The five best movies to watch on Netflix this weekend
How many movies did you watch before you realised that whenever there’s a party scene, there’s always a person who walks into a party and behaves as though the room has been waiting for them to arrive? Because if that’s your cup of tea, this weekend’s Netflix movie picks are built for watching people like that come unstuck, and the comeuppance is where the fun begins.
A couple of these go straight for the filthy rich, with pitch-black comedy taking us into the lives of people who will do almost anything to protect a reputation that was, well, shaky to begin with. To watch that pride get bruised – so juicy!
The thrillers in the list are no kinder, because sometimes what starts as a harmless gathering can turn into a disaster fast once people stop trusting each other, and of course, poor judgement deserves half the credit for causing it.
So forget noble heroes who fix everything because these films are more interested in watching vanity take over until the people stop behaving themselves.
The five best movies to watch on Netflix this weekend:
Sacrifice (Romain Gavras, 2026)
Yes, enough of watching Chris Evans save the world on screen, because it’s time to see him as an action star who can’t even attend a charity gala without getting caught up in a hostage crisis. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! In Sacrifice, Evans plays Mike Tyler, an actor desperate to revive his career, who turns up at a swanky fundraiser in Greece hosted by a billionaire couple, only for Joan (Anya Taylor-Joy) to crash the party with a doomsday cult that believes sacrificing three people to a volcano will save humanity from the apocalypse. Yup, we’ll let you process that for a minute.
And if that premise hasn’t piqued your interest, the cast might, because Salma Hayek and Vincent Cassel are in on this maddening rise, while Charli xcx makes an appearance. Directed by Athena filmmaker Romain Gavras, this satire mocks the hell out of celebrity self-importance, with Evans trading his superhero swagger for the desperation of a man who’d do anything for a comeback. Talk about a career crisis!
Triangle of Sadness (Ruben Östlund, 2022)
Nothing says ‘holiday from hell’ like a luxury cruise where the guests have more money than manners and the captain’s dinner ends with people puking across the dining room. Reminds you of Adam Sandler’s Murder Mystery with filthy rich people onboard… There you go; you got that recommendation for free, mate.
Now in Triangle of Sadness, model Carl (Harris Dickinson) and his influencer girlfriend Yaya (Charlbi Dean) score a trip aboard a superyacht full of billionaires accustomed to getting their own way. But when a storm hits during dinner, the floating palace turns into a stomach nightmare, with the filthy rich realising that all that money cannot save them from getting horribly seasick.
And the humiliation doesn’t end there, because after the yacht sinks, the survivors wash up on a deserted island where Abigail (Dolly de Leon), a cleaner from the ship, takes charge thanks to her survival skills. Watching billionaires beg a member of staff for food – what a delicious dichotomy!
It’s What’s Inside (Greg Jardin, 2024)
Something for the pre-Halloween celebration now. Whoever thought reuniting with old college friends before a wedding was a cracking idea clearly hadn’t accounted for someone coming up with a machine that lets people swap bodies! In It’s What’s Inside, Shelby and her boyfriend Cyrus join their old gang for a pre-wedding bash, where their estranged friend Forbes arrives with a mysterious suitcase containing the aforementioned contraption. The game? Swap bodies and guess who is inhabiting whom. Sounds like a laugh, doesn’t it? Oh, you poor fools.
Because once these so-called friends start borrowing each other’s faces, old grudges come back, obviously, and you can imagine the mess that follows. But you know what’s better: instead of imagining, you watch it happen. And good luck figuring out who’s telling the truth when nobody can trust the face staring back at them!
I Care a Lot (J Blakeson, 2021)
The sheer audacity of Rosamund Pike in I Care a Lot, god! She plays Marla Grayson, a woman who makes a fortune by convincing courts that wealthy elderly people can no longer look after themselves before shipping them off to care homes and helping herself to their assets. And the worst part? She does it all with a sharp bob and the confidence of someone who thinks she is better than everyone else. What a piece of work! But her money-making racket hits a snag when she targets Jennifer Peterson, a pensioner with connections to a dangerous crime boss.
Enter Peter Dinklage as Roman Lunyov, a gangster who isn’t about to let Marla get away with messing with his family, and now, the woman who has spent years ruining lives has someone after her own. Oh, how the turntables! Pike bagged a Golden Globe for her performance in this vicious crime satire, and her character’s brass neck is something to behold. You see the irony in the title now, don’t you?
The Conference (Patrik Eklund, 2023)
Whoever invented compulsory team-building retreats deserves a stern word, but the poor people in The Conference have got bigger problems than awkward icebreakers we’ve all been a part of. Another Halloween special, this Swedish horror-comedy follows a group of municipal employees who go to a countryside resort to celebrate a controversial shopping centre project. Just then, Lina, who has returned from burnout leave, begins suspecting that her colleague Jonas has been up to no good with the development deal.
And as if dealing with workplace corruption wasn’t bad enough, a masked maniac starts slaughtering people at the resort. Based on Mats Strandberg’s bestselling novel, Patrik Eklund’s bloody slasher has plenty of fun mocking corporate culture while the body count keeps increasing. And watching a group of colleagues who can’t stand each other try to survive a killer is an absolute mess. So much for team building.