The 10 Best Movies On Netflix, According To Rotten Tomatoes

Forbes

29-03-2025

Antonio Banderas stars as Félix Rivero and Penélope Cruz stars as Lola Cuevas in the 2022 satire ... More 'Official Competition'.
As movies rotate in and out of the Netflix library, new critical darlings become part of the world's most popular streaming library, offering new film that have achieved the greatest of heights on Rotten Tomoatoes' scoring system. Many movies achieve a 'fresh' rating by winning over at least 60% of the critics, but very few reach that seemingly unreachable plateau of 96%—a signifier that your movie has become 'the best of the best.' So I decided to comb through this select group that has achieved this status and highlight ten that you cannot miss. This list includes movies you've likely never heard of, as well as undeniable hits that have captivated audiences worldwide. Either way you shake it, there's a decent chance you haven't seen some, if not most, of these critically adored gems. And it's time to fix that.
So here we are: ten of the most critically acclaimed movies on Netflix, according to Rotten Tomatoes. This list serves as a companion to a previous list I constructed, which features several movies that are no longer available on the streaming service (there is no crossover between these lists, by the way). There are even more movies to choose from that have gone beyond the 96th percentile—but for now, these ten will do. These are the movies that, according to the critics, you cannot go wrong with.
69 reviews — 100% approval rating
I would say few movies are guaranteed to touch your heart so much you're guaranteed to cry—but Daughters is definitely part of that list. This poignant, intensely intimate documentary from directors Natalie Rae and Angela Patton follows four young girls—Aubrey, Santana, Raziah and Ja'Ana—as they prepare for a special daddy-daughter dance with their jailed fathers. While many prison documentaries concentrate on the incarcerated, Daughters shifts the spotlight to the children waiting on the outside, giving voice to an often overlooked group that experiences a sort of pain and hardship that can't be understood until it's felt, that irrevocably harms those too young to handle it. Meanwhile, the men featured in Daughters aren't reduced to their crimes or sentences, but are shown as fathers who have made mistakes yet still yearn to be present in their family's lives. Rather than focus on policy or statistics, Daughters tells its story through the most human of moments, offering a rare, unfiltered look at how incarceration fractures—but doesn't erase—the love and connection shared between parent and child.
137 reviews — 96% approval rating
Kneecap is unlike any biopic you've seen before. Chronicling the formation and rise of the Irish-language hip-hop group of the same name, this meta drama from director Rich Peppiatt stars the very members of Kneecap, and is told with the same anarchic spirit that defines their music and activism. Set in the late 2010s in West Belfast's Gaeltacht Quarter, the film follows teenagers Liam Óg Ó Hannaidh and Naoise Ó Cairealláin, who, under the tutelage of their former IRA member father, Arlo (played by none other than Michael Fassbender), embrace the Irish language as an act of rebellion. Together with their music teacher JJ Ó Dochartaigh, they form the rap group Kneecap, using their music to challenge societal norms and advocate for the preservation of their native tongue. It's beautiful how the band weaponizes the Irish language, turning every verse, every confrontation, every shout into a declaration of autonomy and pride. To boot, Fassbender gives weight to the film as he chews up his role as an aging revolutionary who provides a crucial experienced perspective.
136 reviews — 98% approval rating
This list wouldn't be complete without the Best Picture-winning Schindler's List, one of the most critically revered movies ever. Set during the Holocaust, Steven Spielberg's most celebrated film tells the true story of Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), a wealthy, politically connected German industrialist who initially seeks to profit from World War II by employing Jewish workers in his factory. But after he witnesses the brutal treatment and mass murder of Jews under Nazi rule, particularly by lieutenant Amon Göth (Ralph Fiennes), Schindler begins to use his resources and influence to shield his workers from deportation and death. In the end, he saves lives of over one thousand people. For all of its darkness, Schindler's List is filled with quiet, devastating moments of resistance and love—families huddled together, a worker forging a document to save a friend, a group of women singing in the barracks. These glimpses of humanity are not treated as sentimental by Spielberg, who himself is Jewish, but as defiant acts of presence in a world built to erase them.
146 reviews — 97% approval rating
Debut features are rarely as vivid, as incisive, as affecting as How to Have Sex, Molly Manning Walker's amazing first film (she both directs and writes). The film starts at a Mediterranean party resort, where British teenager Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce) joins her two best friends for a summer holiday of drinking, dancing and chasing the freedom that comes with youth (a la Spring Breakers). But as the nights grow longer and the experiences grow more intense, Tara finds herself navigating uncomfortable and confusing moments that blur the lines between choice and consent, between reality and expectation. What begins as a celebration of liberation gradually reveals the hidden pressures and vulnerabilities young women often face. A key strength of How to Have Sex is that it feels gloriously stripped of plot. There is no dramatic villain, no grand moral reckoning, no overwhelming nadir moment—instead, Walker focuses on sensation and reaction as Tara navigates unfamiliar experiences, trying to parse not only what she's feeling, but whether or not she's allowed to feel it.
159 reviews — 100% approval rating
Documentaries rarely achieve the transcendence, the catharsis offered by narrative films, which can take their characters on untold, fantastical journies. But Man on Wire—according to the critics, anyway—stands as a rare documentary that achieves something special. Directed by James Marsh, this incredible creation tells the very true tale of French tightrope walker Philippe Petit's audacious 1974 high-wire walk between the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Center. The film combines rare archival footage, reenactments and interviews to depict how Petit and his team meticulously planned and executed what was deemed "the artistic crime of the century." When the film finally reaches Petit's walk across the sky, it becomes something close to spiritual. There is no footage of the actual walk, only still photographs—but they are enough. Combined with haunting music and voiceover, the sequence feels suspended in time, like the walk itself.
149 reviews — 98% approval rating
Bizarrely, one of the most critically revered films in years has largely gone unnoticed, despite the immense star power of its three leads. This often tragic chamber drama follows three estranged sisters—Katie (Carrie Coon), Rachel (Natasha Lyonne),and Christina (Elizabeth Olsen)—who join their dying father in his New York City apartment as he enters his final days of hospice care. Forced into closed quarters, the siblings must confront and work through unresolved grievances that had been building for years. The dynamic between these three incredible actresses is electric and layered, less about what's said and more about what's withheld, what's misinterpreted, what's long overdue. Azazel Jacobs directs with necessary restraint, letting the film unfold in long, unbroken takes that capture the discomfort of close quarters and emotional unease. The dying process becomes a backdrop to the more immediate, more complex task of confronting who these women have become and what they owe not just to their patriarch, but to each other and to themselves.
104 reviews — 96% approval rating
I remember when RRR first came out. As someone whose movie taste tends to greatly contrast the norm, I felt there was no way this action epic could possibly live up to expectations—but boy was I wrong. The story is set in 1920s colonial India, where two men on seemingly opposite paths—one a fierce protector from a tribal village (Komaram Bheem, played by N.T. Rama Rao Jr.), the other a loyal officer serving the British Empire (Alluri Sitarama Raju, played by Ram Charan)—form a powerful bond without knowing each other's true identities, all while revolution brews. When a young girl is abducted by colonial authorities, a rescue mission sets off a chain of epic confrontations, daring escapes and emotional reckonings as they drift apart and become enemies, only to come back together to fight for the common good. To our collective pleasure, S.S. Rajamouli directs with an absolutely unrestrained imagination: fight scenes defy gravity, characters crash through walls and metaphors alike and even the smallest moments are delivered with mythic weight. What a film.
175 reviews — 96% approval rating
Emma Seligman really made her mark in 2023 after directing Bottoms, a high school absurdist comedy that's destined to become a cult classic. But shades of that hilarious, inventive movie could be found in her debut feature that, in my opinion, is just as good: Shiva Baby. The movie centers on a college student named Danielle (Rachel Sennott) who reluctantly attends her family's shiva. But things become tense when her sugar daddy unexpectedly shows up—accompanied by his wife and child—as well as her ex-girlfriend, all while Danielle deals with the typical judgement and probing questions from her relatives. Yikes. Needless to say, she scrambles to maintain composure while her carefully compartmentalized life threatens to unravel. Sennott, one of the most exciting young actors in Hollywood, delivers a breakthrough performance, playing Danielle with a signature blend of dry wit, wounded pride and inner chaos. She moves through the shiva with a forced smile and an increasingly desperate internal monologue—unsure who she wants to be, but acutely aware of who everyone else thinks she should be.
158 reviews — 96% approval rating
It's crazy that this movie with insanely high ratings from critics—one that stars a one-two punch of Penélope Cruz and Antonio Banderas, no less—isn't one of the most-watched movies on Netflix. But maybe we can change that. The story of Official Competition revolves around a billionaire who, in an effort to cement his legacy, decides to finance a film. Thus, he hires a celebrated auteur, Lola Cuevas (Cruz), known for her exacting methods, along with two acclaimed actors, Félix (Banderas) and Iván (Oscar Martínez), whose styles could not be more different: one is a globally respected, method-obsessed performer who lives for the art, while the other is a charming mainstream star with little patience for pretension. As rehearsals unfold under the director's bizarre, often humiliating techniques, the actors clash over their wildly opposing philosophies, each trying to outdo the other while navigating the absurdity of the creative process. The result is a hilarious satire from directors Gastón Duprat and Mariano Cohn that never laughs at art, but laughs at the performance of making art.
439 reviews — 97% approval rating
I tried my best to fill this list with lesser-known movies. But it feels wrong to exclude what might very well be—especially when we take into account how many reviews this movie received—the best-reviewed movie of the 21st century: Mad Max: Fury Road. In a scorched desert wasteland ruled by the tyrannical warlord Immortal Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), a lone drifter we've come to know as 'Mad Max' (played by Tom Hardy in this update of the Mel Gibson's classic story) becomes entangled in a high-speed rebellion led by a fierce warrior named Furiosa (Charlize Theron), who is fleeing with the warlord's enslaved brides. Trapped in a relentless chase across hostile terrain, Max and Furiosa battle their ruthless pursuers, led by War Boy Nux (Nicholas Hoult), as they fight for freedom. A feminist tale of reclamation within an apocalypse (you can see the obvious parallels to our own world), Fury Road subverts genre tropes by making the central plot not about conquering or escaping, but about liberating. Theron's performance as the one-armed warrior Furiosa is one for the ages—stoic, searing and unbearably emotional beneath the surface.