25 Hidden Gems to Watch on Netflix Right Now

Five Came Back (2017)

Did you know some of Hollywood’s biggest directors in the early 1940s — John Ford, Frank Capra, John Huston, George Stevens and William Wyler — were recruited during World War II to produce propaganda films and shoot footage of the battlefield? Netflix streams not only the original films but also a three-part docuseries about these Old Hollywood filmmakers, with analysis from contemporary auteurs like Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Guillermo del Toro. This show, based on a best-selling book by journalist Mark Harris, is a treat for World War II buffs and film fans alike.

Watch it: Five Came Back

Frances Ha (R, 2012)

Pre-Barbie Greta Gerwig plays a struggling 27-year-old dancer in this black-and-white indie gem, which she cowrote with director Noah Baumbach, 55. The film captures all the financial and emotional anxieties of a new generation of creatives in early-21st-century New York City and features before-they-were-famous performances by future stars Adam Driver (Marriage Story) and Michael Zegen (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel).

Watch it: Frances Ha

Godzilla Minus One (PG-13, 2023)

The latest iteration of the Godzilla franchise is a throwback — and not just because the film focuses on a former kamikaze pilot struggling with survivor’s guilt in Japan in the years right after World War II. With its focus on the human drama and tightly budgeted effects that ratchet up the tension rather than going for visual overkill, this film recalls not only the original Godzilla movies of the 1950s but also low-budget monster movies like Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. It’s no wonder the film nabbed an Oscar for visual effects despite a $15 million budget that’s a fraction of what a Marvel movie costs.

Watch it: Godzilla Minus One

The Greatest Night in Pop (PG-13, 2024)

Don’t you wish you could have been a fly on the wall during the rushed all-star recording of the 1985 song “We Are the World,” a single intended to raise funds for famine relief in Africa? Well, now you can. Lionel Richie, who cowrote the song with Michael Jackson, leads a series of interviews looking back on how they managed to corral the decade’s biggest stars (and egos) to collaborate on one of pop’s most memorable odes to selflessness. This is a delightful, almost giddy piece of nostalgia.

Watch it: The Greatest Night in Pop

Jack Whitehall: Travels With My Father (2017–21)

Travel shows about mismatched couples have never been quite as different as this one: Jack Whitehall is a millennial British comedian with an edgy sensibility despite his posh upbringing. His father, Michael, is a longtime theatrical agent (with clients like Dame Judi Dench) who favors absolute propriety and insists on dressing in a suit, tie and pocket square just about everywhere he goes. Over 18 episodes, the two embark on hilarious road trips to southeast Asia, Eastern Europe and the American West in which they lovingly push each other’s buttons and expand their personal boundaries.

Watch it: Jack Whitehall: Travels With My Father

Leave the World Behind (R, 2023)

Sam Esmail, best known for creating Mr. Robot, directed and co-adapted the unsettling bestseller for this movie about a family of four (led by Julia Roberts, 56, and Ethan Hawke, 53) who rent a ritzy vacation home in New York’s Long Island — only to be interrupted by a man and his daughter (Mahershala Ali, 50, and Myha’la) who turn up claiming the house is really theirs and that a cyberattack has forced them to seek shelter in a familiar place. Prepare to be unnerved in all the right ways.

Watch it: Leave the World Behind

Life on Our Planet (2023)

Executive producer Steven Spielberg, 77, and the creators of Our Planet teamed for a docuseries using the latest CGI technology to imagine the very origins of life, from dinosaurs to woolly mammoths to the first amphibians crawling out of the sea. The series includes spectacular imagery that recalls Sir David Attenborough’s work on the multiseason Our Planet shows (which are also worth seeking out on Netflix). If only the fittest survive, this show looks to be a Darwinner.

Watch it: Life on Our Planet

Love & Anarchy (2020–22)

Sofie is an unhappily married consultant hired to revamp a struggling book publishing house in Stockholm. But from the moment she arrives, Sofie strikes up a curious relationship with the 20-something IT guy. They dare each other to perform stunts (walk backward for the day, dress like Cyndi Lauper) that escalate into a full-blown romance. This Swedish series (dubbed for American audiences) is both steamy and smart, with a darker psychological undercurrent that’s more fully developed in the second season.

Watch it: Love & Anarchy

Okja (PG-13, 2017)

Two years before his Korean-language film Parasite won a surprise four Oscars, including one for best picture, Bong Joon-ho released this provocative and decidedly offbeat English-language fable about a young girl and her pet pig, the Okja of the title. But as with other films by director Bong, there’s a lot more just beneath the pigskin: sharp critiques of the food industry and blinkered environmental groups, as well as some gonzo performances by Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal and Paul Dano.

Watch it: Okja

Rustin (PG-13, 2023)

Bayard Rustin, one of the most overlooked figures in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement, gets the spotlight in a biopic from award-winning director George C. Wolfe and executive producers Barack and Michelle Obama. Colman Domingo, 54 (Fear the Walking Dead), earned an Oscar nod for his performance as Rustin, who took the lead in organizing the historic 1963 March on Washington — where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech — yet faced blowback within the Black community as an openly gay man.

Watch it: Rustin

Sing Street (2016)

Nearly a decade after his Oscar-winning hit Once, Irish director John Carney revisited his 1980s youth with a gentle coming-of-age yarn about a teenager who starts a rock band to impress a slightly older girl. The film has a big heart, winsome performances and toe-tapping original tunes that become homemade music videos we see in both their rough-around-the-edges “real” versions and the more polished MTV-ready productions the band members imagine in their heads. This is a film that will leave a smile on your face — and stick with you.

Watch it: Sing Street

Unorthodox (2020)

The young actress Shira Haas is a diminutive spitfire in this four-part limited series about a 19-year-old woman who flees her arranged marriage in Brooklyn’s hyperinsulated Hasidic Jewish community and flies to Germany in search of her estranged mother (who herself escaped Brooklyn years before). This is a domestic drama that unfolds with the suspense of a spy thriller as young Esty seeks to forge a new, more independent life for herself. It’s also a peek into a self-isolating world where many women find both comfort and refuge.

Watch it: Unorthodox

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (PG, 2023)

Has there ever been a better cinematic match than director Wes Anderson and Roald Dahl? Anderson, famed for his fussy storybook production design, brings his typically stylized approach to a series of grownup-ish short stories by the creator of Willy Wonka, Matilda and James (of giant peach fame). The title yarn, which won an Oscar for live-action short, stars Benedict Cumberbatch as a wealthy eccentric who goes to preposterous lengths to study a yoga’s clairvoyant powers just so he can cheat at blackjack. The film, along with three other Dahl adaptations, unfolds like an illustrated book read aloud in the family den.

Watch it: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar

Blown Away (2019-present, 4 seasons)

This reality competition series seems like it might have originated as a Saturday Night Live sketch. Who would watch a show about glass-blowers? But darned if you don’t get absorbed in the oh-so-delicate creations of glass artists as they sweat up a storm around fiery kilns to meet weekly challenges. The competitors are a quirky lot, and their handicraft often inspires awe. Plus, working against the clock means that sometimes an object they’ve labored on for hours shatters before they get into the cooling annealer.

Watch it: Blown Away

The Two Popes (2019)

While this year’s Conclave is getting lots of Oscar buzz, it’s worth checking out this unlikely buddy film from director Fernando Meirelles (The City of God) that imagines a private meeting between the rules-bound Pope Benedict XVI (Anthony Hopkins, 86) and the more liberal future Pope Francis (Jonathan Pryce, 77) about the future of the Catholic Church. Both actors earned Oscar nominations for their work on the drama, which combines serious theological and political discussions with moments of levity involving ABBA, soccer, and pizza.

Watch it: The Two Popes

Escape at Dannemora (2018, 1 season)

Ben Stiller, 58, whose twisty Apple TV+ series Severance returns for a second season in early 2025, directed all seven episodes of this fact-based miniseries about a woman (Patricia Arquette, 56) working in a federal prison in upstate New York who grows so fond of two convicted murderers (Benicio del Toro, 57 and Paul Dano) that she helps them escape. In real life, the sordid escapade ended badly for all three but this series delves into the nitty gritty in a way that’s completely absorbing but never lurid.

Watch it: Escape at Dannemora

Salt Fat Acid Heat (2018, 1 season)

Iranian American chef Samin Nosrat adapted her best-selling book into a four-part limited series about the four fundamental elements of good food. She travels to home kitchens in Italy to explore the fatty goodness of olive oil, pork, and cheese; then heads to Japan for a schooling in the briny flavors of miso and sea salt; lands in Yucatán for an education in the acids from salsas and citrus; and finally returns to California’s Chez Panisse (where she got her start professionally) for a re-education in how heat adds depth to any dish. Part travelogue, part cooking show, Nosrat will have you seeing (and tasting) food in a whole new way.

Watch it: Salt Fat Acid Heat

Wormwood (2017)

Frank Olson was a scientist for the U.S. government who died in 1953 under mysterious circumstances — a death that was first ruled an accident but then declared a suicide. (It later emerged that he had been covertly dosed with LSD by his CIA supervisor.) In this unique docuseries, filmmaker Errol Morris combines documentary-style interviews (with folks like Olson’s son) with dramatic re-enactments (featuring Peter Sarsgaard as Olson). The goal is to reopen an ice-cold case — and to question our ability to piece together anything close to the truth when so many parties still have an interest in keeping any investigation under wraps.

Watch it: Wormwood