In the 10 years since releasing its first original film, Beasts of No Nation, Netflix has evolved into a power player in the movie scene. It's earned honors at award shows, including the Oscars, Golden Globes and Emmys.
The streaming giant won three Oscars in 2025, and action-thriller Rebel Ridge nabbed an Emmy Award for Best TV Movie this year. Popular films like KPop Demon Hunters, which is now the platform's most-watched movie ever, have also helped make it a reliable destination for hits.
Whether you love drama, comedy, blockbusters or quiet, independent films, check out what we consider to be the best movies you can watch on Netflix right now. This month, some of our favorite films have arrived to the platform including Greta Gerwig's 2019 version of Little Women, and the Tina Fey-penned classic Mean Girls. (Both the 2004 version starring Lindsay Lohan and the 2024 musical version of Mean Girls are available.)
If you'd rather go with a series, peruse our picks for the best TV shows to watch on Netflix.
Read more: Where to Watch All the 2024 Oscar Winners
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Paramount Pictures Mean Girls (2004) Mean Girls is a contemporary take on the horrors of being a teenage girl. Written by Tina Fey, the film stars Lindsay Lohan as Cady Heron, a new student at an American high school, who gets pulled between two cliques, the popular mean girls, led by Regina George (Rachel McAdams) and outcasts Janis and Damian (Lizzy Caplan and Daniel Franzese). The imminently quotable movie also spawned a Broadway musical which was turned into a 2024 movie musical, and now both films are available to stream.
sony Pictures Little Women (2019) Greta Gerwig directed the 2019 adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, the story of four sisters, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March, growing up in 19th century Concord, Massachusetts. The fiercely independent and aspirational Jo is played by Saoirse Ronan, the cast also includes Florence Pugh, Timothée Chalamet, Eliza Scanlen, Emma Watson, Laura Dern, Bob Odenkirk and Meryl Streep.
Netflix Champagne Problems (2025) It's not often a holiday romance makes us both howl with laughter and feel warm and fuzzy inside, but Champagne tends to have that effect. Champagne Problems, that is. Netflix's newest holiday rom-com stars Minka Kelly as a high-powered executive sent to France to help her company take over a struggling chateau's wine brand -- only to fall in love along the way. The romance is undeniably charming, but it's the supporting cast, including Sean Amsing and Flula Borg, that turns this into a genuinely laugh-out-loud comedy.
Netflix Train Dreams (2025) Joel Edgerton stars in Train Dreams, a new drama that made the rounds at film festivals recently and has received near-universal acclaim (keep an eye out for it on upcoming Best of 2025 lists). The film takes place roughly a century ago; Edgerton stars as Robert Grainier, a logger in the Pacific Northwest struggling to build a life for himself and his family. The story is adapted from the novella of the same name by Denis Johnson and costars Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon and William H. Macy.
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