This weekend marks the start of a new year and a new month, which means Netflix‘s streaming library has been freshly shaken up once again. New movies have arrived on the streamer in January, including a 2019 crowdpleaser that has not lost an ounce of its charm and a 2016 thriller that still cuts like a jagged knife. One of the month’s quieter Netflix additions, meanwhile, happens to be a wildly underrated effort from an inimitable filmmaker.
Here are the three best movies you can watch on Netflix this weekend.
“Ford v. Ferrari” (2019)
“Ford v Ferrari” is just about as rip-roaring and endearing as a movie gets. “Logan” director James Mangold’s open-hearted, straightforward drama about the 1966 Le Mans race and, specifically, the rivalry between its Italian Ferrari drivers and its American-based Ford racers, is anchored by two immensely likable, charming star performances from Matt Damon as Caroll Shelby and Christian Bale as Ken Miles.
Together, Bale and Damon fuel “Ford v Ferrari” with enough megawatt star power to keep it cruising smoothly along at all times. It may not be as technically impressive as last year’s “F1,” but it creates more of an emotional foothold in your heart — one strong enough to give its bittersweet climax the misty-eyed weight it deserves.
“Green Room” (2016)
One of the best feel-bad thrillers of the last decade, “Green Room” is a punk-rock nail-biter from “Rebel Ridge” writer-director Jeremy Saulnier. A suffocating, contained piece of genre filmmaking, Saulnier’s 2016 gem follows the members of a barely-getting-by hardcore group who find themselves taken hostage and laid siege by a group of neo-Nazi skinheads after they accidentally witness a murder at the posse’s remote club.
Overflowing with queasy, nightmarish violence, “Green Room” packs in enough vividly realized details to keep you completely immersed in its brutal story and backwoods world. It’s a relentless slow-burn thriller that gets its grip on you early and never lets go.
“Priscilla” (2023)
Rounding out this weekend’s Netflix picks is “Lost in Translation” writer-director Sofia Coppola‘s underrated 2023 drama “Priscilla.” Based on Priscilla Presley’s 1985 memoir “Elvis and Me,” the film explores the real-life relationship and marriage between its eponymous subject (an astonishing Cailee Spaeny) and Elvis Presley (Jacob Elordi), which began when the 24-year-old rockstar met the then-14-year-old Priscilla.
Both behind the camera and on the page, Coppola wades through her film’s difficult, thorny subject matter with deft grace. Together with Spaeny, who gives a career-best, transformative turn as the film’s lead, Coppola crafts a profound portrait of an oft-overlooked woman. The resulting film is an affecting, sharply realized drama about growing up and both the beauty and the pain of leaving one’s teenage dreams behind.
