This past weekend, a new champion arrived at the box office. After director Kitao Sakurai‘s live-action Street Fighter movie dropped by 72% in a disappointing second weekend, the opportunity opened for a new film to take its throne. Clayface seized that chance, winning the weekend with a $24 million haul domestically. The viral new documentary You Can See Everything came in second once again with an impressive increase on its opening haul. But beyond the box office, what other movies should you watch this week? With that in mind, here’s a list of three movies you should stream on Netflix.
For more recommendations, check out our list of the best shows and movies on Netflix.
Disclaimer: These titles are available on US Netflix.
1
‘Gladiator II’ (2024)
Rotten Tomatoes: 70% | IMDb: 6.4/10
Last week, one of the most epic cinematic projects of the past couple of years officially sailed to Netflix’s shores. Gladiator II, a sequel to Ridley Scott‘s Best Picture-winning original, stars Paul Mescal as Lucius Verus Aurelius as he enters the Colosseum, looking to take revenge on the tyrannical rulers of Rome after his home is conquered.
It might not quite hit the heights of the original, but there’s enough scope and ambition to keep anyone hooked on every moment of Gladiator II. A typically stacked cast was assembled for Scott’s legacy sequel, with Mescal joined by Pedro Pascal as General Marcus Acacius, Connie Nielsen as Lucilla, and Denzel Washington in a scene-stealing performance as Macrinus. Don’t miss out on one of the biggest new additions on Netflix this week.
Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.
Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.
Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.
Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.
Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.
Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.
2
‘Moonlight’ (2016)
Rotten Tomatoes: 98% | IMDb: 7.4/10
From a big-budget epic to one of the most sensational small-budget films of the past decade. Moonlight, from director Barry Jenkins, follows Chiron as he battles societal expectations and prejudice while exploring his sexuality as a Black man in America. His journey is split into three defining chapters: Childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.
Called “a small but special film” and “delicate and entirely necessary” in Collider’s review at the time, Moonlight is undeniably one of the greatest and most important coming-of-age movies ever made. The film famously won the Best Picture prize at the Academy Awards, despite it first being announced that La La Land had been victorious.
3
‘The Ides of March’ (2011)
Rotten Tomatoes: 84% | IMDb: 7.1/10
If unsure what to stream on any given weekend, then simply picking one of the many great movies of Ryan Gosling is always a safe bet. 15 years before he dazzled audiences in Project Hail Mary, Gosling led alongside George Clooney, who also directed the film, in an adaptation of Beau Willimon‘s 2008 play Farragut North. Willimon wrote the screenplay alongside Clooney and Grant Heslov.
A political thriller about a press secretary whose involvement in a high-profile scandal threatens to derail an important campaign, The Ides of March is brilliantly relevant and utterly immersive. Clooney, Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei, and more feature in a superb ensemble, who all combine to deliver 100 minutes of thrilling, Oscar-nominated political drama.
The Ides of March
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