9 New Movies You Can Watch on Netflix This Weekend
Including a couple of Oscar contenders, a new animated family flick, and lots of old favorites.
Chances are that if you had big plans for ringing in 2022, they may have changed slightly in the last couple of weeks. So if thoughts of donning your best party wear and packing into a crowded room have transformed into thoughts of pajamas, takeout, and streaming services, then this is the list you need. Netflix has just debuted a new batch of movies that will make you forget that you were supposed to be out and about this New Year's Eve. Read on to find out what's recently arrived, from old favorites to some of this year's Oscar hopefuls.
1
The Lost Daughter
Actor Maggie Gyllenhaal makes her directorial debut with The Lost Daughter, adapted from the novel by Elena Ferrante. Olivia Colman stars as Leda, a woman who becomes obsessed with a younger woman (Dakota Johnson) and her daughter during a beach vacation. The source of her fixation lies in Leda's past, with Jessie Buckley playing the flashback version of her.
RELATED: This Netflix Star Complains He's Being "Objectified" After Breakout Role.
2
Big Fish
Tim Burton's colorful exploration of the place where fantasy and reality intersect revolves around the relationship between a father who tells tall tales and the son who wants to know what's true before his father dies. Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, and Alison Lohman star—not to mention one very memorable field of daffodils.
3
Girl, Interrupted
Girl, Interrupted—and the memoir it's based on—goes behind the doors of a psychiatric facility for women in the '60s. Winona Ryder leads the cast as 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen (also the author's name), who ends up committed after a troubling event, but it was Angelina Jolie who won an Oscar for her performance as the charismatic sociopath who befriends her.
4
Paranormal Activity
Made for less than $250,000, 2007's Paranormal Activity became a huge box office hit and launched what's currently an eight-movie franchise. Part of the found-footage horror genre, the original movie centers on a couple who are being haunted and terrorized by a demonic force that has a history with one of them.
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5
Interview With a Vampire
Based on the 1976 novel by literary vampire queen Anne Rice, An Interview With the Vampire stars Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt as undead companions Lestat and Louis and features a 12-year-old Kirsten Dunst in her breakout role as a child they turn. The book and the movie get their title from the story's framing device—Louis chronicles his hundreds of years of life to a reporter in present-day San Francisco.
6
Gremlins
You know the rules of owning an adorable mogwai: 1) Don't expose it to light, 2) don't get it wet, and 3) for heaven's sake, don't feed it after midnight! If you do, you'll get a destructive, mischievous, and far less cute creature. The 1984 horror comedy Gremlins introduced this touchy pet to pop culture and led to a less well-received but more kid-friendly sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch.
7
Taxi Driver
In this ultra-violent Martin Scorsese classic, Robert De Niro stars as Travis Bickle, a New York City cabbie becoming increasingly disillusioned and delusional. Struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder from the Vietnam War, he fixates first on a campaign volunteer played by Cybill Shepherd and then a child sex worker played by a young Jodie Foster, with bloody results.
8
Seal Team
In this situation, "seal team" is not a military but a literal term. A Netflix original animated movie, Seal Team tells the story of a group of semiaquatic mammals who decide to fight back against the deadly sharks who have them living in fear. It features the voices of J.K. Simmons, Kristen Schaal, Dolph Lundgren, Matthew Rhys, and—as one would hope—Seal.
9
Don't Look Up
From the writer/director of The Big Short and Vice comes Don't Look Up, a divisive satire about climate change that's already started quite the battle online. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence play two scientists who attempt, in vain, to get humanity to care about a life-destroying comet currently hurtling toward Earth, sending up how politicized the climate issue is in our world. And Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, Timothée Chalamet, Tyler Perry, and Ariana Grande are also on hand in the Oscar contender.
