that. ‘Texas Monthly’ writer Skip Hollandsworth profiled him, and Richard Linklater sat on the story for years before turning it into one of Powell’s best ever.
Gary in this film is a harmless college lecturer with zero killer energy, but all that until police work lets him invent hitman personas, and that is when he comes alive. But just as that gig is working out for him, Madison shows up wanting her husband dead, and Gary lets her walk. Yep, now he likes her, and she likes fake Gary, and the lie gets way too comfortable. Catfishing a pretty woman with your alter ego – this isn’t our first drill, is it?
The Secret Woman (Barbara Topsøe-Rothenborg, 2026)
The Secret Woman starts with Louise living a normal little life on a Norwegian island, but her life falls into shambles when a man shows up claiming she is actually Helene Söderberg, his wife who disappeared three years ago. Louise is obviously like, absolutely not! That’s the most normal reaction, except the evidence he gives makes sense all of a sudden. And then, because this situation was not already insane enough, she finds out “Helene” has a child and a whole shipping empire waiting for her.
So now Louise goes back into this life she cannot remember, surrounded by people acting as if they know her, while she is sitting there with nothing. The coolest part about the films is the identity mess, which gets even better because “Anna Ekberg”, the name in the original novel, is fake too; it is a pseudonym used by Danish writers Anders Rønnow Klarlund and Jacob Weinreich.
Shark Tale (Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron and Rob Letterman, 2004)
Okay, first of all, Shark Tale was originally called Sharkslayer, which is already shocking, because that title sounds like Oscar was about to roll up with a sword instead of a massive ego. Admit it, it’s hilarious. DreamWorks changed it before release, but it didn’t help; the mob-movie energy stayed put, and once you clock Robert De Niro as shark boss Don Lino while Martin Scorsese voices Sykes, you realise why the first title made so much sense.
Just look at the voice cast of this old classic. Oscar, voiced by Will Smith, has got to be the most well-cast voice of all time. He works at the Whale Wash and wants fame so badly he can practically taste it. One shark dies, Oscar takes the credit, and cha-ching, he is the reef’s biggest deal. Tiny issue: Lenny, the dead shark’s vegetarian brother, knows Oscar is full of it, so they fake a showdown and keep the lie rolling. Just know, somewhere out there, Nemo is minding his own business… smart kid.