New Movies on Netflix (2023)

Netflix has been adding so many new movies to its menu of offerings that it can be tough to keep up with all of their latest films. The following list includes 20 of the biggest movies the streaming service has released in the last few months.

Some we recommend more than others, but we’ve listed them all in order of release date, starting with the newest movies on Netflix. We’ll update this as Netflix continues to add new original films to the streaming service.

1. Luckiest Girl Alive

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Is Luckiest Girl Alive a dark satire? Is it a glorified Lifetime movie? Is it camp? Is it a mystery? Is its central message one of female empowerment? Could it have been the pilot for a WB series 20 years ago? The answer, I’m afraid, is all of the above. Based on the 2015 novel of the same name by Jessica Knoll, Luckiest Girl Alive follows Ani Fanelli (Mila Kunis), a writer at a glossy magazine called The Women’s Bible. She has a glamorous boss LoLo Vincent (Jennifer Beals) and dreams of being an editor for The New York Times Magazine. She’s also got a giant rock on her finger thanks to her swanky fiancé Luke Harrison (Finn Wittrock) who “played D1 lacrosse at Colgate, kite surfs on Nantucket and skis in Vail.” But nothing in Ani’s life is as it seems. She once was TifAni FaNelli (Chiara Aurelia plays the young Ani), a shy high-school student just trying to fit in among her rich classmates. You probably don’t need me to tell you that Ani is harboring a dark past. In 1999, when she was a high schooler, she experienced multiple horrific traumas. (I won’t talk about them here since I don’t want to give the entire plot of the movie away.) Her way of coping was to rebuild her life and bury her well-deserved rage. But 16 years later, a documentary filmmaker is making a movie about what happened all those years ago. Knoll adapted her own novel here, and the majority of the movie features Kunis’ bitter narration. We are supposed to think Ani’s harsh comments belie her inner pain—a defense mechanism. But mostly they just make her seem like an archvillain, a caricature more than a character. It’s a tough performance choice that often undermines any kind of nuance the movie is trying to achieve. —Amy Amatangelo

2. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone

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Written and directed by John Lee Hancock, a genre-agnostic filmmaker who helped get Sandra Bullock her embarrassing Oscar for The Blind Side before turning to other forgettable dramas, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone has several red flags on speed dial. There’s the near-constant voiceover, the first and perhaps most damning sign of a weak-willed adaptor. Craig (Jaeden Martell) just won’t shut up about his time reading novels to local billionaire Harrigan (Donald Sutherland), the deadly fallout that ensued and what that all meant to him, an impressionable youth with a new iPhone. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone doesn’t just dumb down story Stephen King’s story and hold our hand, as nearly every movie made from a book does, but excises King’s talents like a new manager jealously firing the old guard. It might’ve taken a little imagination to make it so Mr. Harrigan’s Phone didn’t involve us listening to an audiobook of Stephen King CliffNotes, or us watching Craig painstakingly recite the novella to a grave, but Hancock demonstrates an impressive lack throughout. His movie is artless and inert—the cinematic equivalent of a bricked iPhone. In King’s story, Craig laments that those at Harrigan’s funeral never knew his human side. His love of country music, his distaste for the blowhard Rush Limbaugh, his dedication to bowel-cleansing oatmeal cookies. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone sins in similar ways: It knows the surface of its source, but none of what matters. —Jacob Oller

3. Blonde

There are pieces of Marilyn Monroe everywhere: In tributes, parodies and homage; in bits of her movies, sliced into iconic clips rendering them instantly recognizable even to those who haven’t actually watched them; in mournful recollections of stars snuffed out too soon. “It’s like a jigsaw puzzle, but you’re not the one to put it together,” says the version of Marilyn played by Ana de Armas in Blonde. Not every puzzle piece or image in the Monroe kaleidoscope makes it into Andrew Dominik’s film, which is neither traditional rise-and-fall biopic nor playful I’m Not There-style biographical deconstruction. But this adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel (not biography) is fragmented and visually rich enough to convey what Dominik and Oates seem to be after: How the collective ownership an audience feels over its beloved icons has unseemly origins, and often destructive endings. We see glimpses of Monroe as a thoughtful, well-read young woman; a passionate actress; an optimistic survivor—and for all these reasons and more, people dismiss her, or attempt to take possession of her. After a harrowing childhood sequence ending with the institutionalization of her mother (Julianne Nicholson), Blonde jumps to the early 1950s, with de Armas playing the former Norma Jeane Baker, now a model and up-and-coming actress—which means being treated, in her words, as “meat.” De Armas’ eyes have a pleading desire, and the edge of her accent peeks through her imitation of Monroe’s voice—perfectly appropriate, even lovely, for a figure who has inspired so many broad impressions. This version of Marilyn regards her stage name as a creation separate from her genuine self, and is on a perpetual search for the love that will fill the dual void left by her abusive mother and father she’s never known. Increasingly, she finds that the adulation felt by millions for Marilyn Monroe doesn’t necessarily count for Norma Jeane. Blonde can be a tough sit, for the 166-minute monotony of its images of abuse and misery almost as much as the misery itself. At the same time, its explosion of visual ideas never quite wears out its welcome. Dominik has created his own dark-flipside version of the Norma Jeane/Marilyn bifurcation, perhaps almost too neatly: The movie is both a daring and empathetic deconstruction of Monroe iconography anchored by a beautiful performance from de Armas, as well as a miserabilist wallow in exploitation. Like its fictionalized subject, the lines between the two are sad, blurry and spellbinding.—Jesse Hassenger

4. Athena

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It’s been more than a decade since Romain Gavras filled his raw music video for “No Church in the Wild” with Molotovs, stolen police horses and dropkicked riot shields—visual motifs of protest heroics—and the only thing that’s changed is our familiarity with the aftermath. The rage behind these images still burns, but we know the cold comfort left behind when the embers are finally stomped out. Yet, the only thing to do is light the blaze again, which Gavras does in the riveting, vital Athena. A war epic between the people and the state, it sprints through a grassroots resistance movement like a brushfire: Blinding, dangerous, all-consuming. The warzone is Athena, a French housing project, where tragedy has assembled a community, grown from a family. Idir, 13 and the youngest of four brothers—Karim (Sami Slimane), Abdel (Dali Benssalah) and Moktar (Ouassini Embarek)—has been beaten to death by police. Someone recorded it on their phone. But we find this out in sprinkled bits of exposition, blown to confetti and wafting through the smoke-filled air. Our immediate attention is on Karim, leading a tracksuited pack of neighbors and like-minded young people, raiding a police station. The opening scene, the first of many incredible feats of planning, camerawork and drone operation, will make you vibrate through your seat. Gavras shoots long tracking shots like caffeine straight into your eyes: Painfully energizing. Athena’s opening is one of the year’s best, a piece of relentless, fist-pumping, jaw-clenching, goosebumping action that doesn’t stop until you’re fully radicalized. It’s then that you start peering through the style, seeing how it mirrors the personalities of its perspective characters. There’s a reason Athena feels like a heart attack in motion. There’s pain and panic. Your heart rate isn’t spiking just from the rush. But until we realize that, Karim and his crew star in a sweeping, large-scale epic—a modern 1917 where the horrifying euphoria of war has come home. Athena isn’t here for subtlety. It’s here to blow the drums out of your ears, the lids off your eyes, the lead from your shoes. With shots that start at “un-fucking-believable” and rocket towards “im-fucking-possible,” its grandiose vision aims to define an international symbol of modernity: Protest As War. Benssalah and Slimane, more political gradients than people, guide us along the mythmaking until we’ve fully grasped the absurdity of Athena being both the God of wisdom and war. But, as Frank Ocean sings in “No Church in the Wild,” what’s a God to a nonbeliever? Athena burns bright and fast, searing its unforgettable battle cry into the screen over just 99 minutes. Its idealistic action will stay with you for far longer.—Jacob Oller

5. Lou

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Allison Janney gets her Liam Neeson on in this Netflix original thriller about a little girl who’s taken. The Oscar-winning actress stars as the titular Lou, a woman with a complicated past living alone in the woods when her tenant Hannah, played by Jurnee Smollett, reports that her daughter Vee has been kidnapped by the girl’s criminal father.

6. A Jazzman’s Blues

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Tyler Perry wrote, produced and directed this historical drama about murder and forbidden love in the Deep South. Perry wrote the screenplay 27 years ago and has finally been able to bring the story of a jazzman and his juke-joint roots to the small screen as part of his broader deal with Netflix.

7. Do Revenge

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Do Revenge stars Camila Mendes as it-girl Drea, outcast from her peers after a private video is leaked to the entire school by her faux-feminist ex-boyfriend. Enter Maya Hawke’s Eleanor, a newcomer at their prestigious private school, who was made a social pariah by a girl who claimed she tried to hold her down and kiss her, turning her into a walking predatory lesbian stereotype. The two hatch a plan to take down those that hurt them and, as the title might suggest, do each other’s revenge. This film, most importantly, is a pastel-painted, glittery good time. The dialogue and comedy are anything but dry (unlike Hawke’s unfortunate wig) and harken back to classic ’90s films like Clueless, but with a Gen Z edge. Following in the footsteps of Bodies Bodies Bodies or Crush, Do Revenge lampoons Gen Z’s unique Internet-age experience, while still remaining sincere enough to not feel like a complete parody. With stunning fashion, a lizard hilariously named “Oscar Winner Olivia Coleman” and a swoon-worthy cameo from one of the pillars of the ’90s teen scene, Do Revenge’s most absurd elements are the funniest, and its sardonic humor lends itself to its twisted irony—all underscored by its killer soundtrack. This film has been billed as Hitchcockian, and it delivers on the implied twists and turns, even if some are a tad predictable. Revenge might be a dish best served cold, but Do Revenge revels in the fiery heat of teenage girlhood, ultimately delivering an angry, messy and cathartic good time. —Anna Govert

8. End of the Road

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Queen Latifah stars as Brenda, a woman who witnesses a gruesome murder at a motel during a road trip and tries to protect her family from the consequences, in this brand new Netflix thriller. Directed by Millicent Shelton (30 Rock, Insecure), the cast also includes Ludacris as Brenda’s brother Reggie and Beau Bridges as the detective investigating the murder.

9. Love in the Villa

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Two single, attractive strangers get double-booked in a villa in Verona, but they don’t end up together in this Netflix romantic comedy starring actor/singer Kat Graham and The Umbrella Academy’s Tom Hopper. Just kidding. We haven’t watched this one, but they totally end up together, don’t they.

10. I Came By

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This British thriller follows a graffiti artist, whose habit of tagging homes of the wealthy and powerful puts him in danger when he stumbles across a secret.

11. Me Time

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Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg star in this buddy comedy about a stay-at-home dad who joins his best friend on a weekend away while his family is out of town. The A-list cast, which also includes Regina Hall and Jimmy O. Yang, didn’t sway critics or fans, as the film currently sits at 8% positive on Rotten Tomatoes with a paltry 30% audience score.

12. Carter

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Carter is the proverbial nonstop action thrill ride that every blockbuster claims to be. When Scorsese compared Marvel favorably to theme-park attractions, this is the experience he should have been talking about. Directed by Jung Byung-gil, this action movie stars Joo Won as Carter, a mysterious amnesiac that, depending on who you believe, works for either the CIA or the DPRK military. The main technical gimmicks are the utilization of drones for an artificially endless one-shot and a running clock like High Noon. My first thought when I saw the trailer was of Hardcore Henry, a first-person sci-fi action film also about an amnesiac. Carter is a bit more grounded, despite a zombie-adjacent infection arising out of Korea’s demilitarized zone, spurring the plot as he must rescue and transport a research scientist’s daughter whose blood contains a natural resistance to the infection. Carter is one of the most fun movies of 2022. It’s also easily the most violent and visceral, on par at least with The Northman, but at a higher rate of corpses-per-minute. Carter hacks through a bathhouse mob of Yakuza with their own bladed weapons. Carter creates comedic beats solely through the occasional absurdity and suddenness of its frequently brutal violence. The revelation of deep covers and double-crosses could almost be out of a Bourne film with less exposition; Netflix should push this harder than The Gray Man. Carter may not unify the peninsula, but if you want to be entertained, I’ve sure got the film for you. —Kevin Fox, Jr.

13. Purple Hearts

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This Netflix original romantic drama could only happen in America. A marriage of convenience is the only path forward for struggling musician Cassie (Sofia Carson) when she finds out she’s got diabetes and no health care. She doesn’t like military men, but (Nicholas Galitzine) is in the marines, and that means he comes with healthcare. He also comes with a large debt to a drug dealer. Their meet-not-so-cute gets further complicated when he’s wounded in Iraq and their planned one-year-apart marriage becomes something more intimate as they must fool Luke’s family as well as the government.

14. The Gray Man

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Longtime Marvel directors Anthony and Joe Russo have a track record more established by marketing than technical achievement, and the muddy mediocrity associated with CG-filled frames carries over to The Gray Man. None of the new film’s still-Bourne thrills are executed with the precise elegance of John Wick, the winking doggery of James Bond or the joyful craftsmanship of Mission: Impossible. Rather, its chaotic Grand Theft Auto filmmaking skates by with the sloppy sufficiency of its own protagonist. Loosely based on the Mark Greaney novel (and similarly hoping to kick off a franchise), The Gray Man proves that the Russo brothers don’t need superpowers to turn massive budgets into mush. CIA operative Sierra Six (Ryan Gosling) goes rogue after learning Too Much. His ex-bosses sic murderous nutcase military contractor Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans) on him. There’s an important USB drive that could bring down the baddies if leaked to the press (a brightly naïve notion in 2022), an assortment of background characters and none of the book’s oil-based geopolitics, capitalist critique or moral ambiguity. Six might kill people in The Gray Man as easily and sleepily as you might fix your morning coffee, but he’s a soft-hearted goody two-shoes who’s the Hollywood ideal of a killer you can root for. Yes, the Russos have found themselves the perfect protagonist: An inhumanly numb scab of a man who only speaks snark. Gosling is good at a dry gag, physical or verbal, and is the best part of a film that doesn’t seem to know how lucky it is to have him.The Russos messy filmmaking and messier politics collude to create a factory-issue assassin with a heart, adorned with none of the genre specialties that make his peers stand out. He’s not unwatchable, nor will he be the next big hit. He’s just enough to sustain two hours; just enough to keep the Russos going, their bland blockbusters all the more obvious when stripped of spandex. He’s not much more. Just Gray. —Jacob Oller

15. Persuasion

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When the first trailer for Netflix’s new adaptation of Persuasion dropped, many Jane Austen fans were naturally skeptical. Nervous even. Because while the clip boasted a charmingly colorful aesthetic and slick Fleabag-style narration, it was jarringly and distinctly at odds with the original novel’s tone. It pains me to confirm that many of our initial concerns were not only valid—they probably did not go far enough. Because this Persuasion will likely be nigh-on unrecognizable to those who love the original novel, simply because it refuses to wrestle with the book’s most important themes of loss, regret and recovery. Instead, we get a story that feels like Jane Austen cosplay. It’s clear where the impetus for this adaptation came from. With its colorblind casting, modern slang and colorful aesthetics, it’s attempting to do Austen in a more Bridgerton style, but the problem appears to be that in the rush to find another Regency romance to adapt, no one bothered to explore whether the movie they were making was the same story that the book it purports to be based on was telling. A more serious and less confident figure than Emma Woodhouse or Lizzie Bennett, Anne is probably the least aggressively witty of Austen’s heroines, yet Netflix has chosen to reimagine her as a stereotypical adorkable girl, a quirky outsider who smirks and snarks and engages in deliberately performative gestures like constantly turning to the audience to roll her eyes or drop sly observational asides about those around her and society at large. This Anne is many things: Acerbic, impatient and awkward. Honestly, she’s fun, and somebody I think most of us would probably enjoy hanging out with. The problem is that whatever character Dakota Johnson is playing is not Jane Austen’s Anne Elliott. To be fair, if you sat down to watch this movie with no idea of what it was based on or what kind of story it was supposed to be, it’s honestly kind of fun—a glibly snarky Regency comedy bursting with attractive people judging one another and breaking the fourth wall to drop sly asides to the camera. If you have no particular emotional attachment to or preexisting ideas about these characters, Persuasion is a fairly serviceable period romantic comedy about a pair of exes with great chemistry pining for one another amid their cadre of snarky, ridiculous friends. —Lacy Baugher Milas

16. The Sea Beast

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When cartographers allowed their senses of imagination and self-preservation to fill the unexplored regions of their maps, they used to warn of creatures like lions, elephants and walruses. Creatures beyond understanding, with teeth and trunks and tusks easy to caricature into danger. But we mostly remember that when you sail to the faded edge of knowledge, there be dragons. The Sea Beast deftly hones this ancient human fear into a sharpened spear tip, striking at ignorance. Its swashbuckling adventure navigates a sea filled with massive critters sure to whet kids’ appetites for piracy, Godzilla films and exciting animation. The first movie from longtime Disney story staple Chris Williams after leaving the House of Mouse for Netflix, The Sea Beast is, to paraphrase Jared Harris’ Ahab-like Captain Crow, all piss and vinegar. That the film even alludes to the phrase, and drops a few other lightly-salted lines you might expect from some seasoned sea dogs, is indicative of its separation from the sanitized juggernaut. It looks violence in the eye; it isn’t afraid to make its threats real. All rightfully so. Telling a tall tale of hunters—mercenary crews funded by a colonialist crown to take out the kaijus populating the ocean—wouldn’t be right without at least a little edge. Our way into the world, the young Maisie (Zaris-Angel Hator), has experienced its dangerous realities firsthand: Her parents went down with a ship, leaving her as one of dozens of hunter orphans. But that hasn’t stopped her from lionizing her martyred family (something explicitly encouraged by the monarchy) and seeking her own glory. Stowing away on Crow’s ship, the Inevitable, she and the capable Jacob (Karl Urban) find themselves confronting the legendary ambitions they’ve built up in their own heads. Williams and co-writer Nell Benjamin immediately drop us into the Inevitable’s quest to take out Crow’s toothy and horned Red Whale, dubbed the Red Bluster, with total confidence that there’s no time like maritime. As our eyes roll and pitch across the impressively realistic waves and our ears try to follow the meticulously detailed helmsmanship, the hunting scenes ensnare us like the catch of the day. We understand the hierarchy of the diverse crew, the honor code among hunters, the tactics needed to take down imposing creatures that look like Toho turned their greatest hits into Pokémon. It’s savvy and respectful writing, put into legible action by Williams’ skilled hand, that trusts in its setting and subject matter to be inherently cool, and in its audience to greedily follow along. By the time the lances are flying, the cannons are firing and the creatures are dying—or are they?—you’re as deeply hooked as any dad watching Master and Commander. A delightful new-school deconstruction of old-school Romantic adventure that never compromises on the lushness of setting, color and emotion inherent in the latter, The Sea Beast rises to the front of Netflix’s animated offerings like a high tide.—Jacob Oller

17. Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between

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Sparks instantly fly when Clare (Talia Ryder) and Aidan (Jordan Fisher) meet at a rowdy high-school party. They share somber secrets, recreate childhood bliss on a playground swing set and even have a magical first kiss. There’s one problem, though. They are about to head to college, and Clare wants to have a true hot girl freshman fall. So they do what any normal couple would do: Form a breakup pact for the day before they depart for college. What could possibly go wrong? The bulk of Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between, Michael Lewen’s directorial debut based on Jennifer E. Smith’s young adult novel of the same name, takes place on the night of Clare and Aidan’s final date. Over the course of the evening, Aidan plots for them to relive all of their special moments: Their meet-cute, the time Clare catapulted off the back of a boat, the prom that they missed—the list goes on. Clare is confident that the break will be more-or-less clean; she loves Aidan, but her parents were high-school sweethearts and, as she reminds us around 30 times over the course of the film, their relationship didn’t work out. Aidan, on the other hand, secretly believes that his carefully crafted night-long trip down memory lane will convince Clare to do long distance. Again, what could possibly go wrong The next 70 minutes or so compose an over-produced, over-lit film with big, immaculate setpieces and even bigger melodramatic fights. Sadly, the screenplay, written by Ben York Jones and Amy Reed, is similarly overdone. While Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between boasts a solid premise (Who doesn’t want to see two charismatic teens embark on a breakup date?) there is no way in hell anyone could sit down and not predict how the thing is going to play out. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention just how sweet Hello, Goodbye really is. Ryder and Fisher have true chemistry, and it’s hard not to root for their relationship. And while the script is so cheesy that the lactose intolerant should stay far away, it does include some poignant messages—such as, for the right person, you don’t have to lose yourself. Ironically, the film could’ve taken that message and tried a little less hard to be like every other rom-com in existence. —Aurora Amidon

18. The Man From Toronto

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Director Patrick Hughes (The Hitman’s Bodyguard) returns for another action-oriented comedy with The Man from Toronto, similarly featuring an unlikely (if endearing) central duo that’s tasked with defeating a nefarious criminal force. While the Netflix Original film manages to sneak in a few genuinely funny moments, it’s not nearly as action-packed, suspenseful or humorous as it aims to be. For a film that’s largely about a fearsome globe-trotting assassin, it lacks guts. It flinches from the violence that defines its title character, then fails to make up for this underwhelming lack of tension with compelling action sequences or pyrotechnic flair. It’s also guilty of leaning on tired tropes, particularly when it comes to reductive depictions of women. In an attempt to orchestrate an elaborate birthday getaway for his wife Lori (Jasmine Mathews), struggling fitness entrepreneur Teddy (Kevin Hart) drops her off at a day spa in Onacock, Virginia while he gets a nearby cabin rental ready for their weekend stay. However, the confirmation email he physically printed out (in 2022…) is smudged. As it turns out, the goon who answered the door mistook Teddy’s identity. In reality, he was expecting The Man from Toronto (Woody Harrelson), an assassin notorious for his brutal torture methods that always get political captives to spill their confidential intel. As a breezy, popcorn-compatible streaming selection, The Man from Toronto delivers a tried-and-true buddy comedy formula that is far from revelatory, but reduces the unlikely duo trope to its most likable qualities—a feat that’s only pulled off due to the competence of its leads. —Natalia Keogan

19. Blasted

From Norwegian director Martin Sofiedal and writer Emanuel Nordrum, Netflix’s Blasted is the first feature film to tackle a decades-old Norwegian curiosity. In the remote valley of Hessdalen, reports of glowing orbs floating in the sky have been documented since the early ’80s. Several scientific theories have circulated since, none of which are taken very seriously by the film. As these hypotheses involve heady terminology concerning ionization, radon decay and piezoelectricity, the film’s substitution of scientific study for slapstick comedy is far from an egregious narrative choice. Where Blasted does falter, however, is in its overlong runtime, burdened by a subplot involving a Fargo-esque pregnant police officer that detracts from the already flimsy central friendship dynamic. However, what’s most perplexing about the film is the general lack of evidence concerning its own existence. Silently dumped onto Netflix and non-existent as an entry on Letterboxd, Blasted is a perfectly fine sci-fi comedy destined to fade into obscurity. —Natalia Keogan

20. Spiderhead

Netflix Release Date: June 17, 2022
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Starring: Miles Teller, Chris Hemsworth, Jurnee Smollett, Mark Paguio, Tess Haubrich
Rating: R
Runtime: 107 minutes

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Paste’s Steven Petite called George Saunders “a master of creating worlds that are close enough to mirroring our own to be deemed realistic while not familiar enough to entirely resemble the world we live in” and “perhaps the greatest living English language short story writer, whose bizarre brand of humor is both dark and refreshing.” Netflix’s Spiderhead, adapted from Saunders’s 2010 short story “Escape from Spiderhead,” is darker than it is funny (or fun), but it is refreshing to watch Chris Hemsworth drop his superhero persona to play a mad genius running an unorthodox prison where the inmates have volunteered as lab rats in exchange for good meals and personal space. Directed by Tron: Legacy’s Joseph Kosinski, the film imagines a future where changing someone’s mood and perception is as easy as an iPhone app and oversight of our private prisons is—well, even less than it is today. Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollett star as inmates who begin to question whether life back in gen pop was actually better. —Josh Jackson