‘How it Ends’: The best Netflix Originals movies you might have missed
Netflix has been spending upwards of $8 billion on content annually, meaning the streaming giant has been releasing a lot of movies. Zombies, spies, murders, cults, terrorist attacks, and post-apocalyptic settings aplenty – all in all, it’s been a pretty dark couple of years. So we’ve rounded up the very best Netflix Originals movies you probably missed.
Mute
Duncan Jones is back with a noir sci-fi he’s been trying to make ever since he put out Moon. Starring Alexander Skarsgård (True Blood), Justin Theroux (American Psycho), and Paul Rudd (Ant-Man), Mute is set in the seedy underbelly of Berlin, and the stills look very Blade Runner-esque. What’s not to love?
Come Sunday
Chiwetel Ejiofor (12 Years a Slave) plays the lead in this true-story drama about evangelist Carlton Pearson, who is ostracized by his church for preaching that there is no hell. Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival this week, critics argue this is director Joshua Marston’s most powerful work since his stunning feature debut Maria Full of Grace. Praise be!
Hold the Dark
Hold the Dark is a crime-thriller based on William Giraldi’s novel of the same name, following writer Russell Core (Jeffrey Wright) who is hired by the parents of a missing six-year-old boy to track down and locate their son in the vastness of the Alaskan wilderness. Expect death, crime, wolves, and a lot of freakin’ snow.
Cargo
Netflix bagged this post-apocalyptic zombie-thriller in a multi-million dollar deal. The flick, Ben Howling & Yolanda Ramke’s collaborative debut, is based on their viral short film which follows a father trying to save his child in the wake of a violent pandemic. Oh yeah, and the producers of The Babadook are getting involved. Basically, expect all the scares.
‘The Angel’ is the true story of Ashraf Marwan, special advisor to Anwar Sadat and one of Israeli Intelligence’s most precious assets of the 20th century.
The Angel
Based on Uri Bar-Joseph’s bestselling novel The Angel: The Egyptian Spy Who Saved Israel, this spy-thriller from director Ariel Vromen (The Iceman) tells the true story of Ashraf Marwan, a high-ranking Egyptian official who became perhaps the most famous spy in the Middle East.
How it Ends
Theo James (Underworld Awakening) becomes a contender for on-screen father of the year in David M. Rosenthal’s How It Ends, portraying a man who will stop at nothing to get home to his pregnant wife on the other side of the country, in the midst of a mysterious apocalyptic event. An unbelievable example of how to bag serious brownie points.
Private Life
Paul Giamatti and Kathryn Hahn show human struggles in Private LifeIt’s no easy task turning infertility into a comedy, but director Tamara Jenkins does a pretty good job of it in her first film since acclaimed Sundance hit The Savages.
Telling the story of a couple, played by Paul Giamatti (American Splendor) and Kathryn Hahn (I Love Dick), struggling to conceive, critics have described it as both “touching and bittersweet” (Variety).
Apostle
Apostle is the vengeance movie with a cult twistWe won’t be seeing the follow up to The Raid 2 anytime soon, but director Gareth Evans is not dossing about. In his new period thriller, Thomas Richardson (Dan Stevens) travels to a remote island to take on the murderous religious sect that kidnapped his sister (Lucy Boynton).
However, it soon becomes clear that the cult will regret the day it baited this man. Revenge is a dish best served with a serious dose of badass.
The Other Side of the Wind
Orson Welles’ unfinished masterpiece finally sees the light of dayArguably one of the most anticipated films of 2018, pioneer and restless innovator of film Orson Welles’ unfinished masterpiece The Other Side of the Wind is being restored and completed by Netflix.
Welles started to shoot the Hollywood satire — which is populated with an Oscar-winning cast — in 1970 but died before it could be finished, leaving behind 1,080 reels of footage for the streaming giant to string together. Trust Welles to be wowing even beyond the grave.
The Highwaymen
In the newest offering from John Lee Hancock (Saving Mr. Banks), Bonnie and Clyde meet their match in the shape of Kevin Costner (Dances with Wolves) and Woody Harrelson (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), playing two Texas Rangers who help to put an end to the robbery spree of the infamous criminal couple. “They can’t stop us”? Think again!
’22 July’ looks at Norway’s worst terrorist attack, the survivors, Norway’s political system, and the lawyers who worked on this horrific case.
22 July
This film (previously possessing the notably SEO-unfriendly title Norway) directed by Paul Greengrass (the Bourne series) is a real-life drama about the 2011 Norwegian terrorist who murdered 77 people in the country’s deadliest attack since WW2. Although the film details the horrific violence inflicted by right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, it will also show how Norway united as a nation following the attack.
Outlaw King
David Mackenzie’s back to put Braveheart in the shade with this historical action-drama that digs into the story of Robert the Bruce and the Wars of Scottish Independence. If you love gore, then this will be right up your alley, with the film set to feature some of the bloodiest battle scenes in the history of cinema.
Expect to see horses being sliced in half, soldiers drowning in bogs, and dogs feasting upon rotting corpses. Gulp.
Bird Box
Written by Eric Heisserer (Arrival) and starring Sandra Bullock (Gravity) in the lead, this thriller follows a woman and a pair of children who are blindfolded and forced to walk through a post-apocalyptic setting along a river. Sounds lovely, despite all the end of the world doom and gloom, doesn’t it? This’ll definitely be one for anyone who likes to avoid the Christmas spirit.
