Netflix‘s best offerings right now include a 2011 serial killer thriller that is better than its low ranking in its director’s filmography would lead you to believe. The streamer also has an oft-forgotten, striking fantasy epic from “Mother Mary” and “A Ghost Story” director David Lowery, as well as a mid-2010s rom-com that felt like a drop of water in the desert when it was released in 2015. 11 years later, the film is still worth your time.
Here are the three best movies on Netflix this week.
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2011)
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” was director David Fincher‘s follow-up to 2010’s “The Social Network.” Its close proximity to that masterpiece resulted in “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” earning a colder critical reception than is usual for Fincher. It deserves to be better remembered than its muted initial welcome would suggest.
Fincher’s adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s 2005 novel of the same name is a propulsive, engrossing and deeply chilling neo-noir crime thriller. Stars Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara turn out to be an unexpectedly charismatic, compelling screen duo together, and the film’s climax is one of the most inspired and unnerving that Fincher has ever staged.
“The Green Knight” (2021)
Surreal, dreamlike and profoundly, movingly reflective, writer-director David Lowery’s “The Green Knight” is a medieval fantasy film unlike any other.
An adaptation of the 14th-century poem of the same name, the film follows a young man (Dev Patel) whose failure to kill a mythical knight (Ralph Ineson) forces him to embark on a journey that tests his courage, faith and honor. Featuring some of the most striking big-screen images of the 2020s, “The Green Knight” is a transportive film about growing up, leaving your ego behind and rediscovering your place in the world around you.
“Sleeping with Other People” (2015)
Rounding out this week’s list is a lighter offering than those before it. Written and directed by Leslye Headland, 2015’s “Sleeping with Other People” is a good-natured, sexually frank romantic comedy about a lifelong womanizer (Jason Sudeikis) and a serial cheater (Alison Brie) whose platonic relationship changes their lives in unexpected ways and, inevitably, pushes them toward each other.
Delightfully formulaic and benefitting greatly from Sudeikis and Brie’s complementary comedic chemistry, “Sleeping with Other People” is the kind of fun, good-feeling rom-com that you can build an entire weekend evening around. It’s a blast.
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